Database Users

Performance drops after some time

Hi,
I have noticed that my Nexus' performance starts to drop after some hours on: going from one home screen to the other becomes quite choppy, and so do the animations of opening an application.
Have you guys noticed that too, or is it just me?

It was like this for me until I bought Advanced Task Manager. I have it auto end applications that I don't need to run all the time. It runs much better now.

The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
But like stickerbob said, you should have Advanced Task Manager at the least.

Deathwish238 said:
The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?

frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep but some people just don't get that, ah well...

efeltee said:
Yep but some people just don't get that, ah well...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that doesn't really explain the performance drops. Does the phone run out of RAM, or not? It seems to be snappy again after a reboot, so there must be something.

frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what I have read, but it did not work for me. I downloaded the free version of advanced task man to troubleshoot the problem and found that most of my apps were still running in the background even when my ram was down to 10-20mb. That is about when the phone would start acting up on me. When I ended the tasks the phone would act normal again. So I just broke down and bought the app for $.99. If you do this make sure you exclude some system apps, if you don't your phone could freeze while it is trying to restart them.

10-20mb free is normal operation. This is how the OS is designed to operate, linux and even windows7 now also operate in this fashion (show very little 'free' memory). there is no performance problem with low free memory, purely a misconception on modern memory managment. Whats going on is that you have a buggy application, which is why 'killing' apps looks to be resolving your issue. You're only resolving the symptom, not the problem.
I never kill apps and have had weeks of uptime without any slow down. This gets rehashed over and over again by people claiming task killers help performance. The reality is they do nothing for performance, only nice to have around for that great once and a while an app runs away from you, or in troubleshooting if you have a poorly written app. It should not be anyones habit to do a kill all on a regular basis, if it were the OS would do this automatically.
btw, compcache has been known to cause this slowdown over time issue, it has since been removed from most of the popular custom baked rom's.

frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does...
bofslime said:
10-20mb free is normal operation. This is how the OS is designed to operate, linux and even windows7 now also operate in this fashion (show very little 'free' memory). there is no performance problem with low free memory, purely a misconception on modern memory managment. Whats going on is that you have a buggy application, which is why 'killing' apps looks to be resolving your issue. You're only resolving the symptom, not the problem.
I never kill apps and have had weeks of uptime without any slow down. This gets rehashed over and over again by people claiming task killers help performance. The reality is they do nothing for performance, only nice to have around for that great once and a while an app runs away from you, or in troubleshooting if you have a poorly written app. It should not be anyones habit to do a kill all on a regular basis, if it were the OS would do this automatically.
btw, compcache has been known to cause this slowdown over time issue, it has since been removed from most of the popular custom baked rom's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well then there must be many buggy applications. I had to rely on Advanced Task Manager to keep my G1 running acceptably fast. The N1 slows down without its full RAM available so I needed to use Advanced Task Manager then too.
If the RAM is not the issue, why does having the extra 200 MB available make the phone run much smoother with 20+ apps running?

frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well technically no, it reallocates what is being used and frees up memory for programs currently running but non the less the OS manages itself
personally i close apps that i do not have going with the task manager. i seem to notice a performance difference if i do it manually, it takes 2-3 extra taps for peace of mind rather than relying on the OS to figure it out for me...

Deathwish238 said:
The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
But like stickerbob said, you should have Advanced Task Manager at the least.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The speed benefits of CM's ROM isn't due to the HIGHMEM supporting kernel, but rather other tweeks he's done with his build. Extra ram is nice, but there is certainly no limitation with the 213 or so userspace memory that is available now. Android itself does not even use this memory, it has its own reserved memory space, userspace memory is only for applications to be loaded in. And there is speed for keeping as much of your applications loaded in memory as possible.
swetland said:
Roughly 220MB is available to userspace in the shipping build (ERD79).
Quite a lot of memory is dedicated to the radio firmware (41MB), dsp firmware (32MB), display surfaces (32MB), gpu (3MB), camera (8MB), a/v buffers (41MB), and dsp buffers. Much of this needs to be set aside for these specific tasks due to hardware requirements of very large physically contiguous buffers which can be difficult or impossible to obtain after boot once the physical memory space gets fragmented.
The big limitation though is that the Linux kernel needs to do a 1:1 physical:virtual map of general purpose memory used by the kernel and userspace (which excludes the special purpose stuff described above). This eats into the available kernel virtual address space, which is also needed for cross process shared memory used by the binder, etc. Run out of virtual memory and things get unhappy.
In 2.6.32, HIGHMEM support for ARM will allow us to avoid this requirement for a 1:1 mapping which will allow us to increase memory available to userspace without running the system out of virtual memory adddress space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

