First let me say that I'm very happy with this phone overall, but I have one small grip that keeps me from being totally satisfied - choppy frame rates in certain instances.
I'm extremely picky about smooth scrolling and animations. I realize that most people aren't bothered by an occasional stutter or choppy animation, but I am. It frustrates me to see my friend's Iphone 4 which has been out for ages it seems, have buttery smooth animation and scrolling. I really thought the S3 would be the first android phone to match the IOS smoothness but so far I haven't experienced it.
My question is, does everyone's phone have these same (small) issues?
Examples: (I realize some of these might be poor coding in the apps, but again, the iphone apps don't seem to suffer from this)
1) The Verge app has choppy scrolling.
2) Engadget app has choppy scrolling.
3) Chrome browser has choppy scrolling on some sites (ex. droid life article pages that have a large amount of comments)
4) There is just a tiny bit of stutter when I first scroll home screens. After that first stutter it smooths out (I assume once the processor ramps up)
I applaud Google for trying to address this with "Project Butter", but I tried the 8/18 release of CM10 and still had the same above "lag". I'm hopeful that further optimizations to CM10 and then the official JB release will help, but honestly I'm not holding my breath.
What is it going to take to get a consistently smooth experience across the entire OS?
You need to post this in the appropriate section, which would be Q&A, not Android Development.
Mine exhibits this behavior as well. The devs will make some serious headway now that the bootloader is unlocked.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
s197 said:
You need to post this in the appropriate section, which would be Q&A, not Android Development.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, my bad. Can a mod please move?
The verge app is always choppy, even on my gnex.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
slide83 said:
First let me say that I'm very happy with this phone overall, but I have one small grip that keeps me from being totally satisfied - choppy frame rates in certain instances.
I'm extremely picky about smooth scrolling and animations. I realize that most people aren't bothered by an occasional stutter or choppy animation, but I am. It frustrates me to see my friend's Iphone 4 which has been out for ages it seems, have buttery smooth animation and scrolling. I really thought the S3 would be the first android phone to match the IOS smoothness but so far I haven't experienced it.
My question is, does everyone's phone have these same (small) issues?
Examples: (I realize some of these might be poor coding in the apps, but again, the iphone apps don't seem to suffer from this)
1) The Verge app has choppy scrolling.
2) Engadget app has choppy scrolling.
3) Chrome browser has choppy scrolling on some sites (ex. droid life article pages that have a large amount of comments)
4) There is just a tiny bit of stutter when I first scroll home screens. After that first stutter it smooths out (I assume once the processor ramps up)
I applaud Google for trying to address this with "Project Butter", but I tried the 8/18 release of CM10 and still had the same above "lag". I'm hopeful that further optimizations to CM10 and then the official JB release will help, but honestly I'm not holding my breath.
What is it going to take to get a consistently smooth experience across the entire OS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
JB is better but not as good as say iOS. Even iOS lags though if you look for it. I also I heard that there may be a hardware graphics driver module (3d driver) which is not available yet, and therefore not present in CM10, but needed for even more smoothness / JB compatibility.
Android uses garbage collection for Dalvik apps. You can see it stutter scrolling through Gallery app. This is GC occurring. You don't see this on iOS because iOS is written in Objective C which doesn't have garbage collection and therefore has no GC pauses. Engineers have improved GC over time but it still isn't perfect. Android could use more native apps, perhaps, but that would be like a new operating system.
You can see the GC by running "logcat" while scrolling through pictures in Gallery
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_CONCURRENT freed 5973K, 43% free 16473K/28803K, paused 11ms+16ms, total 47ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_CONCURRENT freed 5942K, 41% free 17254K/28803K, paused 2ms+3ms, total 24ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_CONCURRENT freed 6129K, 37% free 18378K/28803K, paused 17ms+5ms, total 45ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 5755K, 38% free 18030K/28803K, paused 18ms, total 18ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 3462K, 34% free 19175K/28803K, paused 18ms, total 18ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 2990K, 32% free 19644K/28803K, paused 18ms, total 18ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 3974K, 32% free 20270K/29763K, paused 21ms, total 21ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 2990K, 31% free 20739K/29763K, paused 18ms, total 18ms
E/Sensors ( 721): accelHandler -1.070574 8.368198 5.791157
All those pauses are "felt" as slight stutter. JB helps to mitigate them with tripple buffering and other optimizaitons, but they are still there.
strung said:
JB is better but not as good as say iOS. Even iOS lags though if you look for it. I also I heard that there may be a hardware graphics driver module (3d driver) which is not available yet, and therefore not present in CM10, but needed for even more smoothness / JB compatibility.
