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Lets Talk Memory

Been reading through searchs on threads re: memory, and found a few, but not a lot.
How much memory?
First I'd like to get to an understanding of what I see with the memory tool and what the device is supposed to have: Specs I've read say the Captivate comes wiht 512MB of memroy. And of course with Android 2.1, they say it will only recognze 256.
Now, I just installed Memory Usage, and it reports this:
When I first boot up, and run it to check memory, I get these readings:
Total: 325MB Avail: 103MB
Active: 116MG Inactive: 141MB​
And it seems to vary from boot to boot.
I don't understand what I'm seeing in those readings. I presume the 325 is the total memory that is referenced when we say the memory is 512, but 256 availble. So why am I seeing 325?
Apps, Task Killers, et al
Moving on to a controversial topic. I have experimented with this a bit, and read quite a few posts with varying opinions on the topic. In general a person can say who knows who is right. But, it would seem that the information from a Google Resource talking on the subject officially in an interview, that we should assume they are right.
What did they say? (Sorry, I don't remember where the article was): Don't need task killers. Talked a lot about how memory is handled by Android.
During reading all that I installed one, and it seemed that what I was experiencing was the opposite like many others: memory shrinking; kill some tasks; turn on auto killer, and memory stayed considerably higher.
But after installing Juicedefender (per this interesting thread ) and messing with a bunch of more stuff I was starting to have freezes, lags, etc. (We've all heard that before). But then I somewhat am expecting to ultimately have to hard reset after doing all my experimentation.
But, after having someone in that thread say they weren't having much help from teh Auto killer, told me to remove it and see how it goes. I was thinking that my work in Juicedefender was causing my locks. When I did the things per that thread, my free memory jumped to 141, and later 151.
So, when its all said and done, I find the memory to not be consistent from one boot to the next. I find that sometimes there is a long list of apps that load at boot. I don't understand why some of the apps load at boot. I see Vlingo Voice in memory twice; I see Tapatalk Pro loaded. Earlier I saw several more.
This is long enough for one post. Curious what others have to think.

I use ATK to kill apps once i'm done with them.
when ever I'm done with an app i usually do this (ocd) and I keep my memory up near 190mb.
people can say what they will it all depends on your phone's real world usage. I saw a benefit. but lets not forget, even 2.1 has a stock task killer. so it's not like you have to get a specific app

from what I understand, 512mb is installed, but only 315 is accessible with 2.1 Eclair. when 2.2 Froyo is released then it will be able to access the full amount of memory.

Now, all I can say is that if I don't use Auto Killer, the memory keeps getting smaller and smaller and the phone gets to where it won't work. And with Auto Killer, I still ultimately need to do the same thing. I don't know what to think about this.
Another strange thing: when I first reboot it, and go in and look at what is loaded with Auto Killer, its a long list of programs.
Any idea whats up with that?

the way I understand it is that android tries to keep at least 90mb buffer between how much memory your using, and your max. then when you go into the 90mb it runs a garbage collector or starts dumping multitasked apps or something
then again it might only be doing that for apps and not processes
maybe someone with more knowledge can confirm/correct me?

Memory leaks?

My Cappy starts with about 165mb of free RAM, but it quickly goes away as I use apps. I have Task Killer installed and set to kill apps every 30 minutes, but once I get down to about 90mb of RAM it is impossible to get anywhere near what I boot with free. I'm used to memory leakage on my WinMo phones, but this is way worse. I had CleanRAM on my Tilt 2 (from XDA) and it worked pretty good and allows scheduling. Is there a similar app for Android?

I'd get rid of Task Killer, you don't need it.

its not leaking memory...it handles memory differently than windows of yore....stop fretting about how much memory you have available and just reboot your phone once every few days....thats not needed, but if it makes you feel better to look at useless numbers...

Yeah you need to stop looking at this as either a windows pc or an old device (think g1). Get rid of the task killer and never look at how much free ram you have again. Its not important at all. I've had this phone for months and I literally have no idea how much ram it uses on average because I have never checked or cared. My phone has been running smooth since day one. Yours will too.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Available RAM is a useless number? Having unused apps continue to run in the background is nothing to worry about?
Does anyone have anything usefull to respond with?