The speed difference I'm talking about is what I experienced when running CM beta3 and CM beta3 w/ highmem. The difference was huge. I assumed the change was mainly attributed to the double RAM available.
Even now with the full RAM available, things run faster when I end the other apps running. It's not necessary, but the difference is there.
It would be nice to be able to pinpoint which apps caused slow downs.

The best way I've seen this put I found in a thread where someone wanted to disable apps from auto-starting entirely. I saved it, because I though it was very elegant way to explain androids mem management.
equid0x said:
I just wanted to chime in here about the whole apps on startup thing....
Android has the concept of services which are programs that typically have a frontend piece, like a GUI for IM that you would normally use, that only runs when you are using it, and a background piece, the service, which is constantly running to keep you connected to your IM servers. This will account for some portion of the things you see running on startup, depending on how many apps you have installed, and whether or not they were written to run as a service.
There are also some, usually older, android programs that existed before "services" were really used.. that basically use triggers to keep reloading themselves. These programs are less efficient, and probably should be re-written to use the official service method of operation, caveat emptor.
Android also makes several modifications to the stock process handling that comes with any Linux kernel, which is already radically different from what most would be used to seeing on Windows as it is. Android attempts to keep commonly used applications running(loaded into memory), but in a sleeping state (using no cpu), so that they may be quickly resumed on request. Android also contains some agressive modifications to the behavior of the OOM(out of memory) task killer in Linux, that seem to cause it to keep applications running until nearly all memory is consumed, killing apps it deems unnecessary only when absolutely necessary. However, Android also supports a methodology of saving the running state of a program, so that if it is killed due to an OOM condition, it may be restarted with relevant data restored, to give the appearance of never having been killed at all.
This functionality is not all to alien to Linux as a platform in general, though Android has many modifications which tend to favor aggressive app management in memory, and less so filesystem cache. This was likely a design choice made to suit the low-speed/low memory platforms Android targets.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Good read.
So then given that...only services running should slow down the phone and not the background apps running.
However, this doesn't really answer the OP's question. If it's not a memory issue...what's causing his slowdowns?

Could be too many widgets on the home screen, I don't run that many but its possible that while in an app for a while, and switching back to home the OS may have to kill a whole bunch of apps to allow it to reload all the widgets on the home screen.
I tested this, and loaded the crap out of my home screens with widgets, and then launched a game. When I exited the game there was a good 500ms - 800ms delay in my homescreens from displaying anything other than the background. However, after it loaded, scrolling between screens looks smooth. The new kernel with highmem support can help this, but I would suspect some crazy widget filled homescreen with a 3rd party live wallpaper (star's configured with too many stars) and all of that combined could be an issue even still. Apple combats this by allowing only one app at a time, they know people will go overboard if allowed.

