I've a buddy of mine that found ATK on his own, installed it, and says he sees a "noticeable" improvement in speed on his Captivate (And he's got the lag fix already). I tried to reason that it's placebo but he does swear, it was a large improvement in speed. I can look online and find other reports of this.
And before you go down that route, he had nothing much more than stock installed (Facebook, etc... Nothing that I don't have).
I've also seen someone go from 8 hours of battery life to 12 hours just by installing ATK.
Explain these.
If Android TRULY managed memory so well, how does someone gain such performance boost from killing the processes?
If ATK was actually detrimental to battery life, why does someone gain more by using it?
I've seen both sides. I haven't noticed any speed differences running ATK compared to not running it.
I have also seen another side that says ATK hurt their battery life.
Seems there's too much conflicting info out there. You can argue til you're blue in the face that "it is negative"... But you cannot deny results some people are saying. So I'm just asking those of you that argue from that perspective... To explain these situations?
TexUs said:
Explain these.
If Android TRULY managed memory so well, how does someone gain such performance boost from killing the processes?
If ATK was actually detrimental to battery life, why does someone gain more by using it?
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A quick question, does your buddy kill the processes and then let the phone sit? Sure this is going to increase the battery life but so does pulling it from the phone all together.
Bottom line is there is no definitive answer as to the merits of ATK. If you like it, use it.
Most results tend to be anecdotal in nature. Those that get better battery life out of using ATK probably don't realize it's due to ATK killing off bad apps, and not due to freed-up RAM. If Android needs more RAM, it will shut down programs by itself. That 3MB of RAM you freed up with ATK isn't nearly as useful as the fact that same app you just killed was also hogging your CPU. Cause/effect, correlation/causation, etc.
People also get what's ive heard as the "new phone syndrome" where the phone is used constantly the first couple days, and the battery life is then thought to be horrible.
Also tell your buddy to look up settings > about phone> battery usage as the battery is largely affected by voice calls and the screen. A 5 min call uses more than you think.(thus the reasoning behind why I don't use atk)
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
To a large extent battery life, phone, and app performance will always be somewhat subjective. No two people are going to use their phones in the exact same manner. depending on how a person uses their phone and what they have installed on their phone ATK may very well improve their phone's performance - especially if they have a bad acting app on their phone.
As for my personal testing, my phone does better without ATK. However I was a little biased against ATK from the beginning and this could have affected my results. I have used a half dozen different linux distros over the past eight years and while I have many times had to kill or force close an application, I have never needed to manually manage memory. Linux generally does a good job at managing memory and multitasking.
I can't say for your friend, but I was using a task killer for the first month I had the phone, and now I do not. So far performance, and battery life are the same with and without. I finally removed my old task killer and installed watchdog all I have it set to do now is simply alert me if an app is using excessive cpu, which would likely be due to poor app quality anyway. Other than that I've had no issues.
Mercath said:
That 3MB of RAM you freed up with ATK isn't nearly as useful as the fact that same app you just killed was also hogging your CPU. Cause/effect, correlation/causation, etc.
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I guess this is true. I've never seen claims that Android manages CPU, etc effectively, I've just seen claims about the RAM usage.
ageros said:
I can't say for your friend, but I was using a task killer for the first month I had the phone, and now I do not. So far performance, and battery life are the same with and without.
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That's what I've done as well, and yea... Can't tell a difference with and without (of course I also go "back" out of apps when I'm done).
i dont think it works that well
Related
I've notice that ram usage on ics seems to be a bit higher than on gb, and battery life is just a tad bit worse, but not by too much. I have debloated as much as I could and kept minimal syncing, and running on mhx's super lite rom ATM. I still get more ram usage than on gb doing simple tasks. I'm just curious if lower ram usage actually contributes to battery battery life. Thanks!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using XDA
from what I understand about destop power usage, it doesnt matter how much you are using, but how many dimms you have. im sure our phone only has one 1gb dimm, using like 1-1.5v ish. which is pretty low on the power drain meter.
I would think with the LCD screen being by far the largest contributor to battery use, ram use would not be a very large contributing factor to battery savings. It will depend on how you use your phone though.
slotstik04 said:
I've notice that ram usage on ics seems to be a bit higher than on gb, and battery life is just a tad bit worse, but not by too much. I have debloated as much as I could and kept minimal syncing, and running on mhx's super lite rom ATM. I still get more ram usage than on gb doing simple tasks. I'm just curious if lower ram usage actually contributes to battery battery life. Thanks!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using XDA
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Click to collapse
Ram usage absolutely does not negatively impact your battery life. If anything increased ram usage will help battery life. If you reload an app that is in your ram, it takes much less computing power than to reload it from scratch, which is why task killers are worthless because not only do they deprive you of this ability, they also use extra processing power to remove the task from ram. You have ram for a reason right? This is the reason you want your system to use your ram as efficiently as possible, which means you want it full.
