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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
Click to expand...
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
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
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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.
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You must be running some early leeks cause some of my phones like the GS2 and the evo 3d are running ICS flawlessly.
I have poor gaming performance on my i9505. It's not lagging, but the FPS is not high enought to play the games smoothly. Actually I was waiting that all games will run smooth, when I was buing i9505, but I'm really disappointed.
for example Real Racing 3 doesnt run smoothly on high and ultra high details (which are default for i9505)- the more cars on the screen, the poor the performance.
Simpsons Tapped out - the same problem, game is lagging on some parts of the city. Actually the game has the same poor performance as on galaxy S2.
GTA Vice City also poor performance on medium and higher details.
Doesn't helps to restart the phone, there is enough available RAM +200MB when playing any game. The CPU monitor shows, that 1core runs on 100%, second core 50% and 3,4th core 0% on every game, clock is set aroung 1GHz. I'm running stock android 4.3 with touchwiz
Is it a problem of poor GPU performance, or the apps are not optimized?
Does anybody other has the same problem?
maybe there is an solution to lock GPU clock and prevent phone from downgrading the GPU clock...
Why is the phone running at 1GHz? Stock for the phone is 1.9GHz?
energy savings on?
no no, the phone is running OK, I don't have enabled power saving.
The clock of the CPU changes depending on the CPU load - it works good.
But for example, when I'm playing real racing 3 on default graphics settings, the CPU clock changes, but in average, the clock is around 1.2GHz and usually only 2 cores active. But sometimes and all it's cores goes on 100%. - this works OK.
But I don't understand, why most of the games are not smooth, and doesn't load the cpu on 100% to get smoother - that's the problem. Or maybe it's a problem of GPU?
Or the question could be: How to get the maximum performance from i9505? Because I don't think, that the games are using all of the phone performance and therefore the games are not smooth.
niio said:
no no, the phone is running OK, I don't have enabled power saving.
The clock of the CPU changes depending on the CPU load - it works good.
But for example, when I'm playing real racing 3 on default graphics settings, the CPU clock changes, but in average, the clock is around 1.2GHz and usually only 2 cores active. But sometimes and all it's cores goes on 100%. - this works OK.
But I don't understand, why most of the games are not smooth, and doesn't load the cpu on 100% to get smoother - that's the problem. Or maybe it's a problem of GPU?
Or the question could be: How to get the maximum performance from i9505? Because I don't think, that the games are using all of the phone performance and therefore the games are not smooth.
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Gameloft and other companies have not remotely optimised their games for the S4 archetecture, so they just lag and run poorly. ART in Kitkat may well solve a lot of this issue once it is fully implemented and supported. Some games run fantastically well (bard's tale) and others (gameloft, gta vice city and others) run absolutely awful. I installed them on S3 and they run great, and the CPU useage and GPU is far better. It's a mix of the S4 and the game devs. OpenGL ES3.0 helps in 4.3 (especially google edition, touchwiz slows EVERYTHING) and ART hopefully will help again in 4.4.
RossFixxed said:
Gameloft and other companies have not remotely optimised their games for the S4 archetecture, so they just lag and run poorly. ART in Kitkat may well solve a lot of this issue once it is fully implemented and supported. Some games run fantastically well (bard's tale) and others (gameloft, gta vice city and others) run absolutely awful. I installed them on S3 and they run great, and the CPU useage and GPU is far better. It's a mix of the S4 and the game devs. OpenGL ES3.0 helps in 4.3 (especially google edition, touchwiz slows EVERYTHING) and ART hopefully will help again in 4.4.
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so one option is to flash stock android without touchwiz, or second option is to wait for 4.4, which will come in next year?
niio said:
so one option is to flash stock android without touchwiz, or second option is to wait for 4.4, which will come in next year?
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I find the Google Edition better, but far from perfect for gaming. I'm using a rom for Google Edition. 4.4 can be flashed now with ART support, but as it is Alpha/Beta status at the moment (even though alpha/beta aren't used as they actually are in software testing) so there are niggles and bugs. I'd say flash 4.3 and see if any better, keep backups, and maybe if you're adventurous try 4.4.
As I say it's better but badly optimised games will just be badly optimised games that lag and stutter. That's gameloft in my experience in general. Filter reviews by 'from this device model only' on the play store and see how many 1 star reveiws there are from S4 users. The S3 is far faster with the same games side by side. ART better sort this rubbish out!
so maybe it's a reason to move to iOS, where the apps are perfectly optimized
niio said:
so maybe it's a reason to move to iOS, where the apps are perfectly optimized
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As much as I love Android, the user experience on iOS is really really lovely. The games load so well and they tend (not always) to run great! Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and I don't buy into this calling names rubbish android forums always devlove into. The best user experience for me on all my devices is the iPad. It's pretty much perfect out of the box.
