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Swap on Cyanogen 5.0.7 test1 - Thoughts!

Hey,
So Ive been playing with CM-5.0.7-DS test1, like everyone im sure , however I am noticing some major slowdown in the Launcher, many apps, and especially in 3g gallery without some memory assistance such as Swap\CC for the "low-memory" devices like the G1\Dream.
I enabled a 96mb swap partition, swappiness 60 using a userinit.sh script (see attached), and it really helped speed things along.
Wanted to know everyone else's experience using swap on this crazy new upgrade to our 2-yr old device

Good call. You can also just install "Swapper" from market, and go to advanced preferences, enable partition, good to go.
I am using a 96mb swap partition, and am overclocked to 596 mhz with the replacement kernel. Everything is working brilliantly for me, very stable.
Android 2.1, 600mhz Android device, ample RAM via swap, 16gb card, new slim extended battery - I am once again a happy G1 owner!

kristoff123 said:
Good call. You can also just install "Swapper" from market, and go to advanced preferences, enable partition, good to go.
I am using a 96mb swap partition, and am overclocked to 596 mhz with the replacement kernel. Everything is working brilliantly for me, very stable.
Android 2.1, 600mhz Android device, ample RAM via swap, 16gb card, new slim extended battery - I am once again a happy G1 owner!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
:O howd u overclock to 596mhz?!

chim4ira312 said:
:O howd u overclock to 596mhz?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The overclock thread that's been sitting on the top of this forum for the last week :0
the kernel I used is on page 38 or 39...anything over 600 eventually crashes for me, but 596 works very well. Flash video even plays fine with Skyfire - so many new goodies for my beloved G1!
-Although I am sure cyanogen will include that kernel or a better one with the next release, but leave it to the user to overclock using setcpu or whatever. Just leave it at 528 default via userinit.sh, so people can choose to what degree they want to melt their G1's, lol.

kristoff123 said:
Good call. You can also just install "Swapper" from market, and go to advanced preferences, enable partition, good to go.
I am using a 96mb swap partition, and am overclocked to 596 mhz with the replacement kernel. Everything is working brilliantly for me, very stable.
Android 2.1, 600mhz Android device, ample RAM via swap, 16gb card, new slim extended battery - I am once again a happy G1 owner!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hello
link please

lefeudedieu said:
hello
link please
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here, searched my ass off to find it...your welcome
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6352322&postcount=402

ok, thank
but i put the image boot by fastboot and G1 reboot and reboot ?

In my personal experiences with swap..... I'm not exactly sure what it was supposed to do after I applied it.
I do know what it does though...
As stated in previous forums,
The longevity og my card is very important to me
And finally, Cyanogen advises against swap.
if you would like to learn his thoughts, read his wiki.
And op, you crack me up. +10!
Sent from my HTC Dream using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

lefeudedieu said:
ok, thank
but i put the image boot by fastboot and G1 reboot and reboot ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think its not a image that can be flashed. it should be paste to /sd-ext document.

u need to extract the userinit.sh script and put it in /sd-ext

zimphishmonger said:
u need to extract the userinit.sh script and put it in /sd-ext
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
and thats it??

zimphishmonger said:
u need to extract the userinit.sh script and put it in /sd-ext
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This conversation is confusing. 2 people talking about swap and 2 trying to overclock. Use the zip file from this thread, unzip it, open it with gedit or notepad++, add the stuff in the link from @zimphishmonger talking about overclocking. Follow the stepsw in that post. If you fastbooted the boot.img and it just boot loops, you may have trouble. You may need to reflash cm5.0.7. Or reinstall the Nandroid backup you made before you flashed it.
Also if history tells us anything, Cy will never include any over clock hack. He is pretty conservitive along those lines.

dangambino said:
and thats it??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not exactly
do
adb shell chmod 755 /sd-ext/userinit.sh
to give it permissions.
My userinit.sh looks a little different so I can't say for sure it is correct.
...You mileage may vary.

thanks. running command now
seems to of took!