Well, that doesn't really explain the performance drops. Does the phone run out of RAM, or not? It seems to be snappy again after a reboot, so there must be something.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's probably no easy answer to this question. There could be IO contention, a runaway process, high CPU usage, a memory leak, shoddy code in some app, etc etc... One would really have to take a look at the whole state of the system at the time the problem is happening to be able to ascertain what is causing the slowdown.
The phenomenon is in no way unique to Android. I'm sure nearly everyone is familiar with the common complaint "my computer is running slow". The reasons that can happen on a common PC are the very same reasons that can be happening here, and unfortunately there are many of those reasons. While in many cases, throwing memory at the issue may appear to solve the problem temporarily, it often is not a permanent fix.
The amount of userspace memory available really amounts to 1 thing and 1 thing only -> the total number of running processes that we can keep totally in memory at any given time. On stock android, slowdown due to an OOM condition should be minimal, since stock android doesn't swap. Discounting any other bottlenecks, there is a practical limit to the number of programs once would be able to run in the memory space that is available. Realistically speaking, android programs tend to be fairly small, so you'd really have to be running a lot of them to exhaust this space. It is far more likely one or 2 poorly written programs are hogging huge amounts of memory (and probably other resources), which is causing constant killing and restarting of other apps you are trying to run concurrently. You end up with contention on the slow flash, resulting in poor performance.
You can't even really compare the Nexus One to the G1 in this regard, because the G1 truly is terribly deprived of memory. Though, the argument in both cases could really be made that you are attempting to run the hardware beyond its design specifications...
Its been my experience that the culprit is usually one or 2 specific programs. Sometimes the best, although inconvenient, way to figure out which programs these are, is to keep watch of your usage habits, and if you suspect something is the problem, uninstall it, and see if the issue persists. Its time consuming but there really isn't any better way to figure it out without using all kinds of tools that android doesn't really provide convenient access to. There are a few apps on the market that help with this but I am not sure what they are called offhand.
Programs that were identified as sources of slowdown for me have been:
Weatherbug
The Weather Channel
Calorie Counter
Locale
SMS Popup
10000
USA Today
National Geographic Wallpapers
CNN News Widget
Streamfurious
Nav4All
Waze
Just about every app with Admob Ads
And this is really just what I can think off offhand... there are more...

equid0x said:
There's probably no easy answer to this question. There could be IO contention, a runaway process, high CPU usage, a memory leak, shoddy code in some app, etc etc... One would really have to take a look at the whole state of the system at the time the problem is happening to be able to ascertain what is causing the slowdown.
The phenomenon is in no way unique to Android. I'm sure nearly everyone is familiar with the common complaint "my computer is running slow". The reasons that can happen on a common PC are the very same reasons that can be happening here, and unfortunately there are many of those reasons. While in many cases, throwing memory at the issue may appear to solve the problem temporarily, it often is not a permanent fix.
The amount of userspace memory available really amounts to 1 thing and 1 thing only -> the total number of running processes that we can keep totally in memory at any given time. On stock android, slowdown due to an OOM condition should be minimal, since stock android doesn't swap. Discounting any other bottlenecks, there is a practical limit to the number of programs once would be able to run in the memory space that is available. Realistically speaking, android programs tend to be fairly small, so you'd really have to be running a lot of them to exhaust this space. It is far more likely one or 2 poorly written programs are hogging huge amounts of memory (and probably other resources), which is causing constant killing and restarting of other apps you are trying to run concurrently. You end up with contention on the slow flash, resulting in poor performance.
You can't even really compare the Nexus One to the G1 in this regard, because the G1 truly is terribly deprived of memory. Though, the argument in both cases could really be made that you are attempting to run the hardware beyond its design specifications...
Its been my experience that the culprit is usually one or 2 specific programs. Sometimes the best, although inconvenient, way to figure out which programs these are, is to keep watch of your usage habits, and if you suspect something is the problem, uninstall it, and see if the issue persists. Its time consuming but there really isn't any better way to figure it out without using all kinds of tools that android doesn't really provide convenient access to. There are a few apps on the market that help with this but I am not sure what they are called offhand.
Programs that were identified as sources of slowdown for me have been:
Weatherbug
The Weather Channel
Calorie Counter
Locale
SMS Popup
10000
USA Today
National Geographic Wallpapers
CNN News Widget
Streamfurious
Nav4All
Waze
Just about every app with Admob Ads
And this is really just what I can think off offhand... there are more...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm banking on it being an issue with an app that the OP has installed as well...not the phone or Android. I have only a handful of tried and true apps, and haven't experienced a slowdown even after 150 hours without a reboot.
OP... start uninstalling apps a couple at a time and wait several hours in between to narrow down the problem app.

