Database Info

Low Available Memory

When my phone just started it is about 180, then it dropped to 90 after extensive use (20ish minutes).
That is even after using advanced task killer...
Anyone else experiencing this?

That's still plenty o' memory.
Keep in mind that there's a lot of folks getting good performance out of Droids, Milestones, etc, that have half the RAM (256) to start with, and hover around 20-30mb free in normal operation.

I was curious about this myself and was going to make a thread about it soon. Regardless of if it's enough free memory, I'm still a little confused as to where all my memory is going. When I close everything with TasKiller, I can get to about 175 MB of RAM free. I have a friend with an EVO that always gets well over 200 MB free, and I imagine that the HTC Sense UI would use a lot more memory than Launcher Pro (which is what I'm using)... but I could be wrong.

I can hit about 230 free after killing all tasks. I uninstalled all the ATT apps not sure if that had anything to do with it. I also use Touchwiz with only 2 Widgets accross 2 home screens.

maybe its android 2.1 that has a cap on the memory

Guys, a little piece of advice if you're new to Android. Don't sweat memory usage, if it's above 40mb free you're generally doing just fine.
And those apps that are using memory aren't using much if any CPU cycles or power, most are just cached in case you need them, and are wiped out of the cache if something else needs the memory.
On the other hand, if you're killing a lot of background tasks by reflex, those tasks are taking MORE time and power to reload again if they're no longer cached, plus there's the overhead of the Task Killer. It's especially bad if you have a Task Killer set to auto-kill apps, even more overhead as the task killer has to remain active to sniff for things to auto-kill.
Task Killers are the devil, and they're like crack. Just walk away.

labbu63 said:
maybe its android 2.1 that has a cap on the memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats what some people are saying. They said we should see more avail RAM when the 2.2 update comes out. Or if someone can do some kernel wizardry.
The specs on the box do not mention any amount of RAM. I would be unhappy if ATT only put in 256! I didn't look through the manual maybe it says in there.

Bjd223 said:
Thats what some people are saying. They said we should see more avail RAM when the 2.2 update comes out. Or if someone can do some kernel wizardry.
The specs on the box do not mention any amount of RAM. I would be unhappy if ATT only put in 256! I didn't look through the manual maybe it says in there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im going to look into this more cause thats strange but i dont think you should worry much about the ram cause like it was said before if u have 40mb free ur still good

labbu63 said:
maybe its android 2.1 that has a cap on the memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed that seems to be the case, many threads about the issue can be found elsewhere on xda or google. Also this technical article from google: developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.htm (I can't post links yet)

yep ur right says more mem support at near bottom http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html
2.6.32 kernel upgrade
HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB
so it seems cause of the kernel

Well that's interesting. So you're saying that no matter what, right now we're only accessing 256 MB of RAM? I hadn't heard that before about 2.1, but that would be cool if our RAM essentially doubled in 2.2 (along with the massive CPU speed gains seen).
Again, it's not so much being worried that I'm going to run out of memory. It's simply a discussion on what people think we should be seeing. I'm certain that I don't have enough running to use 300 MB of RAM, which is why the question was raised. So I think we have our answer now and can rest easy waiting for 2.2.
As for the task killers... I honestly am more worried about CPU cycles for things I've left in the background than RAM. I've noticed my phone basically hang for a few seconds every so often, and I can only assume that something in the background is causing it. I'm going to turn off auto kill and not kill tasks manually for a while and see if there is any difference during use.

labbu63 said:
im going to look into this more cause thats strange but i dont think you should worry much about the ram cause like it was said before if u have 40mb free ur still good
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
40? No. 40mb of free RAM is unacceptable with todays smartphones on the market. I own a Captivate as well as a Nexus One and my Nexus consistently has 200-250 avail RAM. However when they first released the phone they only released it with 256 avail making my phone normally read about 120- 130 avail RAM. Now its been opened up to the 512(unless it had already been rooted) and it is much quicker than before. I'm wondering if something similar has been done with this phone.

well if it does have more than 256 mb it will be able to recognize rest in 2.2 as you said about ur nexus one maybe its just that the software on the captivate thats showing less you never know just gotta wait till some dev figures it out hopefully not to long

