Database Users

[Q] What takes up so much RAM?

Hi,
i just bought an Ideos x5 and it's great.
I've loaded most of the usuall stuff including task manager.
Now i found that on average my free memory when i'm not using so much apps is around 180(that's how much free RAM i have).
Is this normal..i mean...the thing says it has 512 mb of RAM.
Sorry for beeing a noob..
Van

its said 128MB go to the GPU, 32MB are used by android system, which leaves about 352MB (353MB as shown in Elixir) for application use..
and then those google apps (Maps, Search, Market, etc.) all take up RAM in the background, plus other background apps you have installed and widgets you have enabled..
on average i usually have around 80-120MB free RAM left.. and since android 2.2 is said to have a good task manager which frees up the RAM when needed, i dont think its a place to worry about..

As iamelton said, Android's in-built task managing system does a good job of managing what apps are using the processor, memory and battery. Task manager apps don't really do all that much useful, and can sometimes be counterproductive if you're trying to use them to save battery. Lifehacker has a really great article on this called Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn’t Use Them (I can't link because I don't have enough posts, but the article's a search away and is really worth reading). It runs through why it's generally best to avoid task manager/killer apps, plus it also explains how Android uses RAM - in a similar way to Windows Vista/7 (basically to speed up launching or re-opening apps).
It's probably worth noting that Android already has a function to force stop apps. If you go to Settings > About phone > Battery use, you'll get a list of what's been using the battery since it was last unplugged. Some widgets like Switch Pro have shortcuts to Battery use. It's useful if you've got Maps or a launcher or a rogue app sucking up battery in the background. As a rough idea, you may have an issue if anything not a system process is using more than 10%.
If you do need to force close an app, Battery use is generally the best way to go about it.

thx to cyvros for ur mentioning of the good article..
http://lifehacker.com/5650894/andro...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
its a good read indeed, and for this topics discussion, i think the following paragraph gives a very good view on androids ram usage:
The problem is that Android uses RAM differently than, say, Windows. On Android, having your RAM nearly full is a good thing. It means that when you relaunch an app you've previously opened, the app launches quickly and returns to its previous state. So while Android actually uses RAM efficiently, most users see that their RAM is full and assume that's what's slowing down their phone. In reality, your CPU—which is only used by apps that are actually active—is almost always the bottleneck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

RAM, browser, apps & Android

My main reason for switching from SGS to SGS2 was the RAM (besides the annonying lag when I/O), on SGS constantly the browser was closing when switching to an app (eg: twitter, gmail) and back.
Well.. unfortunately even if we have a lot of free RAM on Galaxy S II, Android KEEPS closing the applications after a while (sometime in less than 3 minutes). It's extremely annoying that we cannot use the free RAM because of Android nature of closing NEEDED apps.. Can we change this?
Another problem with the browser, it happened many times to me: it just closes automatically when using, I cannot reproduce, it just happens random. This is more annoying than the first thing because when re-opening the browser it doesn't open from cache state (with URL-s on tabs).. so you lose all the information about opened urls (I tend to open many tabs, in most cases all 8 tabs are being used by me)
I have installed Opera, xScope but simply I prefer the stock browser because is the most polished and faster browser IMO
(tested also junks as Firefox - wich is a shame - and Skyfire - same)

Your solution is to root ans install one of those apps that alters androids internal ram levels. That will keep your browser in memory and not reload everytime.

DSF said:
My main reason for switching from SGS to SGS2 was the RAM (besides the annonying lag when I/O), on SGS constantly the browser was closing when switching to an app (eg: twitter, gmail) and back.
Well.. unfortunately even if we have a lot of free RAM on Galaxy S II, Android KEEPS closing the applications after a while (sometime in less than 3 minutes). It's extremely annoying that we cannot use the free RAM because of Android nature of closing NEEDED apps.. Can we change this?
Another problem with the browser, it happened many times to me: it just closes automatically when using, I cannot reproduce, it just happens random. This is more annoying than the first thing because when re-opening the browser it doesn't open from cache state (with URL-s on tabs).. so you lose all the information about opened urls (I tend to open many tabs, in most cases all 8 tabs are being used by me)
I have installed Opera, xScope but simply I prefer the stock browser because is the most polished and faster browser IMO
(tested also junks as Firefox - wich is a shame - and Skyfire - same)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bump.

drulo222 said:
Bump.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
install CM11 and you will get plenty of free RAM. Much more than on stock 4.1.2 ROM.

