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Advice please - need more speed!!

Hi, I've started this thread to get some advice from the members who are experienced in modding their phones.
As lots of G1 owners did, I greedily installed app after app until i was running low on space and ended up getting rid of a load. By this time my phone was running slowly anyway.
After recently playing with JF 1.5 then going to the official cupcake release, i have now only installed 24 apps and have 60mb free internal memory - so plenty of space for the browser/maps/youtube caches to grow.
My problem is understanding exactly how the system works though. How can I force each app to continue running in the background until I go back to it?
When first opening an app it takes anything from 0.5sec (dialer) to 17sec (maps) to go from the initial blank screen to actually drawing the app interface on the screen. This is fine when you first use an app, and if you go home then back to the app this is pretty much instant because the app is still running.
My problem however is the small number of apps the system allows to keep running before closing them, it only seems to be about 4 or so, and when you reopen an app you used a little while ago then you have to go through the painfully slow initial waiting while the app interface is drawn on the screen.
My questions really then are:
1. How many apps does the system keep running, and can this be increased? If so, then how & at what price?
2. Is there a way to force the system to always keep certain apps running and not close them (apps I use repeatedly througout the day, such as gmail, chompsms, browser)? I want the instant snappiness all the time for these apps.
3. Can I force the system to close other memory/processor hog apps as soon as I finish using them (maps, youtube, gallery)?
4. Will moving my apps and dalvik cache to a really fast class 8 microsd card help the speed of my phone in any way? Or is this just a way to increase free space on my phone memory?
Thanks in advance for any answers/advice/help!

17 sec for map? Something is wrong. I just opened my map and it took 2 sec to open up the map, another 1 sec to get my rough location. I was inside so I can't comment on getting exact GPS location but, if I had to guess, usually it's about 4-5 sec to lock onto that.
Now onto your question: Android manages it's own memory and there's no way of telling it how to manage it. You can do couple of things:
1) Get an "Open Overclocker" and increase the speed of you CPU to 384/528Mhz from stock 284/384Mhz
2) Get "Task Manager for root users" which will let you shut down programs that you don't use.
3) Reduce the number of widgets you have installed. In my experience, all of the news widgets run in the background even if you don't have them on your screen.
4) Clear you caches regularly (once a day). Very important.
5) Reboot your phone once a day.
Good luck.

borodin1 said:
17 sec for map? Something is wrong. I just opened my map and it took 2 sec to open up the map, another 1 sec to get my rough location. I was inside so I can't comment on getting exact GPS location but, if I had to guess, usually it's about 4-5 sec to lock onto that.
Now onto your question: Android manages it's own memory and there's no way of telling it how to manage it. You can do couple of things:
1) Get an "Open Overclocker" and increase the speed of you CPU to 384/528Mhz from stock 284/384Mhz
2) Get "Task Manager for root users" which will let you shut down programs that you don't use.
3) Reduce the number of widgets you have installed. In my experience, all of the news widgets run in the background even if you don't have them on your screen.
4) Clear you caches regularly (once a day). Very important.
5) Reboot your phone once a day.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just opened my map again after rebooting the phone (and ensuring wifi is switched on, so there's no delay in downloading data for the map) and it took 7sec from hitting the icon until i had a map drawn on my screen. So perhaps the 17 sec was a one off. Even still, it feels painfully slow.
I will look into rooting my phone, and the over clocking and the TaskManager.
The only widgets i have installed are the google search bar, and a playlist.
Any thoughts on moving my apps/dalvik cache to a fast sd card? I think i read somewhere that a class 6 sd card is about the same speed as the internal memory in the G1, so would a class 8 card be even faster than this with regard to loading apps up?
Thanks for your advice so far!

There are multiple discussions about that and at this point it sounds like it does not matter where you caches are in terms of speed. Don't ask me why, I'm not that tech savy. Most people move caches to save space and to avoid clearing them every day. The beauty of this is that you can try it out and go back if you think it's not for you.
Also... look into what apps do you have on your phone, some of them may bog down system significantly. I know for sure that Phonebook from VoxMobile will, there are few others, can't remember which though, look for the thread about it from couple of months ago.
Good luck.