My phone is reporting 325mb of RAM, so I'm not sure if this is the same kernel limitation. I would appreciate if anyone could enlighten me as to whether or not the full 512 I was under the impression this phone possessed will be available under 2.2.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

ttalaoc said:
My phone is reporting 325mb of RAM, so I'm not sure if this is the same kernel limitation. I would appreciate if anyone could enlighten me as to whether or not the full 512 I was under the impression this phone possessed will be available under 2.2.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly the limitation being talked about. Yes, 512 will be available after 2.2.
Until then, don't worry about it. Don't install a task killer, they just waste your time worrying about it. The OS has built in levels of memory where it starts to kill off different types of apps from background idle, all the way up to foreground active if entirely necessary. It WILL kill the extra apps if you need the memory.

I have been running ATK constantly since I got my Captivate a couple days ago. Not really concerned with memory usage as much as battery life. So far I get one full day of use before recharge, but I expect that to go up once I stop turning on the screen every few minutes to play with it. Can auto task killing negatively affect battery life?

[Q] What Hoggs Your Ram?

I would like to know what are your guys readings of RAM usage. Mine sits around 240MB/339MB
Is that high or normal? I do have quite a bit of widgets on different home screens so I dont know what the baseline is. Please share your results.

Good topic I was wondering this myself ...
Average ram I have is about 128MB free out off 339MB
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

179mb out of 339
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

moshe22 said:
179mb out of 339
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, running widgets? maybe I should modify my running apps.

fknfocused said:
Wow, running widgets? maybe I should modify my running apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No widgets running at the moment though.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

Task MAnagers!?!?!
I'm not sure if i am 100% right about this maybe won of the senior members who does know can enlighten us on this...
But I remember reading somewhere that task managers some times can hurt your phones RAM usage. I don't use one anymore unless it comes stock. and then I rarely find a reason to open it on mine. In standby I am running around 80-100 with 200-300 of freem RAM so with the SGS4G i don't think i will find a reason to use more than the stock utilities. I somtimes will installl a tool to monitor the RAM to see what I'm usin but every once in a while I go through and uninstall anything I don't need right away. I figure ussually being in good internet coverage I can always put something back.
So does anyone else know about wether or not the "Task Manager" could actually be a tantric in some cases?

moshe22 said:
No widgets running at the moment though.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So widgets are the ram hog on this phone? I have been constantly clearing ram in the task manager to help with speed. I only run clock, battery, and calender widgets on my device. Are they enough to boost me all the way to 240+ even after a RAM clearing? Considering the age of this thread is this still the case with new ROM's that are starting to roll out? I'm still stock, and very noob to android devices, but the urge for mods is growing given the positive responses to them.

http://m.lifehacker.com/5650894/and...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
Very good article about task killers
Sent from my SGH-T959V

Bassmanjames said:
So widgets are the ram hog on this phone? I have been constantly clearing ram in the task manager to help with speed. I only run clock, battery, and calender widgets on my device. Are they enough to boost me all the way to 240+ even after a RAM clearing? Considering the age of this thread is this still the case with new ROM's that are starting to roll out? I'm still stock, and very noob to android devices, but the urge for mods is growing given the positive responses to them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, this is def not the case anymore. I sit around 200MB free. Ever since cwm's final release the doors opened for us. Go get some love
sent from my not so stock SGS4G

You shouldn't have to worry too much about RAM usage. A lot of it used by the OS. But yeah widgets does lower it and whatever app you're using. But I hope you don't resort to using task killers just to save 50mb's of RAM. It's there for use and shouldn't be looked at too much.
Mine shows about 400/626, but haven't noticed any big difference in battery drain when it's at 300/626.

Simple answer....everything hogs ram. The best way to tell what's worse is settings » applications » manage applications and watch your ram usage when you have certain things running. You will notice what is hogging more than others.
sent from the pits of hell (from an sgs4g)

Thank you for the info everybody. Been ruinning just fine all day with the ram almost maxed out, hard to break that task manager habit though lol. Goona keep reading before I root-flash-mod need to make sure I get it right the first time.
On the moon our weekends are so advanced they encompass the entire week