Android uses garbage collection for Dalvik apps. You can see it stutter scrolling through Gallery app. This is GC occurring. You don't see this on iOS because iOS is written in Objective C which doesn't have garbage collection and therefore has no GC pauses. Engineers have improved GC over time but it still isn't perfect. Android could use more native apps, perhaps, but that would be like a new operating system.
You can see the GC by running "logcat" while scrolling through pictures in Gallery
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_CONCURRENT freed 5973K, 43% free 16473K/28803K, paused 11ms+16ms, total 47ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_CONCURRENT freed 5942K, 41% free 17254K/28803K, paused 2ms+3ms, total 24ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_CONCURRENT freed 6129K, 37% free 18378K/28803K, paused 17ms+5ms, total 45ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 5755K, 38% free 18030K/28803K, paused 18ms, total 18ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 3462K, 34% free 19175K/28803K, paused 18ms, total 18ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 2990K, 32% free 19644K/28803K, paused 18ms, total 18ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 3974K, 32% free 20270K/29763K, paused 21ms, total 21ms
D/dalvikvm( 6098): GC_FOR_ALLOC freed 2990K, 31% free 20739K/29763K, paused 18ms, total 18ms
E/Sensors ( 721): accelHandler -1.070574 8.368198 5.791157
All those pauses are "felt" as slight stutter. JB helps to mitigate them with tripple buffering and other optimizaitons, but they are still there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's nice to see some technical talk about why android lags. Thanks. I totally feel your pain OP. I used my sisters ipad once (I know it's not an iphone but still) and ios is so damn smooth. It didn't stutter at ALL. I was expecting my sg3 to be that smooth but it isn't. I love the customization and the hardware but the stutters are extremely disappointing and posts like above make you wonder why google made such a bad decision coding wise.
My question is
WHY THE HELL IS THIS IN DEVELOPMENT?!!
READ FORUM RULES BEFORE POSTING!
Questions go in Q&A
Thread moved
NFNM
kennyglass123 said:
My question is
WHY THE HELL IS THIS IN DEVELOPMENT?!!
READ FORUM RULES BEFORE POSTING!
Questions go in Q&A
Thread moved
NFNM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kenny, I'm very aware this didn't belong in development. I simply made an error by thinking I was in Q&A when I hit the new thread button. My apologies.
Back on topic: Strung, thanks for the technical explanation. My next question is can hardware eventually overcome the software problems? If so, how many more generations of SoC?
I think it can...Im running beans 8 with leankernel 2.2 and it's 99% lagfree...
My opinion, after many OS upgrade and new hardware had/has been released for Android, but seems like no one know how to fix lagginess/stuttering with Android. There are many debates between Apple IOS and Android, but to me clearly Apple is the winner for smoothness. Up until today, with dual cores, quad cores, we still unable to address this issue???what is going on??? maybe Apple is smarter? you tell me ..I don't know. This same goes with the new Asus tf700, no where near smoothness of the Ipad.
It seems Google made a somewhat poor decision up front to use Java and virtual machines. Now, these would be fine for some CS major web based virtual programing. But if you want tight native hardware access and buttery smooth animations you gotta dump this abstracted CS pandering and get into native compiled code and hand tuned assembly.
I'm trying to hide my dislike of Java but its not working.
If you look at Microsoft and PC's, they have their .net stuff for easy high level abstracted programming. But at least they have the decency to use native compiled code on their own major programs like the office suit.
The virtual machine must know its limitations.
Well, chrome is laggy on mine as well. Very annoying, but its chromes fault. Odd considering its flawless on my PC. Regardless have you considered overclocking your CPU? Also wait for bean 9, it will likely solve most problems paired up with your 1.89 GHz CPU. Have fun
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Scrappy1 said:
It seems Google made a somewhat poor decision up front to use Java and virtual machines. Now, these would be fine for some CS major web based virtual programing. But if you want tight native hardware access and buttery smooth animations you gotta dump this abstracted CS pandering and get into native compiled code and hand tuned assembly.
