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I am running Froyo from Samsung web site.
Anyways, I know froyo was supposed to free up 512 ram. I know about 100 goes to gpu. However my phone is left with 339 ram to use (as seen in task manager). However it is always using at least 220mb, even when I close everything and restart the phone. When I open up advanced task killer it says 116m free. Why so little? How can I get more easily? without having to use ROMs or kernels?
Or is this how it is for everyone? I feel kind of cheated!
First of all, you should never need to use anything like Advanced Task Killer now that you have froyo. There are legitimate uses, but its really something you can go without. See http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/cwovf/in_light_of_all_the_discussions_right_now_about/ for a good writeup.
Your phone, just like a computer, uses an optimal amount of RAM at all times. That does not mean minimal. Android phones dynamically allocate RAM for applications and the OS. Why have 200MB of RAM free when you can instead have 100MB free and have the phone be more responsive? 2.2+ manages memory more effectively, and if you are not using an application, will close it. Its fairly difficult with any normal usage scenario to cause your phone to run out of memory.
In short, you don't really need to worry about it because its that way on all Android devices (and generally any modern computing device), and that if is not affecting the usability then its not an issue
Completely agree With first comment. Everyone is concerned about keeping as much ram free as they can but it does not speed their phone up at all. Ram its just like quadrant scores a useless numbers if the phone is response and speedy in actual use
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
U could try reading this: Android Memory Management
your ram usage does seem a little high, you may have an app that is using a lot of it. the 339mb available is normal. some kernels will show quite a bit lower than that but the never seeing more than 116 free is odd. the rom im curently on fluctuates from about 140mb used to 240mb used. i only know that because i clear ram before running benchmarks, have you tried clearing ram in the built in taskmanager? or are you only going off the task killer? because the task killer doesnt necessarily clear ram.
all i know is task killers are pretty useless unless you have an app that freezes and for that the taskmanager built in to many of the samsung roms should be enough for that though it does not show every process that is in a saved state or system processes. task killer programs do more harm than good but i cant seem to get people off them. danm verizon store sets people up with them and poeple use them religiously. i figured out in the first few days of using android on my aria that getting better speed and battery life by killing tasts was a futile effort. there are few market apps that use resorces when running in the background and if you exit the app with the back button it doesnt save the state or run in the background. not that saved state is a problem. i only found that the phone uses more battery restarting processes that are designed to be running and has more lag than when you just use the phone and ignore the running processes.
Personally the only time you should be ever worried about ram is when watching a flash video or viewing a webpage with a lot of stuff. Other than that, as said, if the phone runs smooth, who cares about ram?
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?
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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?
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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?
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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!
I'm currently running EP1F Debloated with Gummy Charged
The phone typically says that, out of 312MB of accessible RAM, there is 60MB or less of free RAM.
i'm running GO Launcher EX, and on it's RAM meter, it's almost always in the Red (signifying that it's almost Maxed out in available RAM)
is this normal?
of course, any time i quit all open applications, the usuals always reload, but then sometimes odd programs will run in the background (i.e., netflix, google+, music, amazon appstore, picasa, ustream, etc). These are programs that I haven't even loaded or ran. they just like to load themselves up and run in the background. so because of this, my available Free RAM tends to sit at 39-55MB. that seems VERY low to me. and may be the reason why my phone tneds to bog down a bit and lag every now and then, when i'm going from app to app.
I know EP1F doesn't have voodoo lagfix yet (like it did on EE4), but this unusually high consumption of RAM seems odd to me.
does anyone have any input on this?
appreciate it
If you havent ran, and don't run those programs just get rid of them
no no no... I definitely run them. but it's probably a few times a day, sporadically.
but i don't need them to be running in the background, hogging RAM. whereas, i'm totally fine with an app like Gmail to always be running, since i check that all the time.
I use Autokiller Memory Optimizer, set to "optimal" preset. It's not a task killer, it just changes Androids settings to close programs at different trigger points. Keep some free ram and keeps the system from bogging down.