Obvioiusly iOS is very restrictive and closed and the keyboard drives me mad, but yeah it's a good alternative to Android.
Writing an Android app is an exercise in sacrifice. Hey there's a cool new feature in 4.3 I can use for notifications... and 95% of my customer base is gone already on older versions etc. It's very, very annoying. And throw in OEM messing with the OS and you have a huge fragmented mess on your hands.
iOS ain't perfect but let's not be totally blinded to its positive points.
EDIT: My current setup I tend to use most is my S4 (GE rom) and iPad for tablet. Seem to suit best
I've moved over to 4.4 and been trying various ROMs, particularly Cyanfox and Neat. I decided to use ART, since that basically is where android is headed. I have over 200 apps on my phone and I haven't had any problem with any of them so far. I don't think that a normal user is really going to see a huge difference between ART and Dalvik. ART doesn't subjectively seem that much faster (and if your animation speeds are set fast enough, Dalvik can seem damn fast). Supposedly ART will give better battery life, but I can't verify that either. One thing I did notice is how much more space ART-optimized apps need. Fortunately, I had already remapped the PIT from 2gb to 4gb. If I hadn't done that, I couldn't use ART. My free space dropped from 2.3gb to 1.6gb. I think that is probably going to be a big issue in the future, as 4.4 (and likely 4.5, etc.) is supposed to be friendly to older devices and devices with lower RAM. I mean, if ART uses that much more space and you have a low RAM device, how many apps will you really be able to put on it? My S2 has 2gb device memory plus 16gb internal storage, which I was able to remap. What if you have, say 768gb plus 8gb, like an s-advance or other low to midrange phone? Like I said, that could mean not enough room to have ART and a large bunch of apps.
Im using ART too, i havent really compared space usage between it and Dalvik, but will do it the next time i full wipe
I feel the phone feels a little less laggy with art (not that it was laggy in the first place, but the transitions and all that feel slightly faster)
About the devices with less ram, if art really works the way its supposed to, the apps should consume less ram while opening/operating, although we have the space drawback (which would force users to either install apps to their sdcards if possible, or change the space allocated to apps)
Thy said it would run in lower performance devices (not that there wouldnt be any drawbacks in doing so)
I have been using ART on CeleriterRom 2.2 for about 8 weeks now. Seems speedy and stable.
Hello !
After long weeks of searching the answer and solution to my problem, I am exhausted. So I would like to ask the biggest Android community for help
Well, I know it's not new, but I have problem with my S7 Edge (Exynos) performance
I experience FPS drops in almost every game I play. As for games it's not that irritating, but recently I have bought Gear VR and while having this thing so close to your eyes, you see every frame skipping.
Apps for checking the CPU throttling shows that after 5-10 minutes the 4 bigger cores slow down to about 50% of their full speed. It leads to ~30% performance slow down.
I tried every solution that doesn't require root access and warranty void. For example: disabling certain packages and services (Game Launcher, Game optimization service); different settings in Game Tuner; performance mode; factory reset etc. Nothing works.
Does this kind of problems can be repaired on warranty? I know that in order to fix this you can change kernel setting, cpu governor etc but ofc they don't do that in Samsung Service Center. Is it possible for them to replace the main board and cpu with Snapdragon one?
I would not like to root my device because I didn't want to lose my 3 years warranty and I am using a lot of applications that may not work with a root.
Thank you in advance for all your replies
Did you try the game performance mode? As the "performance mode" is just screen resolution and brightness. The game mode is the real performance mode where the temps throttling is relaxed and higher clock speeds allowed(you can also edit the profile to set the resolution manually to wqhd). You can also try to set the resolution to full hd and see how it goes (tho for VR it won't be cool, but for the test it won't hurt). Also if the phone is new, it will need atleast 10 days to settle and become faster, smoother, better. Apply updates if they are pending too.
Otherwise you can't do much without root, but even then you are limited to what you can achieve so be careful + samsung have a fuse into the chip that burns out when you root the phone, it's not possible to hide the intervention and they can deny warranty for that reason (and often do so).
high_voltage said:
Did you try the game performance mode? As the "performance mode" is just screen resolution and brightness. The game mode is the real performance mode where the temps throttling is relaxed and higher clock speeds allowed(you can also edit the profile to set the resolution manually to wqhd). You can also try to set the resolution to full hd and see how it goes (tho for VR it won't be cool, but for the test it won't hurt). Also if the phone is new, it will need atleast 10 days to settle and become faster, smoother, better. Apply updates if they are pending too.
Otherwise you can't do much without root, but even then you are limited to what you can achieve so be careful + samsung have a fuse into the chip that burns out when you root the phone, it's not possible to hide the intervention and they can deny warranty for that reason (and often do so).
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Thank you for your reply
Yes, I've tried "game mode" but there is no difference. Changing resolution to Full HD helps for a while, but the Gear VR software doesn't work properly on anything other than WQHD. It just doesn't scale properly and you are unable to see whole content.
