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.
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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?
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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)
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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.
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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 ..
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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
Related
Guys, how can I get my samsung vibrant to recognize all the 512mb of ram. I thought froyo has all the software and kernels and stuff to recognize the full 512mb of my phone not just 308mb. Do I need to flash a new kernel or something. I have the nero v3 rom on my phone, with voodoo enabled. So how do we fix this?
308 MB you phone is showing you is the correct amount, your phone does have 512 MB of RAM total. However, part of that is used by the phone and android system to supply your phone's graphics card and other functions such as a RAM disk if I remembered correctly. In addition, You don't want your phone to run out of memory because you are running a game and missed that all important call right? well part of the RAM is reserved to keep the "phone" portion of the Android working.
It is a common misconception that Froyo will "unlock" this hidden RAM, but in reality we are already using all the RAM that came with the phone. The reason some HTC phone shows 512 MB of RAM is either because the phone is reading the "TotaL" amount of RAM or in the case of G2 the phone actually came with more than 512 MB of ram but advertised as 512 MB (the extra RAM is used in the same way as the Vibrant, GPU/Ram disk/Android, etc).
What about the iphone, my cousin always gets 300t mb of free memory on his iphone 4. Android can't be that much of a ram hog. By the way doesn't the power vr gpu have dedicated ram for it self, I man come on, its a high end phone. Samsung is really messing up on there phones.
My question is *why* do you need more free RAM? Are you really running out, ever? Don't think of it like a PC where you need free RAM as overhead when apps start utilizing more and more. Android will free up more RAM as necessary by killing apps that are preloaded in the background. I've never run into a situation where I've run out of memory, couldn't even tell you what happens when you do. I don't use task-killers, run a ton of widgets, and I've never seen it dip below 60-70mb free.
Kubernetes said:
My question is *why* do you need more free RAM? Are you really running out, ever? Don't think of it like a PC where you need free RAM as overhead when apps start utilizing more and more. Android will free up more RAM as necessary by killing apps that are preloaded in the background. I've never run into a situation where I've run out of memory, couldn't even tell you what happens when you do. I don't use task-killers, run a ton of widgets, and I've never seen it dip below 60-70mb free.[/QUOTE
Yes I do run out of ram. Every time I watch a flash video and while leaving no heavy ram using apps to be multitasked, after I finish my vigo and go back to my other apps I finder them killed. It gets on my nerves. I expected more out of 512mb. I also spent too much money for my phone for it to perform under shar what it's specified.
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I run autokiller and always have 150ish.free. even if I didn't run it I would never run out id ram even when I had my g1
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So much for multitasking, right?
Phone has 384 app accessible ram. Typically runs with ~100ish free after a fresh boot with a stock ROM. The browser can take ~30mb, so that doesn't leave much to multitasking with. When ur phone starts auto killing performance decreases. They should have h put the aeverised ram in the phone, instead of playing the semantics game. Even Verizon updated their fascinate specs to change that to 384.
I'll make sure to check this before I buy my next phone in a couple weeks tho (soooo excited!!!).
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N8ter said:
So much for multitasking, right?
Phone has 384 apparently accessible ram. Even Verizon updated their fascinate specs to change that.
Galaxy tab uses the same social and its alwaysvshowing 400+ MB ram on everyone I checked.
I'll make sure to check this before I buy my next phone in a couple weeks tho (soooo excited!!!).
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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This means that this is a software issue, not hardware because the tab has the same processor found in the vibrant. 400t is allot better than just 300, not only but the tab also requires more resources with it's 720p screen.
helikido said:
This means that this is a software issue, not hardware because the tab has the same processor found in the vibrant. 400t is allot better than just 300, not only but the tab also requires more resources with it's 720p screen.
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It's not a software issue.
And yes, 100MB RAM in a smartphone is a lot.
It's like getting a computer with 4GB RAM and ripping a 2GB RAM stick out out of it.
There's 128 MB RAM that isn't accessible to the system The OS itself probably uses abut 100+ MB RAM, and once you start installing applications/services that start eating up resources.
