High RAM usage? - G2 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

On my Optimus G (which had 2 GB of RAM) the maximum available RAM at any given time was about 1.5 GB out of 1.85. On the G2, it's never more than 1.2. I've not noticed slowdowns because of it, but what's using so much RAM? Is the interface really that heavy this time? Or is there a glitch somewhere?
Sent from my LG-D800 using xda app-developers app

Yea I noticed that too when comparing to my nexus 4, I have always wondered if GRAM has anything to do with it. If GRAM is eating up my ram but giving me better battery life then I am happy about it.
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk

Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Don't worry about the RAM!!! Its there to be used! if it was to high we'd get all these high RAM threads.
As time goes on, apps and services are used. As apps and services are used the necessary pages are brought into memory and executed. They remain there until the minfree threshold is reached and then they are removed from memory. The minfree memory is usually 100-200 mb. This is a value that can usually be adjusted but of course requires root.
Some applications are poorly coded and may contain memory leaks. Find out which ones they are and delete them or contact the developer so they can fix and continue to monitor it if you need it.
Here is a good article but its a little old: http://www.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care

Related

[Q] Nexus 10 using 1gb+ RAM at all times?

Doesn't matter what Rom I'm on, cleanrom, aokp, stock, even after I close all apps and services all task managers tell me I am using at least 1gb
ALWAYS
Is this normal?
Use the search function on these forums
I'd try 4.2.2 stock, I have around 400-500MB usage idle. On 4.2.1 (stock and custom) I had way higher usage though (700MB-1GB).
On 4.2.2 though I seem to have only 1.2GB of usable RAM whereas 4.2.1 had 1.6GB
I'm no pro, but if RAM 'disappeared' maybe it got reserved as GPU memory? And the GPU using it's own pool now would explain why you have less used up in general.
bee55 said:
I'm no pro, but if RAM 'disappeared' maybe it got reserved as GPU memory? And the GPU using it's own pool now would explain why you have less used up in general.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the N10 is advertised to have 2GB of RAM. Prior to 4.2.2, we had 1.6GB usable, with the other 400MB or so (from what I hear) reserved for the GPU already. Now after 4.2.2, there's 1.2GB usable.
May as well just sold it as a 1GB device at this point... lol
espionage724 said:
Well the N10 is advertised to have 2GB of RAM. Prior to 4.2.2, we had 1.6GB usable, with the other 400MB or so (from what I hear) reserved for the GPU already. Now after 4.2.2, there's 1.2GB usable.
May as well just sold it as a 1GB device at this point... lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol but almost all devices usable memory for the user is about half of the advertised amount
As you can see my 1gb ram HTC amaze only has about half usable
Sent from my Amaze 4G using xda app-developers app
filthygoat223996 said:
Lol but almost all devices usable memory for the user is about half of the advertised amount
As you can see my 1gb ram HTC amaze only has about half usable
Sent from my Amaze 4G using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, the only other device that comes close to this behavior that I've seen is the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (stated 1GB, has around 600MB usable). The display isn't nearly HD on that (1024x600 I think) so I really can't think of an actual reason for the 400MB loss there.
A Galaxy Prevail I have shows about 235MB usable, with 384MB stated.
Can't recall numbers on the Nexus 7 or Galaxy Tab 7 though, but I really don't recall memory usage/free being of a concern.
espionage724 said:
Well the N10 is advertised to have 2GB of RAM. Prior to 4.2.2, we had 1.6GB usable, with the other 400MB or so (from what I hear) reserved for the GPU already. Now after 4.2.2, there's 1.2GB usable.
May as well just sold it as a 1GB device at this point... lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And the device does have 2gb RAM. You should know by now that the RAM in phones and tablets is versatile and used for more than just user space.
