Database Users

Laggy Scrolling?

Is anyone else experiencing this? On web pages or long lists, scrolling around is not nearly as smooth as it should be. My brother has a Hero, and the Evo is not as bad as that... but it is nowhere near as smooth as an iPhone is. If I scroll around quickly, it gets pretty jumpy, where the frame rate slows down a lot. I read another thread (maybe on a different forum) where people claim that it's just the difference between the speed of scrolling and/or the "coasting" feature of the phones, but this is not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to mainly the frame rate of scrolling around and also the lag between when my finger moves and when the action takes place. It is most apparent on bigger web pages and long lists (like the Manage Application list). But it also does not happen all the time.
I have Advanced Task Killer running too, set at "Crazy" and the kill frequency set to "When screen off". Is there anything else I can do to make scrolling smoother?
I'm sick of having my friends who have iPhones playing with it, and immediately commenting on how it's not nearly as responsive.
Any ideas?

I played with an EVO in the Sprint store yesterday and noticed the same thing. While overall I found it to be really fast, in some areas (like switching between home screens) it was noticeably choppy compared to my Hero. Though I should note that my Hero is rooted and running Fresh 2.1.1.
One suggestion I might make is to not use overly aggressive settings with a task killer. This has been known to cause some odd behavior with Android including choppiness.

Working amazingly for me. As close to the smoothness of an iPhone as I've ever seen.
Have you tried a full restore? Keep checking after each app installation to figure out what (if anything) is causing the problem.
Sent from my HTC EVO using Tapatalk

Do you have Live Wallpaper running?

I do not. In fact while "conditioning" my battery, brightness down minimum, WiFi/GPS/4G/Bluetooth all off as well.
Sent from my HTC EVO using Tapatalk

How much free memory do you have?

I noticed the choppiness too but it wasn't too bad, just unfitting of a phone with such high specs.

It's because of the Live Wallpapers, some are more processor intensive than others so some it's more noticeable on than others. Put a regular Wallpaper up and everythings nice and smooth.
I don't use Live Wallpapers anymore, they were cool for awhile but after a couple months of them on my Nexus the novelty has worn off.

I notice it also even with a regular wallpaper..i mean its pretty smooth but it does lag a bit.

I notice laggy scrolling within the HTC-built applications. For example, when looking through contact information or social updates. The scrolling is really bad, and I think that just might be because of the huge amount of information the HTC apps are processing. I'm sure all the social information being pulled from every end of the Internet isn't the easiest thing for the device to do, even if it is the Evo.
Aside from that, everything else is as smooth as butter.

Still stock on mine and I haven't noticed any lag, though I use Dolphin HD and Skyfire.

I don't have Live Wallpaper running, and about 200MB of free memory.
And I don't think it's with the HTC-built applications only. I notice it in most applications. Just put an iPhone right beside it and scroll around on both... huge difference.
I just changed the settings on Advanced Task Killer to Aggressive (down from Crazy) and Every half hour (down from When screen off). Maybe this will help... we'll see. Maybe Advanced Task Killer is not the best app for this? Are there any better ones? Why didn't Google have this built in if it really helped so much with speed+battery life?
Maybe FroYo will fix this issue? Does anyone know when this will be available?

shawnee4885 said:
Maybe FroYo will fix this issue? Does anyone know when this will be available?
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I have noticed this too at times. Froyo made my Nexus One a hell of a lot faster, it will do the same for the Evo

Still on Stock rom and no root, scrolling, pinch zoom are all smooth and fast.

theoner1 said:
Still on Stock rom and no root, scrolling, pinch zoom are all smooth and fast.
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Have you compared it to an iPhone though?

shawnee4885 said:
Have you compared it to an iPhone though?
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I've seen this too and mentioned it to other Android people... and was promptly called a cry baby. I am coming from a 3gs...and just thought it was silly the 1ghz chip in this phone cant compare to the 600mhz chip in the iphone.

Grims said:
I've seen this too and mentioned it to other Android people... and was promptly called a cry baby. I am coming from a 3gs...and just thought it was silly the 1ghz chip in this phone cant compare to the 600mhz chip in the iphone.
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It's all about the quality of the programming, i'm not calling htc programers bad but it seems like some of their stuff is just slow.

