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.
Related
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
This article was posted on Android Central and should be mandatory reading for everyone in these forums:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/andr...hat-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
Good read, reminds me of how XP's memory handleing is compared to Vista/7's system.
Basic jist:
XP: System asks for very little: Task manager shows only ~100mb used on a very slim system
Vista/7: System uses ~40% of available memory if it's free, surrenders it back as programs are loaded that need it. Task manager shows ~2gb used on a slim system (assuming 4gb total rom)
What's it look like? Vista/7 uses 2gb vs XP uses 100mb.
What it does: Not much difference really, Vista/7 is just as stable with ram intensive apps (example: a virtual machine asking for 3gb ram on a 4gb system) both on XP and Vista/7 it will run and not bog the system down (from a ram perspective, we're completely ignoring cpu usage).
It's reasonably similar in android: recently loaded apps stay resident in memory, if the foreground app needs more ram android will unload older apps that arnt running. If you wanna run an app unloaded from memory, android has to reload it from storage.
If you task-kill everything immediately, android will ALWAYS have to reload from memory. The only exception is if the app didnt behave well in the first place (like auto-loading with a memory heavy service), if that's the case you're just as well off complaining to the dev because he/she needs to fix it anyway.
Though with the streak stageui is a pretty good example of this, widgets pretty much always stay loaded as they're widgets. Most of them use background services to update themselves and they're rather cpu/ram intensive.
You could task-kill them, but the right thing would be to freeze/completely remove them if you dont use them.
Thanks for sharing
I repair cell phones for a living and I notice carriers puting task killer on peoples phones....this is a phone killer some important processes get killed and I've had customers complain about phones not rotating right cause of thus also it causes alot of phone freezes and other problems cause of this....if u haveba task killer get rid of it and you will notice the difference..
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA Premium App
very useful.
personally never used task killers and the like , coming from the old school just dont feel at ease with applications doing things
My note's ram is always above 600 mb. ...pls help
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA App
I always use back button to close apps. Clicking home button will not close apps but minimized. More apps opened equal more RAM used.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk
Totally normal. Apps are loaded into RAM so when you want to open an app it loads faster. That's how Android works.
My advice is to not go on a killing spree and kill every app that's running. This will make your device slower and it'll use more battery since it has to use more power to load the apps again and again - and again.
If you want to free up some RAM you can do this:
- Switch launcher. TouchWiz is a resource hog, and you'll gain some RAM if you switch to another launcher like ADW, GO Launcher or LauncherPro
- Freeze/Delete system apps that you don't use/want. If you're not using SocialHub, Reader and Swipe, there's no reason having them. Freeze them and they won't use RAM.
- Flash a custom ROM. You can flash a custom ROM if you want. Your device will be faster and use less battery. Some ROMs has been stripped for "bloatware" like SocialHub etc. so they're fast "out of the box".
I'm currently running ROMOW ROM with ADW EX (and i've frozen a lot of system apps), and my Note is only using around 250MB on boot.
What's the problem with that? You have 800 MB for OS and applications, it's meant to be used. Applications loaded, compiled and the code is stored in RAM, the more RAM you have the more apps you can keep open. With less RAM (like my previous phone, Galaxy S, which had only 330 MB available), the apps have to be unloaded from RAM when you open a new one, so the CPU works more, loading apps again and again.
The RAM contains compiled apps and cached data, to make access faster and save battery, it's good that it's used. Android manages the RAM itself, if you launch an app that needs RAM, it will make room for it, discarding the least used pages. You don't need to take care of this yourself.
In the Samsung system administrator there's a button to clear RAM, press it and it will unload even the touchwiz interface, you'll end up with 400 MB used, but it will increase soon, as apps are opened.
The issue is that when you run a high resource game, have a few web pages open or use google earth then the device closes down touchwiz to free up memory so you may find your homescreen empty or on other occassions android closes the internet application if you switch to another program even briefly so multitasking is poor on the Note.
Its absolutely true,RAM management is implemented very badly on the GNote.Even my HD2 has much much better RAM management with its mere 480MB.
However since this is my first Android device I am not quite sure if this is a Samsung thing or an OS inconvenience.
On my HD2 I could keep multiple web pages open for latter offline reading when internet access is not available and it would keep it in memory even though many services would still be running.
Unfortunately its not the same with my Note,it just rushes to close apps on the first occasion.
Say what you may but being a long time PDA user I found that the old shot-in-the-head by its very same creator the Windows Mobile is the best multitusker I have ever used despite the fact that on those days the RAM was just minimal.
High RAM usage is due to the high number of pixels that need RAM & processing to drive them.
On my old stock rom (KKA) I had the same....usually over 600Mb used.