Free ram in Android is 'wasted' (as it is with any Linux derivative). It's not designed to keep ram free, memory is managed in a completely different/much more efficient manner than Windoze/other OSes (which is the reason why n00bs get in a tizz when they see relatively lower free ram in Android, they're used to the way it's managed by other OSes.
By attempting to force more free ram, you are not going to somehow magically improve the performance of the device, if you think you will, you're fantasising & ignoring 2.5 yrs of however many people's experience with this phone (which says Android manages ram just fine).

MistahBungle said:
Free ram in Android is 'wasted' (as it is with any Linux derivative). It's not designed to keep ram free
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This, free ram is overrated. Usually, a lot of the ram is cached apps/processes, not really consuming cpu cycles, just there in ram until the app is used again or the space is reclaimed by another process, thus, in terms, is reclaimable ram. Unless of course there is a bugged app with a memory leak.
Now, why the browser keeps losing the data on app switch, is another topic and I honestly think there is something else going on with the phone and not really android f*cking up with the ram management.

Personally, i would update to the latest version (if youre not there already), and then create a backup and do a complete wipe (had a friend with a completely messed up xperia that when he did the wipe, it almost looked like a new phone afterwards)

Is 400MB+ of RAM in use all the time normal? Also, battery lasts only a day

So guys I got a Defy+ running on CM10 4.1.1 by Quarx, and I'm a little worried. All the time the RAM is almost entirely in use. I tried installing RAM Manager but it didn't change much. I'm also using Go Launcher Ex, but other than that, idk what could be sucking up so much RAM, or is this normal?
Also, sometimes I need to recharge my battery twice a day...

Anybody?

When did this Behaviour start? When you flashed the Rom or after a while?
One reason i left CM10 for CM7 is because CM10 always started to lag a lot after a few days

Steveletack said:
When did this Behaviour start? When you flashed the Rom or after a while?
One reason i left CM10 for CM7 is because CM10 always started to lag a lot after a few days
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After a few days... but honestly, when I flashed cm10 there was almost nothing in my cellphone...

It is pretty normal that the RAM is in use - Linux uses free RAM for buffers and caching. Have you determined the amount of RAM used for that vs. the amount used for the system and other things?
It is pretty normal that Android4.x uses much more memory than Android 2.3.x.

Defier525 said:
It is pretty normal that the RAM is in use - Linux uses free RAM for buffers and caching. Have you determined the amount of RAM used for that vs. the amount used for the system and other things?
It is pretty normal that Android4.x uses much more memory than Android 2.3.x.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I haven't... no idea how to do that actually... it always shows something like 415MB in use (out of 476MB)... so any app that I run starts going slow and stuttering...

This problem happens to me also.
I use Android Booster and it helps me to free some RAM. But cm10 is not so good as RAM management.
I tried options like
1. enable 16 bit transparency.
2. allow purging of assets
3. untick all apps in HWA.
4. even using different launcher and freezing trebucket.
But system still lags and it becomes more laggy after some time of use.( continuous use of 2-3 days)
So may be they have to work on it as project butter is not so compatible with our defy

Project butter has nothing to do with your device, those are just new lines of code (dalvik java) in the ROM.
The problem is that HWA wastes a lot of RAM, and apparently 475MB of our Defy's RAM is a small size for 4.x roms

Well, I use my defy for 3 days now without rebooting, over 100 of my apps installed, over 100 MB RAM still free and no lags (almost , but system is faster then CM7 anyway).
First it is not a good idea to uncheck HWA for all apps - your system will get slow.
Leave checks for system, UI, launcher, browsers, video and photo apps, games if u use, maps.
Second: switch off from a startup all apps that autostart but u don't need them.

[q]very high system ram usage[lollipop][5.0][lrx21t]

Hi ,new user on xda
i have a nexus 4
running completely stock 5.0 LRX21T NO ROOT
i have noticed very high ram usage on 5.0 as compared to 4.4 after the update
normally had ~1gb Ram free but now only ~500mb remains free
on ruuning applications screen,it shows
system-~750mb
apps-~600 mb
why is system using so much Ram,wasnt the case in 4.4...
is it bcoz of ART ?
is this normal?

same problem..on my nexus 4 after 5.0 update
After reboot, system ram usage stays low (read 100 to 150mb) for 1 to 2 days.. But suddenly shoots up to more than 1gb.
Does anyone know the root cause.

