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Hey what's up everyone. Anyone know why there is so much RAM being used on the phone? As soon as I bought the phone without installing any apps, I'll open the task manger and see over 430mb's of memory being used, giving me a little over 100mb's left. I'll run 3 apps, bring it into the 80-90mb's left and the phone gets laggy.
Anyone know why the phone is using so much memory with nothing running In the Task manager? I never see it under 400mb's of use.
Thanks
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Is it the same after a reboot?
For my Sensation, I've noticed that after a few times using it and playing with it, the avaliable RAM decreases even if I have no more than 5 apps running
Rebooting the Sensation gives me fresh RAM.
Also you may use a taskiller or task manager, that will show you much more running tasks than what is displayed by the stock HTC task manager
HTC's task manager is not even showing the right amount of ram. Go into menu->settings->applications->running and look at your ram there.
I just pulled the battery out and turned the phone back on. Says 468mb's are being used. Have around 110 availible.
Borodin, thanks. I'll try that. But I've noticed after 5 apps running. The phone will get real laggy. I came from an HTC HD7 and I loved how smooth it was. Not seeing that in this phone much...but still like it.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
I'm not saying that it's not ridiculous that Sense 3.0 is using that much RAM, I'm just saying that may be we have more mem available then we think.
In my phone right now:
HTC's readings are 438 used/120 free
Android's readings are 253 used/263 free.
Phone definitely needs a make over as Sense is just bogging it down.
Supposedly has something to do with the 2.3 Android system
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App
Yes I don't know why the two are reporting different amounts. But I have a feeling that the one in the running services is showing the correct value.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
I installed ADW ex & checked a few times to see how much ram I had and it shows a little over 200mb free(in tsk mngr). Not to mention this thing is now snappy as hell.
Sent from my HTC Feeling.
Strange, I can reach a max of 338Mb free (according to a task killer and an external task manager from the market) after a reboot and after having killed all unecessary tasks. I use settings=>apps=>running apps to kill some tasks, and taskiller to kill some other, because both of them don't display all of the running tasks and display some that the other doesn't display.
After two days of (eavy?) use, doing the same trick to kill al unwantesd tasks, I can't go over 200 or sometimes 150MB so I reboot.
Just like most modern os you don't have to worry about memory. Android will take care of it. Also remember, if you're not using the memory its useless. It's better to have 10mb of memory free always as long as you don't notice issues. Apart from apps there are cached apps, buffers and other things loaded to keep the phone speedy. Just don't look or think about it and definitely don't use a task killer.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
.....or at least, use a task killer very carefuly if you use one, set it to ignore all the system tasks, and also all tasks the OS will always keep on puting ON again indefinitly if they are killed, your wallpaper, any media related app, etc
(after each reboot, I have Gmail, the reader, news, weather, facebook, messaging, etc opened in the background for nothing, I definitly prefer killing it as they will start again normaly if I need them)
But right, except for N64oid and Fpse, I have never been bothered by too low RAM on the Sensation. And when that happened on these 2 emulators, it was after 2 days of heavy use without any reboot, so....^^
mobilehavoc said:
Just like most modern os you don't have to worry about memory. Android will take care of it. Also remember, if you're not using the memory its useless. It's better to have 10mb of memory free always as long as you don't notice issues. Apart from apps there are cached apps, buffers and other things loaded to keep the phone speedy. Just don't look or think about it and definitely don't use a task killer.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you 100%, and again with your comment about the task killer. Don't install a task killer, and don't obsess about killing about with the built in task killer. Since 2.2 android has done an amazing job at managing and using available resources. It's pre-loading services and apps into memory to have things launch sooner, etc. When the system runs out of available memory it will kill whatever apps it feels it needs to kill in order to give the smoothest experience possible.
Paging Dr B said:
I agree with you 100%, and again with your comment about the task killer. Don't install a task killer, and don't obsess about killing about with the built in task killer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only reason I have a task killer now is if anything is loading for no reason. With that I found that VTOK & Movies by Flixster were always running & causing the phone to never sleep & draining my battery. They were always listed as in the foreground (along with Tmobile's Wifi Calling & MyAccount apps).