A few days ago I flashed the latest LA4 stock rom. And what a big improvement that was. Smoother, 2 days on a battery with moderate use. And about 420MB ram used on average. A very big improvement.
I think it would be better if we know which version you have.
So you could upgrade to a newer version or just flash a custom rom.
most of the customroms are better than the stockrom
airwater9 said:
High RAM usage is due to the high number of pixels that need RAM & processing to drive them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, that's also correct.
New owner of a Nexus 7 2013 here. Had it for a month or so now.
So the device came shipped with 4.3, I updated the device to 4.4.2 OTA. Weird thing is, everytime I "Force Close" an app from Settings, the RAM usage decreases, then it INCREASES!
Google Play Store (44mb), current RAM usage: 444mb
Force close Play Store, current RAM Usage: 400mb
*a couple of seconds later after display refresh*
current RAM Usage:480mb
This keeps going. No matter how many apps I force close, the RAM usage keeps increasing until the point where it reaches ~660-~700mb!
Is this normal? Does this happen to anybody else? Is there something wrong with the garbage collector? Also my RAM usage is in the 400mb range on startup and a LOT of apps run on startup which I need to force close manually (is it normal they run on startup?).
Thanks!
So memory usage is supposed to increase when you force close apps, so I take it this is usual for Android? But is there any explanation as to why ram usage increases instead of decreasing like on iOS? Is the garbage collection on this thing significantly different to conventional Linux kernels or for that matter Windows' variant too?
Sounds like a very stupid idea tbh
greatnoob said:
So memory usage is supposed to increase when you force close apps, so I take it this is usual for Android? But is there any explanation as to why ram usage increases instead of decreasing like on iOS? Is the garbage collection on this thing significantly different to conventional Linux kernels or for that matter Windows' variant too?
Sounds like a very stupid idea tbh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK wrong forum this one is for the n7 2012 but your question is more to do with how android runs rather than specifically the nexus.
First of all forget everything you think you know about ram. In android the more ram being used the better the device will run. This is not always true but largely the more apps being held in ram the smoother android will run them. When an app closes it moves from running services to cached and the system will then call on that if you reopen the app or clear space if it needs it thus saving itself valuable power. The other reason for not force closing apps it they no longer run in the background as they were designed to. This is one reason task killers are bad for your system. If you close the mail app you won't get emails, if you close the clock your alarm won't go off, if you close the play store your apps won't update ect. Android is as far removed from windows as iOS is although windows 7 does use a similar idea towards ram. It doest need you to clear ram its perfectly capable of doing it itself. The exception to this is when you get badly designed apps that don't clear up after themselves and stay in the running services.
Try looking in your cached services you will probably find that's where your ram increase is. By force closing apps you make more work for the system reopening them.
Look here for more information about this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=904023
Sent from my C5303 using xda app-developers app
Hello everyone.
My issue is rather simple.
I used to have a Galaxy S3 that had a really poor multi-tasking experience with its very limited 1Gb of RAM.
So I bought the Note 3 that was bound to provide me with enough RAM for a better multitasking experience.
So far it was OK and way better than S3 capability but then KitKat came along and this is where my nightmare began.
Simply put, I cannot take benefit of the 3Gb of RAM I have on my device.
My Galaxy Note 3 is the international version bought in France with a Snapdragon S800 and 3Gb of RAM.
During my every day usage, I ofently switch between a certain sets of applications so to me, it is very important that these applications are not killed.
My original settings :
OOM is untouched, though I tried to set it to light with System Tuner but it did not help.
I have a few services that are launched when the device boot : Network Speed to measure bandwith in real time, OS Monitor to display CPU and RAM usage in real time as well and finally System Tuner.
Under develpoment options in the Settings, the limit of apps in background is set to standard (by default)
This is a sequence of test runs I made to show what is going on and why I deem my multitasking experience poor.
In the aim to offer accurate data, this is the list of apps I am using a lot :
app 1 = World War - a 2D non dynamic video game ;
app 2 = iMobster - same as above ;
app 3 = TweetCaster - a twitter client
app 4 = EvolveSMS - a SMS client. Can take a lot of RAM if many SMS are loaded (over thousands of SMS = 100Mb of RAM)
app 5 = Google Chrome - the web browser (not beta) with one tab loaded, two tabs saved but unloaded
Here we go.
Reboot phone -> 1.5Gb of free RAM (1.9Gb at the beginning then 1.5Gb in average after waiting for the aforementioned on-boot apps to be launched)
Launch app 1 -> 1.4Gb of free RAM
Launch app 2 -> 1.3Gb of free RAM
Launch app 3 -> 1.0Gb of free RAM
Launch app 4 -> 800Mb of free RAM
Launch app 5 -> 600Mb of free RAM
Upon each launch I waited for the app to be completely loaded (no splashscreen or loading screen). Then I check with both OS Monitor and System Tuner's widgets to check up the free RAM (sometimes their data differ, but not a lot ~100/200mb).