Samsung and Tmo set many bloatware to run ALL the time and hogs RAM
via Linda file manager and auto memory manager (which tweak's android's memory management, not a standard task killer), i saw many apps that always run (many with priority equals to android system and the phone app) such as "wifi calling, visual voice mail, my account, qik, device management, drm, etc.
not everyone use these apps and they take up precious RAM and tiny amount of CPU cycles.
worse, however, is how the phone keeps loading unused, unaccessed, unwanted apps into memory (been weeks since I used pandora, yet it keeps getting reloaded into memory).
from clean boot, I get 150mb free. after a week, I get 45-55mb. This causes memory manager to kill off app as soon as you switch away and alot of stutter (dont you hate it when your browser gets killed)
Dont know if theres a fix for this. I tried tweaking the OOM parameters but it doesnt seem to work on this phone. Samsung probably tweaked something that broke this.

[Q] Low RAM?

Im not sure why but in the past week, my phone ram was was quite low. (30m - 45m) Before that, even after playing games and stuff, the ram was always above 55m. I have the go sms app, i have lookout running always and battery notifier (big text) to tell me my battery level. these were the apps that i downloaded just before the raam went low. oh and i only have 4 widgets running on my screen. (google search widget, power control widget (the one with options to toggle wifi, bluetooth etc etc on and off), a go taskmanager widget to show me how much ram i have and a music app widget) BTW im rooted running stock 2.1. Hope someone can help me!

If you want more free ram try to upgrade your phone into 2.2 custom rom...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=943368
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App

DarkMD said:
If you want more free ram try to upgrade your phone into 2.2 custom rom...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=943368
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh lol i was already planning to go for the xda special but i just wanted to find out why suddenly the ram went down on my stock 2.1. any idea?

androidlover123 said:
oh lol i was already planning to go for the xda special but i just wanted to find out why suddenly the ram went down on my stock 2.1. any idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
must've been the services or processes running hidden in the background. there are some apps you can use to kill or stop them. but mainly i just use autokiller memory optimizer to modify android's default app killer to kill apps even when the ram is not very low(it kills apps when ram reaches a certain level). theres also a function in autokiller memory optimizer which allows you to kill processes. if you want more ram, you could use swap too, but it eats more battery, so i dont.
its a good app, and you dont have to use any task killers anymore. you can use the strict preset in the app if you want higher free ram. swap if you activate swap, you could go up to more than 100m free.

eejin2 said:
must've been the services or processes running hidden in the background. there are some apps you can use to kill or stop them. but mainly i just use autokiller memory optimizer to modify android's default app killer to kill apps even when the ram is not very low(it kills apps when ram reaches a certain level). theres also a function in autokiller memory optimizer which allows you to kill processes. if you want more ram, you could use swap too, but it eats more battery, so i dont.
its a good app, and you dont have to use any task killers anymore. you can use the strict preset in the app if you want higher free ram. swap if you activate swap, you could go up to more than 100m free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh ya i forgot to mention i have already been using autokiller memory optimizer at strict level for a month already. yesterday i changed it to aggressive hoping that my ram would increase but to no avail.

then it'd be that you have to many processes running it in the background. see from autokiller memory optimizer. just tap to close. swap gives you a LOT of free ram also. but you have to be using a swap compatible rom of course, so stock but rooted, no. unless u are using the eclair strikes back rom. im also on stock singapore but rooted. average free ram now is around 50 and im underclocked running at 500mhz cos i wanna save battery. its still running smoothly. actually, i dont really care about how much free ram there is, if its smooth then its all right for me. is your phone running smoothly?

eejin2 said:
then it'd be that you have to many processes running it in the background. see from autokiller memory optimizer. just tap to close. swap gives you a LOT of free ram also. but you have to be using a swap compatible rom of course, so stock but rooted, no. unless u are using the eclair strikes back rom. im also on stock singapore but rooted. average free ram now is around 50 and im underclocked running at 500mhz cos i wanna save battery. its still running smoothly. actually, i dont really care about how much free ram there is, if its smooth then its all right for me. is your phone running smoothly?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
huh no sadly D: every time i launch app then i exit that app, it will take about 3-5 sec for home page to load. It wasnt like that a week ago. (then it was very fast to return to screen-no lag at all.) btw im using go launcher.(it was there a month ago and had no lag at all until last week)

androidlover123 said:
huh no sadly D: every time i launch app then i exit that app, it will take about 3-5 sec for home page to load. It wasnt like that a week ago. (then it was very fast to return to screen-no lag at all.) btw im using go launcher.(it was there a month ago and had no lag at all until last week)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to clean cache frequently, that help to
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App