I think i found the root cause to this..
In Settings -> Sound & Notifications
change the setting When Device is locked -- Don't show notifications at all
By doing this, the system ram usage never shot up above 200mb for the past 2 days for me.
previously I had to reboot my device every night before going to bed.
I will further observe if this is the root cause and revert back.

apv25 said:
Hi ,new user on xda
i have a nexus 4
running completely stock 5.0 LRX21T NO ROOT
i have noticed very high ram usage on 5.0 as compared to 4.4 after the update
normally had ~1gb Ram free but now only ~500mb remains free
on ruuning applications screen,it shows
system-~750mb
apps-~600 mb
why is system using so much Ram,wasnt the case in 4.4...
is it bcoz of ART ?
is this normal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
art by default use more ram than dalvic to run applications so this might be normal for you. on top of that there is some memory leak found in android l.
the important thing to now is how android manage ram. when you open an application it is loaded in the ram. whether you close the application or let it run on the backround android does not clean the memory occupied by the application until it has to. android LMK (low memory killer) clean the ram memory occupied by a program denpending on the priority id of the app. for example system apps (system ui) has lowest priority so LMK never kills that app. other apps have different priority. an application that runs in the backround (facebook messenger or whatsup) have lower priority than a game so when android need more ram it will empty the ram occupied by the game first and if there is more need for ram it will later empty the ram occupied by the backround app.
Long story short android will handle the ram as it sees fit. unlike windows, android will keep the memory full so apps can be launched faster. the problem is that android l has memory leak so you need to reboot your device every few days if you feel it starts to have some lags.
apps like task killers do more harm than good in terms of performance or lags. also facebook and facebook messenger are very badly written apps so they will consume a lot of memory. also antiviruses (especially cm security) are responsible for lags and memory leaks.
hope i helped you somehow understand android and find your problem (if there is one)
P.S. sorry for the long post!!

ttheodorou said:
art by default use more ram than dalvic to run applications so this might be normal for you. on top of that there is some memory leak found in android l.
the important thing to now is how android manage ram. when you open an application it is loaded in the ram. whether you close the application or let it run on the backround android does not clean the memory occupied by the application until it has to. android LMK (low memory killer) clean the ram memory occupied by a program denpending on the priority id of the app. for example system apps (system ui) has lowest priority so LMK never kills that app. other apps have different priority. an application that runs in the backround (facebook messenger or whatsup) have lower priority than a game so when android need more ram it will empty the ram occupied by the game first and if there is more need for ram it will later empty the ram occupied by the backround app.
Long story short android will handle the ram as it sees fit. unlike windows, android will keep the memory full so apps can be launched faster. the problem is that android l has memory leak so you need to reboot your device every few days if you feel it starts to have some lags.
apps like task killers do more harm than good in terms of performance or lags. also facebook and facebook messenger are very badly written apps so they will consume a lot of memory. also antiviruses (especially cm security) are responsible for lags and memory leaks.
hope i helped you somehow understand android and find your problem (if there is one)
P.S. sorry for the long post!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks

ttheodorou said:
art by default use more ram than dalvic to run applications so this might be normal for you. on top of that there is some memory leak found in android l.
the important thing to now is how android manage ram. when you open an application it is loaded in the ram. whether you close the application or let it run on the backround android does not clean the memory occupied by the application until it has to. android LMK (low memory killer) clean the ram memory occupied by a program denpending on the priority id of the app. for example system apps (system ui) has lowest priority so LMK never kills that app. other apps have different priority. an application that runs in the backround (facebook messenger or whatsup) have lower priority than a game so when android need more ram it will empty the ram occupied by the game first and if there is more need for ram it will later empty the ram occupied by the backround app.
Long story short android will handle the ram as it sees fit. unlike windows, android will keep the memory full so apps can be launched faster. the problem is that android l has memory leak so you need to reboot your device every few days if you feel it starts to have some lags.
apps like task killers do more harm than good in terms of performance or lags. also facebook and facebook messenger are very badly written apps so they will consume a lot of memory. also antiviruses (especially cm security) are responsible for lags and memory leaks.
hope i helped you somehow understand android and find your problem (if there is one)
P.S. sorry for the long post!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is why Google needs to give us an extended power menu. I understand they say it shouldn't be necessary under normal circumstances, but I consider every single nexus update to be a beta, of sorts...and we all know how buggy betas can be from time to time. They're very unpredictable, and you never know if you'll need to reboot. Saying it's simply never necessary for something that is basically beta is just plain egotistical as hell.