Bloatware!! The sooner it can be removed, the better.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using Tapatalk
I've noticed that rosie uses alot of ram on every sense build. But 3.0 is a little over the top. It gets killed quite easily as well after using the xda app, browser, and download manager for example. And then sense has to completely reload... Htc obviously noticed it a little late in the game and was quick to make miniscule changes in a desperate attempt to conserve ram usage. No scrolling wallpaper? On a dualcore 1.2ghz processor? Really? Lockscreen lag? Lag at all? Can't wait fire a cooked sense 3.0 rom. The difference will be tremendous!
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Android is at its most efficient when the memory is being fully utilised. Don't think of memory usage in Windows terms.
crx4xharder said:
No scrolling wallpaper? On a dualcore 1.2ghz processor? Really?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ask and you shall recieve, and that's what HTC just did. The no-scrolling wallpaper is considered a UI feature just as it is on the Galaxy S 2. It's also standard on ADW-EX and Launcher pro. I personally dig the stationary wallpaper.
what have you got so bad against task killers??
You just say "don't use it", without any explanation....
I use one, like I do on my 2 other Android devices, my Sensation is extremely stable, and I don't want to lose fps when I use Fpse or N64oid, sorry to tell you you're wrong: having less than 150MB ram, because many apps are running in the background, when starting one of these 2 emus, makes fps drop, or frameskip less efficient.
Try it yourself if you don't believe me.
i900frenchaddict said:
what have you got so bad against task killers??
You just say "don't use it", without any explanation....
I use one, like I do on my 2 other Android devices, my Sensation is extremely stable, and I don't want to lose fps when I use Fpse or N64oid, sorry to tell you you're wrong: having less than 150MB ram, because many apps are running in the background, when starting one of these 2 emus, makes fps drop, or frameskip less efficient.
Try it yourself if you don't believe me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I don't use emulators. I also don't have a sensation, so I can't comment on gaming on one. I have however played just about every game imaginable on my SGS1 and have never had to worry about closing an app to play any game. The main reason why I tell people like the OP to not use task killers is because they tend to begin automatically killing tasks(the people using them, not the app on it's own), and since the newer versions of android behave they do, those tasks just end up starting again which then leads to an endless loop of task killing, and battery drains for no reason. I also make it a habit of restarting my phones once a day or two, so I never really give the devices to get bogged down with extra crap running. I'm just saying that's my experience. If you like it, then so be it. Kill away.
Another thing you may want to try is, backing out of all of your running apps instead of being addicted to the home button. Home leaves the apps running and using resources; Backing out closes them and keeps the universe in a zen like state. I love the home button, when I know i'm going back to use a certain app immediately. If not then I back out.
allright, I agree with what you say.
Luckilly, I've set my Taskiller not to endlessly kill tasks that always start again (and actually, Taskiller doesn't display them, or don't kill them automatically or in one click on the widget, only if you go to the app itself and select force kill, what I never do knowing they will start again asap).
I mainly use it, from its widget, to kill everything related to messaging, gmail, facebook, reader, tutorial, etc, that tend to start automatically and never stop when I connect datas or reboot the Sensation.
I also most of the time try to back out instead of home button, but for a few apps, it may be loooonng because it will display a lot of pages back before killing the app.
As for newer versions of RAM management, it also depends on the ROM I suppose.
With my stock SFR/Vodafone french ROM, after, let's say, 2 days of use, the RAM goes under 170Mb, even if I close all tasks, I don't know where RAM is drained, I'm pretty sure my stock ROM is responsible for it, so I reboot every day or every 2 days too.
Hey everyone...
I'm running a cappy with CM nightly #104. I upgraded 2 days ago and everything was running well.
I installed Autokill memory optimizer to help keep things running smoothly. I set it to the aggressive preset and it worked fine for a day.
Today - out of the blue - nearly everything on my phone started 'force closing' email, gapps, apps when opeend, etc. Even autokill force closed after only being open for a second or two.
I uninstalled autokill and things seem to have returned to normal.
Did I miss something? I found a website that's a kind of guide for autokill. I like the program and think it should make things run more smoothly... but this was very strange.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
UPDATE: It started again with a few apps constantly closing (gapps, email). This time I uninstalled autorun manager and things went back to normal.
We'll see how it goes since I don't know of anything specific I did that would make that sort of thing happen.
