Runtime ART or Dalvik? - Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I was watching the hands on video of Nexus 5 on GSMArena, and at the end I saw the reviewer mentioned and showed that there's something new under Developers settings, called Runtime ART or Dalvik. Like he said that enabling ART mode makes the app load faster and is battery efficient too. Now I have minimal knowledge about Java, so it's a rather simple question, could it be used on our S4?

It looks like ART runtime will replace dalvik at some stage so its a matter of when and not if. There won't be a problem with the s4 running it, it but apps will need to be optimised for it, hence why some are force closing when switching to ART.
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Art vs Dalvik?

What is Art? Is it risky to change to art in developer options?
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Orry520 said:
What is Art? Is it risky to change to art in developer options?
Sent from my AOSP on Mako using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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http://www.xda-developers.com/android/new-runtime-compiler-in-android-4-4/
It's not risky, but you will have an eternal boot after rebooting, and the effect, nowadays is 0. Wait till future android releases, when ART will be improved.
ART
luiseteyo said:
It's not risky, but you will have an eternal boot after rebooting, and the effect, nowadays is 0. Wait till future android releases, when ART will be improved.
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I have a nexus 7 2013 and tried an alpja of android 4.4. Experimented with the ART option and my device did boot. Just had an awful lot of force closes. But the performanve difgerence on working apps is very impressive. I ran quadrant and my cpu score doubled
TEW999 said:
I have a nexus 7 2013 and tried an alpja of android 4.4. Experimented with the ART option and my device did boot. Just had an awful lot of force closes. But the performanve difgerence on working apps is very impressive. I ran quadrant and my cpu score doubled
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I don't know. I didn't experience a thing in my n4. I didn't do a benchmark but I am sure it didn't improve.. And yes, whatsapp fc
Next time i have a tinker with aosp 4.4 ill post a screenshot of dalvik vs art. See what people think. Hopefully ART will reolave dalvik completely in the next version of android
TEW999 said:
I ran quadrant and my cpu score doubled
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This is probably because the benchmark isn't working properly with the new VM. I sincerely doubt Dalvik is wasting 50% of the CPU's performance.
evilspoons said:
This is probably because the benchmark isn't working properly with the new VM. I sincerely doubt Dalvik is wasting 50% of the CPU's performance.
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i doubt that it wont, ipod touch does better then gnex on cpu things
evilspoons said:
This is probably because the benchmark isn't working properly with the new VM. I sincerely doubt Dalvik is wasting 50% of the CPU's performance.
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it does. when using the s4 dalvik during 4.3, nexus scores did nearly the same. and the scores using art or the s4 dalvik is nearly the same.
You might be interested in a video I just put together.
Nark.GA60 said:
You might be interested in a video I just put together.
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Good job on the hard work. I didn't notice load times, but I did notice a difference in the smoothness of scrolling. Homepage and others like Internet.
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At the moment I personally would not use ART over Dalvik, simply because even Google does not consider it ready for primetime yet.
I know, that normally doesn't mean much given the amount of tinkering we are doing with out phones, but on something this integral to the OS, I would wait until the original developers consider it stable, and once the app devs can have a crack at it.
For those who have tested, is it normal to have to build the cache/optimizing 60+ apps on each reboot? I'm assuming it's the Gapps that is being affected? Any work around discovered, so far?
sgtkwol said:
For those who have tested, is it normal to have to build the cache/optimizing 60+ apps on each reboot? I'm assuming it's the Gapps that is being affected? Any work around discovered, so far?
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normal with ART. itll do that every reboot when using ART. no work around, its supposed to do that. besides youre lucky, i get 120 apps rebuilding their dalvik on every boot.
simms22 said:
normal with ART. itll do that every reboot when using ART. no work around, its supposed to do that. besides youre lucky, i get 120 apps rebuilding their dalvik on every boot.
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Guess I'll wait for better stability (using a Gnex, but Google search for Dalvik vs ART brought me here) before I throw the switch. I don't mind random reboots for bleeding edge, but if they take 5 minutes, it sucks.
sgtkwol said:
Guess I'll wait for better stability (using a Gnex, but Google search for Dalvik vs ART brought me here) before I throw the switch. I don't mind random reboots for bleeding edge, but if they take 5 minutes, it sucks.
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i use a custom 4.3 kernel too.. so whatll hapoen is itll get to like app 80 then freeze. ill force reboot it and itll start over. sometimes itll take an hour before it actually finishes, lol. honestly, for now, dalvik is the better of the two. oh, and i miss my gnex, it got stolen 2 months ago
simms22 said:
normal with ART. itll do that every reboot when using ART. no work around, its supposed to do that. besides youre lucky, i get 120 apps rebuilding their dalvik on every boot.
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Guys, my N5 rebuilt the apps the first time I rebooted after activating ART. Since then, I have rebooted a couple of times and the apps have not rebuilt and the runtime is still ART.
Not sure why the behavior is different from phone to phone and it makes me wonder whether I should switch back to Dalvik.
Has anyone experienced any issue after reverting from ART to Dalvik?
Wolfy666 said:
Guys, my N5 rebuilt the apps the first time I rebooted after activating ART. Since then, I have rebooted a couple of times and the apps have not rebuilt and the runtime is still ART.
Not sure why the behavior is different from phone to phone and it makes me wonder whether I should switch back to Dalvik.
Has anyone experienced any issue after reverting from ART to Dalvik?
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no. i go back and forth frequently, no issues. from what i hear from n5 users, its the same, its not getting rebuilt every boot. but, these are n4's
simms22 said:
normal with ART. itll do that every reboot when using ART. no work around, its supposed to do that. besides youre lucky, i get 120 apps rebuilding their dalvik on every boot.
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Gnome's odexed version fixed this issue, only rebuild cache on first enable of ART. Not every reboot.
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---------- Post added at 04:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:45 PM ----------
steadly2004 said:
Gnome's odexed version fixed this issue, only rebuild cache on first enable of ART. Not every reboot.
There's also an updated pagapps that works for ART and divlak
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Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 04:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:54 PM ----------
Gnome's odexed version fixed this issue, only rebuild cache on first enable of ART. Not every reboot.
There's also an update pagapps that works with dalvik and ART.
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Hi!
I upgraded to Android 4.4 KitKat on my Nexus 4 from here:
developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#occam
deleted file in flash-all.bat option "-w" to save my apps and settings. A few hours later I decided to try switch to ART. But I got a bootloop. Can I via fastboot mode go back to dalvik?