One could easily argue the counterpoint of yours, which is that 2gb of RAM means more for the GPU while still keeping a respectable amount for the user. But obviously, you need to do your research when buying.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using xda premium
With some simple init.d and sysctl.conf tweaks you can have complete control over how the RAM is used. Search is your friend. Or at least it should be. LOL
It has to share ram with the GPU. This is monster resolution screen... Did you think it would have as much ram usable as a 720p screen? There's a lot going on at all times with this hardware because of the screen. Remember that ram is worthless if its not being used.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
They just released the updated kernel source for 4.2.2 for the N10 and there is a change where they up the ram reserved for the GPU by 384mb. The comment says they did this as otherwise when the GPU needed more ram it would cause fragmentation of the user space ram.
Geoff
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD
Sounds reasonable enough.
...uhm...
styckx said:
Sounds reasonable enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After having upgraded to 4.2.2... I have the same behaviour ....ram decreased to 1.3...in total before with 4.2.1 was 1.6...something strange, if the extra ram has been allocated for gpu....why with 4.2.1 wasn't like now?...in my opinion...they didn't free up the ram after upgrading..it's just locked...
I don't see notable differences between 4.2.2 and 4.2.1.... So that strange...could it be a bug?
borgy said:
After having upgraded to 4.2.2... I have the same behaviour ....ram decreased to 1.3...in total before with 4.2.1 was 1.6...something strange, if the extra ram has been allocated for gpu....why with 4.2.1 wasn't like now?...in my opinion...they didn't free up the ram after upgrading..it's just locked...
I don't see notable differences between 4.2.2 and 4.2.1.... So that strange...could it be a bug?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The answer to why the total ram availible has decreased has been solved - Read gzub post.
Called it re-allocated, free'd up or locked, The GPU now has 800mb in 4.2.2 all to its self, where as before it had half that. So in running apps you will only see a total of around 1.2gb.
moving on...
I have a similar issue as the OP.
Sitting idle its running at around 400-500mb used but can, and often does, spike up to over a gb which causes it to not function correctly (Chrome especially seems to throw a massive wobbler and never stay open). I have nothing different installed than I have on my N7 or S3. I mainly use it for browsing, email. If I check running apps there is nothing else there above what was there when it was idling at around 400-500mb.
I have tried a factory reset and the issue still persists. Next step is to roll back to 4.2.1 to see if I can get the stability back as I didn't have these issues on 4.2.1.
VanCatRabbit said:
The answer to why the total ram availible has decreased has been solved - Read gzub post.
Called it re-allocated, free'd up or locked, The GPU now has 800mb in 4.2.2 all to its self, where as before it had half that. So in running apps you will only see a total of around 1.2gb.
moving on...
I have a similar issue as the OP.
Sitting idle its running at around 400-500mb used but can, and often does, spike up to over a gb which causes it to not function correctly (Chrome especially seems to throw a massive wobbler and never stay open). I have nothing different installed than I have on my N7 or S3. I mainly use it for browsing, email. If I check running apps there is nothing else there above what was there when it was idling at around 400-500mb.
I have tried a factory reset and the issue still persists. Next step is to roll back to 4.2.1 to see if I can get the stability back as I didn't have these issues on 4.2.1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds you might be suffering from the same thing as I have since I got my N10.