Thanks borodin1!

You do realize, unless the section of the map is cached, it has to be downloaded over your wireless connection right? (and cell networks has a very long latency.)
As to your questions 1-3, all running tasks are managed by the android system and non-active ones are terminated if memory is required by an active program. You cannot control this, but you can kill running apps if you want.
Also due to the slow nature of the terrible dalvik VM, you can't get much performance improvement by moving the dalvik-cache. I suppose you can get some boost by increasing the CPU speed, but the battery life will be much shorter.

billc.cn said:
You do realize, unless the section of the map is cached, it has to be downloaded over your wireless connection right? (and cell networks has a very long latency.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is why people move caches to the card and don't have that problem

but the map app does not use /cache. the latter is designed for non-transient temporary storage, not for big chunks of junk like the map.

How to lock *phoning* process in memory ?

*please don't read "my phone is slow" but "I want the telephony functions load (very) fast"*
Hi,
I'm trying to find a way to get dialer, calls log and contact list fast as light.
Exemple: each time you launch the dialer he is keep in memory. If you launch "heavy" application and launch the dialer (Oops: I mean contact list) again it's take up to 5 secs to appear.
*Edit because of unhelping answers elsewhere* It's possible to lock "telephony functions" (dialer, call's log and contact list) in memory ?
As I say in another forum : I know this is a strange idea, but I have this smartphone to call people too !
Edit: I use a rooted HTC Magic 32B w/ Cyanogen mod 4.2.15.1 plus 10mb Hack/JIT...

I'm not sure what you mean by "keeping in memory". I take it that you have recently switched from windows mobile? Can you give an example of a "heavy application" that causes slow down?
I would suggest removing any task manager or memory optimization applications from the phone. These are the ones which cause the most slow downs.
Also, the slow down could be caused by putting more stuff on the phone than it is capable of, as in running too many background applications. Try checking your settings->application->running services to see if you have a bunch and try removing the unnecessary ones.
Also, keep in mind that just because an application is in memory, will not make it faster to switch to. The time that it takes for the CPU to load something from disk is only a small part of the total time that is required to display it. If the CPU is occupied with a bunch of background services then the foreground application will only be able to claim a share of the CPU time and thus, regardless of being on disk or in memory, will still be slower to load.

Maybe you can use a swap device to optimize memory usage?

ady said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "keeping in memory". I take it that you have recently switched from windows mobile? Can you give an example of a "heavy application" that causes slow down?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In fact, heavy application is not the good explaination, it's more about how Android manage memory. So when I talk about "heavy application" I'm talking about the application who, because of Android memory managment, unload another "thing" from RAM.
Two day ago someone ask me to add him in my contact list and i've to tell him to wait a little until my contact list to load.
The original question, who was not understand by others people elsewere, is :
If I launch the dialer (or contact list) once, it load "slowly" (~2secondes, "very long")... if I immediatly press home and launch it again it load almost instantaneously (fast as light)...
Now, if I load some applications (web browser, gmail and Spotify at same time) memory is freed so, if I launch the dialer again, it will load "slowly" again.
Question : How to get the case 1 for dialer, call's log and contact list in most situation ?
I can understand that slow load time may happend in some case (high cpu load, ...) but why after the first launch, the second one (without doing anything else) is *VERY* fast ?
"Keep Home in memory" in Spare Parts allow fast display of home after using "heavy" applications (maybe because he's already loaded/keeped in RAM or stuff like that), I want the same for the telephony functions.
I'm trying to avoid "garbage" solutions like autokiller&co, just want a real tips (even if it's a little bit more technical than create a swap partition).
PS: I never touch a WM phone, before my phone was old, not multi-task and "telephony functions" was faster than right now

*bump*
I would like to lock the dialer in memory too. It takes a LONG time on CM5.0.8 (5 seconds!) to launch. Any ideas?

