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[Q] I/O Question

Hi I've read some where in this forum that the galaxy S has some I/O problems which are leading to the frequent lags that the phone experiences
Frankly I do not know what I/O is but my question is whether I/O problem is a hardware or software problem. If it is software then fair and well, I'll wait for samsung to ooptimize the software
I have noticed that the benchmark software (Quadrant) runs relatively smoothly all the tests except the I/O test at which it stops for a while before moving to the next test. I dont know if this relates to the I/O problem.
Thanks for your answers

RADLOUNI said:
Hi I've read some where in this forum that the galaxy S has some I/O problems which are leading to the frequent lags that the phone experiences
Frankly I do not know what I/O is but my question is whether I/O problem is a hardware or software problem. If it is software then fair and well, I'll wait for samsung to ooptimize the software
I have noticed that the benchmark software (Quadrant) runs relatively smoothly all the tests except the I/O test at which it stops for a while before moving to the next test. I dont know if this relates to the I/O problem.
Thanks for your answers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Theres still no solid proof that its a software issue.

****
EarlZ said:
Theres still no solid proof that its a software issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
****...............then you're saying its hardware ??????

He is not saying its hardware, just that there is no solid proof that its software.
However, based on the amount of working fixes, and reports of great improvements using Froyo I would put money on it being software related.
In fact...I am!
I am ordering a SGS in 3 days when my contract is up for renewal.

Actually, I think everyone's overlooking another obvious possible source of lag: clock-scaling for power conservation. If a phone slows down to 200MHz when it thinks it's inactive, and won't speed up until it sees evidence of activity lasting for 400ms, well... that's 400ms of lag you wouldn't get if the phone were running full-bore 1GHz all the time.
There's even an easy way to test the theory (on a rooted phone, at least) -- take two otherwise-identical phones, fully-charged, root one (while keeping the same rom), then install SetCPU and lock it into 'performance' mode so the phone can't slow down.
If the one locked at 100% CPU speed doesn't lag, and the one that's allowed to slow down to prolong the battery life does... well... there's the answer.
I mention this because I just experienced the night-and-day difference between the CDMA Hero's default power/speed (528MHz max, going down to 250MHz or less when "inactive") and with it locked to 712MHz in performance mode. Pretty much all of my lag problems vanished instantly when I locked it to performance mode. I have a hunch right now that perceived lagginess is almost entirely due to cpu scaling (particularly the time it takes to scale back up, and the criteria used for doing it).

Makes Sense
bitbang3r said:
Actually, I think everyone's overlooking another obvious possible source of lag: clock-scaling for power conservation. If a phone slows down to 200MHz when it thinks it's inactive, and won't speed up until it sees evidence of activity lasting for 400ms, well... that's 400ms of lag you wouldn't get if the phone were running full-bore 1GHz all the time.
There's even an easy way to test the theory (on a rooted phone, at least) -- take two otherwise-identical phones, fully-charged, root one (while keeping the same rom), then install SetCPU and lock it into 'performance' mode so the phone can't slow down.
If the one locked at 100% CPU speed doesn't lag, and the one that's allowed to slow down to prolong the battery life does... well... there's the answer.
I mention this because I just experienced the night-and-day difference between the CDMA Hero's default power/speed (528MHz max, going down to 250MHz or less when "inactive") and with it locked to 712MHz in performance mode. Pretty much all of my lag problems vanished instantly when I locked it to performance mode. I have a hunch right now that perceived lagginess is almost entirely due to cpu scaling (particularly the time it takes to scale back up, and the criteria used for doing it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very interesting theory, and it makes sense to be frank.
Are there any software out there that would enable me to lock the CPU speed to 1 GHz. I am willing to try this

RADLOUNI said:
Very interesting theory, and it makes sense to be frank.
Are there any software out there that would enable me to lock the CPU speed to 1 GHz. I am willing to try this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The guy just told you, root phone and install "Setcpu". That's the only way.

Looking at the benchmarks and the various fixes implemented I tend to lean towards the opinion that it may be hardware related.
hxxp://twitter.com/koush/status/20321413798
I'm not familiar enough with the internals of the phone. If there is faster flash memory located on the phone, then a repartition may be enough to fix the device. If not, then I'm afraid we may be stuck with some lag.

Would anyone be so kind as to explain what I/O is and why the setup in the SGS causes lagging while other android phones with similar specs don't seem to suffer from the same problems?
Thanks in advance

RADLOUNI said:
Very interesting theory, and it makes sense to be frank.
Are there any software out there that would enable me to lock the CPU speed to 1 GHz. I am willing to try this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not very interesting, as it's closer to the truth than you think.
think about it, Android OS is really Linux, the SGS is a miniature PC with phone capability.
everything else aside for the phone part, works just like a PC running Linux.
even on a Windows PC the Duo Core or Quad Core machines that has the Power Saving option enable behaves the same, when they are on iddle mode they run at 50% CPU power or less, and it takes them a fraction of a sec to speed back up, people that don't like that tiny lag, they always set the PC on performance mode, or always on, or simply not install the power saving software that comes with the PC.
we can do the same on the SGS phones, the only downside is that your battery will be out of juice faster than you think.
not to mention the Screen is the most power hungry part in the phone, just like most other phones with large LCD displays

did the install and...
Hi
I just did the install of setcpu and i will monitor the device for sometime before i give some feedback. My initiall impression is that the performance got better.
i set the software to performance mode and kept the limits between 100Mhz and 1000Mhz
i will also try to set the min limit to 800Mhz

Actually, that reminds me... the other thing I've seen cited a lot for causing lag is the way Android manages memory by terminating apps instead of using a swapfile. This can cause lag, because it simply takes time to call onPause()/onStop() and wait for it to finish, compared to unceremoniously just suspending the app and dumping a few megs to the microSD card.
Apparently, manufacturers don't use swapfile because most/all Android phones ship with class 2 microSD flash, in which case it would hurt performance more than it helped.
With that in mind, I'd say the following two things should be tried:
1) Buy a class 6 (or better) microSD card, format a swap partition, and use a rom on a rooted phone that supports it. For the record, swap with class 2 would be detrimental; swap with class 4 would be of minimal benefit; swap with class 6 is a big improvement; class 8 basically doesn't exist, and class 10 in real-world use -- with small, scattered files and random read-writes -- is only a little bit faster than class 6, because at that point the time it takes to deal with protocol matters becomes huge relative to the time it takes to actually DO the flash write (the SD card SPI and 4-bit protocols are *really* ugly, and overwhelmingly optimized for sequential reading and writing of bulk data. The moment you start doing random-access rewrites, their performance -- regardless of class -- goes to hell. That's part of the reason why pro gear still tends to use CompactFlash... it still has to deal with flash a page at a time, but it can access arbitrary tiny chunks of data scattered all over the place a lot faster and with a lot less ceremony than (micro)SD).
2) Install SetCPU and lock the CPU to max speed in "performance" mode.
SetCPU alone seemed to make the biggest difference with regard to keyboard input lag. My guess is that Android (or HTC's modifications for the Hero, Evo, etc... and quite possibly Samsung's too) slow the phone WAY down whenever an input area is displayed, on the theory that "most" apps at that point are just displaying the picture of a keyboard and waiting for the user to mash the screen with his finger. Without SetCPU, Graffiti is almost unusable and makes weird errors. With SetCPU locked to performance mode, Graffiti is almost flawless. It's literally a night-and-day difference.