What ART does for regular Joe?

Hi!
Is there simple explanation what ART does for regular Joe? Why does Google gives me choice between ART and Dalvik?
Thanks!
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Google doesn't give you the option.
Its hidden in developer options for a reason.
To answer your question, it gives you a preview or "beta" build of ART and what's to come. Its a smoother experience and OS seems snappier over all. But with all the optimizations Delvik runtime it not really noticeable. The most notable difference is between switching task and apps. That's all it really offers to an Average Joe.
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jayRokk said:
Google doesn't give you the option.
Its hidden in developer options for a reason.
To answer your question, it gives you a preview or "beta" build of ART and what's to come. Its a smoother experience and OS seems snappier over all. But with all the optimizations Delvik runtime it not really noticeable. The most notable difference is between switching task and apps. That's all it really offers to an Average Joe.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
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Thanks!
I guess I'll enable it and see
Can switching between ART and Davlik (with some apps installing/updating on one, others on the other) cause issues?
I just wanna try ART out for a few days on 4.4.2, switch a couple of times for speed comparison, and if unsatisfied, return to Davlik, but only if this doesn't cause issues of any kind.
Does it?
BoneXDA said:
Can switching between ART and Davlik (with some apps installing/updating on one, others on the other) cause issues?
I just wanna try ART out for a few days on 4.4.2, switch a couple of times for speed comparison, and if unsatisfied, return to Davlik, but only if this doesn't cause issues of any kind.
Does it?
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when I switched over to ART, ALL my apps started to crash. But I had a really old PA-gapps package and that was the issue. I did post in the forums and someone told me to use another gapps ( cant remember sorry ) and that mostly solved all my problems except that the keyboard still crashed.
There was a problem with the PA-gapps package. But now, with the new ones, you shud be perfectly fine. Even whatsapp is fixed
1. Improved overall performance(made my 1st gen kindle fire fly, same with nexus)
2. Better battery life ( at least 30-1hr for me)
3. Faster app loading (assuming the app supports art should be noticeable)
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Explain ART

I will be receiving my new S5 Monday and I've saw some people on the forums talking about a thing called ART . What is it? Does it make the phone perform better then usual? I'm sorta new to the forums and I have a little bit of knowledge that involve rooting and such. I'm just looking to learn more.
This is a pretty good explanation here. http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-art-of-android/
But It basically goes like this. Dalvik has smaller apps and that open slower. ART transitions those apps into larger files, but they open faster. So ART apps would download slower, but be rendered faster in the tapping of the icon. If I got most of what was said, that's basically it. Unsure of battery implications though.
xgerryx said:
This is a pretty good explanation here. http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-art-of-android/
But It basically goes like this. Dalvik has smaller apps and that open slower. ART transitions those apps into larger files, but they open faster. So ART apps would download slower, but be rendered faster in the tapping of the icon. If I got most of what was said, that's basically it. Unsure of battery implications though.
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So let's say I download the usual apps using ART , those apps will take up more space on my phone but will run and open faster?
how will we decompile them?
As far as I've read, yes. So with bigger capacity phones the larger files have no consequence and the apps have better functionality.
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Switch from Dalvik to ART : good idea ?