hp420 said:
This is why Google needs to give us an extended power menu. I understand they say it shouldn't be necessary under normal circumstances, but I consider every single nexus update to be a beta, of sorts...and we all know how buggy betas can be from time to time. They're very unpredictable, and you never know if you'll need to reboot. Saying it's simply never necessary for something that is basically beta is just plain egotistical as hell.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my philosophy is that when you buy a nexus device, because it is a very simple os without the good stuff that lg/sammy or any other oem android manufacturer put on their phone(i am refereeing to the shortcuts power menu or toggles and other things that make your life easier and not the whole change of the os like touchwizz) you have to root so you can do your own small changes as you see fit (and fortunately for me i live in europe where there is a European law that states that you have the right to do whatever you want to the software of your device an be eligible to waranty).
So if you root your device you can do everything you want. for me on kit kat it was xposed and gravity box. on android l, yesterday i installed simple aosp.
In my opinion pure android with a twist is the way to go! and of course a custom kernel for better battery life and ad free for no ads!!
P.S. a quote by a fellow nexus user: A nexus without root is like an angel without wings

ttheodorou said:
my philosophy is that when you buy a nexus device, because it is a very simple os without the good stuff that lg/sammy or any other oem android manufacturer put on their phone(i am refereeing to the shortcuts power menu or toggles and other things that make your life easier and not the whole change of the os like touchwizz) you have to root so you can do your own small changes as you see fit (and fortunately for me i live in europe where there is a European law that states that you have the right to do whatever you want to the software of your device an be eligible to waranty).
So if you root your device you can do everything you want. for me on kit kat it was xposed and gravity box. on android l, yesterday i installed simple aosp.
In my opinion pure android with a twist is the way to go! and of course a custom kernel for better battery life and ad free for no ads!!
P.S. a quote by a fellow nexus user: A nexus without root is like an angel without wings
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do have root access and a custom kernel, but I prefer the nexus factory images, and the only system change I want is an extended power menu. Have you ever actually looked for an odexed version of an extended power menu flashable zip??? Don't waste your time. The last one I saw myself was for Nexus S. It can be done, but it never IS done. Stuff like that I could almost definitely do myself, but I just don't have the time anymore to sit down and read how to do it, actually do it, test it, etc. I haven't done any android dev at all in a few years and I'm rusty as hell, not to mention how much things have changed for android in the last two years.

Poor RAM management

I'm finding the RAM management on the S8+ and probably therefore the S8 to be heavily throttled.
My device memory is split as:
4GB total:
System and apps: 2.8GB
Available: 600MB
Reserved: 639MB
The problem I am seeing is that I am never seeing memory consumption above 2.8GB so that the last 600MB is never touched whatever I open. This aggressive throttling is evident If switch between a mere 5 or 6 open apps, the first ones opened have been closed and have to completely re-open and re-load even though there is a is about a 600MB chunk of memory sitting around so this last 600MB is being totally wasted. This is validated when I go to the built in memory manager within Device maintenance and it only shows the last 3-4 apps opened as being active. Believe Samsung needs to adapt the memory management to be less aggressive here as it is impacting on multitasking quite severely.

Right now I have system and apps using 2.4gb., Available space 1gb, reserved 639mb.
I find that if you back out of an app by pressing back, it closes and you have to reload, such as facebook, messages, phone, gmail etc.
I find that if I use the home button to back out of apps they remain in memory. Apps like facebook have to resync when I go in but are still in memory.
What apps are you using to have them close on you?
Exynos or Snapdragon? Mine is UK Exynos maybe there is a difference.

I'm multitasking, so using the app switch button. I'm not backing out which closes apps. Processor is nothing to do with apps closing and I have Exynos. In my experiments I'm using the web browser, whatsapp, email, music player, maps and samsung health.