Swap is not a good feature to use, and I'll explain why:
When you enable swap, your end result is that you have a lot more "memory" available for programs to run in. Because of the memory management scheme used by android (kill background processes on low memory), it ends up that you will be RUNNING MORE PROCESSES. And this is a bad thing because (1) it means that your CPU will be more loaded (multitasking/background processes), and (2) it means that it will end up doing a lot of swapping (sdcard is SLOW) in order to continue providing all the "memory" allocated to each of those running programs.
The end result is that your phone will become VERY SLOW.
The ONLY legitimate use for swap is when you are running a process that is SO LARGE that it can't physically fit in the RAM available on the device *even when* all killable processes are already dead. And on Android, I have yet to encounter such a program.
DON'T USE SWAP! It will accomplish precisely TWO things;
(1) it will make your phone SLOW.
(2) it will kill your SDCARD.

lbcoder said:
DON'T USE SWAP! It will accomplish precisely TWO things;
(1) it will make your phone SLOW.
(2) it will kill your SDCARD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
(1) I disagree, it's the opposite ;-)
(2) agreed, but it probably will last enough till my next phone...

Most class 6 cards feature wear levelling from which from what I understand means I'll have upgraded my phone way before it ever dies.
For me using CM without swap has been impossible for quite a while now, gmail sync just doesn't work properly without the extra memory to fall back on. As for it slowing the phone down I've never noticed anything ever being slower with swap although I do have a class 6 card.

deimdos said:
(1) I disagree, it's the opposite ;-)
(2) agreed, but it probably will last enough till my next phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 I disagree as well.
If anything it helps the phone operate normally. Especially with the G1 it has a tendency to push GTalk out of the memory. That means it stops pushing email notifications to your phone, which is really annoying. Even eBuddy has a hard time staying in the memory if you minimize it. The G1 one really benefits from having the swap. And really, are SD cards that expensive? I've had swap on for 8 months and my SD card is fine. I personally use 64MB on my G1 and 30 swappiness, anymore is excessive.
Really you only want enough memory that it holds all the essential apps in place. Autokiller helps too if set at Moderate. So far CM5 though, the battery life is phenomenal compared to the old 4.2.15 (especially after the battery wipe stats fix, if you're having battery drain issues).
If you're using this on the Magic, then I have an issue with that, since it isn't even needed. Unless you have like over 300MB worth of apps and cache. Then maybe you'll need an ext partition. But that's a separate issue.

lbcoder said:
Swap is not a good feature to use, and I'll explain why:
When you enable swap, your end result is that you have a lot more "memory" available for programs to run in. Because of the memory management scheme used by android (kill background processes on low memory), it ends up that you will be RUNNING MORE PROCESSES. And this is a bad thing because (1) it means that your CPU will be more loaded (multitasking/background processes), and (2) it means that it will end up doing a lot of swapping (sdcard is SLOW) in order to continue providing all the "memory" allocated to each of those running programs.
The end result is that your phone will become VERY SLOW.
The ONLY legitimate use for swap is when you are running a process that is SO LARGE that it can't physically fit in the RAM available on the device *even when* all killable processes are already dead. And on Android, I have yet to encounter such a program.
DON'T USE SWAP! It will accomplish precisely TWO things;
(1) it will make your phone SLOW.
(2) it will kill your SDCARD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out autokiller in the market. It limits the running processes so that swap actually works.

For those uncomfortable with making a userinit script, as I said before, Swapper does the same thing, it's free, and it's not a program that runs in memory. With the benefit being that you can experiment with swappiness and other settings on the fly. Just go to "Advanced" and select your partition - it's the right location by default.

[Q] How to make Swap Partition For Galaxy Tab Plus

Hi
How can i create Swap Partition for increase RAM on Galaxy tab plus?
I find guide for other device, can`t find for Gt 6200
Thanks for help...

hmr007 said:
Hi
How can i create Swap Partition for increase RAM on Galaxy tab plus?
I find guide for other device, can`t find for Gt 6200
Thanks for help...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can;t and should never need to.
You have 1 GB of RAM more than enough for any application.
Swap has not been used since Froyo I think . Since OG phones with 300 mb RAM.
Not used not needed