Again, any advice greatly appreciated!
theyurtingyeti said:
Again, any advice greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The advice is NOT to use any task kill/auto kill app. They do more harm than useful, especially in newer Android OS.
Thanks... That's kind of annoying, but makes sense.
Is there a better way to optimize memory usage? I have apps that seem to lag more on the newer OS after a min or so of usage. (EX: words with friends)
I would suggest the supercharger v6 script in android general section. Worked wonders for me. Dlev5, talon.
Sent from my cell phone. DUH.
Thanks, I'll check it out!
Android keeps things in ram on purpose - to optimize switching between apps. The apps are not actually running; they do not actually use any cpu cycles, they're simply memory resident so the OS doesn't have to retrieve them off the flashrom chip each time you want to load something. The alternative (removing an app from ram each time you close it) will actually force Android to retrieve it from storage each time you want to run it, meaning it'll use more cpu cycles, increase loading times, and needlessly waste battery power.
Android also keeps a pool of minimum ram free that it needs to provide a smooth desktop environment. It'll automatically kill apps and services in a set order if it needs more ram for itself or a foreground app. Those task-killer apps have been hurting Android's performance since 1.6.
foxbat121 said:
The advice is NOT to use any task kill/auto kill app. They do more harm than useful, especially in newer Android OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This.
theyurtingyeti said:
This time I uninstalled autorun manager and things went back to normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Autorun manager is something I can't live without. You do have to be careful with it though.
Only use advanced mode. Basic mode is essentially a task killer.
Anti depressant perhaps?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
EarnyBaller said:
Anti depressant perhaps?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha.... it feels like that sometimes.
Thanks to everyone for the responses. I've got some ideas of stuff to learn more about and at least I know how to reverse any damage I do
I like autostarts. Just be careful and you need to root first.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Hey, I use RAM Manager Pro to keep my phone super fast. But it sometimes kills the phone, and SMS apps. So I have to wait like 2 or3 Seconds to open.
So anybody know a good app that keeps select apps in Ram?
Sent from my HTC myTouch_4G_Slide using Tapatalk
It is actually highly recommended NOT to use anything to enhance RAM, like task managers and the one you're using. Like you noticed they kill functionality and I've noticed that it kills battery as well.
The Android OS does an exceptional job of managing RAM on it's own since it's Linux based.
AgentCherryColla said:
Hey, I use RAM Manager Pro to keep my phone super fast. But it sometimes kills the phone, and SMS apps. So I have to wait like 2 or3 Seconds to open.
So anybody know a good app that keeps select apps in Ram?
Sent from my HTC myTouch_4G_Slide using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use 'advanced task killer' coz its got quite a bit of settings to mess around with. Been using it since Froyo.
You can set it to autokill after a period of time or when you turn off the screen. It normally doesn't kill the focussed app or music app playing in the background. Also you can setup the level of security or how exposed systems apps are to it. This way you can limit it to killing only user apps or all apps.
It is very light too so doesn't hog the battery.
I have seen battery improvement with it too and it actually allows me to setup setcpu profiles with 192mhz on screen off without getting a blackout.
Try it and let me know what you think.
sent from a hacked Phone Booth using XDA
I've ready many posts stating that the Android system does a good job managing RAM.. Over the past couple of weeks.. once every 2 days or so.. my phone starts bogging down something fierce.. almost locked up. I run advanced task manager and my available ram is around 20-25. I kill a few apps, and the phone works fine for a bit. Eventually, I just reboot it.
From my experience, it's not doing such a great job managing ram on its own.. If the phone is crawling to a stand still.. you would think the OS would manage it.. it's not.
I don't get it..
schmit said:
I've ready many posts stating that the Android system does a good job managing RAM.. Over the past couple of weeks.. once every 2 days or so.. my phone starts bogging down something fierce.. almost locked up. I run advanced task manager and my available ram is around 20-25. I kill a few apps, and the phone works fine for a bit. Eventually, I just reboot it.
From my experience, it's not doing such a great job managing ram on its own.. If the phone is crawling to a stand still.. you would think the OS would manage it.. it's not.
I don't get it..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uninstall advanced task killer. Problem solved
Pin it to Win it.
haha, then I have to reboot when it slows down.. I just downloaded autostarts.. just shut down a crap load of items from starting up.. I think that will do.
