Database Users

Memory Available on my Vibrant

So i'm not new to smart phones but i'm completely new to android phones (other than having a g1 for two weeks when they originally came out).
I'm using advanced task killer and when I kill the apps it says 0 apps killed 160M memory available but when I used my moms new MTS it said around 250M. Is that right? Am I missing something here?
Also what's the best way to get into rooting/customizing these phones? I've read some of the threads but i'm not exactly sure why I should do it and what exactly it will benefit. Any links or other help would be appreciated
thanks

Bleh, task killers. Not really recommended or needed. Android is very very very good at memory management.
On my Vibrant, I tried opening apps one after the other, and Android started killing older apps at around 65mb free RAM. It didn't go under 60mb. If I install ATK and kill everything I get about ~156mb free, this is corroborated by Systray Monitor.
The system is still ultra-responsive, even at 60mb free RAM.
Edit: by MTS, do you mean MyTouch Slide? It could be that TouchWiz or other Vibrant-specific system processes (that can't be killed with ATK, thankfully) may use more ram than the Slide's Espresso and system processes.

raduque said:
Bleh, task killers. Not really recommended or needed. Android is very very very good at memory management.
On my Vibrant, I tried opening apps one after the other, and Android started killing older apps at around 65mb free RAM. It didn't go under 60mb. If I install ATK and kill everything I get about ~156mb free, this is corroborated by Systray Monitor.
The system is still ultra-responsive, even at 60mb free RAM.
Edit: by MTS, do you mean MyTouch Slide? It could be that TouchWiz or other Vibrant-specific system processes (that can't be killed with ATK, thankfully) may use more ram than the Slide's Espresso and system processes.
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Yeah I meant MTS.
I was using the app killer more for battery. Does it not affect the battery that much?

No, most of the stuff you're "killing" is just cached and not using any processor power and only a teeny tiny itsy bitsy amount of extra power to keep the RAM refreshed. You might get an extra 5 seconds of battery life per kill, but that's all used up and then some by having to run ATK and hunt it down.
Keep in mind, most of the "Must Have Task Killers" mindset comes from the dated wisdom of old G1 veterans. Those survivors of the 1.x era actually had need of Task Killers because they had devices with very little RAM, a more primitive version of the OS to work with, and less well-behaved applications.
That ain't the case now, and especially not an issue with a Galaxy S variant.

Available Memory

So when im not running anything, when i open Advanced Task Killer it has like 125M is this right???
So what the other 387MB doing?

what I see
when I 1st start I have about 230MB, after a few minutes it goes down to about 90mb...without opening anything...seems many programs on the Samsung "open" by themselves...also, I see that the CPU goes down to about 100Mhz so I keep it at 1000Mhz with setcpu....plus deleted many Samsung apps(about 30MB)...helps with the lag...

Don't worry so much about it. This isn't windows, you don't need to worry about free RAM. Android will kill tasks as needed to free ram when it needs to. Some of that is likely used for disk cache as well. That will also be released as needed. Let the OS do its job, it's quite good at it..
Killing some of the bloatware will help as well, but you need root.
I also think that this phone, like the G1, has some of the speced 512M ram dedicated to the camera, GPU, and other stuff. In the terminal, free shows about 388M as total ram.

is it a good to create a swap partition on the SD card?

Why on earth would you want swap with this much ram? You likely can, with root and swapper, but why? This phone doesn't need it like the G1 did. Swap could help keep more apps open in the background, but there are already a lot of them there. I don't see any benefit to swap right now. What isn't working for you that you think is related to low ram?

ttabbal said:
Why on earth would you want swap with this much ram? You likely can, with root and swapper, but why? This phone doesn't need it like the G1 did. Swap could help keep more apps open in the background, but there are already a lot of them there. I don't see any benefit to swap right now. What isn't working for you that you think is related to low ram?
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Yeah...what he said ^
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant using XDA App

As with the nexus one, not all 512mb can be addressed by the system right off the bat; we may need to wait until a newer kernel comes out
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

wow...the vibrants ram is crap....