DigitalMD said:
you can;t and should never need to.
You have 1 GB of RAM more than enough for any application.
Swap has not been used since Froyo I think . Since OG phones with 300 mb RAM.
Not used not needed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for replay
but this 1GB (830 MB Actually) full after open 4-5 program or 2 game And Android close automatically other Application And last States!
I Want to save last States of other program Anyway until i Close program manually
For example Chrome close tabs after open 4-5 program and when i visit old tabs , it reloaded again!

hmr007 said:
Hi
How can i create Swap Partition for increase RAM on Galaxy tab plus?
I find guide for other device, can`t find for Gt 6200
Thanks for help...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi. Easiest way is to download Swapper2 from the PlayStore.

viper001 said:
Hi. Easiest way is to download Swapper2 from the PlayStore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only if you want to slow your tablet to a crawl.
Why would you want to swap very fast RAM with very slow SD memory? No need and a really bad idea.

DigitalMD said:
Only if you want to slow your tablet to a crawl.
Why would you want to swap very fast RAM with very slow SD memory? No need and a really bad idea.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agree. but, it looks like he's more concerned with multitasking.
it always depends on the user. let him try it first and let him decide what's acceptable for him.
Besides, "slow your tablet to a crawl" is an exaggeration.

viper001 said:
agree. but, it looks like he's more concerned with multitasking.
it always depends on the user. let him try it first and let him decide what's acceptable for him.
Besides, "slow your tablet to a crawl" is an exaggeration.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That won't help multitasking , Android already has an efficient memory management system. That OG swap app was for Froyo phones that only had about 300 mb to run the OS and apps. No longer applies. And since there are no true multi=tasking apps. IE you can;t run two foregrounds apps. ..... , you can never fill up RAM

DigitalMD said:
That won't help multitasking , Android already has an efficient memory management system. That OG swap app was for Froyo phones that only had about 300 mb to run the OS and apps. No longer applies. And since there are no true multi=tasking apps. IE you can;t run two foregrounds apps. ..... , you can never fill up RAM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK. "Task-Switching" then .
Agree that android memory management is "efficient". the problem is that when it runs out of memory the app at the "back" of the stack gets "killed". data is saved for that app so when it's called back up, it "seems" like it was running all the while.
So, as per the OP question, since his problem was that his web pages keep reloading, ie app was killed due to memory constraints, his idea is to increase the RAM or in this case adding virtual RAM via swap.
It's not a bad Idea, since the amount of RAM is virtually increased, then the amount of apps that can be in RAM at the same time is also increased.
FYI, not only for froyo, i use swap for my NEO V running ICS. made DEAD SPACE run better than without swap. :good:
Haven't encountered a need on the P6200 though. Ofcourse, there must be a reason why 2GB RAM devices are now available.

there is not reason that swapping would make your tablet run better, none.
Because as of ICS , and with 1gb+ ram, you are emulating and interfering with what Android (linux) already does .
you have one foreground task and whatever idle tasks and then unused apps that are retained in RAM until they are needed or another apps needs space and they are removed from RAM. Then they reside on SD memory so what advantage does swapping to SD memory give you, none, in fact it adds a extra useless step .
SO Android attempts to keep RAM 80% used.at all times. If you look at the process logically, I do not believe can lay out a scenario by which the swapper apps beings any benefit to current Android systems.

DigitalMD said:
there is not reason that swapping would make your tablet run better, none.
Because as of ICS , and with 1gb+ ram, you are emulating and interfering with what Android (linux) already does .
you have one foreground task and whatever idle tasks and then unused apps that are retained in RAM until they are needed or another apps needs space and they are removed from RAM. Then they reside on SD memory so what advantage does swapping to SD memory give you, none, in fact it adds a extra useless step .
SO Android attempts to keep RAM 80% used.at all times. If you look at the process logically, I do not believe can lay out a scenario by which the swapper apps beings any benefit to current Android systems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You actually pointed out the reason why the Original Poster wanted to use swap. he wanted his currently "unused" browser app to reside in ram, and not get killed. in this case it will be in virtual ram.
I agree with all your points. and I don't use swap on my tablet (P6200) haven't had a need, but i do use it on my phone(Neo V, 512 RAM, 384 useable).
All i'm saying is let him try. it's possible that he is hitting the limit on his Tablet. I know, cause it's easy to hit the limit on my phone that i'm very sure swapping works. e.g i can now switch between, Chrome, Facebook, Email, What'sUp, answer a phone call, send a text message and come back to Chrome (which has three open tabs BTW) without Chrome "reloading" those same three tabs. i wasn't able to do this before i starter using swap.
and yes, there's a bit lag but it's better than incurring cost of reloading a page each time, esp if your on a limited data plan.
One other thing that was not considered yet also are the OOM groups and Minfree. another option is Compcache.
The use of Swap really depends on the user and the way he uses his device. You can only see a benefit from swap if you consistently use up all your RAM. Which, if i understand the OP's problem correctly, is the case.