Kpkpkpkp said:
Would anyone be so kind as to explain what I/O is and why the setup in the SGS causes lagging while other android phones with similar specs don't seem to suffer from the same problems?
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Input/Output -data communication to/from the phone and other devices/networks
It's like when you are writing information to the system that comes from downloads, so whether you are syncing files, downloading from the marketplace or uploading...you are doing I/O....
"In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system (such as a computer), and the outside world possibly a human, or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it. "
Wiki

bitbang3r said:
Actually, that reminds me... the other thing I've seen cited a lot for causing lag is the way Android manages memory by terminating apps instead of using a swapfile. This can cause lag, because it simply takes time to call onPause()/onStop() and wait for it to finish, compared to unceremoniously just suspending the app and dumping a few megs to the microSD card.
Apparently, manufacturers don't use swapfile because most/all Android phones ship with class 2 microSD flash, in which case it would hurt performance more than it helped.
With that in mind, I'd say the following two things should be tried:
1) Buy a class 6 (or better) microSD card, format a swap partition, and use a rom on a rooted phone that supports it. For the record, swap with class 2 would be detrimental; swap with class 4 would be of minimal benefit; swap with class 6 is a big improvement; class 8 basically doesn't exist, and class 10 in real-world use -- with small, scattered files and random read-writes -- is only a little bit faster than class 6, because at that point the time it takes to deal with protocol matters becomes huge relative to the time it takes to actually DO the flash write (the SD card SPI and 4-bit protocols are *really* ugly, and overwhelmingly optimized for sequential reading and writing of bulk data. The moment you start doing random-access rewrites, their performance -- regardless of class -- goes to hell. That's part of the reason why pro gear still tends to use CompactFlash... it still has to deal with flash a page at a time, but it can access arbitrary tiny chunks of data scattered all over the place a lot faster and with a lot less ceremony than (micro)SD).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To ask a question and summarize, if you were given a choice of any class card to put in your phone you'd chose a class 6 because of the performance benefit here? Or would you maybe go with a higher class because it'd get greater benefits in other areas? Thanks for the help, again, don't consider money as a factor for the main issue, just trying to learn a bit.

result
bitbang3r said:
Actually, that reminds me... the other thing I've seen cited a lot for causing lag is the way Android manages memory by terminating apps instead of using a swapfile. This can cause lag, because it simply takes time to call onPause()/onStop() and wait for it to finish, compared to unceremoniously just suspending the app and dumping a few megs to the microSD card.
Apparently, manufacturers don't use swapfile because most/all Android phones ship with class 2 microSD flash, in which case it would hurt performance more than it helped.
With that in mind, I'd say the following two things should be tried:
1) Buy a class 6 (or better) microSD card, format a swap partition, and use a rom on a rooted phone that supports it. For the record, swap with class 2 would be detrimental; swap with class 4 would be of minimal benefit; swap with class 6 is a big improvement; class 8 basically doesn't exist, and class 10 in real-world use -- with small, scattered files and random read-writes -- is only a little bit faster than class 6, because at that point the time it takes to deal with protocol matters becomes huge relative to the time it takes to actually DO the flash write (the SD card SPI and 4-bit protocols are *really* ugly, and overwhelmingly optimized for sequential reading and writing of bulk data. The moment you start doing random-access rewrites, their performance -- regardless of class -- goes to hell. That's part of the reason why pro gear still tends to use CompactFlash... it still has to deal with flash a page at a time, but it can access arbitrary tiny chunks of data scattered all over the place a lot faster and with a lot less ceremony than (micro)SD).
2) Install SetCPU and lock the CPU to max speed in "performance" mode.
SetCPU alone seemed to make the biggest difference with regard to keyboard input lag. My guess is that Android (or HTC's modifications for the Hero, Evo, etc... and quite possibly Samsung's too) slow the phone WAY down whenever an input area is displayed, on the theory that "most" apps at that point are just displaying the picture of a keyboard and waiting for the user to mash the screen with his finger. Without SetCPU, Graffiti is almost unusable and makes weird errors. With SetCPU locked to performance mode, Graffiti is almost flawless. It's literally a night-and-day difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HI I tried setCPU at performance mode , and i have to say that it improved the perofrmance A BIT. But i would not say that much has improved.
I guess that the class6 SD card option has more bearing on this issue than CPU speed scaling

RADLOUNI said:
HI I tried setCPU at performance mode , and i have to say that it improved the perofrmance A BIT. But i would not say that much has improved.
I guess that the class6 SD card option has more bearing on this issue than CPU speed scaling
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Click to collapse
Does the SD card lag fix option REQUIRE a class 6 card? That limits the size a bit, doesn't it? What is the biggest class 6 card available?

borchgrevink said:
Does the SD card lag fix option REQUIRE a class 6 card? That limits the size a bit, doesn't it? What is the biggest class 6 card available?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
16GB
no, it does not need to be Class 6, it depends on the SD card build quality, some Class 2 performs as good as a Class 6
but it's a luck of the draw, if you have a known good Class 2 or Class 4 microSD card, then use it, no need to buy a new one
i suggest you to test the speed of the SD card before you do the mimocan thing
use this app, it's pretty accurate
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739083

The CPU theory doesn't really explain why symlinking the /dbdata/data folder to /data/data eliminates lag.
hxxp://android.modaco.com/content/samsung-galaxy-s-s-modaco-com/312298/got-the-stalling-problem-rooted-try-this/

It also seems that a 32gb class2 SanDisk card is OK.
http://android.modaco.com/content/s...rt-microsd-cards-that-work-with-mimocans-fix/

borchgrevink said:
It also seems that a 32gb class2 SanDisk card is OK.
http://android.modaco.com/content/s...rt-microsd-cards-that-work-with-mimocans-fix/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kinda pricey at the moment, aprox $135 for real non fake ones

Can someone please explain to me why Android phones always have memory issues please?

I'm new to alot of this stuff but one thing that caught my attention with the original galaxy s phone initially was its specs and the fact that it has 512mb. Now one thing I've noticed that has greatly hindered an android phones performance is memory. It's the achillies heal for droid users. Now my phone is rooted and I have auto memory manager and all is good for the most part. But my question is, if this phone has 512mb of ram, then why is 100-130 shown whenever I go into aam?
Also with the Galaxy s 2 and it's beautiful specs, do you think that it'll operate w/o the need for a task killer? I don't understand how iphone and android phone have similar specs hardware wise but the iphone runs smoother and rarely if ever lags w/o the need for a task killer. I'm just really curious because as much as I love droid and prefer it over the iphone, i do give it to apples iphone for stability and smooth operating.

TheAggression said:
.... I don't understand how iphone and android phone have similar specs hardware wise but the iphone runs smoother and rarely if ever lags w/o the need for a task killer. I'm just really curious because as much as I love droid and prefer it over the iphone, i do give it to apples iphone for stability and smooth operating.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iPhone is much tighter controlled and until recently it did not have multitasking. With Android you can have badly written apps running in the background that slow down the device.
iPhone is a single platform, so iOS supports hardware GPU acceleration of the UI. All those neat visuals in the user interface are handled by the dedicated GPU on iPhone, and by CPU on Android devices (because of so many GPUs they can have, core android does not do YET hardware GPU acceleration of the UI)

You neither need a memory manager nor any other task killer. If an application freezes the default android task manager (in Settings, Applications) will take care of it (which happens on the iPhone as well, it has an integrated task killer - press the home button twice, press and hold an app icon).
All a task killer will do is use precious mobile resources of its own.
Regarding the question of free memory - you want the system to use up as much memory as possible, that doesn't mean the system won't be able to free up space if needed. Unused memory doesn't do anything, if Android can utilize it as a cache the free space will be put to work, that doesn't mean you are almost "out of memory". Just that the system is using its resources as efficiently as possible.