Miami_Son said:
Available RAM is a useless number? Having unused apps continue to run in the background is nothing to worry about?
Does anyone have anything usefull to respond with?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you look at Window 7, there is a concept called pre-fetch. This allows the OS to load the programs into memory based on past usage, and frequency of usage. This lets us open the program much faster, than fetch when requested. This info is loaded to memory, and kept there, until some other program comes in that needs more memory.
And just 'cos a program is present in RAM doesn't mean it would use CPU.
And, based on my observation of android, I see that I have close to 180 MB free when the phone boots up. But this quickly reduces to around 120-150 in less than an hour based on what I use. After like a day this I see that free RAM is about 80-120 MB. And even after 3-4 days of no reboots, the free memory is still present at the same 80-120 levels. I am not sure what kind of memory management android uses, but its very effective, and never caused any noticeable lag in the system.
And, I do not use any task killers, not free up RAM in task manager.

Your concerns are flawed in the fact that the Linux kernel handles memory different than what you are used to. Simply speaking, Linux keeps memory used by applications on need to basis. It keeps it loaded until something else needs to use it. It will take from something else at the required time. A system actually performs faster when there is less memory available because that means that applications are able to be recalled quicker. It's not like it can only load from what is left available.
You will also notice that many applications take up memory but are using 0 CPU. This speaks to the fact that it simply loaded into memory and not taking up resources required for other operations.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Lot to learn about this Android, I see. So, why are there so many task killers on Market and other RAM-related programs if it is not important? Should I really not be concerned when I see a program I hardly use being shown as running on startup?

Miami_Son said:
Lot to learn about this Android, I see. So, why are there so many task killers on Market and other RAM-related programs if it is not important? Should I really not be concerned when I see a program I hardly use being shown as running on startup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I got my android phone, the first thing I did was put up things like task killer, start up auditor, etc. But as weeks passed, I realized these were more of deteriorating performance, than improve it. So got rid of them. Android can handle itself.

Autokiller optimises memory by changing values in android rather than kills apps. I reccomemd it, definately makes the phone faster. Set it to agressive.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Miami_Son said:
Lot to learn about this Android, I see. So, why are there so many task killers on Market and other RAM-related programs if it is not important? Should I really not be concerned when I see a program I hardly use being shown as running on startup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It started with the combination of old versions of android (think cupcake and doughnut) and phones like the G1. Older versions didn't handle ram as well as they do in eclair and up. If you combine this with the fact that those older phones had less ram, and likely didn't use any gpu acceleration (unsure of this though), then task killers and other programs were considered necessary to get a fluid feeling experience.
They are still in the market now for 2 reasons.
1. Because some people still have those old phones and still run old versions of android. (less likely)
2. Habit. If people are used to using them and tell others they are necessary because they've always worked, why would a developer pull his money making app from the market? (much more likely)

So when Pandora or Grooveshark freeze, which happens all the time, and leaves my phone utterly useless until they're done doing whatever it is they're doing, how is using a task killer to...kill the process...not useful? It's much faster than rebooting the phone. I also think it's much faster than going into each application's individual settings to use the 'force stop' command. Is there a different way to kill a stuck app other than these methods?

Miami_Son said:
My Cappy starts with about 165mb of free RAM, but it quickly goes away as I use apps. I have Task Killer installed and set to kill apps every 30 minutes, but once I get down to about 90mb of RAM it is impossible to get anywhere near what I boot with free. I'm used to memory leakage on my WinMo phones, but this is way worse. I had CleanRAM on my Tilt 2 (from XDA) and it worked pretty good and allows scheduling. Is there a similar app for Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Along with what everyone else said, remember that a memory leak is a LEAK, something that is continuously draining, not a one-time thing. So, if memory goes to 80MB free and holds, that's not a leak, that's simply memory that is being used. If free memory drops to 75, then 60, then 55, 50, 45, and so on, then you have a true leak to worry about.