Bump! I have the same problem. Any solutions ?

bump
in CM7 there is an option to keep home in memory which lock the home data in ur memory when ever u press the home button it switch fast to it cuz it was never killed
maybe that affects the loading of other apps since it takes a space of ur memory depending on what u have on your home screen but for some ppl its important to switch fast to home screen ... same for the messaging app
On the other hand there is No option to lock Phone app in the memory although its way more important than keeping ur home screen in memory ,,, i mean its what the phone was made for in first place...
why do i need to wait 2-5 seconds til the phone app loads so i can dial a number ,,, makes u miss the old times really!!
i hope any one knows a way to lock the phone app in memory so it's always awake and loaded when ever its in need and it shouldn't affect the load of other apps since its very light and its way lighter than home app :/
EDIT:
i found a solution here :http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1532937

[Eclipse] Clearing RAM causes TWLauncher to restart

Quite an annoying problem that only started showing itself after switching to Eclipse. When clearing RAM the phone will sometimes show a blank home page and you'll have to wait about 10-20 seconds for it to fix itself. It seems like the TouchWiz Launcher is getting closed by clearing RAM and it has to restart itself. Another app I was using had to restart TW and it did the exact same thing(blank home page for about half a minute). Pictures below.
Would really appreciate some help, can't stand it sometimes. Even if no one has a fix I would still appreciate some confirmation that this is an Eclipse bug. Thanks for taking the time guys.

When you clear ram it tells you that it may stop running processes. It is not surprising that the launcher has to reload. You should never have to clear ram, android will shut down things on its own to make room for new running apps.

yes it seems to shut down the launcher for a moment..but mine comes back in like 2 seconds tops...for em it doesnt do it all the time..like I just tried it and it went right back to the homescreen immediately

@hoppermi I understand that but sometimes the RAM almost caps, I've gotten to 300 before with no processes open(well I had Skype and other such apps running in the background). Still, this was never a problem with GC or Humble. Can't speak for stock since I stayed on it for about 8 hours but it seems like a problem with TW.

Just so you know
This even happens on the Stock on occasion. Not 100% though, but every so often.

"RAM almost capping" -- assuming you mean what I think you mean -- is perfectly normal Android behavior. That's exactly why Google so adamantly recommends against running task killers. If you do actually run out of RAM, the OS will end tasks automatically.

Haha I totally forgot about that, I always wondered why I have 260mb being used, open then close PvZ or Angry birds and I'm suddenly only using 180mb. Well thanks, guess I'm done clearing RAM for the time being. Still odd that this only happens with TW.

I think most launchers try to keep themselves in the memory...the one that came with Eclipse apparently does not.

[Q] Manual Ram Reset?

Let me begin by saying I have a rooted Infuse with Infused 2.2.3 Gingerbread and the Infusion Kernel.
As I use the Infuse over the course of the week, apps get started up and slowly my memory goes down. I can shut off some apps manually, but some refuse to get turned off, even by ram clearing apps and manual rooted actions.
Whenever I want to speed my phone up again and free up Ram, I have to reset my phone.
My question is how would I go about clearing the ram on my phone back to the 'phone-on' starting position, when my apps have yet to be activated?
I have used Advanced Task Killer to attempt this and it does not permanently close apps. I have also used Autokiller Memory Module to close programs, but they also do not stay closed (Is there something to Chuck Norris mode?).
Does anyone know a way to clear the ram back to that point? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Check this out to know more about Android memory management
You do NOT need any memory managers to manage. Let android manage memory.