@ kreoXDA.....do you know if any upcoming phones will have a dedicated GPU acceleration for the UI?
@ Partymango...... I hear you but my phone doesn't do to well without the auto memory manager app i have. Memory is always an issue, even with froyo. Any tips?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

kreoXDA said:
iPhone is much tighter controlled and until recently it did not have multitasking. With Android you can have badly written apps running in the background that slow down the device.
iPhone is a single platform, so iOS supports hardware GPU acceleration of the UI. All those neat visuals in the user interface are handled by the dedicated GPU on iPhone, and by CPU on Android devices (because of so many GPUs they can have, core android does not do YET hardware GPU acceleration of the UI)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like the nice, subtle, little info. Thanks.

i have atm a sony ericsson xperia mini pro and its issueless when it comes to memory problems

What? Never had any memory issue on my old HTC Desire. I think only mid-range(and low-range) smartphones have memory issues, not high-range.

You should search before you post. A portion of the ram on android phones is dedicated to the radio (so you can always recieve and make calls no matter what apps are running) its down to the manufacturer to decide how much.
To my mind this borders on false advertising, as the avaliable ram is way less than the advertised amount.
Fyi iPhone still does not multitask. In that only 1 app (task) can run at any given time. Ios did recently introduce fast app switching. Which saves the state of an app to memory, stops it running and switches to another app. To enable you to skip the reloading into memory of the app if you want to switch back. Although you do still need to wait for network connections to be restablished etc when you switch back to a saved app.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA Premium App

I think it should not be an issue if all the memory is used .. why not use all the memory aviable .. if an app or the system needs more memory it should be automatically cleared by android! just because some task manager displays that the whole memory is in use you dont have too less memory ..

MouFou said:
I think it should not be an issue if all the memory is used .. why not use all the memory aviable .. if an app or the system needs more memory it should be automatically cleared by android! just because some task manager displays that the whole memory is in use you dont have too less memory ..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just one of those common misconceptions people have. They need to see free memory to feel good. Just like when Windows started using it's extra memory as a cache and everyone started flipping out because they had no free memory. Android is the same way because it's the intelligent way to do memory management. Use all the memory available, and if something needs memory, less important or background tasks are removed from memory. This is why a task killer is NOT necessary for Android, and will only hinder performance. Android phones have no memory issues at all. They work as they should, but you have to understand that some of the memory is dedicated to parts of the system outside the Android OS user space.

+1 above.... being a student and having taken a course on OS design in practice and in theory this is the best practice.... look at your desktop os... it may tell you in a memory manager that there is "free" memory but in reality it is already paged and being treated as cache until such time that a new application needs it.
It's simple memory theory, it's pointless to have it unless it's used.... great to see that mobile operating systems are starting to do it.... my BBerry storm doesn't that's part of the reason why it's a P.O.S. and I'm going to be dumping it for a SGS II

2GB of RAM unnecessary?! LOL

This is the 4th time I've opened my task manager today and realized I was using over a gig. It easy to use over a gig when its there
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

a phone OS using more ram than Vista??? not a good sign. God where are the AOSP roms already :crying:

Kernel knows it has more memory available so apps are more likely to stay in their suspended state, rather than removed from memory.
But I enjoy the 2GB of ram for sure.

dardani89 said:
a phone OS using more ram than Vista??? not a good sign. God where are the AOSP roms already :crying:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using RAM is not bad; needing RAM is bad. Android 4.0 can easily run with less than 400 MB, but some things can be a little faster when they don't have to constantly reload.

stuff said:
Kernel knows it has more memory available so apps are more likely to stay in their suspended state, rather than removed from memory.
But I enjoy the 2GB of ram for sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This. Everything switches back instantly!!
One of the most frustrating parts of the HTC OneX for me was when i was reading a long page of comments on sites like the verge or typing up a forum post. If i left the browser to reply to a text or facebook notification, and then returned to the browser it would always reload a page, and at the top.
Even the (heavy) Sense 4 launcher would have to load up every now and then.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747

Voltage Spike said:
Using RAM is not bad; needing RAM is bad. Android 4.0 can easily run with less than 400 MB, but some things can be a little faster when they don't have to constantly reload.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i wasn't making fun of android, i was making fun of touchwiz. too much bloat.

If the RAM will mean Nova Launcher wont reload itself as much as it currently does on my Incredible, then that's reason enough for me.

Having had the 1X for a month the 2 gb ram was one of the reasons I switched.

The 2GB of ram (and LTE) has been excessively downplayed by the International crowd because..well..they don't have it. The fact is the 2GB of ram should allow a stock phone to reload things much less. If you want to look forward 6 months to a year, I think the difference will be potentially much larger when we start to see creative devs tweaking their kernels to really use this extra ram. This is a ground breaking hardware move. We haven't even really begun to see what is possible. Judging any of these based on stock software at release is pointless. Think about how much better other phones have gotten after a few OTA updates....this device, especially with the extra ram is really well equipped for a long time.
Sent from my DROIDX using xda premium

jamesnmandy said:
The 2GB of ram (and LTE) has been excessively downplayed by the International crowd because..well..they don't have it. The fact is the 2GB of ram should allow a stock phone to reload things much less. If you want to look forward 6 months to a year, I think the difference will be potentially much larger when we start to see creative devs tweaking their kernels to really use this extra ram. This is a ground breaking hardware move. We haven't even really begun to see what is possible. Judging any of these based on stock software at release is pointless. Think about how much better other phones have gotten after a few OTA updates....this device, especially with the extra ram is really well equipped for a long time.
Sent from my DROIDX using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This ^^^
Truth
XDA Mobile

By the time any phone will actually use 2gb of ram, im sure most of us will have moved on to a new phone already. Of course having the extra ram is good for bragging rights, but does it actually mean anything? I'll say no, but im sure some will argue that.

shook187 said:
By the time any phone will actually use 2gb of ram, im sure most of us will have moved on to a new phone already. Of course having the extra ram is good for bragging rights, but does it actually mean anything? I'll say no, but im sure some will argue that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
they already make use of 1.1-1.2GB of ram out of the box running all stock software.......imagine if custom roms/kernels were available that make use of it....it's not far off....."by the time any phone will use" is closer than you think

jamesnmandy said:
they already make use of 1.1-1.2GB of ram out of the box running all stock software.......imagine if custom roms/kernels were available that make use of it....it's not far off....."by the time any phone will use" is closer than you think
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is good in theory but everyone on here is talking like we have been missing two gigs all this time in our phones. If you are coming to the S3 from a single core phone of course this is night and day. My SGSII has NEVER.....I repeat NEVER run out of memory lost track multitasking or had to close out multiple apps to make room for more.....how many apps does one need sitting in a suspended state?.....I have 5 or 6 apps open at any given time with PLENTY of room for more...sure the extra ram is nice to have, but its completely unnecessary ....dual cores with a gig of ram have NO problem doing heavy multitasking .....ask anyone running as SGSII or Gnex.
The extra ram in the S3 is there to offset the loss of quadcore....its a nice helping hand to the Krait chip but not necessary for everyday multitasking that the average person does.....I don't know what phones alot of you guys are coming from but from the sounds of these posts they were serious under achievers.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time