Some say the 128 is dedicated graphics ram (fast graphics RAM to allow the Hummingbird to achieve it's faster GPU performance). What a waste. I'll make sure my next phone isn't built like a game console.
They should have at least added another 64MB RAM the way HTC did in the HD2/HD7.
The phone has as much App RAM as a mid-range Android device (think HTC Aria). It's factorable, especially if you want to multitask. Running multiple applications on this phone, I basically have to manage my apps they way I did on Windows Mobile (i.e. open task manager to FC the browser, etc.) because you don't want to be playing a game or doing anything somewhat important when the phone starts trying to auto-close background tasks to recover RAM (and some services will simply restart themselves immediately).
Good phone, bad execution in the software, and they should not have advertised it as having 512 RAM, because to anyone that isn't an idiot Graphics RAM is not synonymous with Application RAM, and 128 less RAM is quite a big chunk to be missing.
...Graphics RAM is not synonymous with Application RAM, and 128 less RAM is quite a big chunk to be missing.
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Virtually every computer on the shelf at Wally-World and Best Buy do exactly this - the motherboard graphics chip uses system RAM to operate. Admittedly does not directly correlate to a phone, and they should make a disclosure, but there is ample precedent in the general marketplace.
I don't understand why some of you attribute a free RAM amount (or lack thereof) as a memory hog?
If RAM is used instead of slower disk I/O it translates to a better user experience, the OS is good on keeping the taps on the memory and clean the thrash by itself, but nothing can prevent poor coding and a single rouge app can become the memory hog independent of how much RAM your system has, it might eat all of it.
The real problem is that the phone has only about 150mb of free ram and that'd on boot up. If the phone does have some ram dedicated to the gpu from the system ram (known as shared ram) then why
Don't other android devices do that too, and the iphone has more free ram on boot up then what is user acsesable to me. I thought the gloriose sgx540 had it's own high end dedicated ram for graphics?
N8ter said:
So much for multitasking, right?
Phone has 384 app accessible ram. Typically runs with ~100ish free after a fresh boot with a stock ROM. The browser can take ~30mb, so that doesn't leave much to multitasking with. When ur phone starts auto killing performance decreases. They should have h put the aeverised ram in the phone, instead of playing the semantics game. Even Verizon updated their fascinate specs to change that to 384.
I'll make sure to check this before I buy my next phone in a couple weeks tho (soooo excited!!!).
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
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If you hate your vibrant so much why do you spend so much time on the forums? Dont seem to contribute much so just go get a new phone and leave us alone.
ionic7 said:
If you hate your vibrant so much why do you spend so much time on the forums? Dont seem to contribute much so just go get a new phone and leave us alone.
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Click to collapse
There is an ignore list feature on these forums
helikido said:
The real problem is that the phone has only about 150mb of free ram and that'd on boot up. If the phone does have some ram dedicated to the gpu from the system ram (known as shared ram) then why
Don't other android devices do that too, and the iphone has more free ram on boot up then what is user acsesable to me. I thought the gloriose sgx540 had it's own high end dedicated ram for graphics?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And how is that a problem?
Do you have an immediate need for something that requires 150+ MB after the boot?
Here's an absolutely healthy linux system with 2GB of RAM:
Code:
free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2049868 1982076 67792 0 146988 840748
-/+ buffers/cache: 994340 1055528
Swap: 6008824 820 6008004
I will be worried if my swap is being used a lot, but using my memory on the system is good.
I agree with this. 512 advertised, 308 seen, 150 Available after a boot....my phone keeps running out of memory so often its sad. It can never run my music player and my gps software at the same time. When I switch between the 2 apps, it closes the other one and its really really sad to see. ****ty job samsung, ****ty job. I hope the galaxy s mod gets ported for the ram which opens 338mb. At least its something.
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}{Alienz}{ said:
It can never run my music player and my gps software at the same time.
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I just went on a 700+ mile car trip with the music player and gps navigation software running the entire time. No problem. Was even able to simultaneously play games while my wife was driving.