Well, what we Windows Mobile users often also refer to as leaks is the bad habit of some apps to not release their memory when closed. For instance, a program that carves out 25mb of RAM when started and returns less then half of that when closed.

jaju123 said:
Autokiller optimises memory by changing values in android rather than kills apps. I reccomemd it, definately makes the phone faster. Set it to agressive.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyone else know much about "Autokiller"?

i used to use a task killer with my G1, and continued to do so with my captivate but i saw a few things like this: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/ and decided to get rid of my task killers and my phone seemed actually a little faster and seemed my battery life increased.

matt310 said:
So when Pandora or Grooveshark freeze, which happens all the time, and leaves my phone utterly useless until they're done doing whatever it is they're doing, how is using a task killer to...kill the process...not useful? It's much faster than rebooting the phone. I also think it's much faster than going into each application's individual settings to use the 'force stop' command. Is there a different way to kill a stuck app other than these methods?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is useful in those situations but realistically when people give that argument they are just looking for a reason to keep it. Android has the ability to kill tasks built in. If you're on 2.1 then yeah it's buried deeper in the menu but not a big deal. I can't imagine an app freezing enough to warrant having a task killer for. If you're on 2.2 it's much more easily accessible.
When we talk about task killers we're talking about people using them to kill open tasks that aren't causing issues simply to see more free ram available.

[Q] RAM observations

I have my Nexus S for over two weeks now, and I'm incredibly happy with it. Theming is a lot of fun, and you can do very cool stuff even without root and custom roms!
However, there is one (strange) thing I've noticed. It's about the RAM.
For your information: I use Go Launcher which has a tab in the App Drawer with running applications, and a button to close all (you can exclude certain apps). When I boot up my phone, I have 170-180 MB free RAM. The following programs (and widgets) are running in the background (I have excluded them from the close all list): Go SMS Pro (widget, notifications), WhatsApp (notifications), Lookout, Extended Controls (widget), Wiget Locker (I made it look like the MIUI lockscreen) and Clockr (widget).
There are two more apps that are on constantly, and those are the Miren Browser and PlayerPro. I don't know why Miren Browser keeps turning itself on. When I check how much MB it uses, it says 0,00 dB... As for PlayerPro, I use a widget called Phantom Music Control, a widget that hides itself when no music is being played. I also use it on my lockscreen. This widget controls PlayerPro, so that is probably why PlayerPro has to be running all the time (so that it can start up quickly when needed).
There are some Google apps that turn themselves on, like Gmail and Places, and they actually use RAM according to Go Launcher. I don't want them to be running, and synchronization is turned off with Gmail. When I want to know if I have mail, I open Gmail. It doesn't have to be running all the time. I've never used Places, and I never will use it, so I don't know why that has to be running all the time.
Every once in a while I hit Close All (with Go Launcher). However, I've noticed that over time my free memory keeps lowering. When I boot up my phone it is around 175 MB, but at the end of the day the free memory is 100 MB, 70 MB or even 50 MB, and yes, even after I've hit the 'Close All' button.
I know I don't use my phone very efficient, with programs like Go SMS, Widget Locker and that Music Control widget, and I will flash a custom rom later. My RAM memory will probably increase then (I've read something about Supercurio's kernel including a boost RAM management). It just bothers me that I don't have control over what programs are running (Gmail and Places), and that my free memory decreases over time. I haven't noticed any slow downs, I'm just worried. Or shouldn't I?