If you haven't already, I'd recommend trying the 2100 mah extended battery for the Galaxy Nexus. I put it in my Skyrocket, and it works great.
Picked it up on sale for around $25 if memory serves about 2 weeks ago. Edit: removed portion of post regarding label removal and battery case sizing adjustment due to safety concerns from fellow members.
pls4ms said:
If you haven't already, I'd recommend trying the 2100 mah extended battery for the Galaxy Nexus. I put it in my Skyrocket, and it works great.
Picked it up on sale for around $25 if memory serves about 2 weeks ago. Took home, heated up label with a hairdrier and removed, then used dremel tool to grind down a little of the plastic corners. This helped the battery cover fit. Some folks had it fit fine without modification, but I did this before the instal (as folks talked about in another thread), just to be safe. Good luck.
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Just to be safe?? It's not safe at all to dremel a battery
if you want your phone to run smoothly, give it as much ram as you can! Android does an excellent job of managing ram.
Think about it like this. Android thinks of unused ram as "wasted ram". That's why task killers are no good my suggestion is to not worry about ram and leave it be. What I do to that really helps to save battery is to underclock the processor to about 1200mhz or 1000. My phone runs just as smooth as it did at 1500 no lag at all even when playing games like angry birds. And while you may not be able to overclock a stock kernal you can always underclock it
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cdshepherd said:
if you want your phone to run smoothly, give it as much ram as you can! Android does an excellent job of managing ram.
Think about it like this. Android thinks of unused ram as "wasted ram". That's why task killers are no good my suggestion is to not worry about ram and leave it be. What I do to that really helps to save battery is to underclock the processor to about 1200mhz or 1000. My phone runs just as smooth as it did at 1500 no lag at all even when playing games like angry birds. And while you may not be able to overclock a stock kernal you can always underclock it
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+1
I always UC and UV and don't kill anything
My Charge is routinely running 275 - 300 MB of RAM even when "idle" and I receive a LOT of warnings that my memory is running low when I'm using Tasker or Evernote. While I use Linux at home on my personal computer, I'm by no means a professional in any real sense of the word. But my layperson's understanding of RAM is that, generally speaking, more is better and allows for a machine to run, boot, etc... faster and more reliably. I've read that the Charge is a RAM wannabe and I know there are phones with much more than is available with this device but does that mean anything for this phone? Should I be using something that will clear more RAM for me or is that just a pipe dream and I have to deal with the lack of RAM by buying a new phone at some later time?
I'm using Tweaked 3.1 and have to say that Dwitheral has made this phone one I'm happy with - my fiancee has the Charge as well and is paranoid about rooting / ROMing, so she is totally stock. Needless to say, her phone sucks eggs and mine doesn't. I'm looking for a replacement but will not do so until Black Friday next year - then I can get a device that's a little "older" for less than $50 that will be a huge improvement over the Charge. In the meantime, with Tweaked 3.1, a Hyperion 3500 mha extended life battery and Tasker, this phone is serviceable. But the high RAM usage nags at me and I'm wondering if this is really an issue and, if so, is there anything to do about it? When I look at running applications in task manager, it is usually none or one, maybe, on occasion, two running applications.
Can someone clarify this for me? Do I need to be concerned and, if so, is there a solution that doesn't start with "Upon entering the Verizon store, ask where the new DNA is located...."
Thanks in advance!
Forget what you know about RAM in Windows, because this isn't Windows. In Linux (and by extension in Android), unused RAM is generally considered to be wasted. The Android low memory killer (LMK) will take care of killing apps and freeing when it needs to make space for other things, and artificially killing stuff is going to make your phone perform worse and use more battery. You need enough free for apps to have room to start without waiting, but not so much that it kills background apps that you want there. You can tweak the LMK, but 275-300MB used (75-100MB free) is pretty close to the sweet spot for this phone.
I guess it is from since of the tweaks I am running, but I usually have an extra 50-80 MB from what you described.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Xparent Red Tapatalk 2
Anyone Tried this yet?
Snapdragon™ BatteryGuru
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xiam.snapdragon.app
App is from Qualcomm.