tylerdurdin said:
This is good in theory but everyone on here is talking like we have been missing two gigs all this time in our phones. If you are coming to the S3 from a single core phone of course this is night and day. My SGSII has NEVER.....I repeat NEVER run out of memory lost track multitasking or had to close out multiple apps to make room for more.....how many apps does one need sitting in a suspended state?.....I have 5 or 6 apps open at any given time with PLENTY of room for more...sure the extra ram is nice to have, but its completely unnecessary ....dual cores with a gig of ram have NO problem doing heavy multitasking .....ask anyone running as SGSII or Gnex.
The extra ram in the S3 is there to offset the loss of quadcore....its a nice helping hand to the Krait chip but not necessary for everyday multitasking that the average person does.....I don't know what phones alot of you guys are coming from but from the sounds of these posts they were serious under achievers.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think the reason you never saw your device running out of room is likely because the system knew how much memory it had to work with and was always adjusting things to accommodate as much memory....if the system had more memory available to it it can behave differently....it's not about "how many apps one needs in a suspended state", it's about "the more apps you can keep in a suspended state the quicker the apps will run for the user"
i know this isn't x86 and it's not windows, but the analogy still stands, consider Windows 7
if you build a pc using it with 2Gb of ram it will run just fine, it will use somewhere around 1Gb of ram sitting idle, using it for the prefetch cache to be ready to launch your most used apps while maintaining a safe amount of memory for sudden useage/overhead
if you upgrade that same pc to 4Gb of ram, it will use close to 2Gb at idle.....it's not quite linear as that but you can see a direct correlation between available memory and memory utilization
the Linux kernel behind android appears to work very similarly, it will keep the most called upon code in local memory so that it launches faster when next called upon. the more memory available to the kernel, the less time it can spend killing apps in order to maintain that same level of free memory for the unexpected execution of a new app
the more memory it has, if it is written/compiled to take advantage of it, the more potential for performance is there.
I would say the 2Gb of memory is more easily utilized than the additional redundant cores in the Exynos kit. I have been looking for some real data on Android and SMP but I know recently Intel made a rare public statement about how it is not ready for even dual core utilization. I don't think Intel would make such a specific claim without data. I don't think the Exynos users are really getting much good at all from the four cores other than synthetic benchmark scores and I think they could see more benefits down the road from more memory than redundant A9 older technology additional cores.
disclaimer: I am still learning about all this so if some smart guy comes along and sees something above that is not quite right....it's not because I am making this up....it's what I understand to be true based on reading.

jamesnmandy said:
i think the reason you never saw your device running out of room is likely because the system knew how much memory it had to work with and was always adjusting things to accommodate as much memory....if the system had more memory available to it it can behave differently....it's not about "how many apps one needs in a suspended state", it's about "the more apps you can keep in a suspended state the quicker the apps will run for the user"
i know this isn't x86 and it's not windows, but the analogy still stands, consider Windows 7
if you build a pc using it with 2Gb of ram it will run just fine, it will use somewhere around 1Gb of ram sitting idle, using it for the prefetch cache to be ready to launch your most used apps while maintaining a safe amount of memory for sudden useage/overhead
if you upgrade that same pc to 4Gb of ram, it will use close to 2Gb at idle.....it's not quite linear as that but you can see a direct correlation between available memory and memory utilization
the Linux kernel behind android appears to work very similarly, it will keep the most called upon code in local memory so that it launches faster when next called upon. the more memory available to the kernel, the less time it can spend killing apps in order to maintain that same level of free memory for the unexpected execution of a new app
the more memory it has, if it is written/compiled to take advantage of it, the more potential for performance is there.
I would say the 2Gb of memory is more easily utilized than the additional redundant cores in the Exynos kit. I have been looking for some real data on Android and SMP but I know recently Intel made a rare public statement about how it is not ready for even dual core utilization. I don't think Intel would make such a specific claim without data. I don't think the Exynos users are really getting much good at all from the four cores other than synthetic benchmark scores and I think they could see more benefits down the road from more memory than redundant A9 older technology additional cores.
disclaimer: I am still learning about all this so if some smart guy comes along and sees something above that is not quite right....it's not because I am making this up....it's what I understand to be true based on reading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are pretty spot on for the most part....but the difference here lies in the amount of ram needed to cache applications and perform extended tasks.....the reason my GSII never runs out of memory is because it has plenty for any array of tasks. While caching 8 applications I use all day...and still have anywhere from 325 to 400 megs available for any other array tasks .....I just can't see where I would need more.
As for your earlier mention of custom roms.....this becomes even less necessary ....right now a stock GS3 is using over a gig.....that's because its loaded chock full O'carrier BS on top of all samsungs layers of bloat and BS "features"....you strip all that crap out and you have a 275mb OS and more ram than you will know what to do with.
Bloat is the only thing requiring this extra ram because its running at system level which is also why Sense stuffed a dagger in the H1X.
Performance for launching is helped greatly by the processor for anything not in ram and the threshold for my phone is 64mb....which means my phone will not start killing of apps until that's met.....I could not seem to hit it just messing around.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time

tylerdurdin said:
You are pretty spot on for the most part....but the difference here lies in the amount of ram needed to cache applications and perform extended tasks.....the reason my GSII never runs out of memory is because it has plenty for any array of tasks. While caching 8 applications I use all day...and still have anywhere from 325 to 400 megs available for any other array tasks .....I just can't see where I would need more.
As for your earlier mention of custom roms.....this becomes even less necessary ....right now a stock GS3 is using over a gig.....that's because its loaded chock full O'carrier BS on top of all samsungs layers of bloat and BS "features"....you strip all that crap out and you have a 275mb OS and more ram than you will know what to do with.
Bloat is the only thing requiring this extra ram because its running at system level which is also why Sense stuffed a dagger in the H1X.
Performance for launching is helped greatly by the processor for anything not in ram and the threshold for my phone is 64mb....which means my phone will not start killing of apps until that's met.....I could not seem to hit it just messing around.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
right on, yeah i agree it's overkill right now. I just think within the next two years, we will easily see multiple areas where having more is better than having less. I am thinking way outside the box but I am seeing visions of custom kernels that are doing some extreme caching, even running a VM type environment.....actually I am thinking of running Android and perhaps there will be an opportunity to run Windows RT or some desktop version of Linux simultaneously......something a device with even four cores and 1GB of ram would have a hard time doing.....and that's not to say it would run well on the S4 US version either, but it is certainly more suited for it

jamesnmandy said:
right on, yeah i agree it's overkill right now. I just think within the next two years, we will easily see multiple areas where having more is better than having less. I am thinking way outside the box but I am seeing visions of custom kernels that are doing some extreme caching, even running a VM type environment.....actually I am thinking of running Android and perhaps there will be an opportunity to run Windows RT or some desktop version of Linux simultaneously......something a device with even four cores and 1GB of ram would have a hard time doing.....and that's not to say it would run well on the S4 US version either, but it is certainly more suited for it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like the way you think
Sent from........Somewhere In Time

tylerdurdin said:
You are pretty spot on for the most part....but the difference here lies in the amount of ram needed to cache applications and perform extended tasks.....the reason my GSII never runs out of memory is because it has plenty for any array of tasks. While caching 8 applications I use all day...and still have anywhere from 325 to 400 megs available for any other array tasks .....I just can't see where I would need more.
As for your earlier mention of custom roms.....this becomes even less necessary ....right now a stock GS3 is using over a gig.....that's because its loaded chock full O'carrier BS on top of all samsungs layers of bloat and BS "features"....you strip all that crap out and you have a 275mb OS and more ram than you will know what to do with.
Bloat is the only thing requiring this extra ram because its running at system level which is also why Sense stuffed a dagger in the H1X.
Performance for launching is helped greatly by the processor for anything not in ram and the threshold for my phone is 64mb....which means my phone will not start killing of apps until that's met.....I could not seem to hit it just messing around.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are partially right. My sensation xl and my friends galaxy note works multitask pretty well with just 768mb and 1GB ram. But that was on Gingerbread. Once we upgraded to ICS multitasking suffers tremendously. He even blamed me for persuading him to do the update. For GB 1GB is enough. For ICS 1GB is not enough if you want the best multitasking experience.