Hasn't it been like that for ages, Jonathan-H?

i can understand the op's point, especially if multitasking is needed, but the behavior described is actually a good thing for a phone. otherwise you can have too many apps eating up memory that you don't want. the phone doesn't know the user intends on multitasking back and forth. there was a time when there were pages of complaints about apps staying on after user moved on from it, so this is specifically something they would have designed for. there's no right answer here short of a full adaptable ai of some kind.

Unfortunately even Pixel is bad with RAM Management. Till now only Oneplus 3 and Xiaomi Mi5s Plus with 6 GB of RAM keep many apps in memory. I had an iPhone 7 Plus before S8 Plus and all the apps were in the same state like when I left them even after one day. So till now iOS is the fastest OS for me because it keeps apps in memory. Even Youtube stayed in Memory and on S8 Plus it reloads after one hour. I guess it's about keeping battery under control on S8 Plus and this is the reason. On the other hand, the first time launch of apps is faster on S8 Plus compared to iPhone. If somehow Android can keep apps in memory and also control the battery consumption, it can be perfect.

standard101 said:
i can understand the op's point, especially if multitasking is needed, but the behavior described is actually a good thing for a phone. otherwise you can have too many apps eating up memory that you don't want. the phone doesn't know the user intends on multitasking back and forth. there was a time when there were pages of complaints about apps staying on after user moved on from it, so this is specifically something they would have designed for. there's no right answer here short of a full adaptable ai of some kind.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you never get to use the RAM you paid for then it is not a good thing. It's poor RAM management. We're not talking about it closing down apps once the RAM is even close to the limit, we're talking about it closing apps withing minutes and long before the last 20% of RAM is used up which is a sizeable chunk. And having RAM empty is old school thought which is now accepted to be bad practice and was just a benchmark used to see that your system was not being stressed. These days it's better to have as much in RAM as possible rather than waste it empty and have the system need to reload things.

standard101 said:
i can understand the op's point, especially if multitasking is needed, but the behavior described is actually a good thing for a phone. otherwise you can have too many apps eating up memory that you don't want. the phone doesn't know the user intends on multitasking back and forth. there was a time when there were pages of complaints about apps staying on after user moved on from it, so this is specifically something they would have designed for. there's no right answer here short of a full adaptable ai of some kind.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For serious multitaskers like me, it leads to the opposite problem: apps keep getting reloaded from scratch and that ruins battery life even more.

I'd like to add my voice into this. I am also a heavy multitasker. I have a set of standard 6-8 apps that constantly keep getting kicked out of memory and closed out of the carousel. It is not a RAM limitation issue as I am, like the OP, always below the limit. It just seems that Samsung made the memory management much too aggressive. I already set all possible options in the OS to control what is monitored and suspended and such, but this made no difference.

Same for me. At first reading this I though I posted this because of the exact numbers.

Jonathan-H said:
. Apps like facebook have to resync when I go in but are still in memory.
What apps are you using to have them close on you?
Exynos or Snapdragon? Mine is UK Exynos maybe there is a difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it is 'forced' to refresh the displayed content it is not keeping it in memory.
You need to use a device where the issue is not exhibited to see how memory management should work.
Sadly my S8 Exynos can not keep more than half a dozen apps fully in the background without then forcing the content to reload/refresh when going back into those apps, from Facebook, YouTube, Photos, Gallery, newsstand, Play Music.
dhorgas said:
I'd like to add my voice into this. I am also a heavy multitasker. I have a set of standard 6-8 apps that constantly keep getting kicked out of memory and closed out of the carousel. It is not a RAM limitation issue as I am, like the OP, always below the limit. It just seems that Samsung made the memory management much too aggressive. I already set all possible options in the OS to control what is monitored and suspended and such, but this made no difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly my issue and I have done likewise to no avail unfortunately.
Sent from my S8 using Tapatalk

The last update of the Gallery from Play Store made it start almost instantly. Maybe they need to put all the stock apps in Play Store so they start fast. About the difference between App refresh and App reload, it's totally different thing. We all agree with refresh and we don't like reload.

Android Doze
The problem is Android Doze, which freezes every app once it's in the background. Solution is simple: Settings -> Device Maintenance-> Battery -> Battery usage -> Optimize menu -> All apps. Untick the ones you need and, probably, they will remain in memory for while. So far, working for me.

so no solution to this thus far?? any root tweaks or build prop tweaks useful to solve this??? or we still have a dump phone