[MOD] Fixing N7's RAM issues

The following are two ram optimising scripts that actually do something. They will ensure a fluid experience by keeping a minimum of 100mb of ram free. Simple as that.
STEPS:
Download zip and extract files "boost" and "freeram".
On the tablet , use a root file manager
Paste files in /system/bin (system needs to be re-writable obviously)
Set permissions to rwxr--r--
Activate scripts manually after every boot using android terminal emulator:
1) free ram (to see ram usage)
2) su
3) freeram (no spaces)
4) boost
5) free ram (to see ram usage - compare to values in step1)
6) Profit
Explanation:
"boost" - activates Adrenaline Boost V3 (i take no credit for this script). What this does is clear the ram cache, freeing up ram storage.
"freeram" - a script i made, adjusts minfree values (android's built in ram manager) to kill off more empty apps from ram when ram usage exceeds certain values - not a task killer, so doesn't affect battery life
In android terminal emulator:
"su"
"cat /sys/module/lowmemorykiller/parameters/minfree"
-will show you the prior minfree values, "freeram" script adjusts these to 8192, 10240, 12288, 21000, 23000, 26000
Notes:
All changes reset on boot, so you'll need to to run everytime you reboot
check your ram usage before with: "free ram"
These two scripts will generally ensure about 300-400mb free ram always.
Removing widgets will improve this also.
If after a while nexus is feeling slow again, run "boost" script.
Fstrim or "lagfix" also helps with those having slow emmc issues
Enjoy more free ram

Or download an app called autokiller memory. Works miracles

mrazndead said:
Or download an app called autokiller memory. Works miracles
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
didn't know about that app.
This is more geeky and cleaner though, who doesn't want to use terminal??
And i don't think the app flushes the ram cache (similar to the adrenaline v3 script)

According to anandtech:
"I’m told that TRIM support has been part of the eMMC standard since around version 4.2, it was just a matter of enabling it in software. The result is that the new Nexus 7 shouldn’t have these aging affects at all. Better yet, fstrim support has also been added to the old Nexus 7 with as of the Android 4.3 update, so if you’ve got a Nexus 7 that feels slow, I/O performance should get better after fstrim runs in the background. I'm checking on whether the other Nexus devices have also had TRIM support added. I would consider the slow storage aging problem fixed as of now, and Google took the eMMC and storage I/O performance issues with the previous Nexus 7 to heart for this version."
Link: http://anandtech.com/show/7176/nexus-7-2013-mini-review/4
So that's good news for poorly ageing nexus 7's, just update to 4.3 instead of running lagfix

@mods: close/move the thread please.
this is another minfree / lowmemkiller script like Supercharger V6 which offers nothing more than actually less memory. What do I mean? It makes the device start killing apps/processes much sooner rendering it multitask-less. Provides a boost but at a terrible cost: much less mem available to apps...