I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.

stickerbob said:
I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not just widgets that you should be thinking about... any app you've installed can throw something off.

stickerbob said:
I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I removed the weather & news widget and the phone seems much faster now. I'll keep it like that for a day, see if it stays fast.

Alternatives To Task/App/Ram Killers????

Many people say it's harmful using app killers, especially on android as it may interfere with important system resources or close important system files and can do harmful damage in the longrun such as errors, things not working, etc...
When you open various programs such as file manager, picture gallery, etc you then see a list of all running programs in system/task manager.
Many of these running programs are ones you have recently used and are draining ram/cpu/battery.
Is there not ANY safe app to use that will ONLY close apps that YOU have used?
There must be some app out there that closes/kills open apps, not system or phone apps but only the ones you have installed and used?
This could be a ram killer or maybe a simple app which is not dangerous and will safely close running apps not needed.
Looking forwards to seeing what others recommend.
Thanks in advance guys,,,

kanej2006 said:
There must be some app out there that closes/kills open apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, there are, but android just restarts them after they have been closed (froyo only)

panyan said:
yes, there are, but android just restarts them after they have been closed (froyo only)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Names please of a good app that kills ONLY programs you open, not system files.
What if I was to install an appkiller, but instead of having it on autokill, I was to manually click apps I opened and kill them?
Surely this way there is no danger as I'm only closing selected apps, not system files?

kanej2006 said:
Names please of a good app that kills ONLY programs you open, not system files.
What if I was to install an appkiller, but instead of having it on autokill, I was to manually click apps I opened and kill them?
Surely this way there is no danger as I'm only closing selected apps, not system files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The point is, even after killing your own apps, most of the time froyo will restart them
I very much like ES' offerings - ES File Explorer and ES Task Manager. They're both free, give em a birl.

You can install Advanced Task Killer (free) and there you can perfectly select which apps to close and which not... still I rarely use it
for example your homescreen widgets are always unchecked when killing tasks, so unless you check them, they won't be killed...

Hmmm, ok.
What is the BEST way to preserve & save battery/cpu & free up as much ram as possible without harming/interfering with the phone??
When I used to use the task killer app it would consistently give me around 400-424mb free ram.
Without the app killer I would only have around 100mb of free ram since all the programs are running in the backround.
So to all you experts out there, what can I do or what options do I have in which I can safely free up as much ram as possible and safely close running apps not needed when not using the phone?
I just want the best and most effective way to make my battery last longer.
I'm having to charge my phone every day, it struggles to get through the day even when hardly used.
Looking forwards to hearing some expert opinions based on the above.

kanej2006 said:
I'm having to charge my phone every day, it struggles to get through the day even when hardly used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's definitely a problem there but you're not going to find it chasing free ram. I have approx 20Mb free ram at the moment, the phone hasn't been rebooted for at least a week but I'm easily getting through 2 days with light use. Task killers / app killers are not the answer, (in froyo at least) free ram is wasted ram.
The programs that are 'running' in the background are not actually using CPU resources unless they have a service running (see the eBay app/service for an example). Your best bet is to check the running services (settings/applications/running services) and battery usage to work out what process is hogging the CPU time. Also check your sync settings, though I'd imagine you've already tried that.

christonabike said:
There's definitely a problem there but you're not going to find it chasing free ram. I have approx 20Mb free ram at the moment, the phone hasn't been rebooted for at least a week but I'm easily getting through 2 days with light use. Task killers / app killers are not the answer, (in froyo at least) free ram is wasted ram.
The programs that are 'running' in the background are not actually using CPU resources unless they have a service running (see the eBay app/service for an example). Your best bet is to check the running services (settings/applications/running services) and battery usage to work out what process is hogging the CPU time. Also check your sync settings, though I'd imagine you've already tried that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's the anipet fish aquarium live screensaver...