Im running on simply honey 3.5 gingerbread.... I cant even leave the browaer open to go back to check my facebook without comibg back seeng it reload... and i never get more than 150+ free memory... my aunts iphone 3gs has more free ram... and i know that it has 512mb shared but seriously.. Compared to other 512mb phones this is bull****... they get more than 200mb user ram...

Isn't that based on your internet connection, not ram? lol
and misclicked and hit thanks on accident. -_-

No...i cant multitask more than 4 simple apps at a time withought it shutting them off... terrible..

Mine's working just fine to be quite honest..what are these "simple apps" of yours?

Must just be the ROM.
I have facebook, web browser, twitter, engadget, xda, and more multi-tasked on Bi-Winning and they aren't ever closed.

helikido said:
Im running on simply honey 3.5 gingerbread.... I cant even leave the browaer open to go back to check my facebook without comibg back seeng it reload... and i never get more than 150+ free memory... my aunts iphone 3gs has more free ram... and i know that it has 512mb shared but seriously.. Compared to other 512mb phones this is bull****... they get more than 200mb user ram...
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Click to collapse
Are you retarded?
Really?
There's so much wrong with your post that I don't even know where to begin. Hence why I ask:
Are you retarded?

Text plus..... facebook... music and web

R u stupid?
all the people who have replied.underatood what i asked PERFECTLY!!
Hence i ask..
r u stupid?
@ruther...

Longcat14 said:
Must just be the ROM.
I have facebook, web browser, twitter, engadget, xda, and more multi-tasked on Bi-Winning and they aren't ever closed.
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Well i dont have problems on 2.2.1 roms but on every ginger rom like asgard and simply honney.... the ram is basicly crap cuz ginger takes like 210mb on startup :/

Its not the rams fault for processes being killed. Its the ROM/ Kernel your on. You don't want processes being killed use less aggressive LMK settings. The ram on the vibrant works perfectly as it should, this is merely a case of your system not being optimized for what you want. So simply....go fix it. Use less aggressive setting for LMK and a kernel with more user ram. But to be honest this thread has been repeated 1billion times over and people just need to get over the fact that Linux/Android IS NOT LIKE WINDOWS...free ram is wasted ram
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk

Well it's clearly the rom/kernel's fault. Just go back to 2.2 roms if you're facing issues.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

ECOTOX said:
Its not the rams fault for processes being killed. Its the ROM/ Kernel your on. You don't want processes being killed use less aggressive LMK settings. The ram on the vibrant works perfectly as it should, this is merely a case of your system not being optimized for what you want. So simply....go fix it. Use less aggressive setting for LMK and a kernel with more user ram. But to be honest this thread has been repeated 1billion times over and people just need to get over the fact that Linux/Android IS NOT LIKE WINDOWS...free ram is wasted ram
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Thank you for having the patience to write it out. Perfectly put.

also, if youre using a RAM optimization app, that could be doing it as well...

ECOTOX said:
Its not the rams fault for processes being killed. Its the ROM/ Kernel your on. You don't want processes being killed use less aggressive LMK settings. The ram on the vibrant works perfectly as it should, this is merely a case of your system not being optimized for what you want. So simply....go fix it. Use less aggressive setting for LMK and a kernel with more user ram. But to be honest this thread has been repeated 1billion times over and people just need to get over the fact that Linux/Android IS NOT LIKE WINDOWS...free ram is wasted ram
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
This. Couldn't have said it any better Eco.

It's a setting you have on which is likely set to "Agrressive" meaning the minute the ROM doesn't think you need an app, it closes it, regardless of RAM. I can run quite a lot of apps simultaneously all the time. Not a RAM problem.

ECOTOX said:
Its not the rams fault for processes being killed. Its the ROM/ Kernel your on. You don't want processes being killed use less aggressive LMK settings. The ram on the vibrant works perfectly as it should, this is merely a case of your system not being optimized for what you want. So simply....go fix it. Use less aggressive setting for LMK and a kernel with more user ram. But to be honest this thread has been repeated 1billion times over and people just need to get over the fact that Linux/Android IS NOT LIKE WINDOWS...free ram is wasted ram
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Yes, +1.... I Also Say thank you to Ecotox for articulating how Android works so well.
Furthermore, 2.3 roms really only face a 2-3 of real issues:
Because of porting and lack of dedicated Vibrant drivers we have too much battery demand/drain.... the lack of GPS because of no source code or drivers.... because of lack of drivers there are a few small hesitations as a result of porting.
But that said, All in All, the developers have done nothing shy of remarkable work getting these ported roms to work nearly perfectly...... their skills is why we have such choices.
Rather than complaining.......... try to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem/noise..........