I also use Autostarts, which disables programs from starting up at startup or for other notifications that are set. Some programs still start themselves but it helps.
Why do you want free RAM? Unused RAM is doing nothing for you, Used is holding a program ready to launch so it's faster and needs less CPU to launch. Ideal RAM usage is 100% because the system will automatically make room for a new program to run.
Have you ever gotten a message that an app can't launch due to low RAM? Using RAM doesn't mean using CPU or battery. It just means ready to run faster.
Sent from my (currently) stock Verizon Fascinate ed04 using XDA App.
I made an observation today that I was hoping someone could shed some light on.
In AOKP there's an option where you can set how much memory the system should keep free. I have mine set to 24mb. While doing some browsing (opera mobile) I got curious so i headed over to the running apps to have a look at my memory usage. I noted that I had 235MB of ram free and that opera was using 30mb in the background. after not switching back to opera for a few minutes it was closed by the task manager.
Now this doesn't present a problem for me but it does make me wonder does the task managing in android take into account how long an app has been idle in the background as well as said apps memory usage vs available memory? I ask because while it makes sense that the os closes an app after a certain idle time but I don't see why it would need to close an app due to idle when there is such an abundance of memory still free for usage.
would be nice if an app stayed open regardless of idle time as long as memory doesn't run low and need clearing to make room for more recent processes.
regP said:
I made an observation today that I was hoping someone could shed some light on.
In AOKP there's an option where you can set how much memory the system should keep free. I have mine set to 24mb. While doing some browsing (opera mobile) I got curious so i headed over to the running apps to have a look at my memory usage. I noted that I had 235MB of ram free and that opera was using 30mb in the background. after not switching back to opera for a few minutes it was closed by the task manager.
Now this doesn't present a problem for me but it does make me wonder does the task managing in android take into account how long an app has been idle in the background as well as said apps memory usage vs available memory? I ask because while it makes sense that the os closes an app after a certain idle time but I don't see why it would need to close an app due to idle when there is such an abundance of memory still free for usage.
would be nice if an app stayed open regardless of idle time as long as memory doesn't run low and need clearing to make room for more recent processes.
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Click to collapse
I believe you're assumptions are correct. We're pretty sure its a battery saving attempt. I wasnt aware that AOKP did it also so it must be kernel related. HTC tried a whole new bag of tricks with this One... pun intended
Yeah the way the stock ROM handled memory was awful IMO. AOKP is a hell of a lot better. I didn't think about battery consumption, that makes sense. Too many background processes would murder battery.
regP said:
Yeah the way the stock ROM handled memory was awful IMO. AOKP is a hell of a lot better. I didn't think about battery consumption, that makes sense. Too many background processes would murder battery.
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wasnt this HTC's first phone without a changeable battery? They wanted to make sure it didnt die.
My Samsung Galaxy S5 is 1 week old, and it's using a lot of RAM. It has a total of 1.75 GB of RAM, and when I'm running no apps, it's using around 1.2 GB of RAM. Is this normal for Galaxy S5?
same problem to me
..
Same here not S5 thought
My galaxy note n7000 alway use 400-500 mb while it idle
(Seem normal for note) (Dirty unicorn rom)
Now i got galaxy mega 2 it's alway use 0.9-1 GB ram
No apps running
Why would samsung need that much ram for system?
Okay i found a reason
"RAM, either full or empty, consumes the same amount of electricity, unlike RAM in computers.
The CPU copies data from storage to RAM and then runs the app. If the app is already in RAM, the CPU won't reopen it, it'll directly use it.
So making the RAM full of opened apps helps the CPU. The phone becomes faster, and the need of electricity running through the CPU to open the app is now nonexistent."
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2601318
Longbottom said:
My Samsung Galaxy S5 is 1 week old, and it's using a lot of RAM. It has a total of 1.75 GB of RAM, and when I'm running no apps, it's using around 1.2 GB of RAM. Is this normal for Galaxy S5?