}{Alienz}{ said:
I agree with this. 512 advertised, 308 seen, 150 Available after a boot....my phone keeps running out of memory so often its sad. It can never run my music player and my gps software at the same time. When I switch between the 2 apps, it closes the other one and its really really sad to see. ****ty job samsung, ****ty job. I hope the galaxy s mod gets ported for the ram which opens 338mb. At least its something.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you have a rouge app/apps running that memory hog your phone, getting 30MB of more available RAM will not save it. You need to find what is hogging your phone, I am yet to see a message that my phone is low on memory, sometimes I do a lot of browsing, txt, mytracks and playing music with Pandora or stock player at the same time and it never complained that it was low on memory to run these.
ionic7 said:
If you hate your vibrant so much why do you spend so much time on the forums? Dont seem to contribute much so just go get a new phone and leave us alone.
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Click to collapse
Who said that I hate my phone.I'm only truong to find out shar mashes it not recognize all it's ram. In this era, ram is a huge factor to run apps and most importantly newer os updates like ginger bread and honey comb. Don't wanna run out of ram right when you boot up your phone don't you? And if the tab can recognize more ram than this then this means it does gave something to do with software. I guess we have to wait for samsung to release froyo, because im sure that they will gave all threw tweaks that will boost this phone very high, bedside from shar I've noticed, all the,roms out thete dont really boost this phone allot. How do I know,i gave nero v3 and that only boosted me to 1137 on quadrant from 2.1 and with voodo enabled I get 1500 max on quadrant. Oclf the same thing too. so all I'm saying is that it's definitely a software issue. Pretty sure android does not hog 400mbt. And no sgx has its own ram for sure.
I still don't get how you're running out of RAM. Right now I've got Winamp streaming through BT and have started streaming a Flash video. Also running are XDA and Maps. No hiccups.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
I'm new to alot of this stuff but one thing that caught my attention with this phone initially was its specs and the fact that it has 512mb. Now one thing I've noticed that has greatly hindered vibrant and android phone 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 will future phones that come with 1gb of ram really improve performance to the point where we users may not need a task or memory manager????..... just really curious because as much as I love droid and prefer it over the iphone, i don't give it to apples iphone for stability and smooth operating.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
It only shows like 300mb or less because the other 100mb is set aside for something.
The more apps you have opened at the same time the more ram will disappeare.
And not that 1gb will improve memory but will allow you to have more apps open without lagging
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App
Understood but let me ask this question. Now I personally am excited for the Galaxy S 2 with its specs. Those specs look promising for those like myself and many others looking for a very smooth operating phone. Gingerbread, 1gb of ram, 1.2 ghz dual core processor etc. Do you think a phone with those specs can promise an almost lag free experience for us droid users?
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It should but ... from my experience the rom creators here at xda make the phone smoother than the manufactors. Btw I don't use task killers and my phone is pretty damn smooth!
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
using a task killer on anything 2.2 or higher is pointless. android does a fine job of managing open applications.
With most new phones having 1 gig standard now, I see the new LG phone announced will be coming with a crazy 2 gig of ram. I'm no technical pro but isn't that a little overkill for a phone? I've never had an issue with 1 gig on my last few phones, and I know ram isn't all that expensive but it seems to be a marketing ploy to me.
anyway, other opinions or thoughts?
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Creating a need is what todays mobile market is about. My point is who actually needs the full power of todays phones, a very small percentage i imagine
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Would be better if they thought about creating faster 1GB RAM chips instead.
But imagine that you have quad-core 1.5GHz CPU and 8 GB of RAM. That would allow you to use full scale linux OS on your smartphone (I know it is possible now, but it's far from useable)
I'd be more impressed with ddr3 ram.
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I would be happy if with increasing all dis horsepower manufactures can focus on increasing the battery backup also.
If MotoRazr Maxx can have 3300 mA battery...NOTE2 should have atleast 5000 mA
The 2GB would definitely be needed if they also increased the max number of tabs in the browser. That alone can eat my 1GB.
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tomksoft said:
Would be better if they thought about creating faster 1GB RAM chips instead.