I've never used apps the limit functionality to save battery before, but if anyone would know how to do this right, it should be Qualcomm.
Snapdragon™ BatteryGuru extends battery performance and improves overall user experience by intelligently making changes that optimize Snapdragon device functionality. This app:
• Delivers longer battery life with fewer charges
• Intelligently learns how you use your Snapdragon smartphone and optimizes your device without disabling smartphone functionality
• Requires no user configuration - Snapdragon BatteryGuru automatically learns and adjusts the smartphone settings so you don’t have to.
After a brief 2-4 day introduction period, Snapdragon BatteryGuru learns the user’s behaviors and then notifies the user that it is ready to extend the battery life and improve the experience. Snapdragon BatteryGuru continues to operate in the background, deepening its understanding of the user and further optimizing the experience over time.
Thanks man!
Will give it a go.
I'm not really sure on what the value of these apps are.
Letting my phone do whatever it wants when I'm on wifi and my phone is sitting idle, my phone uses around 1%/hour of battery life.
Some portion of that is all this app could really save then, right?
Why bother if, in exchange, I'm possibly having delayed notifications, apps not updating in the background, etc.?
Sounds like a bunch of BS to me.
I'll be shocked if this makes any discernable difference.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
I installed this and 3 days later it was still in learning mode. I got tired of waiting for it to do something else, so I deleted it and installed Greenify.
I'll give it a whirl.
I may try this out, but I already have the no–brainer solution to battery life woes...a big fat extended battery. If only lots of others would do the same lol.
I use the cPU sleeper, i;; give this a try, i get great batt life on stock, stock kernel..
Some of the reviews said it actually drained the battery. Might be wort trying but I have my doubts.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
I've had it on my sick Verizon s3 for about 3 days, so far not impressed. It took 2 days in learning mode, then once that period ended it seems to actually be a significant battery drainer! I will try for another couple of days and report back, but I'm not optimistic so far.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
It seems to keep me from adjusting my CPU with rom toolbox pro or system tuner pro. Can someone else that is running a custom kernal (IMO 2.0) and let me know if they can adjust theirs.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
This is an app written and distributed by a component manufacturer. They will cut speed/processing power as much as they can to make the device use less battery. This inherently means the app will take control of the CPU/governor adjustments. A kernel such as KT with an app that LOCKS frequencies may prevent this, but also will render the app useless.
They aren't concerned with the same things as we in the rooting world are. We want to push as much processing power as possible while using the least amount of electrical power needed, not slow the device down while hoping ppl don't notice. Lol..
I too experienced battery drain from this app.
+1 on CPU Sleeper
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tryed for about 1weeks.
After the learning mode...it started to appear as one of the most stealer of battery life...with 12/13% of daily battery usage. Disinstalled lol ...and my phone seems to be turned at a good battery life
Did you know that Samsung has a system called DVFS that basically does nothing other than cripping your phone's performance with aggressive underclocking? There's a big thread about it here, but other than that, it seems that this issue is not very well known, which is surprising considering the SGS4 is a very mainstream phone. When I discovered about it I was shocked because this system does literally nothing useful, but it makes gaming or other high end smartphone activities (heavy browsing, 3D games, heavy multitasking, etc) lag like crazy.
It shocks me that Samsung has implemented such a thing and that you cannot disable without rooting (and obviously voiding the warranty and your Knox flag), and nobody except a few XDA users noticed.
MarkMRL said:
Did you know that Samsung has a system called DVFS that basically does nothing other than cripping your phone's performance with aggressive underclocking? There's a big thread about it here, but other than that, it seems that this issue is not very well known, which is surprising considering the SGS4 is a very mainstream phone. When I discovered about it I was shocked because this system does literally nothing useful, but it makes gaming or other high end smartphone activities (heavy browsing, 3D games, heavy multitasking, etc) lag like crazy.
It shocks me that Samsung has implemented such a thing and that you cannot disable without rooting (and obviously voiding the warranty and your Knox flag), and nobody except a few XDA users noticed.
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You say it does nothing useful, but what does it do for battery life?
s14sh3r said:
You say it does nothing useful, but what does it do for battery life?
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Click to collapse
Nothing? The phone already has extensive battery saving options, and it already has an underclocking option right there. Not to mention, swappable battery. Why is this thing enforced on everyone? If you use your flagship tier phone like it was an old Nokia from the nineties then it might not affect you. Since I use my phone for browsing internet, multimedia, and games, it does affect me a lot. I don't give a flying **** about one hour of additional battery when my phone slows down to a crawl. If I wanted to enable crawl mode I should have the option, the phone shouldn't decide arbitrarily when to slow down.