I don't know how many have this or has noticed it but after a while the amount of free memory just starts disappearing and no matter what you do, you don't seem to be able to recover it unless you reboot. And when the memory gets low enough, the device soft reboots itself. I still haven't found the cause of this but I have finally found where all the memory is going. It turns out that it's the surfaceflinger process that hogs the memory. I started checking when I was running low on memory and surfaceflinger was at that point using over 400MB of it. My suspicion was confirmed when I rebooted and noticed that it went down to around 25MB and now after a while of usage, it has slowly climbed to 50MB.
It would be great if some developer could take a look at this in order to try to fix it.
CazeW said:
Sounds you might be suffering from the same thing as I have since I got my N10.
I don't know how many have this or has noticed it but after a while the amount of free memory just starts disappearing and no matter what you do, you don't seem to be able to recover it unless you reboot. And when the memory gets low enough, the device soft reboots itself. I still haven't found the cause of this but I have finally found where all the memory is going. It turns out that it's the surfaceflinger process that hogs the memory. I started checking when I was running low on memory and surfaceflinger was at that point using over 400MB of it. My suspicion was confirmed when I rebooted and noticed that it went down to around 25MB and now after a while of usage, it has slowly climbed to 50MB.
It would be great if some developer could take a look at this in order to try to fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for my ignorance, but what is surfaceflinger? I don't see anything similarly named on my device.
I've just downloaded 'usage timelines free' to monitor memory usage in more detail on all my devices and compare.
I'll try to update if I see anything interesting.
VanCatRabbit said:
Sorry for my ignorance, but what is surfaceflinger? I don't see anything similarly named on my device.
I've just downloaded 'usage timelines free' to monitor memory usage in more detail on all my devices and compare.
I'll try to update if I see anything interesting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a system process out of /system/bin/. Check your app to see if it's hiding system processes. Most of the process viewing apps/loggers hide system processes by default.
SurfaceFlinger is Androids compositor: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5699107/android-surfaceflinger
SurfaceFlinger shouldn't stay open though. Everytime I've seen it in OS Monitor the process lasts less than a second and disappears. Something he's running, or the ROM he's using is keeping it open for whatever reason..
styckx said:
It's a system process out of /system/bin/. Check your app to see if it's hiding system processes. Most of the process viewing apps/loggers hide system processes by default.
SurfaceFlinger is Androids compositor: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5699107/android-surfaceflinger
SurfaceFlinger shouldn't stay open though. Everytime I've seen it in OS Monitor the process lasts less than a second and disappears. Something he's running, or the ROM he's using is keeping it open for whatever reason..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed it with the "ps" terminal command. Currently I'm running Aokp but before that I was running stock. I'm suspecting the aosp browser or flash being the cause but I can't confirm it.
EDIT: surfaceflinger is shown in OS Monitor all the time but with ps I can see the amount of memory it is using.
After some monitoring I found nothing. I did a full refresh install of 4.2.2 from the factory image and have installed nothing on top other than applying updates for what comes as standard. After two days of browsing it started to slow down again and show as low memory. I installed a terminal and ran 'PS surfaceflinger', it was showing as using over 600mbs. Stupidly I didn't take a screen dump, but I imagine it will happen again.
Anyone able to shed any light on what's going on here?
Having the same issue
I too have seen surfaceflinger using almost 600MB of RAM. My used RAM was over 1GB and apps were running very sluggish. My SwiftKey keyboard constantly does a soft restart in the middle of typing when the tablet is in this state as well as other apps acting as others have described in this thread. Time for a fix Google!