Systempanel is good, I use it to stop a bad app thats using to much memory..you should never kill your apps with froyo, the OS wasn't designed like that, thats the whole point of Android, it looks after the apps perfectly well by itself, systempanel is just there as a....just in case method.
Saving battery power is a common misconception, Task killers actually get in the way of Android handling memory management as intended.....a pointless app to have with 2.2 which actually drains you battery quicker.
The LCD screen is the biggest drain on battery power, turning the brightness down, stop using a live wallpaper, turn off wifi, bluetooth, GPS ect....
With all that said the 1250mah battery is just not powerful enough to run this device period...but then most of us knew this before we bought the phone..we needed a 2000mah battery really, its just a lipo battery and can be easily increased, maybe next year we will see an improvement in the new smartphones.

kanej2006 said:
Maybe it's the anipet fish aquarium live screensaver...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope you're joking

Black1982 said:
I hope you're joking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, well some people do say that live wallpaper kills battery...

[SOLVED] Swiftdroid is killing apps way too quickly. How to prevent this?

Hey,
I was using swiftdroid last two days and it appears to be killing all apps almost as soon as I quit it. I checked with Advanced Task Killer and it appears swiftdroid is trying to keep at least 45MB free even after I enabled 32MB swap with built-in VRAM.
This is very annoying. It keeps quitting facebook chat and IMO chat as soon as I switch to another app. I'm aware GT540 has very low memory but the thing is in stock, I didn't have any problem even though I didn't have VRAM/swap. I usually get around 25MB RAM free all the time and most apps stay in memory. I'm usually like able to launch the IM app, facebook app and still be able to use the browser or file expert or messaging app.
So, is there's a workaround? It's really annoying when it keeps quitting the IM app just like that!
Sorry for saying it's annoying. I know we get this for free and I shouldn't be complaining at all. It's just that it pissed me by quitting IM app, the only app I want to stay in the memory.

What version of Swiftdroid are you using
The latest one (M5), has improved RAM management a lot
And comes with better battery life, too

I got the same thing. Always 40-45mb free and apps being killed quickly. I'm on M5. Someone said that Joestone's AOSP is better in this aspect, but I didn't test it yet.

Mitalca:
I'm on M4. I downloaded M5 only today. I don't think it lacks good RAM management. It's just that its memory management settings have been tweaked to keep maximum possible amount of RAM free so that any new app will launch faster. Am sure there must be a switch to change it.
EazyLuke:
I don't really have any problems with stock 2.1. I checked out Joe's AOSP and swiftdroid. The only real advantage apart from speed is voice input. In Joe's AOSP, I couldn't get voice to work. In swiftdroid, it worked.

that's what I meant with RAM management
Maurik changed the settings on M5
mhoangtr said:
In M4 rom, lowmemorykiller setting is 6,8,16,20,32,40 MB so apps killed too fast.
If you want to keep apps longer, try set to 6,8,16,20,22,24 MB (this is default value of android).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But I don't know how can you change that setting in M4
Try M5, if it ain't working for you, go to Joe's

Mitalca said:
that's what I meant with RAM management
Maurik changed the settings on M5
But I don't know how can you change that setting in M4
Try M5, if it ain't working for you, go to Joe's
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Mitalca: That's the whole purpose of the post. I couldn't find the option where I can change 6,8,16,20,32,40 MB to 6,8,16,20,22,24 MB.
How do I change it?

You can change these values with e.g. this application https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lim.android.automemman&feature=search_result

I installed this app: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rs.autokiller
It does the same thing.
I set the values to 6-8-12-18-20-20. Now I'll have to see if that brings an improvement.
EDIT: Tested it for a few minutes. And it seems to be an awesome improvement! I can switch from Facebook, Twitter and Browser, and everything is kept in memory, meaning these apps don't have to reload everything!
And it seems to be stable. I also use some of the "advanced system tweaks settings".

Thanks you guys.
XDA memebers. Useful as ever.
I'm gonna try both the apps and keep the app with slicker interface.

M5 isn't working.
Says assert failed when trying to flash via recovery.

Trys v6 SuperCharger!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=991276
It Works Perfectly on our GT540!