My suggestion would be to flash the stock Cincinnati bell sbf. I did that recently it is the most updated one from Motorola and is set at 720 MHz by default. I don't use anything and my ram is around 55-60. Smooth as hell. I use launcherpro. Its prettier, you can choose the keep in memory option which stops it from redrawing the screen. Mine is rooted. I get a day and half of battery life with wifi and autosync in 100% of the time, an hour of GPS, 1 hour gaming, one hour music and the odd texts or calls. Hope that helps. Nothing in my opinion beats stock 2.1
Sent from my Milestone XT720 using XDA App

I use CyanogenMod 6 and its pretty nice... i have around 70-80 mb of ram free... btw i have about 25 apps instaled...
Overclock at: 1.1ghz @ 70vsel
Sorry for my bad english jaja
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App

androidlover123 said:
Im not sure why but in the past week, my phone ram was was quite low. (30m - 45m) Before that, even after playing games and stuff, the ram was always above 55m. I have the go sms app, i have lookout running always and battery notifier (big text) to tell me my battery......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have 30m-45m ram and it didn't affect the performance of the phone, then nothing to worry....now if your rom is in the 2.1 stock, you have a problem especially in using camcorder due to low memory... my suggestion is to flash the 2.2 rom like wahhu rom, xda special or the cm6...My ram is in the range of 30m-60m and I'm using the wanhu rom and even the cm6 rom still the performance of the phone is great..... Actually there is something in the phone that eats the ram..... It is one of the reasons why there is a problem in porting the cm7.
P.S. Try to flash the original wanhu rom then apply the latest update of Mioze-update-SC_2.2_XT720_Beta3a-Mz05 and the dark froyo theme.....

Go to cm6. Can't stop saying how smooth and snappy it is
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App

spectacle said:
Go to cm6. Can't stop saying how smooth and snappy it is
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree..... but there are still several issues to fix.... I'm waiting for the final product..... Great work by Mioze.

abet1017 said:
If you have 30m-45m ram and it didn't affect the performance of the phone, then nothing to worry....now if your rom is in the 2.1 stock, you have a problem especially in using camcorder due to low memory... my suggestion is to flash the 2.2 rom like wahhu rom, xda special or the cm6...My ram is in the range of 30m-60m and I'm using the wanhu rom and even the cm6 rom still the performance of the phone is great..... Actually there is something in the phone that eats the ram..... It is one of the reasons why there is a problem in porting the cm7.
P.S. Try to flash the original wanhu rom then apply the latest update of Mioze-update-SC_2.2_XT720_Beta3a-Mz05 and the dark froyo theme.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya i remember last time i use camcorder my phone had frozen. (nothing was responding. after 5 min i decided to battery pull then after that all apps started to force close, including launcherpro, so i could not do anything with my phone and had to uninstall launcherpro to solve problem. I really want to stay on stock 2.1 cos it has no issues at all until recently the ram problem which was slowing the phone down a lot. even at 1ghz 66vsel and autokill memory optimizer at strict level its quite low ram.

androidlover123 said:
Ya i remember last time i use camcorder my phone had frozen. (nothing was responding. after 5 min i decided to battery pull then after that all apps started to force close, including launcherpro, so i could not do anything with my phone and had to uninstall launcherpro to solve problem. I really want to stay on stock 2.1 cos it has no issues at all until recently the ram problem which was slowing the phone down a lot. even at 1ghz 66vsel and autokill memory optimizer at strict level its quite low ram.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if the ram is still low after all these trying out all these suggestions, why dont you try wiping everything and starting again?

eejin2 said:
if the ram is still low after all these trying out all these suggestions, why dont you try wiping everything and starting again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ya that was kind of my last resort.... but since no one can find a solution for this, i just do that. Thanks to all for their help!

androidlover123 said:
ya that was kind of my last resort.... but since no one can find a solution for this, i just do that. Thanks to all for their help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are going to do it from scratch, I suggest you use the cincinnati bell sbf. I have had a very good experience with that. Root with universal androot 1.6.2 beta. After that install open recovery and youre set.