Please actually read!
Please read my statement before you answer.
Once again, my phone's internal memory manager works FINE, but it does over time get bogged down by too many apps trying to start at once.
My ONLY question: Can I reset the phone's memory back to a reset state without resetting my phone?
Thanks for anyone who knows an answer to this!

sonomar said:
Please read my statement before you answer.
Once again, my phone's internal memory manager works FINE, but it does over time get bogged down by too many apps trying to start at once.
My ONLY question: Can I reset the phone's memory back to a reset state without resetting my phone?
Thanks for anyone who knows an answer to this!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read again:
Apps don't start at once, nor compete. Based on usage of apps, OS loads them into RAM, and keeps them there. The amount of RAM to be always left free is set initially. Rest of the RAM is filled here. Apps filled like this do NOT use CPU. They use CPU only when they are invoked, or backgrounded.
Say you are done working with an app, and use the exit function in it. It just signals OS its end, but the app is not cleaned out of RAM. It is kept until it is invoked again, or pushed out until more free RAM than available is needed or when pushed out manually using task manager.
When any app wants more RAM than what is available, the preloaded ones are pushed out, and this app is loaded.
Too many apps compete for CPU and memory when a user starts hitting "home" button instead of "back" button. Home button pushes apps to background wherein the back button signals u r out of the app. This sets the app to be pushed out of RAM as needed.
I use pretty many apps, and sometimes go on for over a week without bothering to use any task manager to clear out RAM nor noticing any lag.
And to be specific to your question:
There is no time like initial start time until the phone is rebooted again. If u give the phone some time to settle after u reboot it, u can see apps being to memory, be it that they are invoked by you or not. Even if ATK or any task killer kills them, OS respawns them over time based on ur usage of them.

Thanks, I'll try pushing the back button more often and see if that works...though for google apps that usually isn't allowed.
The problem is that even with Android's automatic system, I'm still being given "Low Memory" warnings on all my apps within a few days of rebooting.
I dunno, I think that currently the only real solution is to reboot my phone bi-daily, but I really was hoping there was a way to reset the OS ram without a full reboot.
Again, thanks anyway!

sonomar said:
Thanks, I'll try pushing the back button more often and see if that works...though for google apps that usually isn't allowed.
The problem is that even with Android's automatic system, I'm still being given "Low Memory" warnings on all my apps within a few days of rebooting.
I dunno, I think that currently the only real solution is to reboot my phone bi-daily, but I really was hoping there was a way to reset the OS ram without a full reboot.
Again, thanks anyway!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe u have too many apps open. Not sure what's the case on ur phone. Personally I never faced this low memory issue so far.
By the way, I froze up certain system apps (in tibu) (even deleted some) that I don't use, like Google search, etc cos these r always loaded and I never use them.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

I have the same problem
sonomar said:
Let me begin by saying I have a rooted Infuse with Infused 2.2.3 Gingerbread and the Infusion Kernel.
As I use the Infuse over the course of the week, apps get started up and slowly my memory goes down. I can shut off some apps manually, but some refuse to get turned off, even by ram clearing apps and manual rooted actions.
Whenever I want to speed my phone up again and free up Ram, I have to reset my phone.
My question is how would I go about clearing the ram on my phone back to the 'phone-on' starting position, when my apps have yet to be activated?
I have used Advanced Task Killer to attempt this and it does not permanently close apps. I have also used Autokiller Memory Module to close programs, but they also do not stay closed (Is there something to Chuck Norris mode?).
Does anyone know a way to clear the ram back to that point? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a tablet android 4.1. After some time I don't have runing apps and I don't have free memory. I don't have running tasks, I don't have cashed tasks. And I don't have free memory. After this critical point the tablet needs restart. Of course after restart everything works fine, for some hours. After sleep the above critical point comes quicker... The problem seems to me like driver or software problem but I can't be sure... I m searching for a similar solution for an app that can without restart, restart my ram, clear completely my ram, not task killing because at the end I don't have tasks to kill... It looks like somehow a garbage ram is created after some time, that kills my ram. It looks like virus but it is not virus as the device is new and I have check for viruses...

Just get the app Startup Manager, stop all user apps (except some that you do want to run), apply, and reboot

Cache cleaner free from the market. I use cache cleaner ng.
sent from outer space.

Quick and easy approach - use Fast Reboot.
Brings the phone to like-rebooted condition... in about 5 seconds.
Normally don't need it, but occasionally phone gets bogged down and this clears it right up.
Free program.
Another step - a little more work - Find the programs that are running with a service and get rid of them if you don't need them... or use Gemini Apps manager to block auto-start. Google Maps is a good one to block auto start of.