I found this problematic, too.
I installed M5 yesterday. Everything is great except this (and I don't like oversensitive accelerometer, but it's not urgent problem ).
Last night I listened Music player, and surfed via Miren. After two opened tabs, Music player shut down . After four opened tabs, phone rebooted. Factory widgets' widgets are useless with this agressive RAM menagment.
hash87 said:
You can change these values with e.g. this application https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lim.android.automemman&feature=search_result
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks man.
Works excellent .
EazyLuke said:
I installed this app: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rs.autokiller
It does the same thing.
I set the values to 6-8-12-18-20-20. Now I'll have to see if that brings an improvement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To bad - it want access to too much permissions.

Access to too much permissions? Use LBE Privacy Guard!

What permissions?
And by the way, I wrote a PM to Mur4ik and asked him to try this app out. Maybe he'll change the numbers for RAM-management in his next release if he thinks it's an improvement.

EazyLuke said:
What permissions?
And by the way, I wrote a PM to Mur4ik and asked him to try this app out. Maybe he'll change the numbers for RAM-management in his next release if he thinks it's an improvement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are plenty of custom ROMs that use Mur4ik's config. It boils down to personal preference. Do you want newer apps to launch really fast or do you want certain apps to stay in memory all the time?
Multi-taskers would prefer to have all apps in memory while people who like doing one thing at a time or who use phone for gaming mainly would prefer Mur4ik's config which launches apps faster.
The best thing for Mur4ik is to include an option to change the memory management config depending on user.

After changing the numbers my apps don't really seem to open slower.
In my opinion Mur4ik could lower the numbers a little bit, to allow better multitasking, but still let new apps open fast (just my personal opinion).
But I don't say he HAS TO do that, just a suggestion, if he doesn't like it it isn't a problem at all, because everyone can simply adjust the numbers easily .

That's true. xD
If I were to suggest, I'd suggest to add the option to change these settings. Apps opening fast depends on what individual apps are in the memory and what new app you are opening.
For example, if you open Angry Birds while your memory is at 16MB, you certainly can't expect it to open fast.
On the other hand, if you open messaging app while memory is at 16MB, it certainly will open faster.
But, I really disliked the apps Swiftdroid had in the latest release. I had to get rid of the whole GO suit with Uninstaller for Root.

nibras_reeza said:
But, I really disliked the apps Swiftdroid had in the latest release. I had to get rid of the whole GO suit with Uninstaller for Root.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try M6, was released yesterday, it's completely clean! Only Tonepicker and QuickSettings are added.

SWEETTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!! xD

you could also try to put mur4ik rom in the kitchen and play with autokiller settings ...
this is michalak8 from android.com.pl (mike's froYo dev) looking for that magic 10 posts to post my rom) Could someone close the rom thread in development section - I would like to post it my self without google-translate bugs
mikegapinski

[TIP]Improve Sense performance over time

Many of you have probably noticed that performance of Sense roms degrades significantly over time. At least for me, it gets painfully slow after only few hours of usage and I have to reboot to restore the performance.
It appears that cause of this is lack of free RAM, because a lot of applications are still sitting inside RAM even after you stop using them and Sense needs A LOT of ram. A good way to fight this is to tweak settings of android's built in task killer, so it will kill more apps to free more memory for sense to use.
One way to do this is to:
1. Install "System Tuner" application (free on market)
2. Inside application go to Memory screen
3. Click presets and select "Aggressive". If performance is still horrible after performing this tweak, try switching to "Very aggressive"
4. If you wish this tweak to persist after reboot, select "Boot Settings" and enable "Re-apply memory limits".
That's it. For me it changed Sense roms from unbearable to snappy. It will of course significantly reduce multitasking ability of the ROM, but for me it is worth it.

So do you think there would be a better way to go about this then to close certain apps that aren't meant to be closed? It seems some
developers suggest not to use task killers because of this very reason. Would there be any other benifits or negatives in doing this?

You're not using task killers, but just tweaking android's built-in task killler, which means that system apps are safe.
User apps that are not meant to be closed usually provide option to enable notification, which makes them foreground apps and that means that they will probably never be closed.

I was thinking that by switching it to "very aggressive" you may end up closing tons of system apps that aren't meant to be closed. Thanks for clearing that up.

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.
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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.
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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