Grims said:
I've seen this too and mentioned it to other Android people... and was promptly called a cry baby. I am coming from a 3gs...and just thought it was silly the 1ghz chip in this phone cant compare to the 600mhz chip in the iphone.
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First u have to realize that the iphone was built with its gpu base OS. So all the scrolling and animation are base on gpu WITH THE HELP OF CPU. Android will be more dificult since of all its different hardware. Iphone OS is just base on iphone hardware but If iphone was running without gpu support, it would move like crap.
One example of this is zuneHD. it is base on a hardware base on tegra with gpu support and is smoother than iphone since tegra is a more capable gpu chip.
This discussion has been on and off with palmpre guys and waiting for an update to enable gpu support in the OS. Gpu support is supported in game but not in the OS for scrolling etc. Just like android.
This is the reason the iphone can run smooth at low mhz. The iphone 2g even at its low mhz still is smoother in scrolling and transiction than android because of it gpu intigrationbut ofcourse not faster. Hope this help.
Another example is compiz for linux. It create a semi gpu OS of linux and u can see how compiz on linux look light yeat better and smoother than wimdows 7 with a much lower hardware spec.

eduardmc said:
First u have to realize that the iphone was built with its gpu base OS. So all the scrolling and animation are base on gpu WITH THE HELP OF CPU. Android will be more dificult since of all its different hardware. Iphone OS is just base on iphone hardware but If iphone was running without gpu support, it would move like crap.
One example of this is zuneHD. it is base on a hardware base on tegra with gpu support and is smoother than iphone since tegra is a more capable gpu chip.
This discussion has been on and off with palmpre guys and waiting for an update to enable gpu support in the OS. Gpu support is supported in game but not in the OS for scrolling etc. Just like android.
This is the reason the iphone can run smooth at low mhz. The iphone 2g even at its low mhz still is smoother in scrolling and transiction than android because of it gpu intigrationbut ofcourse not faster. Hope this help.
Another example is compiz for linux. It create a semi gpu OS of linux and u can see how compiz on linux look light yeat better and smoother than wimdows 7 with a much lower hardware spec.
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Thanks that explains a lot, i wasn't aware Android doesn't use GPU support in this area.

I just wanted to throw this in. I know everyone is comparing things like the scrolling framerate to the iPhone's. But there is one slight issue that a lot of developers can tell you off the bat.
JAVA
iPhone is not based on java and android UI is. This is sort of why JIT is slated to make such a big difference. Java is just laggy, especially when it comes to UI. For instance: open office, eclipse, and just about any other java based app I see on linux. GTK apps are fine in ubuntu, but when I open eclipse I just know there is a delay between when I click the "file" menu and when it actually opens.
I noticed it on my hero, and no amount of free ram or killing apps would completely get rid of it. Now I have to say going from the hero to the evo I honestly do not notice any lag. But the UI on the hero just has a solid delay EVERYWHERE you go. But I noticed it was not there as soon as I got into a game written in the dalvik way. It will come, and we will eventually be there. But I don't blame it on hardware. Core2quad in eclipse and the UI lags? Blame it on Java.
Now I know some folks will say "nu uhh. such and such java android app doesn't do that!" But almost all apps for android and sense do this if they are written in java. Some more than others.
One final thing, there are several articles about why you shouldn't use task killers. It became perfectly clear it was a bad idea on some of toast's later kernel. and yes, the memory management can be improved for root users. but for non root users, I know it is counter-intuitive but task killers have major drawbacks. Just do some searching and decide for yourself, but I noticed a huge difference on my hero when I stopped using a task killer and allowed the default memory management to take over. And honestly, on my EVO I don't EVER notice a slow down.

WOW...android is horribly optimized.

OS uses a crap load of CPU resources just for scrolling. Hell I'm starting to think it's the OS and not the hardware that makes scrolling so laggy. Open up the System Panal app and scroll the active apps up and down real fast and watch the CPU percentage sky rocket to 70-75% and watch the CPU clock pretty much maxes out...WTF :O. I did the same thing on my Hero and it maxes out 99.9%. When I scroll slow and the CPU spikes the phone lags. So it's not the hardware it's the horrible optimized OS.

I think the way its setup it doesn't use the graphics chip to render graphics on the homescreens. This is why some stuff is choppy. I think they changed this in Froyo though as it is blistering fast no matter if you have live wallpapers running or whatelse is going on. After going from 2.1 to 2.2 update on my Nexus it was like night and day difference, Froyo will send the EVO over the top, can't wait to see an update!

Android is a parts bin product made by a bunch of google developers....ya it's a joke.

Ya, get a froyo rom.. its soo much faster. And its also the developers of apps that fail. I watched some Google I/O videos the other day about optimizations, ListView in particular. If developers keep creating more views as users scroll down, instead of reusing the ones that are no longer on screen, scroll speed would improve dramatically. But like i said, froyo is where its at. Get the Evolution v8 rom with RevA, its extremely fast and stable. Camera support will be coming soon im sure though.

roybotnik said:
Android is a parts bin product made by a bunch of google developers....ya it's a joke.
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So why do you even bothering commenting on a board that's obviously about people who like Android?