High RAM usage

Hi,
I noticed that ram usage on galaxy s4 is very high even when all of the apps are closed. I have used task manager to close all of the apps and then cleared the memory but there was still about 1.05GB of ram used. I don't know if this is normal since I haven't been using android phone for 2 years. Can somebody tell me if this is normal and why? If not what can I do to fix it? Thanks!
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app
its normal for s4... some stock apps are being cached in memory for faster operations
unused ram is wasted ram. If an app needs extra space, something will be automatically killed to make that space.
i.amtom said:
unused ram is wasted ram. If an app needs extra space, something will be automatically killed to make that space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
all of this is true... also keep in mind, the gpu requires slightly more ram because of the 1080p resolution.
Ok. Thank you all for the help
This is the problem of Sammy ROMs, the only way to fix it is to... wait for a Custom ROM and Flash it
this is normal on SGS4 .
Reasons of that are mainly GPU and HQ resolution , cached services and process, and even more if you are using the included extra features (S-voice, NFC ...)
But the SGS4 come with 2 gb of RAM ! you still get like 800 free mb of memory that is good enough for all you needs ))
Personally when I close all apps i get 0.91 gb used memry and 0.9bg free memory

[Q] RAM manager

Hi,
I looked at my free ram and on daily use I have 1 GB of free ram.
So is there any sens to use ram manger to allow android use more ram (mean to not kill app and has less free ram)?
Unused RAM is wasted RAM (just before anyone else says it )
I have 1.3GB of RAM free on my N4. I wouldn't recommend a 3rd-party RAM manager, and just trust Android to handle it
Unrelated, but I have some weird memory leak issue on my N10 that basically causes all RAM to be taken up by something eventually, and all apps end up Restarting. Quite annoying, but the only thing I can do in this situation is reboot the tablet. Can't say I've seen or heard of this on the N4.
espionage724 said:
Unused RAM is wasted RAM (just before anyone else says it )
I have 1.3GB of RAM free on my N4. I wouldn't recommend a 3rd-party RAM manager, and just trust Android to handle it
Unrelated, but I have some weird memory leak issue on my N10 that basically causes all RAM to be taken up by something eventually, and all apps end up Restarting. Quite annoying, but the only thing I can do in this situation is reboot the tablet. Can't say I've seen or heard of this on the N4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i cant say i like the way android does it, even though it does do it. i use greenify, and autostarts to prevent apps from starting in the background. also, i change the numbers to androids ram management. now im happy
But greenify make some apps start slower, yes? (because they have to start again)
How you change the number of free ram?
atomic339 said:
But greenify make some apps start slower, yes? (because they have to start again)
How you change the number of free ram?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive never noticed that its slowed.
atomic339 said:
But greenify make some apps start slower, yes? (because they have to start again)
How you change the number of free ram?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have widgets on your lock screen or on your home screen they will use up ram. Uninstall any apps you rarely use to free up ram.
Don't see why you're worried. You have as much FREE ram as an s3 does on the box
On a more serious note, I doubt you'll see any difference by freeing up ram. 500-600 mb of free ram = smooth experience generally
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
I'm no expert, but what I've read on these forums, it's best to just let Android take care of it. Android has come pretty far with memory management, and third-party apps might just end up taking more RAM/battery.
You're wasting your time worrying about it.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
Johmama said:
I'm no expert, but what I've read on these forums, it's best to just let Android take care of it. Android has come pretty far with memory management, and third-party apps might just end up taking more RAM/battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is true, forget about ram manager and dont be paranoid about the free/used ram amout
Thanks for help, I will not use any ram manager etc.

Possible excessive ram usage with no apps running?

Just curious, but is anyone else experiencing 1gig+ worth of ram usage with no apps running? Just seemed a bit excessive to me for the system to take up over half the total ram in the device.. thanks in advance.
Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk
Ghstudent said:
Just curious, but is anyone else experiencing 1gig+ worth of ram usage with no apps running? Just seemed a bit excessive to me for the system to take up over half the total ram in the device.. thanks in advance.
Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is your concern here? Do you run out of RAM when you start up all your favorite apps?
No, it's not an issue for it to use half the RAM for the system. Keep yourself from looking at it. It's fine.
People need to learn how android manages RAM, it uses parts for system and the rest is only freed from older running apps when needed, high ram usage is not a ISSUE! as a great dev on the xperia play section stated @CosmicDan "Free ram is wasted Ram"
Ghstudent said:
Just curious, but is anyone else experiencing 1gig+ worth of ram usage with no apps running? Just seemed a bit excessive to me for the system to take up over half the total ram in the device.. thanks in advance.
Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would think that if it works anything like a PC, then the more code you can get into RAM the faster it will execute as compared to having it pull/swap it from disk, or chip sets.
Ghstudent said:
Just curious, but is anyone else experiencing 1gig+ worth of ram usage with no apps running? Just seemed a bit excessive to me for the system to take up over half the total ram in the device.. thanks in advance.
Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine eats a lot of RAM Too
fma965 said:
People need to learn how android manages RAM, it uses parts for system and the rest is only freed from older running apps when needed, high ram usage is not a ISSUE! as a great dev on the xperia play section stated @CosmicDan "Free ram is wasted Ram"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, but if you're using a custom ROM it could be a memory leak. I recently learned that *many* builds of CM10 for many devices (mostly Mali GPU ones) have serious memory leaks with hardware acceleration.
You can free 120-200 MB by disabling LG MIT
Type 3845#*802# (if you have the international version) in order to access the hidden menu. Scroll down to LG MIT and disable it
search how android uses ram, and you notice, theoretically (pun intended), why low free ram is not an issue(supposedly)
Sent from my LG-D802 using xda app-developers app
CosmicDan said:
True, but if you're using a custom ROM it could be a memory leak. I recently learned that *many* builds of CM10 for many devices (mostly Mali GPU ones) have serious memory leaks with hardware acceleration.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah well this is obvious, But usually this is not the case, And Hello CosmicDan!
it's always around 850 - 950 when nothing is open on rayglobe 3.2
just wanna say something to reach 10 post for development access !
Instead of checking for low RAM, check the Running Apps list and find the offending app/service that is eating RAM. Then see if you can disable or remove it. It could be a memory leak from a bloat ROM app or one you installed. Right now I have 100MB free on my 1GB phone but its perfectly normal, because there are so many apps in background that I use. In fresh boot its about 300MB free, because apps like Facebook and Tapatalk run a service all the time.
Sent from my Q using Tapatalk