i have about 60 applications installed and here a screen shot of a very comon amount of ram i have in mafia wars when done any were from 95 to 110 i have availble for use.

how much memory do you ususally have free?

so how much memory do you guys usually have free. i usually only have about 100-150 free when using no apps i do not quite understand where the other 300 some goes to?

hdjx20 said:
so how much memory do you guys usually have free. i usually only have about 100-150 free when using no apps i do not quite understand where the other 300 some goes to?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Unused RAM is useless RAM"
140-200 Megs. Usually 140-170 is my average

what rom are you on? and did you remove any htc stuff?
i thought the more free ram you have the smoother/faster youre phone will run.

hdjx20 said:
what rom are you on? and did you remove any htc stuff?
i thought the more free ram you have the smoother/faster youre phone will run.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With Android, the more processes and apps kept foreground or alive and using ram, the smoother and faster your UI experience is.
Usually I have 100-120MiB.
sent from HTC Pyramid using Tapatalk

220mb free / Opensensation

int80h said:
220mb free / Opensensation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive been considering trying cm9 as i had it on my old phone but i feel like i would miss a few things from sense too much!

hdjx20 said:
what rom are you on? and did you remove any htc stuff?
i thought the more free ram you have the smoother/faster youre phone will run.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how a Windows PC works.
And yes, in that case the more free RAM you have the better.
Android / Linux work a little differently though. They keep programs / apps in resident memory so they are quicker to access later. The assumption is that if you ran the Gmail app once today you're likely to run it again. So it stays in memory. If you want to run something else that needs the memory Gmail is using, Gmail will be shut down and that memory will be reallocated to the new app.
Then when you want to run Gmail app later, it'll take an extra half a second to load it.
Now, the extra half a second doesn't seem like a big deal. But the real savings is battery life.
Every time you take an app out of storage and put it into memory, the processor has to work a little harder. (It's got to find the app, then start it up, etc...) That takes battery power. Not a lot, but it adds up. Additionally battery power has to be used to power the memory chip or SD card where the app is located. So that's more battery power.
By keeping apps in memory, you still use battery power to use the app, but save the power it takes to start the app up. Open 20-30 apps a day and that little bit of extra power adds up.
In the mean time the app that's stored in RAM while it's not being used isn't in anyone's way as it'll be kicked out as soon at that extra RAM is needed.
This is why App Killers are generally a bad thing to let loose and wild on your phone. (Though they do have a valuable purpose when you've got a frozen app)
---------- Post added at 02:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:50 PM ----------
hdjx20 said:
ive been considering trying cm9 as i had it on my old phone but i feel like i would miss a few things from sense too much!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Android Revolution HD (Sense 3.6) or Insert Coin (Sense 4.0) then. Both ICS. Both really nice ROM's with some tweaks. Both sense. (And you can even yank Sense out of Android Revolution if you so choose and run it sort of like AOSP.

373MB on Insert Coin Sense 4 RC5
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA

Running Elegancia 3.50 with several widgets loaded (~5) I average between 220-150MB free.
One tip I was given regarding freeing up more RAM is to use the HTC skin. I have no idea why but if I use any other skin it eats up ~30MB of RAM. This seems to me like an easy way to gain more free RAM without going AOSP and have to miss anything.
One final note is, on my setup I do use the excellent ROM cleaner and I have stripped out everything I don't use, widgets and apps so that definitely helped.
Hope this helps, and I have been wondering the same question as well