Linux (and android) have the mentality "unused ram is wasted ram" so having lots of free ram is only good if launching memory intensive apps/programs.
tahahawa said:
Linux (and android) have the mentality "unused ram is wasted ram" so having lots of free ram is only good if launching memory intensive apps/programs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem being, as soon as I drop to around 30-50 available.. the phone is extremely sluggish. I wait, wait, wait for the OS to shut down some apps, it never does. It just gets worse to where the phone is not usable. So a reboot or closing apps has to take place. It's not managing the ram at all..
schmit said:
The problem being, as soon as I drop to around 30-50 available.. the phone is extremely sluggish. I wait, wait, wait for the OS to shut down some apps, it never does. It just gets worse to where the phone is not usable. So a reboot or closing apps has to take place. It's not managing the ram at all..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to hear that your phone is buggy but task killers are a nuisance. You kill them visually but they sprung up in a few secs or mins hence taking the freed space you just created.
Next time when your phone is lagging so much, go to manage applications > running applications and check what is using your Ram so much. Most of the time, rogue apps come into RAM and due to lack of a good ram management in those apps, they tend to stay there hence eating away your ram.
cricketAC said:
Sorry to hear that your phone is buggy but task killers are a nuisance. You kill them visually but they sprung up in a few secs or mins hence taking the freed space you just created.
Next time when your phone is lagging so much, go to manage applications > running applications and check what is using your Ram so much. Most of the time, rogue apps come into RAM and due to lack of a good ram management in those apps, they tend to stay there hence eating away your ram.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks.. I'm not using the task killer to kill any apps.. you're right, they pop right back up. I found if I long press, I can do it through the system, which keeps it closed.
Autostarts seems to be working very well.. None of the typical apps are starting up.. but 2 are annoying me.. they start up every time.. Google Drive and Gallery
schmit said:
Thanks.. I'm not using the task killer to kill any apps.. you're right, they pop right back up. I found if I long press, I can do it through the system, which keeps it closed.
Autostarts seems to be working very well.. None of the typical apps are starting up.. but 2 are annoying me.. they start up every time.. Google Drive and Gallery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I always uninstall/freeze my gallery because it's known to eat ram.
Try turning off Google Drive in accounts sync and try using QuickPic instead of gallery
Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2
schmit said:
I've ready many posts stating that the Android system does a good job managing RAM.. Over the past couple of weeks.. once every 2 days or so.. my phone starts bogging down something fierce.. almost locked up. I run advanced task manager and my available ram is around 20-25. I kill a few apps, and the phone works fine for a bit. Eventually, I just reboot it.
From my experience, it's not doing such a great job managing ram on its own.. If the phone is crawling to a stand still.. you would think the OS would manage it.. it's not.
I don't get it..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand your frustrating. Living and working in a windows world. I was uncomfortable with removing my task master of choice. Android works better now. If you have questions please pm me.
.
Android will try to do its job when cleaning RAM, but if a lot of badly written apps are running and all hogging resources, Android itself will still try to respect those wishes. Apps have priorities when they need to be killed, but if all apps say they're number 1 in priority, then there's no room to negotiate.
The best solution is to find and uninstall the rogue applications. Period.
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
Well if its happening recently, uninstall your most recent apps. Also Google voice gives me problems, try uninstalling that
Sent from my Handheld Portal Device
zoppp said:
Well if its happening recently, uninstall your most recent apps. Also Google voice gives me problems, try uninstalling that
Sent from my Handheld Portal Device
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uninstalling most recently installed apps is a good start. I use Google Voice all the time without problems and any extra battery drains. It's a memory hog (35+ MB sometimes, with a Google Update service being redundant since there's the Play Market already).
Supercharger v6
If your rooted, try using the supercharger v6 script.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=16635544#post16635544
Anthony1596 said:
If your rooted, try using the supercharger v6 script.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=16635544#post16635544
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think running clean apps and having good oom settings key to a good running phone. The v6 supercharger is a great however running the script manager causes excessive partial wakelocks therefore draining alot of battery at idle and in comparison to the performance gain I don't feel its beneficial. Our phones have sufficient ram if used properly. However if you are running dirty apps that are constantly syncing or updating or whatever dirty things they do that is what causes "bog down"
Anyways back to my point just change your oom groupings and forget running scripts... just my opinion tho
Pin it to Win it.