Repeating this particular sequence bears the same results : when launching app 5 (Google Chrome), app 1 and 3 are closed.
Some time only one of them. But most of the time two apps are closed.
Futhermore, I notice I can't not get less than 500Mb of free RAM. Unless I use Google Chrome to load heavy websites, there is no way than by launching more apps I will get under this limit.
Simply put, I cannot have more than 4 to 5 apps running in background.
I tried different ROMS :
- 2 based on Samsung KitKat ROMs : Jackyaway and S5 port V6. I have the same issue.
- CM 11. : too unstable at the time but perhaps better because the OS takes less RAM than Samsung.
So here I am.
When I was on Android 4.3, it was nice, Moving to 4.x is a disaster.
What can I do ? How is your experience ? How many apps do you manage to keep in the background ?
You are aware that the default setting for 'keep in background' equals 4?
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk 2
ShadowLea said:
You are aware that the default setting for 'keep in background' equals 4?
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then how can I change it ???
This is really common and isn't an issue. Android will cache a lot of resources in RAM. When that RAM space is needed, the cache is freed. Do not worry.
Colton127 said:
This is really common and isn't an issue. Android will cache a lot of resources in RAM. When that RAM space is needed, the cache is freed. Do not worry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry but no.
How come ..
In Android 4.3 I had better multi-tasking experience (more apps in background) while having a smooth system ...
In Android 4.4,x I have an horrible multi-tasking experience (less apps in background).
I mean I have been doing more tests and it's driving me CRAZY ! After just rebooting my phone, I have about 1300Mb of FREE RAM and then after starting my 4 usual applications, it still have 1Gb of FREE RAM, why, please tell me why would Android feel the need to kill one of these apps after I launched a 5th one ?
This is getting ridiculous ! In what world could Android based on Linux kernel simply decide to kill my apps when it has 1Gb of FREE RAM !
When I was on 4.3 I could have ;
- my 2 2D video games
- my twitter client
- my SMS application
- chrome with 3 tabs opened
- play store opened,
- galerie displaying a picture
etc etc.. all stayed in background. They just got killed whenever I started a heavy application such as a 3D video game and in that case it's completely normal.
Heck I even recalled playing to Asphalt 7 then having a phone call while replying to an SMS (or checking my tweets) all at the same time.
Guess what I can do, now in KitKat ?
Oh god I hate my self for moving to kitkat. Makes me want to throw my phone away.
Search for zeppelinrox's V6 supercharger, I recall it has a feature to allow more apps to run in the background.
I am yet to do this myself, noticed the poor multitasking also.
Someguyfromhell said:
Search for zeppelinrox's V6 supercharger, I recall it has a feature to allow more apps to run in the background.
I am yet to do this myself, noticed the poor multitasking also.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That could be a solution. I used in on my Galaxy S3 but it did little help since the phone was lame at the beginning.
I never believed I would use it again on the phone I deemed good for multitasking.
But I am glad to hear that I am not the only one thinking the same thing.
I will try the fix and post here my findings. Should you try the same thing, do not hesitate to share your experience here.
Bump
Quite some time have passed since my last post here ... but my problem remains still.
I've juste moved to Cynogen Mode 11 as of last Snapshot (stable) version.
Overall, the system is stable. Much faster, way smoother. I won't miss TouchWiz I think.
RAM usage is lower : now on boot with the same services I like to have, it sill have over 1.6Gb of free RAM.
That's quite a lote I would like to use, but still can't.
But I must be fair, my multitasking experience is slightly better. First because I can finally have other options to switch between apps other than by long-pressing the home button.
But also because it seems I can finally have a few more apps staying in the background.
When looking for solutions to my problem, I ran across this : RAM and multitasking...so bad.
I said : "finally, someone understanding me".
I read all replies, and this is what seems to come out : KitKat seems to have a built-in feature that auto-kills app whenever a limit of active apps is reached.
This limit is around 10 and 20. I don't know where this limit is set, how it is defined, where I can find, how I can change, and why it exists.
I believe V6 Supercharger did change that limit on Jelly Bean and ICS. I thought this limit disappeared in 4.3.... did it come back in 4.4 ?
Does it work on KitKat ?
Well, I hope someone here can help me. Thanks !
Bump to this. I have a Xperia Z3 Compact and experience the same problem... I never have this problem before with other devices in 4.3.. The multitask since Kitkat is just horrible.