I'm trying to hide my dislike of Java but its not working.
If you look at Microsoft and PC's, they have their .net stuff for easy high level abstracted programming. But at least they have the decency to use native compiled code on their own major programs like the office suit.
The virtual machine must know its limitations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I barely understand a little bit about programming so idk if this is a dumb question but is it possible for them to ditch this vm stuff and just use the stuff you guys are talking about?
Ios displays in 2d while android displays its home screens in mostly 3d......
Also ios is really just an app drawer, go into your app drawer and try and make it lag.....I can't get mine too and its smooth as anything out there.
I understand android does much more than ios, the benefit I get with android can make me care less for a tiny bit of smoothness.
---------- Post added at 02:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:39 PM ----------
Imatoasta said:
I barely understand a little bit about programming so idk if this is a dumb question but is it possible for them to ditch this vm stuff and just use the stuff you guys are talking about?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Prob not without completely rewriting how android is coded, from what I've read back in the early days.....android wasn't meant to be touch screen, when the iPhone launched they (google) made touch screen phones with what they had and have been trying to optimize it since
I'm glad we're able to have a mature and honest discussion of this small shortcoming of android. As I said, I'm happy with this phone and android in general.
Also, like dave_k said, the little bit of lag is a worthy trade off to get all the other benefits android has over ios.
I'm looking forward to the Exynos 5 and S4 pro SOCs to see how much they help.
Kernel samepage merging (KSM) which is in CM9 and 10 as an optional might help with memory usage at the expense of CPU usage. Since Android runs lots of dalvik processes KSM in theory would share common memory pages among those proceses, freeing RAM.
I am pretty sure native code on Android (e.g. some games) runs on par with the same iOS apps.
Also iOS has low latency audio from day one. Android seems to be working to get there, along with smoothness improvements. I suspect their engineers will continue to work on this since we saw some improvements in ICS and huge improvements with Project Butter in JB.
One of the advantages of Dalvik is apps crash a lot less it seems than object C apps on iOS, which crash about 4x as often. (Harder to correctly code Objetive C since manual memory mangement vs. Dalivk's automatic memory management)
I don't think hardware alone would even overcome the software. It's kind of like how on Windows, even with the latest fastest PCs it takes a while to boot. (Not the best analogy, but along those lines.)
either nitely had higher standardother or the s3 than I should have. My gnex was a lot smoother with multitasking
I assumed the lag and stuttering was exclusive to the Exynos devices due to lack of drivers and support but if the S4 SoC lags as well then there is no hope for a smooth CM ROM.
There's a new app called "lagfix". Check it out. It's on here somewhere or in the market.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Related
I've a buddy of mine that found ATK on his own, installed it, and says he sees a "noticeable" improvement in speed on his Captivate (And he's got the lag fix already). I tried to reason that it's placebo but he does swear, it was a large improvement in speed. I can look online and find other reports of this.
And before you go down that route, he had nothing much more than stock installed (Facebook, etc... Nothing that I don't have).
I've also seen someone go from 8 hours of battery life to 12 hours just by installing ATK.
Explain these.
If Android TRULY managed memory so well, how does someone gain such performance boost from killing the processes?
If ATK was actually detrimental to battery life, why does someone gain more by using it?
I've seen both sides. I haven't noticed any speed differences running ATK compared to not running it.
I have also seen another side that says ATK hurt their battery life.
Seems there's too much conflicting info out there. You can argue til you're blue in the face that "it is negative"... But you cannot deny results some people are saying. So I'm just asking those of you that argue from that perspective... To explain these situations?
TexUs said:
Explain these.
If Android TRULY managed memory so well, how does someone gain such performance boost from killing the processes?
If ATK was actually detrimental to battery life, why does someone gain more by using it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A quick question, does your buddy kill the processes and then let the phone sit? Sure this is going to increase the battery life but so does pulling it from the phone all together.
Bottom line is there is no definitive answer as to the merits of ATK. If you like it, use it.
Most results tend to be anecdotal in nature. Those that get better battery life out of using ATK probably don't realize it's due to ATK killing off bad apps, and not due to freed-up RAM. If Android needs more RAM, it will shut down programs by itself. That 3MB of RAM you freed up with ATK isn't nearly as useful as the fact that same app you just killed was also hogging your CPU. Cause/effect, correlation/causation, etc.