I'm going to assume it was sarcasm

Enabling "Force GPU Rendering " for more speed in some apps

Before I start credit belongs to eL_777 for posting this in the asus prime thread.
I read that enabling the "Force GPU Rendering " in the developer options would increase the speed of apps. I so I gave it a try and it has definitely increased the overall smoothness for me. I also what to add that it may cause some apps to force close but the only issue I noticed so far is launcher pro not displaying properly. I just switched to adw ex so that is no longer an issue. I opera, browser and tapatalk seem to be faster. It also seems to have an impact on the YouTube app. Hopefully this info helps some people out.
I didn't come across this yet in the xoom forum so I thought it I would share. Sorry if it is common knowledge.
Original post:
eL_777 said:
Hey guys I noticed earlier that my Netflix app was ALOT smoother than it used to be before the ICS update but several others disagreed with me so I was confused. Then I remembered that I enabled this setting in the developer options menu in the android settings, "Force GPU Rendering". Make sure you enable that, close Netflix and start it back up and it should be a million times smoother after you do that. Hope this helps.
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runhopskipjump said:
Before I start credit belongs to eL_777 for posting this in the asus prime thread.
I read that enabling the "Force GPU Rendering " in the developer options would increase the speed of apps. I so I gave it a try and it has definitely increased the overall smoothness for me. I also what to add that it may cause some apps to force close but the only issue I noticed so far is launcher pro not displaying properly. I just switched to adw ex so that is no longer an issue. I opera, browser and tapatalk seem to be faster. It also seems to have an impact on the YouTube app. Hopefully this info helps some people out.
I didn't come across this yet in the xoom forum so I thought it I would share. Sorry if it is common knowledge.
Original post:
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I had tried it and thought that there was an improvement in smoothness, but it seems that as you say, it can break some applications. But thanks for the reminder.

Enabling this preference in developer options offloads task of rendering window components like buttons, text and complex 2d graphics calculations to GPU. This often results in much faster UI rendering including animations.
On one side you will definitely achieve better frame rate (and hence smooth experience) throughout system, but you may end up using more battery. On certain devices, GPU consumes more power the CPU, hence you may observe 5-15% lower battery life with option enabled.
offloading UI rendering to GPU has obvious benefits so that CPU can work on other important tasks like database IO, data manipulation, layout calculations and responding to other user inputs.
I would recommend having this option enabled on devices with weaker CPUs e.g. You should seldom need to enable this on dual-core 1.4ghz ARM CPU.

Odp: Enabling "Force GPU Rendering " for more speed in some apps
taranfx said:
Enabling this preference in developer options offloads task of rendering window components like buttons, text and complex 2d graphics calculations to GPU. This often results in much faster UI rendering including animations.
On one side you will definitely achieve better frame rate (and hence smooth experience) throughout system, but you may end up using more battery. On certain devices, GPU consumes more power the CPU, hence you may observe 5-15% lower battery life with option enabled.
offloading UI rendering to GPU has obvious benefits so that CPU can work on other important tasks like database IO, data manipulation, layout calculations and responding to other user inputs.
I would recommend having this option enabled on devices with weaker CPUs e.g. You should seldom need to enable this on dual-core 1.4ghz ARM CPU.
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I finally gave up GPU rendering as it crash the tab many times. Ie google maps hang the tab after 10-15 min time of usage to such extend that it bootlooped over and over till battery is dead. Also browsing web cause same crashes. If you face many random crashes-you know what to do.
Wysyłane z mojego XOOM 2 ME za pomocą Tapatalk 2

[Q] UI Smoothness of Nexus 4 vs any other phone (including sgs4)?

Hi all, i'm looking to upgrade to a nexus 4 and have heard praises for it's smoothness..
For those who have used a nexus 4 for a while, have you found any other phone smoother in ui experience?
...i can't stand things like skipped frames, stutters etc... this question especially for those playing around with the new sgs4 for comparison as it's a potential choice..

UI wise its buttery smooth, but some 3rd party apps are compete crap and will lag regardless of phone.

I am running Xylon ROM with Matrix kernel and also Nova launcher, phone is smooth as butter, very fast, zero lag.

I can almost guarantee that the GS4 won't be any smoother in day-to-day performance. I haven't found any phones which are better than the N4, and although the iPhone is obviously on par with the smoothness it makes so many compromises that you can't really compare them. The only place you'll potentially find lag is in third party apps as said above.