nativestranger said:
You are partially right. My sensation xl and my friends galaxy note works multitask pretty well with just 768mb and 1GB ram. But that was on Gingerbread. Once we upgraded to ICS multitasking suffers tremendously. He even blamed me for persuading him to do the update. For GB 1GB is enough. For ICS 1GB is not enough if you want the best multitasking experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have to blame both device and OS....I am running ICS on my GS2 and have not even seen the slightest difference.....although my battery is just slightly worse.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time

nativestranger said:
For GB 1GB is enough. For ICS 1GB is not enough if you want the best multitasking experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must be running some early leeks cause some of my phones like the GS2 and the evo 3d are running ICS flawlessly.

Do you overclock your N7?

Do you?
Do you keep it overckocked for a longer period, permanently, or just when/while you need it? How much (exact frequencies would be cool) I'm thinking of OCing mine (both CPU and GPU) since some games like NOVA 3 lag on occasions but not sure how safe/advisable it is.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

I don't think it's needed. I've heard that OC won't help much with gaming, but you can definitely try

I don't yet - I might later. My N7 is still less than a month old.
The device manufacturers (e.g. Asus in this case) have motivations to "not leave anything on the table" when it comes to performance. So, you have to ask yourself - why would they purposely configure things to go slowly?
After all, they need to compete with other handset/tablet manufacturers, who are each in turn free to go out and buy the exact same Tegra SoC (processor) from Nvidia.
At the same time, they know that they will manufacture millions of units, and they want to hold down their product outgoing defect levels and in-the-field product reliability problems to an acceptable level. If they don't keep malfunctions and product infant mortality down to a fraction of a percent, they will suffer huge brand name erosion problems. And that will affect not only sales of the current product, but future products too.
That means that they have to choose a conservative set of operating points which will work for 99+ % of all customer units manufactured across all temperature, voltage, and clock speed ranges. (BTW, Note that Asus didn't write the kernel EDP & thermal protection code - Nvidia did; that suggests that all the device manufacturers take their operating envelope from Nvidia; they really don't even want to know where Nvidia got their numbers)
Some folks take this to mean that the vast majority of units sold can operate safely at higher speeds, higher temperatures, or lower voltages, given that the "as shipped" configuration will allow "weak" or "slow" units to operate correctly.
But look, it's not as if amateurs - hacking kernels in their spare time - have better informed opinions or data about what will work or won't work well across all units. Simply put, they don't know what the statistical test properties of processors coming from the foundry are - and certainly can't tell you what the results will be for an individual unit. They are usually smart folks - but operating completely in the dark in regards to those matters.
About the only thing which can be said in a general way is that as you progressively increase the clock speed, or progressively weaken the thermal regulation, or progressively decrease the cpu core voltage stepping, your chances of having a problem with any given unit (yours) increase. A "problem" might be (1) logic errors which lead to immediate system crashes or hangs, (2) logic errors (in data paths) that lead to data corruption without a crash or (3) permanent hardware failure (usually because of thermal excursions).
Is that "safe"?
Depends on your definition of "safe". If you only use the device for entertainment purposes, "safe" might mean "the hardware won't burn up in the next 2-3 years". Look over in any of the kernel threads - you'll see folks who are not too alarmed about their device freezing or spontaneously rebooting. (They don't like it, but it doesn't stop them from flashing dev kernels).
If you are using the device for work or professional purposes - for instance generating or editing work product - then "safe" might mean "my files on the device or files transiting to and from the cloud won't get corrupted", or "I don't want a spontaneous kernel crash of the device to cascade into a bricked device and unrecoverable files". For this person, the risks are quite a bit higher.
No doubt some tool will come in here and say "I've been overclocking to X Ghz for months now without a problem!" - as if that were somehow a proof of how somebody else's device will behave. It may well be completely true - but a demonstration on a single device says absolutely nothing about how someone else's device will behave. Even Nvidia can't do that.
There's a lot of pretty wild stuff going on in some of the dev kernels. The data that exists as a form of positive validation for these kernels is a handful of people saying "my device didn't crash". That's pretty far removed from the rigorous testing performed by Nvidia (98+% fault path coverage on statistically significant samples of devices over temperature, voltage, and frequency on multi-million dollar test equipment.)
good luck!
PS My phone has it's Fmax OC'ed by 40% from the factory value for more than 2 years. That's not a proof of anything really - just to point out that I'm not anti-OC'ing. Just trying to say - nobody can provide you any assurances that things will go swimmingly on your device at a given operating point. It's up to you to decide whether you should regard it as "risky".

Wow thanks for your educational response, I learned something. Great post! I will see if I will over clock it or not since I can play with no problems at all, it is just that it hics up when there is too much stuff around. Thanks again!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

With the proper kernel its really not needed. Havent really seen any difference,aside from benchmark scores(which can be achieved without oc'ing)
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app

Yes, I run mine at 1.6 peak.
I've come to the Android world from the iOS world - the world of the iPhone, the iPad, etc.
One thing they're all brilliant at is responsive UI. The UI, when you tap it, responds. Android, prior to 4.1, didn't.
Android, with 4.1 and 4.2, does. Mostly.
You can still do better. I'm running an undervolted, overclocked M-Kernel, with TouchDemand governor, pushing to 2 G-cores on touch events.
It's nice and buttery, and renders complex PDF files far faster than stock when the cores peak at 1.6.
I can't run sustained at 1.6 under full load - it thermal throttles with 4 cores at 100% load. But I can get the peak performance for burst demands like page rendering, and I'm still quite efficient on battery.
There's no downside to running at higher frequencies as long as you're below stock voltages. Less heat, more performance.
If you start pushing the voltages past spec, yeah, you're likely into "shortening the lifespan." But if you can clock it up, and keep the voltages less than the stock kernel, there's really not much downside. And the upside is improved page rendering, improved PDF rendering, etc.
Gaming performance isn't boosted that much as most games aren't CPU bound. That said, I don't game. So... *shrug*.

Bitweasil said:
I can't run sustained at 1.6 under full load - it thermal throttles with 4 cores at 100% load.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Bitweasil
Kinda curious about something (OP, allow me a slight thread-jack!).
in an adb shell, run this loop:
# cd /sys/kernel/debug/tegra_thermal
# while [ 1 ] ; do
> sleep 1
> cat temp_tj
> done
and then run your "full load".
What temperature rise and peak temperature do you see? Are you really hitting the 95C throttle, or are you using a kernel where that is altered?
I can generate (w/ a mutli-threaded native proggy, 6 threads running tight integer loops) only about a 25C rise, and since the "TJ" in mine idles around 40C, I get nowhere near the default throttle temp. But I am using a stock kernel, so it immediately backs off to 1.2 Ghz when multicore comes on line.
Same sort of thing with Antutu or OpenGL benchmark suites (the latter of which runs for 12 minutes) - I barely crack 60C with the stock kernel.
?
bftb0

The kernel I'm using throttles around 70C.
I can't hit that at 1200 or 1300 - just above that I can exceed the temps.
I certainly haven't seen 95C.
M-Kernel throttles down to 1400 above 70C, which will occasionally get above 70C at 1400, but not by much.