I'm just wondering whether every S7 Edge has problems like mine. I understand throttling after 20-30 minutes of intensive gameplay, but ~40% slow down after 3-5 minutes seems strange, especially because phone doesn't even get warm.
emsitek said:
Thank you for your reply
Yes, I've tried "game mode" but there is no difference. Changing resolution to Full HD helps for a while, but the Gear VR software doesn't work properly on anything other than WQHD. It just doesn't scale properly and you are unable to see whole content.
I'm just wondering whether every S7 Edge has problems like mine. I understand throttling after 20-30 minutes of intensive gameplay, but ~40% slow down after 3-5 minutes seems strange, especially because phone doesn't even get warm.
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Hard to tell, got the phone, but no vr... :/
Otherwise I don't have problems with gaming, the game mode smooths a little the already fluid gaming(but then again, the game I play mostly is vainglory and that game runs great on htc m8 that is almost 4 years old). You are talking about some more massive performance drop. Many phones start to throttle early and throttle hard, samsung is one of them for sure (they want the phone cold).
@hamdir can you lend a hand on that one? You are tons more experience with VR than me.
high_voltage said:
Hard to tell, got the phone, but no vr... :/
Otherwise I don't have problems with gaming, the game mode smooths a little the already fluid gaming(but then again, the game I play mostly is vainglory and that game runs great on htc m8 that is almost 4 years old). You are talking about some more massive performance drop. Many phones start to throttle early and throttle hard, samsung is one of them for sure (they want the phone cold).
@hamdir can you lend a hand on that one? You are tons more experience with VR than me.
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Well, there is an app called CPU Throttling Test on Google Play. I would be really thankful if you give me information how your phone behave in this app. Mine throttles hard after 3-8 minutes. Clock speed of the better cores goes down to about 1.6GHz each. Sometimes even below 1.5GHz.
emsitek said:
Well, there is an app called CPU Throttling Test on Google Play. I would be really thankful if you give me information how your phone behave in this app. Mine throttles hard after 3-8 minutes. Clock speed of the better cores goes down to about 1.6GHz each. Sometimes even below 1.5GHz.
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From a cold phone, 1.9GHz almost right away(I guess the highest freq is only for burst load, like app launching) and kept for 8 minutes then drop to 1.57GHz on the big cores. So I think it's in line with your result.
high_voltage said:
From a cold phone, 1.9GHz almost right away(I guess the highest freq is only for burst load, like app launching) and kept for 8 minutes then drop to 1.57GHz on the big cores. So I think it's in line with your result.
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Yeah, that would be it. Thank you for your time. So it seems to be normal, I hope I'll get used to it somehow
I also wrote an email to Oculus, maybe they heard sth about this issue and know a fix for frames skipping.
The notorious feature known as DVFS is the likely culprit. Some forum members suggest it throttles the GPU and CPU to improve benchmark results or otherwise to protect the device. I've noticed it can lock-up and end up overheating the device but that's just an anecdote.
You can try forcing the app to run at a lower resolution which Samsung's Game Tuner does for some games, or find other solutions for unrooted devices like capping CPU frequency for a smoother experience.
nexidus said:
The notorious feature known as DVFS is the likely culprit. Some forum members suggest it throttles the GPU and CPU to improve benchmark results or otherwise to protect the device. I've noticed it can lock-up and end up overheating the device but that's just an anecdote.
You can try forcing the app to run at a lower resolution which Samsung's Game Tuner does for some games, or find other solutions for unrooted devices like capping CPU frequency for a smoother experience.
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Almost all the phones are tweaked to use max freq only on single core load and app startup (burst). If their power management detect heavy load on all cores, it will automatically scale down to lower freq state to prevent heat building up fast. In reality in our case this is 1.87GHz for all big cores + the small ones (higher if only the big cluster is used, leaving the small cores off). The first actual thermal throttling level is 1.56-1.57GHz at around 8 minutes mark. Games would take a lot longer and in my observation as the phone is big and none will use 8 cores at the same time - there will be no throttling, just power management and stable fps. His case is different tho, VR is really a heavy one on the CPU.
As for DVFS (and extended to samsung power management, every manufacturer has it's own management) - it's there for a reason, to use your phone without major slowdowns due to heat and to be cold in touch, i.e. better for use. You can always change the behaviour via custom kernel, but you can't get more performance without heating the phone to the point of hardware throttling or uncomfortable to hold. Actually as you said - the right way if modify is to cap to lower freq and try to command the phone to keep them. This would still lead to a lot of heat, but will take some time to build up (and it will look smoother, tho with lower fps). OC is pointless for speed gains, will work only for burst loads. UV is not effective too as nowdays the SOC's are heavily binned for optimal settings from the factory.
Disable throttlinf dvfs exynos
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