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Click to collapse
Yeah, that's normal. TouchWiz is a very heavy ROM, with lots of extra features, which means lots of processes running in the background. S Voice, S View, S Finder, gesture controls, etc. And if you've purchased from a carrier on a subsidy or payment plan, that means you'll have some carrier bloat running too. Some only a handful of MB, some take more, but when you have so many running at once, it all adds up. On my Galaxy Light (a lower end device), 700-800MB of the 1GB RAM is typically taken up. On my Note 3, which I've barely done anything with yet, .9-1.5GB can be used up pretty easily without any multi-tasking. Obviously, the Note 3 has many more features, which needs more RAM. TouchWiz is very heavy, which is why most of their newer mid-end models have been coming with 1.5GB RAM instead of the "standard" 1GB - one gig just isn't enough to run TouchWiz, even though it's plenty for stock or near-stock phones like the Moto G.
What you need to understand though, is that even if 1.2GB RAM is used up, that leaves 500MB or so for all the apps you'll be wanting running in the background. Facebook, Words with Friends, the camera, music, etc. That's actually quite a lot. Also realize that "no apps running" does not mean that no apps are running. There are LOTS of apps running (every feature/function is an "app"), but they're not ones that you've loaded, but they're part of the "system", so they're already running and can't be killed. Facebook is one you've loaded. Smart Screen is not, but if you have it enabled, it's still running, and it's still taking up some RAM.
What you also need to understand is that you want these apps running in the background, taking up your RAM. And you don't want to be using a task killer like Clean Master to obsessively free up RAM pointlessly. When an app like Facebook is running in the background, it's quickly retrievable. Kill it, and next time you want to load it, it has to load from the internal storage into the RAM again, which takes time, processing power, and battery life. You can still use a task killer like Clean Master to free up some RAM if things get sluggish, but it's best to white-list the apps you use a lot so you're not constantly loading them from storage and killing your battery and wasting time. Or, if you were playing an intense game for a while, but don't plan to again for the rest of the day, by all means kill it with the task switcher. Android actually does a very good job of managing your RAM, and except in certain circumstances, it's best to just let it do what it does by itself.
If you can't help but obsess with free/used RAM, or you actually multi-task to the point of things getting frustratingly sluggish, turn off all the features you don't need or rarely/never use. Go into your app manager and disable (Turn Off) apps/features you don't use. Find a "de-bloat" guide for your phone and find out what's safe to delete or turn off. This includes Samsung crap, carrier crap, and even Google stuff as well. If you don't need Lookout, disable it. If you don't use Google Wallet, disable it. Samsung Print Service? You don't use that. Disable that crap. Some of these wouldn't be running in the background anyway, but it's easy to accidentally load them, in which case they'll needlessly be taking up RAM.
---------- Post added at 09:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:18 PM ----------
skyhot004 said:
Same here not S5 thought
My galaxy note n7000 alway use 400-500 mb while it idle
(Seem normal for note) (Dirty unicorn rom)
Now i got galaxy mega 2 it's alway use 0.9-1 GB ram
No apps running
Why would samsung need that much ram for system?
Okay i found a reason
"RAM, either full or empty, consumes the same amount of electricity, unlike RAM in computers.
The CPU copies data from storage to RAM and then runs the app. If the app is already in RAM, the CPU won't reopen it, it'll directly use it.
So making the RAM full of opened apps helps the CPU. The phone becomes faster, and the need of electricity running through the CPU to open the app is now nonexistent."
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2601318
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Click to collapse
I cross-posted with your edit, but you've found some of the reason. As I said above, you want your apps running in the background, taking up RAM, unless you don't plan on using it again for a while. The other reason, as I said, is that heavy ROMs like TouchWiz, LG's Optimus UI, Sense, etc, have a lot of features and running processes compared to stock, near-stock, or the custom AOSP ROMs.