I find ICS on the G2X have a really hard time managing ram. I keep running out of memory. In Gingerbread, I don't get this problem.
I.R.Chevy said:
I think running clean apps and having good oom settings key to a good running phone. The v6 supercharger is a great however running the script manager causes excessive partial wakelocks therefore draining alot of battery at idle and in comparison to the performance gain I don't feel its beneficial. Our phones have sufficient ram if used properly. However if you are running dirty apps that are constantly syncing or updating or whatever dirty things they do that is what causes "bog down"
Anyways back to my point just change your oom groupings and forget running scripts... just my opinion tho
Pin it to Win it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why would you need to have script manager running?
If you don't have init.d support, you can use it to just launch 99supercharger.sh on boot.
You don't leave SManager running in the background or anything.
Of course, if you have init.d support, it's just becomes ingrained into the OS and with zeor overhead.
nitrogen618 said:
I find ICS on the G2X have a really hard time managing ram. I keep running out of memory. In Gingerbread, I don't get this problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The enforced HW-acceleration feature of ICS costs RAM, as well as the extra eye-candy. I read a recent article that speculated JellyBean will likely optimize ICS like 2.2 optimized 2.1. Hopefully they'll bring in some of Linaro's optimizations.
zeppelinrox said:
Why would you need to have script manager running?
If you don't have init.d support, you can use it to just launch 99supercharger.sh on boot.
You don't leave SManager running in the background or anything.
Of course, if you have init.d support, it's just becomes ingrained into the OS and with zeor overhead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you would use script manager to setup all your presets and then remove it leaving the supercharger settings intact?
I used your scripts for a long time and found the kernelizer and bulletproof launcher/apps were sweet but I thought I needed to have a script manager to run them.
Perhaps I am ignorant as to the other shenanigans?
Pin it to Win it.
This is my first post on XDA and although i'm not new to the android scene having owned a lot of devices in previous years but I never came down to post queries of my own cause everything used to go real smooth!
I recently got a Nexus S i9020t from a friend and tried flashing a Jelly Bean rom on my device.
No issues so far with everything working with every rom that i've tried...
The only thing that bugs me is the ram.
I've tried several kernels on top of different roms (Matrix, Air (Big-Mem version), Marmite etc.) designed for Jelly Bean but I never to seem get any greater ram than about 150-170 mb even on first boot with no applications installed and when I restore about 50 of my apps through titanium it goes down to 120-150 at max.
I have tried rebooting my device every now and then but the ram leak doesn't get any better.
That way most apps that I run crash my device (im a big fan of chrome on android but the lack of availability of free ram degrades performance)
I've been looking into using different free task managers on the play store but of no use.
Simply put, my question relates to the free ram this device can generate!
Can anyone give me an explanation as to the lack of free ram and what kernel, tips and tricks I could follow to improve it?
You can try flashing a kernel that supports BIGMEM(check the development section). Since you're new you won't be able to post any question regarding said mod. Basically gives you 50mb of extra RAM which, IIRC, takes away from the HD recording portion of the phone or something of that nature. The 512MB RAM sucks, but I never had an issue with it on mine. Then again, I never really ran a lot of applications. Android can handle the tasks on its own and free up memory when needed. But you may face a few launcher redraws now and then.
chronophase1 said:
You can try flashing a kernel that supports BIGMEM(check the development section). Since you're new you won't be able to post any question regarding said mod. Basically gives you 50mb of extra RAM which, IIRC, takes away from the HD recording portion of the phone or something of that nature. The 512MB RAM sucks, but I never had an issue with it on mine. Then again, I never really ran a lot of applications. Android can handle the tasks on its own and free up memory when needed. But you may face a few launcher redraws now and then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah so like you said I did try the Big Mem versions of Air Kernel and Matrix but it was never really of much use. Matrix gives me about 180 mb of ram when the device has no foreground apps running (except the system processes of course) and Air goes to about 140-160 not more.
The thing that I don't get is that this other friend runs Jelly Bean on his Galaxy S with Devil Kernel or something and his free ram is above 190-ish.