People also get what's ive heard as the "new phone syndrome" where the phone is used constantly the first couple days, and the battery life is then thought to be horrible.
Also tell your buddy to look up settings > about phone> battery usage as the battery is largely affected by voice calls and the screen. A 5 min call uses more than you think.(thus the reasoning behind why I don't use atk)
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
To a large extent battery life, phone, and app performance will always be somewhat subjective. No two people are going to use their phones in the exact same manner. depending on how a person uses their phone and what they have installed on their phone ATK may very well improve their phone's performance - especially if they have a bad acting app on their phone.
As for my personal testing, my phone does better without ATK. However I was a little biased against ATK from the beginning and this could have affected my results. I have used a half dozen different linux distros over the past eight years and while I have many times had to kill or force close an application, I have never needed to manually manage memory. Linux generally does a good job at managing memory and multitasking.
I can't say for your friend, but I was using a task killer for the first month I had the phone, and now I do not. So far performance, and battery life are the same with and without. I finally removed my old task killer and installed watchdog all I have it set to do now is simply alert me if an app is using excessive cpu, which would likely be due to poor app quality anyway. Other than that I've had no issues.
Mercath said:
That 3MB of RAM you freed up with ATK isn't nearly as useful as the fact that same app you just killed was also hogging your CPU. Cause/effect, correlation/causation, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess this is true. I've never seen claims that Android manages CPU, etc effectively, I've just seen claims about the RAM usage.
ageros said:
I can't say for your friend, but I was using a task killer for the first month I had the phone, and now I do not. So far performance, and battery life are the same with and without.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I've done as well, and yea... Can't tell a difference with and without (of course I also go "back" out of apps when I'm done).
i dont think it works that well
I've overclocked to 1200MHz, freed up my RAM to 90Mb. Its still crashing. Is Cut The Rope out of our phone's league?
Hahutzy said:
I've overclocked to 1200MHz, freed up my RAM to 90Mb. Its still crashing. Is Cut The Rope out of our phone's league?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use swap. It works for me even without overclocking. Without swap it just crashes. Even my friend's Milestone 2 (CM7) with 110+ free ram can't start it. The game is greedy. The game is stupid tho.
Forgive me if these questions are elementary or if they don't even make a lot of sense. I'm not claiming to be a hardware genius by any means, in fact I'm quite the opposite.
My first question is whether or not it is possible on an android device to RAID the internal partitions in any formtat? I think this would require two flash sources and my question then is whether or not, if the hardware was theoretically able to support it, the operating system would support a situation attempting to boost read/write speeds utilizing a RAID setup. Maybe there isn't even a benefit to doing this with flash? If there is, what would be some of the benefits, and conversely, drawbacks of this?
The next question I have is what the capabilities of bluetooth 3.0 are. Specifically, can BT 3.0 be used for 1080 video playback? And can BT be used in something like fastboot?
Thanks in advanced to anyone willing to field these.
Sent from my Gummy Charged GBE 2.0 using XDA App
blacksparro said:
My first question is whether or not it is possible on an android device to RAID the internal partitions in any formtat? I think this would require two flash sources and my question then is whether or not, if the hardware was theoretically able to support it, the operating system would support a situation attempting to boost read/write speeds utilizing a RAID setup. Maybe there isn't even a benefit to doing this with flash? If there is, what would be some of the benefits, and conversely, drawbacks of this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To achieve higher performance we would probably go for a RAID0, the obvious drawback here is that if one of the memories fails, all data is lost.
With the hardware its not that much of a problem if it supports raid, but rather if the systembus has the bandwidth for it to be worth it.
There is 'MDADM' a software raid solution for linux.
You could try to compile an android kernel with the mdadm module loaded...
In the end though... why all the effort...
Why do you need this .
Hi,
Thanks for the response. Well what I'm getting at here is trying to think of ways to enhance a phone's performance without this arms race of faster and faster processors that ultimately consume more battery life with each successive increase in performance. Much like the SSD and SATA did for desktops, we should maybe focus on other areas in which phones get bottlenecked and let the chip engineers worry about smaller and more efficient instead of faster and faster.