I don't know about the rest, but you shouldn't be concerned about free memory.
Android is designed in a way that all programs keep running (sleeping actually) in the background even when you don't use them at the moment. They are automatically killed when the system needs memory for something else. Any program that is sent to the background (e.g. by pressing back or home) can be killed by the system at any time and is (should be) ready for it.
Basically, the less free memory you have, the better. That means that many of the apps you use are running and you can return to them without delay.
There are some articles floating around the web about the architecture of android and process/application life cycle. They explain that better then me, and in more detail.

cgi said:
I don't know about the rest, but you shouldn't be concerned about free memory.
Android is designed in a way that all programs keep running (sleeping actually) in the background even when you don't use them at the moment. They are automatically killed when the system needs memory for something else. Any program that is sent to the background (e.g. by pressing back or home) can be killed by the system at any time and is (should be) ready for it.
Basically, the less free memory you have, the better. That means that many of the apps you use are running and you can return to them without delay.
There are some articles floating around the web about the architecture of android and process/application life cycle. They explain that better then me, and in more detail.
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Click to collapse
First of all, thanks!
So I don't have to be afraid of any slow down? And what about Gmail and Places turning themselves on every time, even if I don't use them?
And why does the free memory decrease over time, but increases again when I turn off and boot up my phone?

Androyed said:
So I don't have to be afraid of any slow down? And what about Gmail and Places turning themselves on every time, even if I don't use them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More like the opposite: your RAM is being put to good use.
When your PC get's low on RAM it will start swapping and trashing around. Your smartphone has no swap and is optimized for it. If it get's low on RAM, it will just kill some stuff in the background. All this happens without you noticing anything (if the app is programmed correctly).
I don't know about Gmail and Places. Most likely they are running because they registered broadcast receivers or something.
Androyed said:
And why does the free memory decrease over time, but increases again when I turn off and boot up my phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every app is running in its own dalvik virtual machine process. Since creating a new VM process is expensive (in terms of processing time), the VM processes are reused to some degree. One app is unloaded, the new one is loaded.
There is more stuff going on behind the scenes, of course. There are likely some spare VMs sleeping in the background waiting for an app to use them.
However, the heap (dynamically allocated memory of a process) of a VM can only grow and never shrink (don't ask me why). So after a few apps or so a VM process is restarted, too.
To come back to your question: When your device boots up, only the processes needed for boot are running. That will be the launcher, some widgets and so on. So basically, this is the moment with the most free RAM. However, this is also when your device is slowest, because every new app you launch has first to be loaded into memory and executed.
While you use your device, many of the apps you used will be kept around in the background, so when you start them again, they will reappear instantly, because the whole "create vm process --> load app from storage --> execute and initialize app" chain has already happened.

"Free memory is wasted memory."
When you open an app, the system loads it into ram. When you close it, the system should not bother to remove it from ram because there is a good chance you will use that app again and having it pre-loaded makes it open significantly faster.
Just because ram is "used" doesn't mean it can't be re-allocated for something more important.
That being said, it is entirely possible that some of your apps have memory leaks. Does it get worse after two days, or three days?

d-h said:
"Free memory is wasted memory."
When you open an app, the system loads it into ram. When you close it, the system should not bother to remove it from ram because there is a good chance you will use that app again and having it pre-loaded makes it open significantly faster.
Just because ram is "used" doesn't mean it can't be re-allocated for something more important.
That being said, it is entirely possible that some of your apps have memory leaks. Does it get worse after two days, or three days?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I turn my phone off every evening, so I don't know. It's not a problem by any means, I'm just curious.
I've left my RAM alone today, and I didn't noticed any slow down. It was on 110 MB free RAM when I left it alone, and when it was at 35 MB RAM, I decided to hit the close all button (there was no slow down btw). Guess what? My RAM went back up to 140 MB! Not as much as when I boot my phone up, but it's still strange: when I hit close all when the free RAM is very low, I get more free RAM then when I hit close all when my free RAM is around 100 MB (I only get 5 or 10 MB free RAM extra then).
Thanks by the way, good first post!

(Q) Droid Charge ram 328 or 512?