Hello.
I'm running Android 4.4.4 and I'm wondering if using developper's options to switch from Dalvik to ART for the engine is a good idea.
Is it risky ? Shall I lost my data and / or apps ? Or it shall be transparent and my apps will just take some extra time to load at first execution (time for ART to compile app) ?
Thanks.
As long as your ROM supports it, you shouldn't have any problems. Switching to ART will not wipe your app data.
It will take some space. Mine was about 600 but don't take my word for it. First boot will indeed take some time.
Last negative: Not all apps work on ART. Check Play Store description for compatibility. If nothing is noted, it's generally a hit and miss (with more miss the older an app gets)
But
For those apps that do work (and app compatibility has greatly increased since the runtime was introduced), ART is much, much better than dalvik in every measurable aspect.
I've even heard it can make pancakes, and from what I've seen myself, I can't really reject the notion outright.
If, however, you were unfortunate enough to pick the 8 GB model (I did, and I still have night terrors about it), you may wish to forego ART since every bit and byte count..
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I'm using a 16 Gb model with 8,92 Gb free space.
I will give a try

ART vs Dalvik

Which runtime are you running? Have you noticed any difference?
I tried switching to ART, but every time I restarted my phone it would spend 15 minutes upgrading ~100 applications. I restarted it about 4 times, and it upgraded every time.
I typically avoid ART. It produces random issues on my G2, Nexus 5 and S4. Dalvik for me until Lollipop!
geoff5093 said:
Which runtime are you running? Have you noticed any difference?
I tried switching to ART, but every time I restarted my phone it would spend 15 minutes upgrading ~100 applications. I restarted it about 4 times, and it upgraded every time.
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You need to wait it out, it always takes awhile to update all of the applications when you initially change runtimes.
I'm on ART, no issues so far.
Maybe a dumb question, buy how do you switch?
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disc.ordian said:
Maybe a dumb question, buy how do you switch?
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Go to About Phone in settings, then click on the Build number until the toast notification tells you that you are a developer. Then go back and click on Developer Options and then Runtime.
geoff5093 said:
Which runtime are you running? Have you noticed any difference?
I tried switching to ART, but every time I restarted my phone it would spend 15 minutes upgrading ~100 applications. I restarted it about 4 times, and it upgraded every time.
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im having same issue when using ART. it optimizes apps (15 of it) every time i reboot, ive rebooted at least 5 times, i think currently Turbo isnt very compatible with ART
Well ART on Kitkat is not even close to ART on Lollipop and ART on Kitkat is experimental so I don't know why people would be surprised when it doesn't work quite right...
theclash150 said:
Well ART on Kitkat is not even close to ART on Lollipop and ART on Kitkat is experimental so I don't know why people would be surprised when it doesn't work quite right...
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I'm surprised 6 people have voted ART.
theclash150 said:
Well ART on Kitkat is not even close to ART on Lollipop and ART on Kitkat is experimental so I don't know why people would be surprised when it doesn't work quite right...
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Well it worked flawlessly on Droid Maxx, and seemed faster than Dalvik. On Turbo it's always optimizing upon every reboot 15 apps. BTW has anyone else noticed weirdness about phone dialer? It takes several clicks and random presses on the screen to get the keypads to come up...
Did you guys have bench numbers for Dalvik vs. ART?
For me Dalvik seems to be slightly faster:
Dalvik: AnTuTu: 48989
ART: AnTuTu: 47467
Benchmarks do not accurately represent the increased responsiveness in the interface. Benchmarks generally are a pretty poor way to compare real world performance.
theclash150 said:
Benchmarks do not accurately represent the increased responsiveness in the interface. Benchmarks generally are a pretty poor way to compare real world performance.
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We can argue ad infinitum, but benches are still better than a "gut feeling" or "I can see smooth"
Think what you want but ART runs the UI more smoothly regardless of what some "benchmark" says.
So does ART "optimize" on every boot? For some reason I didn't think it did, but when I switched to ART on my Turbo it seems every time I reboot it goes through the "optimizing apps".
I'm using ART just because we aren't rooted, so none of the good root-only apps that are incompatible with ART are an issue.
hajabooja said:
So does ART "optimize" on every boot? For some reason I didn't think it did, but when I switched to ART on my Turbo it seems every time I reboot it goes through the "optimizing apps".
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Same here, that's why I switched back. Whenever it rebooted it optimized apps, and it took a good 10-20 minutes for it to finish. If it was on battery, the battery dropped significantly and the phone got very warm.
I ran both on my Razr Maxx HD, seems to get better battery life, and it seems a bit more responsive running Dalvik. That is just an uninformed opinion. I settled on Dalvik, it just feels nicer to me.
If you want to use ART I recommend doing the switch before you install anything from Google play not after when you have lots of apps installed.
Switched to ART just to see. First reboot optimized 255 apps (expected). Rebooted again, optimized 75 apps. Tried rebooting again and again optimized 75 apps. Anyone have any idea why? I'm thinking maybe it's because Verizon placed so many apps in system/app...
PerCompLLC said:
Switched to ART just to see. First reboot optimized 255 apps (expected). Rebooted again, optimized 75 apps. Tried rebooting again and again optimized 75 apps. Anyone have any idea why? I'm thinking maybe it's because Verizon placed so many apps in system/app...
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Stop rebooting?
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