Skipjacks said:
This is how a Windows PC works.
And yes, in that case the more free RAM you have the better.
Android / Linux work a little differently though. They keep programs / apps in resident memory so they are quicker to access later. The assumption is that if you ran the Gmail app once today you're likely to run it again. So it stays in memory. If you want to run something else that needs the memory Gmail is using, Gmail will be shut down and that memory will be reallocated to the new app.
Then when you want to run Gmail app later, it'll take an extra half a second to load it.
Now, the extra half a second doesn't seem like a big deal. But the real savings is battery life.
Every time you take an app out of storage and put it into memory, the processor has to work a little harder. (It's got to find the app, then start it up, etc...) That takes battery power. Not a lot, but it adds up. Additionally battery power has to be used to power the memory chip or SD card where the app is located. So that's more battery power.
By keeping apps in memory, you still use battery power to use the app, but save the power it takes to start the app up. Open 20-30 apps a day and that little bit of extra power adds up.
In the mean time the app that's stored in RAM while it's not being used isn't in anyone's way as it'll be kicked out as soon at that extra RAM is needed.
This is why App Killers are generally a bad thing to let loose and wild on your phone. (Though they do have a valuable purpose when you've got a frozen app)
---------- Post added at 02:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:50 PM ----------
Use Android Revolution HD (Sense 3.6) or Insert Coin (Sense 4.0) then. Both ICS. Both really nice ROM's with some tweaks. Both sense. (And you can even yank Sense out of Android Revolution if you so choose and run it sort of like AOSP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i switched back to arhd it runs a lot smoother than 4.0 on my phone although i do like some things a bit more on sense 4. and thanks for the detailed explanation on ram.

I average between 200-250MB free on VI 4.0.1 and Sebastians Kernel!

Mine is 100-140mbs.ARHD is my daily drive now. Waiting for Sense 4.0 from ARHD

got 200-280 mb ..
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA

Im on Android RevolutionHD 6.5.5 XE and i've seen that i had got max 240mb of free ram.. usualy my free ram is between 190MB -220MB in stand by on my table at my house... (with wifi on and connected on my home network - now i see 216MB free )
and no outside modding just flashed the custom firmware and that's all...

for me, it's around 150 - 170 with OrDroid 2.0.5

Skipjacks said:
This is how a Windows PC works.
And yes, in that case the more free RAM you have the better.
Android / Linux work a little differently though. They keep programs / apps in resident memory so they are quicker to access later. The assumption is that if you ran the Gmail app once today you're likely to run it again. So it stays in memory. If you want to run something else that needs the memory Gmail is using, Gmail will be shut down and that memory will be reallocated to the new app.
Then when you want to run Gmail app later, it'll take an extra half a second to load it.
Now, the extra half a second doesn't seem like a big deal. But the real savings is battery life.
Every time you take an app out of storage and put it into memory, the processor has to work a little harder. (It's got to find the app, then start it up, etc...) That takes battery power. Not a lot, but it adds up. Additionally battery power has to be used to power the memory chip or SD card where the app is located. So that's more battery power.
By keeping apps in memory, you still use battery power to use the app, but save the power it takes to start the app up. Open 20-30 apps a day and that little bit of extra power adds up.
In the mean time the app that's stored in RAM while it's not being used isn't in anyone's way as it'll be kicked out as soon at that extra RAM is needed.
This is why App Killers are generally a bad thing to let loose and wild on your phone. (Though they do have a valuable purpose when you've got a frozen app)
---------- Post added at 02:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:50 PM ----------
Use Android Revolution HD (Sense 3.6) or Insert Coin (Sense 4.0) then. Both ICS. Both really nice ROM's with some tweaks. Both sense. (And you can even yank Sense out of Android Revolution if you so choose and run it sort of like AOSP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only way RAM can affect speed is how fast the RAM is. Whether I have 800MBs loaded or am running Counterstrike GO and Firefox loaded on top of Windows at 3GB, speed is only affected by what the processor and GPU are doing.

320-380mb. I find it that more free ram I have, the smoother and faster the phone is.

ThatsABigOne said:
320-380mb. I find it that more free ram I have, the smoother and faster the phone is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its in your imagination. Linux simply doesnt work that way.
I understand that growing up on Windows and DOS you get ingrained with the idea that more free ram= more speed. But Linux simply does not operate that way.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

Okay, Windows or not, the only time "more free ram = more speed" is if you don't have enough ram and Windows has to unload some **** to load what you're trying to run. Seriously, I don't care where you read it, more free ram doesn't magically increase your speed.
One topic you might hear people discussing when they're talking shop about computers is how much random access memory (RAM) they need to add to their computer. Up to a point, adding RAM will normally cause your computer to seem faster on certain types of operations. RAM is important because it eliminates the need to "swap" programs in and out...
...So a big application can easily take 100 megabytes of RAM or more, which can slow your system down significantly if there isn't enough memory.
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Select text I took from HowStuffWorks, here: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question175.htm
I hate Windows as much as the next guy, but let's not spread misinformation. And to reiterate with an example: If Windows + Firefox + Steam take 1.17GB to run, and I have 2GB total, adding an extra 2GB will do absolutely nothing. It will only help if I have less ram than I need.