RAM Consumption bit to high???

What's the point of having 4GB of ram if the whole damn system takes about 3.5 gb living me with only 1.5gb useful. This is absurd! I will root and flash a custom rom just because of this. You know how SLOW our phones are running consuming more than half of ram??? Any way to fix this without root?
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
nano303 said:
What's the point of having 4GB of ram if the whole damn system takes about 3.5 gb living me with only 1.5gb useful. This is absurd! I will root and flash a custom rom just because of this. You know how SLOW our phones are running consuming more than half of ram??? Any way to fix this without root?
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's 3.5GB because the GPU needs 500MB allotted for itself.
What's the use of 4GBs of RAM if 1.5GB is not being used?
Android uses the RAM and kills things when it needs more. Idle RAM is useless RAM.
Plus 3.5 + 1.5 = 5.
Sent from my E6683 using Tapatalk
While this phone has a lot of ram and the management is much better compared to the s6 it's still not that great. The whole system does lag and feel bogged down. After clearing all the tasks it's smoother but apps will still close in memory and have to relaunch upon opening. I too am looking forward to rooting and custom Roms
_Dennis_ said:
What's the use of 4GBs of RAM if 1.5GB is not being used?
Android uses the RAM and kills things when it needs more. Idle RAM is useless RAM.
Plus 3.5 + 1.5 = 5.
Sent from my E6683 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What he^ said.
There could be 6GB of RAM and the system is going to use it. That's what it's there for. Android is built to effectively manage what is using RAM to keep everything running smoothly.
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
While I agree the RAM usage seems a bit high I haven't really seen any system slowdowns. I only clear out RAM these days out of habit rather than necessity and honestly I can't tell much of a difference in performance before and after cos it is a very fast phone.
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
For everyone arguing with OP; The problem seems to be that there isn't enough ram, and the system keeps shutting things down instead of letting them run in the background. Either that, or the ram is being managed poorly, and apps are being closed instead of running in the background.
sireniankyle said:
For everyone arguing with OP; The problem seems to be that there isn't enough ram, and the system keeps shutting things down instead of letting them run in the background. Either that, or the ram is being managed poorly, and apps are being closed instead of running in the background.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Phone don't slow down. I wish there was more ram but I would of liked if Samsung copied apple in which you can go back to the previous app 10+ apps ago and it's still exactly were you where, with less than 1gb of ram? I don't see why Samsung can't do this apple gots a slight edge in multi tasking. But we have multi window. There "multi window" sucks soooooo bad. Only like 5 apps support that feature lol
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk

Categories

Resources