Stock kernel has the least lag in the UI.
Almost all custom kernels i tried do stutter regularly

To be honest, I never feel it lag on day to day usage but once it gets hot while playing games, it does throttle pretty quickly which leads to unexpected lag on the phone. But overall, as long as app is well coded, you shouldn't feel much lag.
Also like people said, flashing custom kernel will improve your performance and battery life dramatically. Running Franco with Paranoid Android and everything is buttery smooth!
I never used galaxy s 4 but I doubt that it'll be any smoother. S3 felt more laggy for me compared to Nexus 4 if that helps
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk HD

UI is pure buttery smooth. They have a S4 Launcher.zip you can flash somewhere in the Themes and Apps forums. If you want to have a S4 experience just flash that. Its still smooth lol.

kyokeun1234 said:
To be honest, I never feel it lag on day to day usage but once it gets hot while playing games, it does throttle pretty quickly which leads to unexpected lag on the phone. But overall, as long as app is well coded, you shouldn't feel much lag.
Also like people said, flashing custom kernel will improve your performance and battery life dramatically. Running Franco with Paranoid Android and everything is buttery smooth!
I never used galaxy s 4 but I doubt that it'll be any smoother. S3 felt more laggy for me compared to Nexus 4 if that helps
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk HD
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thank you all for your reassuring feedback, might just wait for the alleged 32gb refresh of nexus 4.....yea the throttling issue is a bummer..for those who want an in depth analysis of this nexus 4 throttling can look at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abf7nPiUUE8

All modern smart phones have thermal throttling. It's just that the nexus 4 has an extremely low threshold on the battery sensor which is set to start throttling at just 36 degrees Celsius, which in a hot environment leaves little lee way if any at all.
The lg optimus sister phone has the same CPU and battery but has a much higher set threshold regards the battery temp. No one seems sure why Google set the nexus 4 one so low; my grannies flat is hotter
.. I edited my thermald.conf to higher threshold of 44 degrees Celsius and along with a 150mv UV I have to really push my phone to get throttling.

even while gaming eg in NFS/other heavy games?.......any risk of bricking the cpu/gpu by setting throttling higher?

adey64 said:
even while gaming eg in NFS/other heavy games?.......any risk of bricking the cpu/gpu by setting throttling higher?
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Increasing a little bit SHOULDN'T effect too much, but I wouldn't recommend that. There must be a reason why Google or LG decided to keep the throttle that low, and I am not going to argue about that as I'm not a huge gamer on my phone and the maximum time I played on my phone is 1.5hrs.

thats pretty cool...did you manage to circumvent fps drops in your game?

adey64 said:
thats pretty cool...did you manage to circumvent fps drops in your game?
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I've never really checked with games, most games I play don't tax the phone at all.
I ran antutu 4 times in a row to see if it would throttle and it didn't, that's the only real test I performed.

I haven't seen a phone smoother than nexus 4 on stock kernel. I also own an HTC one and it has a smooth ui, but my nexus 4 is a bit smoother than it.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium HD app

This the smoothest phone i ever came across
NEXUS⁴

No way to measure smoothness. Useless thread.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

Underground_XI said:
No way to measure smoothness. Useless thread.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
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:what:
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

I've had the SGS 4. Its nowhere near as smooth as the Nexus. I returned it and went back to the Nexus. Never going to a non-stock phone again.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

you know what lags? texting. I dont know why. I use the stock keyboard.

My nexus 4 lags from time to time. I'm on cm10.1 with nova launcher. Home screen stutters sometimes. Opening and scrolling through the app drawer, messaging, or email stutters at times. (I have the music playing and low signal when I notice it.)
I don't know why people say it doesn't lag because, clearly, it does. The nexus 4 isn't up to, "par" with the iPhone UI. Sure, the 4.2.2 is buttery smooth, but I never seen an iPhone stutter, hiccup, or lag while my Nexus 4 occasionally will. Biggest gripe is when I open and swipe in the app drawer; The animation and picture loading lags when I scroll through it like a madman to test it and it drives me nuts, however nova launcher made it better.
Nexus 4 compared to Sense or Touchwiz, yeah, stock Android blows both out of the water in UI animations.

Animation scale

What animation scale do you guys use? i switch around but sometimes i hear that turning them off saves battery and makes the phone faster and others say that the difference is negligible and it looks better

.5 is what I use. I like a little animation.
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

.25 was my fav, but most roms don't have it. Better yet .20 on resurrection remix and a few other roms was the best for me for super fast but still a bit of cosmetic appeal. You can run 1920 x 1080 and it makes animations and scrolling faster and smoother too. Resolution drop and animations won't help battery as many people seem to think, at least not enough for you to actually notice let alone appreciate. It might get you like 1 or 2% or so over a whole day.
But they definitely can help performance and make the phone feel that much snappier.
I was even ok with turning them off. You'll still see some animations anyway.

On stock, I set to 0.5x. It keeps the animations but makes the phone feel faster at the same time.

0.5x works for me, it doesn't really make it fast it just gives it the appearance of being faster since it speeds up some animation effects... In modern devices I don't think any change to this setting has an appreciable effect on battery life.