Thanx everyone... now I understand.
What app is there on the market or anywhere that can have me set the ram from agresive to least agresive cuz I don't think spare parts work.

Android 2.3 Gingerbread is a ram hog :0

Y does gingerbread hog so much ram at start up?? when i had any froyo rom... each time i booted my phone, i had about 112mb used on start up on any froyo rom.. now on any gingerbread rom, its 220mb and more on start up!! and i also notice the phone lag allot when ever used up ram reaches 280 mbs... and it never gets past taht point.... wich i dont know y because thats just a waist of ram...

unused ram is wasted ram

Froyo and Gingerbread for me is the same when it comes to free ram.

Yes..... but id like to have the option to keep that unused ram for my iser applications...

helikido said:
Yes..... but id like to have the option to keep that unused ram for my iser applications...
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That really isn't how it works.

Bad.... bescause the os kills apps that id like to have to background....when it can use upto 330mb...but chooses to not go past 280 sadly..

For me it uses about 110 MB which is a lot less than the 280 MB that froyo roms would use. I'm on cm7.1
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

dardani89 said:
For me it uses about 110 MB which is a lot less than the 280 MB that froyo roms would use. I'm on cm7.1
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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I think you have it backwards. That's only how much you have left... I could be wrong though. I want to get my panties in a bunch over the principles of not having gingerbread. But to be totally honest after flashing so many roms and testing so many different kernel combos and so on, I don't see the real advantage of having my resources eaten up so that I have a "CRT" screen off animation. I am an adult that needs a functioning phone. I heard way back when that 2.3 is more optimized for gaming. I haven't noticed a difference. Flame away though ye Vibrant owners....

I'm looking at the running tabs of the manage apps section and I have 120 MB taken up with another 210 MB free. I'm running Skype, kaokaotalk, Google maps, beautiful Widgets and Google voice on top of the OS and just opening up the app manager takes up 18 mb itself. In total running apps take up around 60 mb. The rest are cached. I don't think the apps are taking much memory cause they're in standby mode though. Gingerbread has been like a night and day difference compared to froyo IMHO. Much better ram management and faster switching between apps and all out performance. Try cm7.1 I highly highly recommend it. I just started using it a week ago and I'm starting to think Im an idiot for not trying it before. Along with the GPS fix and glitch kernel its much better than bionic 1.3.1 which was what I was using before.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

dardani89 said:
I'm looking at the running tabs of the manage apps section and I have 120 MB taken up with another 210 MB free. I'm running Skype, kaokaotalk, Google maps, beautiful Widgets and Google voice on top of the OS and just opening up the app manager takes up 18 mb itself. In total running apps take up around 60 mb. The rest are cached. I don't think the apps are taking much memory cause they're in standby mode though. Gingerbread has been like a night and day difference compared to froyo IMHO. Much better ram management and faster switching between apps and all out performance. Try cm7.1 I highly highly recommend it. I just started using it a week ago and I'm starting to think Im an idiot for not trying it before. Along with the GPS fix and glitch kernel its much better than bionic 1.3.1 which was what I was using before.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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Cm7 lacks hardware acceleration wich means scrolling suvks on the web and no 720p fladh vid playback... wich is something i need.

You can just use opera web browser for smooth scrolling and amazing web browsing overall. I don't know about the lack of 720p playback will check on it though.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

helikido said:
Bad.... bescause the os kills apps that id like to have to background....when it can use upto 330mb...but chooses to not go past 280 sadly..
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Click to collapse
You really have no idea how android software manages itself, do you? I'm pretty sure the software is smarter than you are at managing your apps.
Also, the more functions you add in software, the more space it takes up in both rom and ram.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

geoffcorey said:
You really have no idea how android software manages itself, do you? I'm pretty sure the software is smarter than you are at managing your apps.
Also, the more functions you add in software, the more space it takes up in both rom and ram.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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He should probably install Android 1.1 if he wants to go back to managing his apps.