Bitweasil said:
The kernel I'm using throttles around 70C.
I can't hit that at 1200 or 1300 - just above that I can exceed the temps.
I certainly haven't seen 95C.
M-Kernel throttles down to 1400 above 70C, which will occasionally get above 70C at 1400, but not by much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Any particular workload that does this, or is the throttle pretty easy to hit with arbitrary long-running loads?

Odp: Do you overclock your N7?
I'll never OC a quadcore phone/tablet, I'm not stupid. This is enough for me.
Sent from my BMW E32 using XDA App

I've over clocked my phone, but not my N7. I've got a Galaxy Ace with a single core 800MHz processor OC'd to 900+. The N7 with its quad core 1.3GHz is more than enough for doing what I need it to do. Using franco.Kernel and everything is smooth and lag-free. No need for me to overclock
Sent From My Awesome AOSPA3.+/franco.Kernel Powered Nexus 7 With XDA Premium

Impossible to do so can't even get root but did manage to unlock the bootloader
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

CuttyCZ said:
I don't think it's needed. I've heard that OC won't help much with gaming, but you can definitely try
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not a big OC'er, but I do see a difference in some games when I OC the GPU. It really depends on the game and what is the performance bottleneck. If the app is not Kernel bound than an OC won't make much difference. Must games are I/O and GPU bound.
Sent from my N7 using XDA Premium
Dirty AOKP 3.5 <&> m-kernel+ a34(t.10)

I've overclocked all of my devices since my first HTC hero. I really don't see a big deal with hardware life.
I know that this n7 runs games better at 1.6ghz than at 1.3ghz.
First thing I do when I get a new device is swap recovery and install aokp with the latest and greatest development kernel. Isn't that why all this great development exists? For us to make our devices better and faster? I think so. I'd recommend aokp and m-kernel to every nexus 7 owner. I wish more people would try non-stock.

scottx . said:
I've overclocked all of my devices since my first HTC hero. I really don't see a big deal with hardware life.
I know that this n7 runs games better at 1.6ghz than at 1.3ghz.
First thing I do when I get a new device is swap recovery and install aokp with the latest and greatest development kernel. Isn't that why all this great development exists? For us to make our devices better and faster? I think so. I'd recommend aokp and m-kernel to every nexus 7 owner. I wish more people would try non-stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you mean the pub builds of AOKP? Or Dirty AOKP
Ty

bftb0 said:
Thanks. Any particular workload that does this, or is the throttle pretty easy to hit with arbitrary long-running loads?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stability Test will do it reliably. Other workloads don't tend to run long enough to trigger it that I've seen.
And why is a quadcore magically "not to be overclocked"? Single threaded performance is still a major bottleneck.

Bitweasil said:
Stability Test will do it reliably. Other workloads don't tend to run long enough to trigger it that I've seen.
And why is a quadcore magically "not to be overclocked"? Single threaded performance is still a major bottleneck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Bitweasil,
I fooled around a little more with my horrid little threaded cpu-blaster code. Combined simultaneously with something gpu-intensive such as the OpenGL ES benchmark (which runs for 10-12 minutes), I observed peak temps (Tj) of about 83C with the stock kernel. That's a ridiculous load, though. I can go back and repeat the test, but from 40C it probably takes several minutes to get there. No complaints about anything in the kernel logs other than the EDP down-clocking, but that happens just as soon as the second cpu comes on line, irrespective of temperature. With either of the CPU-only or GPU-only stressors, the highest I saw was a little over 70C. (But, I don't live in the tropics!)
To your question - I don't think there is much risk of immediate hardware damage, so long as bugs don't creep into throttling code, or kernel bugs don't cause a flaw that prevents the throttling or down-clocking code from being serviced while the device is running in a "performance" condition. And long-term reliability problems will be no worse if the cumulative temperature excursions of the device are not higher than what than what they would be using stock configurations.
The reason that core voltages are stepped up at higher clock rates (& more cores online) is to preserve both logic and timing closure margins across *all possible paths* in the processor. More cores running means that the power rails inside the SoC package are noisier - so logic levels are a bit more uncertain, and faster clocking means there is less time available per clock for logic levels to stabilize before data gets latched.
Well, Nvidia has reasons for setting their envelope the way they do - not because of device damage considerations, but because they expect to have a pretty small fraction of devices that will experience timing faults *anywhere along millions of logic paths* under all reasonable operating conditions. Reducing the margin, whether by undervolting at high frequencies, or increasing max frequencies, or allowing more cores to run at peak frequencies will certainly increase the fraction of devices that experience logic failures along at least one path (out of millions!). Whether or not OC'ing will work correctly on an individual device can not be predicted in advance; the only thing that Nvidia can estimate is a statistical quantity - about what percent of devices will experience logic faults under a given operating conditon.
Different users will have different tolerance for faults. A gamer might have very high tolerance for random reboots, lockups, file system corruption, et cetera. Different story if you are composing a long email to your boss under deadline and your unit suddenly turns upside down.
No doubt there (theoretically) exists an overclocking implementation where 50% of all devices would have a logic failure within (say) 1 day of operation. That kind of situation would be readily detected in a small number of forum reports. But what about if it were a 95%/5% situation? One out of twenty dudes report a problem, and it is dismissed with some crazy recommendation such as "have you tried re-flashing your ROM?". And fault probability accumulates with time, especially when the testing loads have very poor path coverage. 5% failure over one day will be higher over a 30 day period - potentially much higher.
That's the crux of the matter. Processor companies spend as much as 50% of their per-device engineering budgets on test development. In some cases they actually design & build a second companion processor (that rivals the complexity of the first!) whose only function is to act as a test engine for the processor that will be shipped. Achieving decent test coverage is a non-trivial problem, and it is generally attacked with extremely disciplined testing over temperature/voltage/frequency with statistically significant numbers of devices - using test-vector sets (& internal test generators) that are known to provide a high level of path coverage. The data that comes from random ad-hoc reports on forums from dudes running random applications in an undisciplined way on their OC'ed units is simply not comparable. (Even "stressor" apps have very poor path coverage).
But, as I said, different folks have different tolerance for risk. Random data corruption is acceptable if the unit in question has nothing on it of value.
I poked my head in the M-kernel thread the other day; I thought I saw a reference to "two units fried" (possibly even one belonging to the dev?). I assume you are following that thread ... did I misinterpret that?
cheers

I don't disagree.
But, I'd argue that the stock speeds/voltages/etc are designed for the 120% case - they're supposed to work for about 120% of shipped chips. In other words, regardless of conditions, the stock clocks/voltages need to be reliable, with a nice margin on top.
Statistically, most of the chips will be much better than this, and that's the headroom overclocking plays in.
I totally agree that you eventually will get some logic errors, somewhere, at some point. But there's a lot of headroom in most devices/chips before you get to that point.
My use cases are heavily bursty. I'll do complex PDF rendering on the CPU for a second or two, then it goes back to sleep while I read the page. For this type of use, I'm quite comfortable with having pushed clocks hard. For sustained gaming, I'd run it lower, though I don't really game.