Technically both sport the same hardware with a few extras on Nexus S (led flash, lack of gorila glass, NFC etc.) but it really doesn't make sense.
And about those Launcher redraws. Yeah, they've been going really frequent now that I installed and use chrome as my daily browser.
Overall, in my experience I'd say Matrix Kernel would be perfect if it weren't for that Voodoo Colour Mod. It gives a weird hue to my display orangy in nature but Air comes around well in that department.
We all understand what you're experiencing. Basically, our Nexus S devices just are not able to keep up with the ever increasing size of electronic files. Even though it's nice to be able to run JB, it really stretches the Nexus to it's limits. I too am torn, because I love the smoothness of 4.1.1, but to be honest, the phone can handle GB much easier. One other thing, Chrome is a huge consumer of ram ... really too much for the NS. As much as I love my Nexus, the handwriting is on the wall, if I really want to continue to enjoy all the new stuff coming our way.
The colors can be adjusted to your liking. Some kernels have a setting that's not the factory norm(ie Trinity). You also have to keep in mind some of that RAM has to be dedicated to the OS itself. You're gonna have to deal with the fact the phone has a memory limitation on 4.1. Sucks, but there's really not much else you can really do about it.
I could never get above 125MB on GB even with a custom kernel. With only 512MB ram, more than half of that is already used by Android itself, there's not much left for apps. That said, I would remove unnecessary widgets on home screens, install Autostarts, or ROM Toolbox, or Gemini App Manager or other autostart management app and turn off autorun triggers on apps. The less background apps the more rams you can free up. I'm currently running with about 75MB and it's smooth. I set auto free rams to start killing apps if it's below 45MB.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium
[email protected] said:
I could never get above 125MB on GB even with a custom kernel. With only 512MB ram, more than half of that is already used by Android itself, there's not much left for apps. That said, I would remove unnecessary widgets on home screens, install Autostarts, or ROM Toolbox, or Gemini App Manager or other autostart management app and turn off autorun triggers on apps. The less background apps the more rams you can free up. I'm currently running with about 75MB and it's smooth. I set auto free rams to start killing apps if it's below 45MB.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those auto triggers you talk of what software do you use to counter those cause I just looked at the cached processes inside the stock Application Manager and it showed a few that always show up when my phone boots. Of those that I usually encounter is Titanium, Maps, Google Search and a two or three more. Killing them doesn't make much of a difference though. Either the ram display at the bottom is screwed or the ram just doesn't go up when I abort any one of them and after a while they again show up. How do I deal with them?
Some general points.
Yes we want more ram. But we want it to use it. Free ram is wasted ram.
Task managers suck. All of them.
Low ram should not crash your device.
Stop worrying about how me free ram you have
Chrome sucks. It sucks on all devices. Sucks on n7. AOSP just runs better.
Want to keep a little more free ram because your device lags when its low on ram. Go to developer options and limit background processes
I'm with al. No point in over-obsessing about it. Cached processes aren't doing anything. They're there for when you want to switch apps for quicker access, which part of the way Android operates. You can limit what starts on startup to increase boot time(probably not even worth it), which I do even though I just said it probably doesn't help much, with a startup manager.
I to am no fan of task killers. I've heard that they can sometimes consume more ram since some of the killed apps will try to start again.
I found the autostarts app very useful. I have disabled around 50% of all auto starts. Mainly for installed apps but also a bunch of system apps. Another useful tool is Auto Memory Manager which sets the ram level where the system kills apps according to their category (e.g. Foregroud, visible, hidden etc). I use the "mild" manager with the level for empty apps raised. I manage to get around 80 MB free when running nothing. However I have a performance ROM which might affect that number.
My Nexus S has been retired a long time now.. I'm currently using the GS3 with lots of rams so it's not an issue for me anymore dealing with low rams... However, same symptoms on the GS3 or any Android phone, the less available rams means more processes are running which can cause slow app responsiveness. Also, some app even runs in the background hogging load of cpu usage, that definitely slows down your phone. I use task manager to kill off those high cpu apps when they go wild. OS Monitor is a good app for monitoring cpu usage... GO SMS Pro is an example app that sometimes persistently consumes 30% - 50% cpu, killling it off makes the phone smooth again.
S-beamed from my GSIII via xda premium