How is performance? People need to stop worrying about how RAM is being used unless they're OS engineers or at least know a bit about how memory management works. People did the same thing when Windows 7 was released because it appears to use more RAM, but overall performance with modern hardware and a good amount of RAM is much better than Win2000 and WinXP. Ideally the OS should use as much RAM as possible and swap things out when needed according to a memory management algorithm that maximizes performance, not free RAM.

Memory don't really matter unless u use browser alot an its annoying opening system panel an see 90 apps open >.<
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App

People... i dont like the management because.obviously my phone lags too much when i start browsing the internent and open multiple tabs!!! the phone bogs down complete when ot reaches 280 mb of memory use!!!

helikido said:
People... i dont like the management because.obviously my phone lags too much when i start browsing the internent and open multiple tabs!!! the phone bogs down complete when ot reaches 280 mb of memory use!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Clear your browser data.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I have about 220 used out of 339mb honestly I have alot of apps running i do a good amount of web browsing and i have a live wallpaper going as well and i have yet to reach a point where there is not enough ram available ...This is my experience with most GB roms i have used..
I honestly think the biggest problem when it comes down to lag is people do not give enough time to run in the software.. Think about when you flash between different roms alot is changing, in some cases even the entire file system is converted. I use Simply Honey 4 now and the first day it had a little hang up here or there.. now 2 days later nothing lags not even the browser.. This was a similar experience when i tried out CM7 and Malice... Just my opinion..

helikido said:
People... i dont like the management because.obviously my phone lags too much when i start browsing the internent and open multiple tabs!!! the phone bogs down complete when ot reaches 280 mb of memory use!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're assuming that it's lagging because it's not managing memory as well as it could be, but you're jumping to that conclusion. The processor, the IO with the browser cache, lots of Flash in pages, etc. can all cause browser lag. Try setting Plug-Ins to On Demand so that it doesn't run every Flash advertisement on every page. Flash really bogs down the CPU.

Hey devs will this work for virtuous galaxy rom -The Best RAM Optimization

I found this, it looks like it could be handy
Will this work for virtuous galaxy or indeed any of our roms or phones?
Video included...
Credit - Juwe11
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1111145&highlight=tablet
MJ-12

MJ-12 said:
I found this today, it looks like it could be handy
Will this work for virtuous galaxy or indeed any of our roms or phones?
Video included...
Credit - Juwe11
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1111145&highlight=tablet
MJ-12
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was made for the Galaxy S phones. They have 340MB of RAM (give or take) and all the TABs have nearly twice the amount of RAM! It may be of some use but I doubt it! I have never gone under 150MB free on my A500 and I don't use task managers/killers of any kind!

OrionBG said:
This was made for the Galaxy S phones. They have 340MB of RAM (give or take) and all the TABs have nearly twice the amount of RAM! It may be of some use but I doubt it! I have never gone under 150MB free on my A500 and I don't use task managers/killers of any kind!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I think if you read it you will see that its not about giving more ram...
Its optimized (I think) with the best set up to keep your apps in the ram, thus not having to start them over and over again.
Thus more speed and no lag.
Do you see?
MJ-12

I can see a small benefit of this kind of script on RAM-constrained devices, but the A500 has a gigabyte of RAM, not sure you'd really need this (and not sure the script will even work on 3.0 devices). Maybe when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out and expects all tablets to have quad-core CPUs and 4GB RAM

Android does a great job handling ram.I only use a task killer to stop apps that have gone amuk .even good one can do this.the memory manager you install is likely going to use up more resources then it saves.

erica_renee said:
Android does a great job handling ram.I only use a task killer to stop apps that have gone amuk .even good one can do this.the memory manager you install is likely going to use up more resources then it saves.
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wow! this is not to save ram, it uses more ram but better... did anyone read the article?

MJ-12 said:
wow! this is not to save ram, it uses more ram but better... did anyone read the article?
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Click to collapse
Urge to troll you... so strong..