The most annoying problems with G3 explained

Firstly, let me apologize for my English and the lack of technical terminology in my vocabulary.
Secondly, a disclaimer: I do not own any Samsung phone. I think that my wife's LG G2 is the greatest phone in the world.
Let's get to the point...
Polish site PCLab has just published a detailed review of G3 (European model) with some astounding tests' results that might shed some light on all disturbing reports about problems with LG's new flagship device. And while Polish journalist praise the phone for its incredible design, great UI, decent camera, they are at the same time very disappointed with some serious software and hardware problems that G3 is suffering from. I have read tons of different reviews, but it's the first one that explains why this phone "lags", overheats etc.
Problem: POOR BENCHMARKS' RESULTS, LAGS
Some reasons:
1. It seems that RAM sticks (is that the correct word?) in G3 are worse in terms of quality than the ones from G2.
2. CPU management is set to deliberately lower clock rate and restrict maximum clock rate to one core only in most of the cases. And when all four cores are in use, CPU management does not allow them to work at maximum rate at all. It has some serious impact on UI operations as well and makes better chpset in G3 perform worse than Snapdragon 800 in G2.
3. The temperature. G3 has some serious problems with heat distribution. When the CPU is working for longer period of time, the clock rate is lowered to 1.5 GHz and (what's worse) GPU clock is being seriously restrained. For example, after several minutes GPU clock rate is slowered by 40% (from, say, 20 fps to 12 fps)! It's the worse throttling among all new flagships.
4. There's no trimming in system's internal memory. That's one of the most important causes of "lags".
5. The new UI has some problems with memory management. Sometimes while using few apps there is only 174 MB of 2 GB of memory avaible! And the only way to free memory is to restart the device.
And yes, this review also confirms problems with oversharpening of the text on G2 dispay. The reviewer says that it's the software issue (or rather: "LG's conscious marketing decision").
You can see all the screenshots from various tests here:
http://pclab.pl/art58419.html
I have no idea if these problems might be fixed with some software updates, but I really do hope so!

I've only read a little of it but one of the things that caught my eye is that they are complaining about having only small amount of free RAM. Another poster on here asked about this, RAM is used differently in Android as it is in Windows for example. Free RAM in Android is bad not to mention that the kernel is using around 25% of RAM as ZRAM which I believe is standard in 4.4 kernels! So the article in that point is wrong. I've also looked at the CPU usage on my phone and measured it against temperature. During normal use the temp is around 45-60degC and the CPU is not throttling its sitting at it max 2.5Ghz. I posted a screen shot of this on another thread. They may have a pre production model with early OS version.
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk
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OK, CPU V temp graphs of normal usage. CPU is spiking to 2.5Ghz, no throttling and temps are normal. RAM usage shows around 400MB free always. Totally normal for Android as I said it fills the RAM then kills apps as needed.
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 12:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:33 AM ----------
Batfink33 said:
I've only read a little of it but one of the things that caught my eye is that they are complaining about having only small amount of free RAM. Another poster on here asked about this, RAM is used differently in Android as it is in Windows for example. Free RAM in Android is bad! So the article in that point is wrong. I've also looked at the CPU usage on my phone and measured it against temperature. During normal use the temp is around 45-60degC and the CPU is not throttling its sitting at it max 2.5Ghz. I posted a screen shot of this on another thread. They may have a pre production model with early OS version.
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 12:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:25 AM ----------
OK, CPU V temp graphs of normal usage. CPU is spiking to 2.5Ghz, no throttling and temps are normal. RAM usage shows around 400MB free always. Totally normal for Android as I said it fills the RAM then kills apps as needed.
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk

Batfink33 said:
I've only read a little of it but one of the things that caught my eye is that they are complaining about having only small amount of free RAM. Another poster on here asked about this, RAM is used differently in Android as it is in Windows for example. Free RAM in Android is bad! So the article in that point is wrong. I've also looked at the CPU usage on my phone and measured it against temperature. During normal use the temp is around 45-60degC and the CPU is not throttling its sitting at it max 2.5Ghz. I posted a screen shot of this on another thread. They may have a pre production model with early OS version.
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 12:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:25 AM ----------
OK, CPU V temp graphs of normal usage. CPU is spiking to 2.5Ghz, no throttling and temps are normal. RAM usage shows around 400MB free always. Totally normal for Android as I said it fills the RAM then kills apps as needed.
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 12:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:33 AM ----------
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure about that?
Whenever I have less than 200MB RAM left, my homescreen redraws, opening/closing apps and browsing through the menus is slow.
Whenever I have more than 500MB left my phone is as snappy as the nexus 5.
Sent from my Xperia Z1

Jiyeon90 said:
Are you sure about that?
Whenever I have less than 200MB RAM left, my homescreen redraws, opening/closing apps and browsing through the menus is slow.
Whenever I have more than 500MB left my phone is as snappy as the nexus 5.
Sent from my Xperia Z1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android fills RAM up as you open apps up and leaves the apps in the RAM so you can multitask. As soon as it needs more RAM for other apps it automatically kills the apps sitting in the RAM. Launchers have a big RAM footprint, you're better using a lightweight launcher such as Nova and using the "aggressive" setting which means it never gets killed and sits in the RAM permanently. If you look at your RAM usage whether you have 2gb or 3gb it will always be mostly full as that's how the kernel us handling its usage, its filling it up for multitasking. The article in the op states that the RAM is always mostly full, yes that's good as that's what its supposed to be doing.
http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk

Bukary said:
Problem: POOR BENCHMARKS' RESULTS, LAGS
Some reasons:
2. CPU management is set to deliberately lower clock rate and restrict maximum clock rate to one core only in most of the cases. And when all four cores are in use, CPU management does not allow them to work at maximum rate at all. It has some serious impact on UI operations as well and makes better chpset in G3 perform worse than Snapdragon 800 in G2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is because LG is trying to run a QHD display on the Snapdragon 801 chipset. The Snapdragon 805 is required to run a QHD to achieve the same performance level as the Snapdragon 800 running on a 1080p display
You can read about it here - http://www.anandtech.com/show/8035/qualcomm-snapdragon-805-performance-preview/3
Manhattan continues to be a very stressful test but the onscreen results are pretty interesting. Adreno 420 can drive a 2560 x 1440 display at the same frame rate that Adreno 330 could drive a 1080p display.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Bukary said:
4. There's no trimming in system's internal memory. That's one of the most important causes of "lags".
(
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No TRIM? Are you sure? Don't all devices with Android 4.3 and above have TRIM automatically enabled?

dhkx said:
No TRIM? Are you sure? Don't all devices with Android 4.3 and above have TRIM automatically enabled?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. Android has that built in now.
All these reviews are annoying. The device just came out. A lot of this can be fixed via an update.