Also, if you really want to get into conspiracy theories, what makes you think this isn't a marketing ploy by samsung? To force users to get the S5 because the old one has such poor performance in games and stuff like that? The average smartphone user is so dumb he wouldn't realize it's all planned right in the system itself, they'd go " hurr, my phone can't run games well anymore, better go out and buy the S5, that will surely play games better, with it's multiple megapixels and cores and newer stuff I have no clue about".
MarkMRL said:
Nothing? The phone already has extensive battery saving options, and it already has an underclocking option right there. Not to mention, swappable battery. Why is this thing enforced on everyone? If you use your flagship tier phone like it was an old Nokia from the nineties then it might not affect you. Since I use my phone for browsing internet, multimedia, and games, it does affect me a lot. I don't give a flying **** about one hour of additional battery when my phone slows down to a crawl. If I wanted to enable crawl mode I should have the option, the phone shouldn't decide arbitrarily when to slow down.
Also, if you really want to get into conspiracy theories, what makes you think this isn't a marketing ploy by samsung? To force users to get the S5 because the old one has such poor performance in games and stuff like that? The average smartphone user is so dumb he wouldn't realize it's all planned right in the system itself, they'd go " hurr, my phone can't run games well anymore, better go out and buy the S5, that will surely play games better, with it's multiple megapixels and cores and newer stuff I have no clue about".
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Good points. I'm not arguing against you, btw, I'm not even sure how to tell if my phone is using it since I'm using Omega ROM.
s14sh3r said:
Good points. I'm not arguing against you, btw, I'm not even sure how to tell if my phone is using it since I'm using Omega ROM.
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Click to collapse
Well, if you play any game or if you browse a lot you'd probably notice because performance drops a lot and lag increases. I don't know what Omega Rom is, this is an issue in stock rom. Of course it doesn't affect me anymore because I have the knowledge to research this stuff and eventually find a solution (even though I obviously have no idea how the solution is made), but for the average user this should be an issue, I mean everyone should know about it, it's too shady to be ignored, this is planned obsolescence at its finest.
Also, if this was introduced to save battery, how come so many people are complaining about battery drain on Kitkat?
It's obviously a marketing strategy, and I will spread the word about it.
There's a technical paper on dvfs around which goes through some of the techniques samsung uses to optimise performance and battery use. https://events.linuxfoundation.org/images/stories/pdf/lcjp2012_ham.pdf
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planetf1 said:
There's a technical paper on dvfs around which goes through some of the techniques samsung uses to optimise performance and battery use. https://events.linuxfoundation.org/images/stories/pdf/lcjp2012_ham.pdf
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Click to collapse
I don't care and I don't have the knowledge to understand anything in that document.
What I care about is:
Galaxy S4 on 4.3 and under: great performance, no issues.
Galaxy S4 on 4.4: awful performance, issues.
Other phones on 4.4: great performance, no issues.
It's no coincidence this happened only a few months before the S5 is released.
Either Samsung did something wrong with this implementation, or they did indeed do it to force users to upgrade because the older model is no longer viable for high end smartphone use.
planetf1 said:
There's a technical paper on dvfs around which goes through some of the techniques samsung uses to optimise performance and battery use. https://events.linuxfoundation.org/images/stories/pdf/lcjp2012_ham.pdf
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has nothing to do with the user-space policies which you're complaining about.
Will deleting the twDVFS.apk be sufficient to disable this frequency scaling on my S4? Or is using the Xposed module necessary?
delete
Android has come a long way as far as battery usage management. For Android 7 or later, doesn't the "Doze" feature make the Greenify app have little to no usefulness? It seems with these types of subjects (battery apps, cleaners) it breaks into two camps: The "Tin foil hat" camp that uses words like "feels" or "seems" when describing benefits, and the camp that is skeptical. Either way, it is frustrating when you can't find anywhere or anyone on the Internet that has actually do a well thought out test to determine the answer as many things can affect a phones performance and battery usage so no one knows for sure in many cases if what they experienced was just coincidental timing with something else going on with their phone or if the app is truly the one making the difference.
I had a case one day where my battery took an abnormal dip and when I went into settings to see the app usage, the Pocket app was the culprit when I very rarely even use that app. Is there an app that looks for abnormal app battery usage and warns you about it? I prefer to either address the issue with the app developer and/or uninstall it as opposed to a band aid approach using Greenify and/or Island.