Sorry if this question has been answered somewhere, but I searched and couldn't find a reliable answer. When I go to task manager, it always shows memory usage out of 328mb available. Everything I read prior to purchase indicated there was 512mb ram. If I'm going to be locked in contract for any extended period of time I definitely need more than 328. 512 is already low by today's standard, but 328mb is ridiculously bad. Anyone that knows the answer and a way to verify would be greatly appreciated as all the searches I do come up with both answers.
Thanks for the help guys.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

In addition to the above mentioned issue... I frequently have 250+ out of the available 328 used even when task manager indicates no apps running. Is there that much going on in the background? In case this helps I'm running the ED2 debloated rom so I can't imagine how bad it would be if I still had all the bloat in there.
Thanks again for the input
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

The phone has 512MB total, with some of that allocated to the system that can't be used by apps. This memory goes to thinks like the GPU to give you that stellar video performance. Sucks that it can't be changed really, but that is how it's setup. I believe that we can get a few MB back from the system, but you won't get all of it back.

imnuts said:
The phone has 512MB total, with some of that allocated to the system that can't be used by apps. This memory goes to thinks like the GPU to give you that stellar video performance. Sucks that it can't be changed really, but that is how it's setup. I believe that we can get a few MB back from the system, but you won't get all of it back.
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Click to collapse
Thanks a lot for the response. Makes me a lot more comfortable with holding on to this guy. There must be some serious bacground processes going. because I've yet to see anything lower than 180mb used (about 150 available) and that's with autokiller at extreme preset, which I normally wouldn't set so high...I just wanted to see if any additional mb's would free up.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

Ok, android 101:
Android uses smart caching and background process management to keep your apps available and running smoothly. As such the more RAM you have free the more you are WASTING. This system is designed to run up to 99% RAM use before turning off any running apps/background processes.
Ever since android 2.2 it has been HIGHLY efficient at doing so. Using autokillers to keep RAM free is pointless, as most apps don't even use ANY CPU when in background, unless they perform background checks for things like is it your turn on words with friends, etc. Unless you have an app that uses too much background data like this (in which case I'd just get rid of the app...) then using killers is pointless, let the OS run the way it is designed to do. Ever since I listened to a ROM dev and stopped using task killers my battery life on my original droid has nearly tripled, and I'm overclocking it from 566 to 1200mhz!
Android is not windows 95, you don't need to hold its hand and make sure things are closed, doing so actually defeats the advanced features of the OS, decreases battery life in all but a very few cases, and increases your app startup times, keeps you from getting background updates properly, etc.

warriorprophet said:
Ok, android 101:
Android uses smart caching and background process management to keep your apps available and running smoothly. As such the more RAM you have free the more you are WASTING. This system is designed to run up to 99% RAM use before turning off any running apps/background processes.
Ever since android 2.2 it has been HIGHLY efficient at doing so. Using autokillers to keep RAM free is pointless, as most apps don't even use ANY CPU when in background, unless they perform background checks for things like is it your turn on words with friends, etc. Unless you have an app that uses too much background data like this (in which case I'd just get rid of the app...) then using killers is pointless, let the OS run the way it is designed to do. Ever since I listened to a ROM dev and stopped using task killers my battery life on my original droid has nearly tripled, and I'm overclocking it from 566 to 1200mhz!
Android is not windows 95, you don't need to hold its hand and make sure things are closed, doing so actually defeats the advanced features of the OS, decreases battery life in all but a very few cases, and increases your app startup times, keeps you from getting background updates properly, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was always of the impression that an app such as autokiller differed from a standard task killer in that it modified the values at which android natively kills off processes vs me going in and manually closing an app (which i never do). I too have read articles that task killers are pointless and do more harm than good, but I always thought autokiller was a different sort of "tweak" if you will. I've even seen several devs promote that they've modified androids native memory management to be more aggressive, etc...which is what I thought autokiller accomplished. Autokiller simply seemed necessary to me with the Charge because I was experiencing lag and lockups even with a debloated rom and voodoo kernel. Clearly there could be several culprits to this this and I was simply testing out different fixes and seeing what the results were. Thanks for the heads up though...learn something new every day.