Skipjacks said:
Its in your imagination. Linux simply doesnt work that way.
I understand that growing up on Windows and DOS you get ingrained with the idea that more free ram= more speed. But Linux simply does not operate that way.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
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I have numbers to back it up.

Leaky Ram

Hey Guys,
I am relatively new to the world of Android being an IOS man until I took the plunge and got this cracking little Nexus.
One thing I have come across is how I seem to be losing RAM over about a period of an hour or so. On a restart my RAM reads about 1.3gb free. After some time it goes to 900mb free. I have APPs like Advanced Task Manager freeing up RAM every hour but thought that someone may have come up with a software tweak or solution that may stem the flow.
I am running a rooted with standard ROM and ElementalX Kernel.
Cheers
Jason

jasonst165 said:
Hey Guys,
I am relatively new to the world of Android being an IOS man until I took the plunge and got this cracking little Nexus.
One thing I have come across is how I seem to be losing RAM over about a period of an hour or so. On a restart my RAM reads about 1.3gb free. After some time it goes to 900mb free. I have APPs like Advanced Task Manager freeing up RAM every hour but thought that someone may have come up with a software tweak or solution that may stem the flow.
I am running a rooted with standard ROM and ElementalX Kernel.
Cheers
Jason
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Click to collapse
using apps that use ram to then try free it up try remove these type of apps and check after a few hours

jasonst165 said:
Hey Guys,
I am relatively new to the world of Android being an IOS man until I took the plunge and got this cracking little Nexus.
One thing I have come across is how I seem to be losing RAM over about a period of an hour or so. On a restart my RAM reads about 1.3gb free. After some time it goes to 900mb free. I have APPs like Advanced Task Manager freeing up RAM every hour but thought that someone may have come up with a software tweak or solution that may stem the flow.
I am running a rooted with standard ROM and ElementalX Kernel.
Cheers
Jason
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Click to collapse
Thats not a issue , not in android the less free ram you have the better.. if you search google you'll know and also dont use any app killer.

There's really no need to use apps to free up ram. We got 2gb of ram
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Free ram is wasted ram, don't use any stupid task killers and forget about it
//Nexus 5//Nexus 4//HTC WFS//

So remove those APPs and it runs better with less RAM.
The revers of what Im used to :silly:

jasonst165 said:
So remove those APPs and it runs better with less RAM.
The revers of what Im used to :silly:
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You could check RAM usage on iOS? (Genuine question, not a poke at Apple )

Always let android handle itself. I have used android since the HTC G1 and android keeps getting better and better managing itself. Don't use apps that help with the android system. They make it harder for the managing to do what it has to do. Let android do it.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

A memory leak is when a single app (or multiple apps) leak into memory. This would mean if you look in RAM, app1 is using 10MB. Then an hour later app1 is using 40MB, then an hour later, app1 is using 100MB. Its only a leak if the particular app is grabbing more memory and never releasing it.
What is described here is just RAM being used, which as already covered by everyone else, is a good thing
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As posted, let Android manage the RAM. It has become quite the mature operating system over the past few years. It will know when to remove an app from RAM when it needs to free some up.
As a general point of why you basically want less free RAM: RAM uses the same amount of power whether you have 2gb free or 1 byte free. The entire stick is powered on. When you cold-boot an app, it spins up the CPU to do what it needs to do to load it into memory (compile it in the case of a JIT compiler, etc). After you do what you want to do in that app, it's fine to keep in RAM. Again, that RAM is going to either be useful, or sit there empty, doing nothing. The advantage happens when/if you want to access that app in the future. If you offloaded it, the CPU has to spin up again (which uses power) and load it into memory. If it's still in memory, it just looks at the pointers in memory and addresses it. And this is where Android has matured and knows how to handle itself: when you leave all your apps open, open another one, and reach your RAM limit, Android knows which app to offload. I don't know the exact formula, but I'm betting time last accessed is a huge (heck, it could be the only; I simply don't know) factor.
And as @rootSU mentioned, this is all assuming normal behavior. If you do actually have a memory leak, that is bad, but you are describing normal RAM usage.