[Q] MT4GS--Free up RAM w/o Root? Or..

My MT4GS has some serious RAM issues. I even think it may have leaky or bad RAM. Basically, Android will close background apps to make room to run new apps, right? So here's what mine does: When I load an app, Sense closes. And when I try and play games like Draw Something which require a second app (FB mobile) to log in, it closes Sense AND Draw Something. So I'll tap Draw Something, it'll load, then switch to FB Mobile, log in, then switch back to Draw Something but because it closed Draw Something it has to start loading from scratch, requiring a new log in, then when it does that it closes Draw Something again. It basically creates an infinite loop, if I let it run without hitting back (several times) or home. And then I get to wait for Sense again.
I've tried third party RAM apps and they don't seem to help. (I don't understand how they could anyway.) So I'm hoping someone has a solution outside of rooting.
But if not, I've never rooted a device of any kind before. So I'm really apprehensive to try it without detailed knowledge of every step required. And if I rooted, I'd probably want a new ROM, yes? I've heard Bulletproof is nice, but I don't know a lot about others.
All help is appreciated. Thank you.

Rooting is no big deal. We could have you rooted in 15 minutes. I believe achieving "S-Off" is what you're trying to avoid......even though it's not too bad either. But it sounds like you may have used up any swap file your system has & could stand a bit more. Probably installed quite a few apps that are running in the background. You could probably reformat your SD Card to Ext4 and get rid of the issue but you'll need a custom recovery. That's how it sounds to me anyway.

WeekendsR2Short said:
Rooting is no big deal. We could have you rooted in 15 minutes. I believe achieving "S-Off" is what you're trying to avoid......even though it's not too bad either. But it sounds like you may have used up any swap file your system has & could stand a bit more. Probably installed quite a few apps that are running in the background. You could probably reformat your SD Card to Ext4 and get rid of the issue but you'll need a custom recovery. That's how it sounds to me anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do have a few background apps, but I've tried to avoid a ton and I only have one widget running.
I'm willing to do what I need to to get my phone working the way it was intended.

GiftigDegen said:
My MT4GS has some serious RAM issues. I even think it may have leaky or bad RAM. Basically, Android will close background apps to make room to run new apps, right? So here's what mine does: When I load an app, Sense closes. And when I try and play games like Draw Something which require a second app (FB mobile) to log in, it closes Sense AND Draw Something. So I'll tap Draw Something, it'll load, then switch to FB Mobile, log in, then switch back to Draw Something but because it closed Draw Something it has to start loading from scratch, requiring a new log in, then when it does that it closes Draw Something again. It basically creates an infinite loop, if I let it run without hitting back (several times) or home. And then I get to wait for Sense again.
I've tried third party RAM apps and they don't seem to help. (I don't understand how they could anyway.) So I'm hoping someone has a solution outside of rooting.
But if not, I've never rooted a device of any kind before. So I'm really apprehensive to try it without detailed knowledge of every step required. And if I rooted, I'd probably want a new ROM, yes? I've heard Bulletproof is nice, but I don't know a lot about others.
All help is appreciated. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ouutside of root...factory reset and watch what you install...there's little chance for a permanent fix outside of root though...inside root...or once your rooted...use es task manager and es startup manager...my mytouch was doing something very similas until rooted...also the v6 super charger will definitely help once your rooted...
1inspire2flipout3huaweiAscend?4transform5Evo6Sensation7backflip8xperiaPlay9xPlayR800i10OneX11GalNexus12HTCamaze13Evo3D14samInfuse15MyTouch 4G Slide

If you root (Very easy to HBOOT unlock, flash recovery, flash root if you use the Toolkit in the development forum) then you can check out an app like Greenify maybe.

try the app "fast reboot" by great bytes software. Been using it since i got a doubleshot, it really helps.

I've done all of the above and flashed miktouch. It's much faster. Ands I'm giving fast reboot a go.
Sent from my MikTouch_4G_Slide using xda app-developers app