Autokiller memory opimizer (not a task killer)

What is the verdict on these memory optimizer type apps?
http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/faq

I can't recommend Autokiller highly enough on Samsung Froyo phones. It was a must use, even with Voodoo, on my old SGS i9000, and the same thing on my Droid Charge.
True story: just this morning I was ready to throw my Charge against the wall in frustration. Ever since upgrading to EE4 the damn thing was LAG LAG LAG city, even with Voodoo. Phone was snappy as heck after a reboot, but after a couple of hours use, it started to lag, and then would get so laggy it was almost unusable. Seriously, opening apps would take 10 second. Auto-rotate the screen took 4-5 seconds.
I enabled Autokiller, set it "aggressive" and the phone's a speed demon again.
Try it, can't hurt your phone with it, might help it exponentially.

waiting for the phones built in lowmem killer is useless, use autokiller and you will notice an immediate improvement in phone response time. heres a point for ya, without it installed i have 78mb ram free,,,with installed 158ram. thats huge. for a phone. plus they dev just updated to reduce memory usage of the app itself, plus there are tweaks in the settings menu to make the IO scheduler more aggressive, improve sd card reads, battery life, wifi, networ,...its layered man. and free....whats more to love. the only other way i have found to improve phone speed feelwise is with kangfucius kernel and set that terd up to 1500hz with cfq. shazaam.

elucid said:
What is the verdict on these memory optimizer type apps?
http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/faq
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically what you're doing is tweaking the settings for how Android frees up your memory. In theory, it should be good, because the defaults that were picked with the Android release aren't going to be appropriate for everyone. Just be careful not to be too aggressive or you might start losing functionality you want, such as alarms or background email checks.

chadness said:
Basically what you're doing is tweaking the settings for how Android frees up your memory. In theory, it should be good, because the defaults that were picked with the Android release aren't going to be appropriate for everyone. Just be careful not to be too aggressive or you might start losing functionality you want, such as alarms or background email checks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good point on not being too aggressive. The higher you set it, the more sticky sports ate pushed out of memory, so with the settings I have right now the phone kills some things that in the oat would have been running when I went back to them. I'm going to drop down from aggressive to strict and see if that's a better balance for how I use the phone.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

Call me crazy but...
Android is linux based right? I.E. it uses a linux kernel? I was under the impression that was true. If so, unless you're running into the problem of completely filling RAM and having to wait for stuff to be cleared, this kind of thing will not help you!
Linux intentionally leaves commonly used items in RAM in order to decrease access time. It is perfectly normal for such a system to run at 70-80% memory usage. It is, in fact, a GOOD thing, because it means more memory is actually being put to a potentially useful purpose.
That being said, if you're actually running out of RAM I suppose something like this could help.

slight23 said:
Android is linux based right? I.E. it uses a linux kernel? I was under the impression that was true. If so, unless you're running into the problem of completely filling RAM and having to wait for stuff to be cleared, this kind of thing will not help you!
Linux intentionally leaves commonly used items in RAM in order to decrease access time. It is perfectly normal for such a system to run at 70-80% memory usage. It is, in fact, a GOOD thing, because it means more memory is actually being put to a potentially useful purpose.
That being said, if you're actually running out of RAM I suppose something like this could help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, yes, I frequently give the "in linux free memory is wasted memory" whenever people want to use some taskkiller app because they want a lot of free memory. This isn't about shooting for some high free memory number because we're Windows minded and think we need a lot of free memory, this is about finding the right settings for Android's own memory manager to keep the phone responsive. There's been something about my Samsung phones (except the Nexus S) where they just get laggy as hell with the stock memory manager settings.
As described above, my phone was almost unusable after a couple of hours booted up until I enabled Autokiller. Maybe something I'm running has memory leak; could be, but I pretty much run the same apps on all my phones, and the HTCs and Nexus S don't get laggy like the i9000 and Charge do.
This app, or the one named MinFreeManager really help. In the early days of the i9000 on MoDaCo site we were using the cat command to tweak the settings manually in our efforts to find a way to stop RFS lag before Voodoo came along.

I just installed this yesterday and configured it for strict mode. I also enabled all of the advanced system tweaks and so far I haven't noticed much if any difference, perhaps it depends on your individual usage and what apps, launcher, etc you're using. I'm going to leave it on and see how it goes though.

Any still using this? Any want to share what settings they use?