There's a serious problem with smartphones and that problem is battery life. I'll be willing to bet that the overwhelmingly vast majority of consumers are willing to give up things that (albeit may seem necessary to us devs for our fun) are simply not very much used by the every-day consumer that doesn't even know the difference between Gingerbread and Honeycomb. I think HDMI is one of them and if BT3.0 can transfer 1080p then what's the point of having so many features in a phone that can be done by one and wasting valuable space for that additional few hundred mAh of battery power?
Most of the phones that are coming out right now do not need to get smaller, I think the market has a sweet spot for thickness and size of devices and these phones are in there--but the batteries are not. I don't know about you but just about everyone I know complains about battery life and I would kill for a phone that can go 2 or 3 days without a charge.
That is why I have advanced task killer as well as a sbc kernel. I enjoy all day fun with all the bells and whistles too.
Sent from my highspeed rooted Evo.
Stay away from task killers. They actually do more harm than good.
Check out an app on the market called tasker. Helps you to manage your battery more efficiently.
Stay away from task killers.
Bluetooth 3.0 allows a faster streaming of data when used to network information between Bluetooth devices.
Essencially yes. You can stream 1080p videos using it... but... the device your streaming it to/from needs to support the standard as well.
Ex. You decide to teather your tablet to your 4G phone via Bluetooth to watch 1080p YouTube videos.
Your phone supports 3.0 and you tablet is also 3.0. Streaming will be nice and fast.
But if one of the devices is a standard prior to 3.0, you 3.0 device will transmit at the fastest capable speed of the lesser network
I hope this helps.
And by the way,..
Stay away from task killers.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
My Charge is routinely running 275 - 300 MB of RAM even when "idle" and I receive a LOT of warnings that my memory is running low when I'm using Tasker or Evernote. While I use Linux at home on my personal computer, I'm by no means a professional in any real sense of the word. But my layperson's understanding of RAM is that, generally speaking, more is better and allows for a machine to run, boot, etc... faster and more reliably. I've read that the Charge is a RAM wannabe and I know there are phones with much more than is available with this device but does that mean anything for this phone? Should I be using something that will clear more RAM for me or is that just a pipe dream and I have to deal with the lack of RAM by buying a new phone at some later time?
I'm using Tweaked 3.1 and have to say that Dwitheral has made this phone one I'm happy with - my fiancee has the Charge as well and is paranoid about rooting / ROMing, so she is totally stock. Needless to say, her phone sucks eggs and mine doesn't. I'm looking for a replacement but will not do so until Black Friday next year - then I can get a device that's a little "older" for less than $50 that will be a huge improvement over the Charge. In the meantime, with Tweaked 3.1, a Hyperion 3500 mha extended life battery and Tasker, this phone is serviceable. But the high RAM usage nags at me and I'm wondering if this is really an issue and, if so, is there anything to do about it? When I look at running applications in task manager, it is usually none or one, maybe, on occasion, two running applications.
Can someone clarify this for me? Do I need to be concerned and, if so, is there a solution that doesn't start with "Upon entering the Verizon store, ask where the new DNA is located...."
Thanks in advance!
Forget what you know about RAM in Windows, because this isn't Windows. In Linux (and by extension in Android), unused RAM is generally considered to be wasted. The Android low memory killer (LMK) will take care of killing apps and freeing when it needs to make space for other things, and artificially killing stuff is going to make your phone perform worse and use more battery. You need enough free for apps to have room to start without waiting, but not so much that it kills background apps that you want there. You can tweak the LMK, but 275-300MB used (75-100MB free) is pretty close to the sweet spot for this phone.
I guess it is from since of the tweaks I am running, but I usually have an extra 50-80 MB from what you described.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Xparent Red Tapatalk 2
Snapchat's memory usage is ridiculous. Peak memory usage is so high that android is killing swiftkey when using it to add text to a picture.
http://imgur.com/a/UaA4z
Last 3 hours: 375MB Average / 795MB Peak
Last 24 hours 247MB Average / 1.1GB Peak
How do updates like these even make it to the public?
It's pretty ridiculous, IMO the only thing adding to phone specs at this point will allow sloppy coding like that to continue. The resource allocation when adding text to an image is so high, sometimes it will actually stop my keyboard from executing. Excessive as ****.
It's to make these teenagers stop using cheap phones and wanting to buy new better ones
No seriously, I wouldn't expect less from an app that makes you watch small videos all the time. I won't even try to guess how much cache after a week of daily use.