But imagine that you have quad-core 1.5GHz CPU and 8 GB of RAM. That would allow you to use full scale linux OS on your smartphone (I know it is possible now, but it's far from useable)
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Click to collapse
I beg to differ I would say its very useable already but yes faster chips would be a much better root, the more bottle necks you can remove the better
tomksoft said:
Would be better if they thought about creating faster 1GB RAM chips instead.
But imagine that you have quad-core 1.5GHz CPU and 8 GB of RAM. That would allow you to use full scale linux OS on your smartphone (I know it is possible now, but it's far from useable)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Full scale Linux runs perfectly well on much weaker systems. If you're talking about the Linux-on-Android project, the UI is not very responsive because it's not running natively, but through a painfully slow remote desktop thing. The actual processing that's happening behind the scenes is pretty quick and so it's still very useful.
Depends what you are doing.as to how much memory you need, etc.
Screen resolutions are getting bigger, cameras are higher res, etc. it all adds up to more data to hold on to and move around. Having an extra 0.5GB or 1GB can make a huge difference in some cases (e.g. Photo or video editing on-device.)
Also, Android puts apps to sleep rather than closing them down and releasing the resources by default (only properly disposing of them when more resources are required for a foreground app. Having extra RAM means more can be resident in memory without needing to dispose of anything so that could lead to a slicker UI experience and a phone that seems really fast and responsive.
The thing that disappointed me the most about the s3 was the ram, really ruined it for me. Phones today must have 1.5gb atleast.
pboesboes said:
Full scale Linux runs perfectly well on much weaker systems. If you're talking about the Linux-on-Android project, the UI is not very responsive because it's not running natively, but through a painfully slow remote desktop thing. The actual processing that's happening behind the scenes is pretty quick and so it's still very useful.
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Click to collapse
Indeed once we can get a working native X11 desktop running (There are a few projects working hardo n this so its likely it will happen!) it will feel alot quicker, but if you try using command line applications they feel just as snappy as running on a few years old desktop
zacthespack said:
Indeed once we can get a working native X11 desktop running (There are a few projects working hardo n this so its likely it will happen!) it will feel alot quicker, but if you try using command line applications they feel just as snappy as running on a few years old desktop
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Yeah, it's pretty impressive what our phones are capable of.
Having a native desktop would be awesome. The possibilities are... endless!
pboesboes said:
Yeah, it's pretty impressive what our phones are capable of.
Having a native desktop would be awesome. The possibilities are... endless!
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indeed I fell in love with android when I got my HTC Magic (Android 1.5 baby ) its grown up alot but I have always been amazed at how open it is and just hwo much you can do with it
yon222 said:
The thing that disappointed me the most about the s3 was the ram, really ruined it for me. Phones today must have 1.5gb atleast.
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What the herr you going to do w/ 1.5GB of Ram? Run Photoshop CS5 and have 50 apps open lol? You don't need it. It would be nice, but it's not necessary.
Zamboney said:
The 2GB would definitely be needed if they also increased the max number of tabs in the browser. That alone can eat my 1GB.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What I was about to say too.
I'll sometimes have 5 to 6 tabs open whilst using Instagram and Facebook and drawsomething.
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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
So, a lot of people want their device to have as much free RAM as possible, I am wondering if the opposite is possible.
There used to be a Cydia iPhone app called Backgrounder a while ago. It allowed you to change the way your device handled multitasking. I always set it to keep the current state of the app as if it were in the foreground. It used up more RAM but multitasking was so much better, apps didn't just close themselves, keeping only a bit of themselves in RAM for faster startup, they actually stayed in RAM fully. My Nexus 4 always has at least 600-800 MB free RAM (including cached processes) so why not put it to good use?
Is this possible on Android?
Android has always functioned like that since the beginning. It has always had true multitasking, with apps running open in the background/cached, and only get killed if there is insufficient memory available. Backgrounder was a Cydia tweak created so that iOS devices could get similar functionality in terms of how multitasking works on Android.
You can try playing around with the minfree settings, here's a guide on how to do so.