Lostatsea23 said:
Yeah. Android has that built in now.
All these reviews are annoying. The device just came out. A lot of this can be fixed via an update.
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Trim is built in, yeah. The G3 does have issues and the S801is at its limit pushing the QHD display but with ROM and kernel optimization there's still more performance in the phone.
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk

Jiyeon90 said:
Are you sure about that?
Whenever I have less than 200MB RAM left, my homescreen redraws, opening/closing apps and browsing through the menus is slow.
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That is exactly what the reviewers says: when there was only 174 MB of free RAM the phone started to redraw homescreen and freeze. There was no way to get rid of this. Uninstalling apps and closing them did not help. One could only restart the device. The journalist claims that this software issue can be fixed with an update (if LG decides to release one).
dhkx said:
No TRIM? Are you sure? Don't all devices with Android 4.3 and above have TRIM automatically enabled?
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Well, the reviewer also says that trimming at fixed moments (or while deleting files) is standard for Android, YET the test revealed that in system's memory of G3 there is no trimming. He is also surprised and says that the quality of this emmory (eMMC) is good, but no trim makes it laggy. (I hope I understood it correctly).
Lostatsea23 said:
All these reviews are annoying. The device just came out. A lot of this can be fixed via an update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also hope that it will be fixed. But so far there is no serious update. And it's been 5 (6?) weeks since Korean release. And, as far as I know, no other flagship device had such a serious problems. Can you imagine Z2 or S5 perform worse than Z1 or S4? And yet G3 with 801 (in some tests) performs worse than G2 with 800.

Bukary said:
YET the test revealed that in system's memory of G3 there is no trimming. He is also surprised and says that the quality of this emmory (eMMC) is good, but no trim makes it laggy. (I hope I understood it right).
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What test? Would you care to link any of these sources

Enddo said:
What test? Would you care to link any of these sources
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I linked this review in my first post in this thread.
I am no technical guy, so I can't check if the reviwer is correct, but I tried to translate everything accurately. I want to buy G3, so I am hoping that all these problems can and will be fixed by LG soon.

Jiyeon90 said:
Are you sure about that?
Whenever I have less than 200MB RAM left, my homescreen redraws, opening/closing apps and browsing through the menus is slow.
Whenever I have more than 500MB left my phone is as snappy as the nexus 5.
Sent from my Xperia Z1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Xposed App Settings to set your Launcher as 'Resident'. Got rid of this issue for me.

The CPU almost always staying at 300mhz is the largest issue I have with the phone - its not a huge issue, more of an annoyance. I am guessing its been done to maximise battery life and reduce heat.
I don't think this is due to thermal throttling, but if I am wrong please correct me - has anyone had success with turning the throttling off?

It looks like as an author of this article (I completely did not expect to find this link here ) I need to clarify few things.
Batfink33 said:
I've only read a little of it but one of the things that caught my eye is that they are complaining about having only small amount of free RAM. Another poster on here asked about this, RAM is used differently in Android as it is in Windows for example. Free RAM in Android is bad not to mention that the kernel is using around 25% of RAM as ZRAM which I believe is standard in 4.4 kernels! So the article in that point is wrong. I've also looked at the CPU usage on my phone and measured it against temperature. During normal use the temp is around 45-60degC and the CPU is not throttling its sitting at it max 2.5Ghz. I posted a screen shot of this on another thread. They may have a pre production model with early OS version.
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I'm well aware that "RAM not in use is wasted RAM" and that Android keeps a lot of things in memory to make everything faster, not slower. When my G3 has ~300-400 MB of free memory, everything works fine, but after some time it fills up and there is no room form launcher, more than 1 tab in Chrome and so on. It clearly is some problem with memory management and as an long-time Nexus user I'd rather say it's a bug, not a feature
Enddo said:
What test? Would you care to link any of these sources
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Click to collapse
Claim that every smartphone with Android 4.3 or newer allways has TRIM because it is "built-in" is not entirely true. There are different ways of supporting TRIM. Most common one is ext4 filesystem with discard flag active (ext4 without discard does not TRIM automatically), which was used even before ANdroid 4.3. Motorola has F2FS filesystem, which is optimized for NAND storage and has garbage collector allways active. There is also "Nexus way" TRIM with garbage collection demon running in background. In G3 data partition is ext4 without discard flag and in system logs there are no signs of any TRIM commands running in background, so AFAIK there is no TRIM support in G3 at the moment, or I have strange preproduction sample. The best way of checking that would be rooting G3 and running fstrim() manualy, but i can't do that with my review sample.
Enddo said:
This is because LG is trying to run a QHD display on the Snapdragon 801 chipset. The Snapdragon 805 is required to run a QHD to achieve the same performance level as the Snapdragon 800 running on a 1080p display
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That's not the whole storry. Yes, highier ressolution is part of it, but it looks like G3 has very small thermal headroom and during longer heavy GPU load it's clocks get cut by ~40%. (unfortunately i can't paste links in my posts yet). During 30 minutes long GFXBench loop, after ~15 minutes GPU throtling kicks in and this Snapdragon 801 gets much slower, than Snapdragon. Yes, allmost every new smartphone with S800/S801 throttles in such situations, but G3's case is most extreme one I've ever seen.
Lostatsea23 said:
All these reviews are annoying. The device just came out. A lot of this can be fixed via an update.
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Click to collapse
And selling beta hardware with beta software for full price isn't annoying?
I'll try to figure out with Polish LG representatives if these problems are typical only for this specific sample, or it's something more common. At the moment my opinion is that G3 is very cool phone if your typical usage scenarios do not hit the "heat wall", but if they do this phone gets pretty annoying (backlight dimming, heavy GPU throttling and I've even managed to overheat camera so it stopped recording 4K video after 2 minutes 15 seconds).a
Unfortunately my english is not as good as I'd like it to be, but I hope I explained few things a bit.

bedlamite said:
I hope I explained few things a bit.
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Thank you, bedlamite!
Could you tell us if any of these issues might be fixed with some software updates?

bedlamite said:
It looks like as an author of this article (I completely did not expect to find this link here ) I need to clarify few things.
I'm well aware that "RAM not in use is wasted RAM" and that Android keeps a lot of things in memory to make everything faster, not slower. When my G3 has ~300-400 MB of free memory, everything works fine, but after some time it fills up and there is no room form launcher, more than 1 tab in Chrome and so on. It clearly is some problem with memory management and as an long-time Nexus user I'd rather say it's a bug, not a feature
Claim that every smartphone with Android 4.3 or newer allways has TRIM because it is "built-in" is not entirely true. There are different ways of supporting TRIM. Most common one is ext4 filesystem with discard flag active (ext4 without discard does not TRIM automatically), which was used even before ANdroid 4.3. Motorola has F2FS filesystem, which is optimized for NAND storage and has garbage collector allways active. There is also "Nexus way" TRIM with garbage collection demon running in background. In G3 data partition is ext4 without discard flag and in system logs there are no signs of any TRIM commands running in background, so AFAIK there is no TRIM support in G3 at the moment, or I have strange preproduction sample. The best way of checking that would be rooting G3 and running fstrim() manualy, but i can't do that with my review sample.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the clarification.
Everytime I open my multitasking I have a look at my RAM bar and its always between 350-400mb so I don't think I have the problem you're having.
I have rooted and FSTRIM runs fine on my G3...
I do agree with you though, there is issues.
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk

Guys, the 801 is more than capable of handling QHD, the problem is heating, when the phone gets hot there's aggressive cpu throttling by LG software. The 805 is more powerful with less heat so that's why it more suitable for QHD devices. Same goes to the screen not so bright too much heat.

*OFFTOPIC*
Guys please put those high-res pictures in spoilers! They are totally overloading this thread.
Spoiler
( /SPOILER]
Thank you.

No TRIMM??
Is this serious?
I've always feared that most manufacturers don't include TRIMM or take it away from their phones because that way the phone slows down and forces the consumers to upgrade to a newer one.

Sensamic said:
No TRIMM??
Is this serious?
I've always feared that most manufacturers don't include TRIMM or take it away from their phones because that way the phone slows down and forces the consumers to upgrade to a newer one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The FSTRIM app works fine, I posted this above?
Sent From My LG G3 Using Tapatalk