I was able to multitask smoothly between 8 open apps without reloads. And I've been using this setup for 2mths or so.
I had memory issues with my n7, and this solved them, and I wanted to share as users (can't remember the thread name) were discussing slowness due to limited free ram, and this worked for me.
Mods feel free to close, sharing experiences is not appreciated obviously..

mpokwsths said:
@mods: close/move the thread please.
this is another minfree / lowmemkiller script like Supercharger V6 which offers nothing more than actually less memory. What do I mean? It makes the device start killing apps/processes much sooner rendering it multitask-less. Provides a boost but at a terrible cost: much less mem available to apps...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So basically, the Xda crowd is too dumb to make up their own minds?
Shouldn't it be up to the individual to try this (and any other) mod freely. Your personal experience with similar mods is welcome, but you trying to tell others what is best for them is way out of line imo.
IceColdJellied One X
Tapatalk 4 Beta

Shared knowledge = more knowledge imho
Thanks for sharing it! :beer:

On linux systems having a little amount of free ram is not necessarily a bad thing. it means that the apps you use most are available to be opened very quickly.
OP: what do you mean by "empty app"?

Appreciate your effort, OP. However, a more user-friendly way is to install an app like Rom Toolbox(and others) and change minfree. RT has presets, and set at boot features. I personally subscribe to the thought process that unused ram is wasted ram.

Nbsss said:
According to anandtech:
"I’m told that TRIM support has been part of the eMMC standard since around version 4.2, it was just a matter of enabling it in software. The result is that the new Nexus 7 shouldn’t have these aging affects at all. Better yet, fstrim support has also been added to the old Nexus 7 with as of the Android 4.3 update, so if you’ve got a Nexus 7 that feels slow, I/O performance should get better after fstrim runs in the background. I'm checking on whether the other Nexus devices have also had TRIM support added. I would consider the slow storage aging problem fixed as of now, and Google took the eMMC and storage I/O performance issues with the previous Nexus 7 to heart for this version."
Link: http://anandtech.com/show/7176/nexus-7-2013-mini-review/4
So that's good news for poorly ageing nexus 7's, just update to 4.3 instead of running lagfix
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wish My poorly aging Nexus 7 hasn't improved at all since the 4.3 update. In fact I think it's running even slower. I haven't run lagfix since the update though since I lost root and I'm waiting for Wug's updated toolkit to get it back. (I know I can restore root with other methods but I'm lazy and toolkits just make it easier.)
Aside from the TRIM issue I loved my old Nexus, but 16gb just wasn't enough space anymore and any time I dipped below 4gb of remaining storage it would lag so horribly I'd have to wipe the whole thing and start over if I wanted it to be buttery smooth again, even after using lagfix. Lagfix helped a bit, but it was still crawling compared to a freshly wiped tablet.
I've got a 2013 Nexus 7 on the way though so hopefully what you said about TRIM on the newer model is true and this one won't age as poorly as the original. Even if it does, having an extra 16gb of wiggle room can't hurt.

My thoughts
The most aggressive lvl on the minfree script is 26K ie 26,000*4/1024 = 101mb
Having less than 100mb of ram (ie over 90% ram used) slows down my n7 and its really bad when i have 19-45mb of ram left...
The fact that the script resets on reboot means i can easily compare the difference, for ME it helps and i can't notice an impact on multitasking (and thx for teaching me how to use terminal to check ram usage )

mrazndead said:
Or download an app called autokiller memory. Works miracles
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since i use this app my ram is always ok. Thanks so much, really improved a lot

[Q] About swap space, this device and cyanogenmod

This may be a general question for all android devices or not but I was curious about adding swap space to this device. It has 1 gig of ram and many may consider that to be enough, and it might be. I have cyanogenmod 10.2 installed and tried to enable zram, 10% seems to be the best setting as anthing higher caused a game to pop up a notice saying something about low memory and defaulting to lower values. When I checked to see if zram was used however it turns out it was, about 25mb - 34mb after booting. The issue with zram is when multitasking with lecturenotes and moonreader, The tablet would reboot and my notebook that was open in lecturenotes would be missing notes I took or the settings would be greatly messed up, or both. This was with 10%.
I am thinking since it was used, it might be helpful to have an sd card for this reason, to aid in multitasking. This is important to me because I run several apps at once (I wish cyanogenmod had multi windows, and google wouldn't threaten over it). So the question is will there be a benifit to buying an sd card on ebay (class 10 of course) and using it as swap space. It seems this tablet might be on the cusp of the memory being enough. Also I am thinking this might help to future proof it a bit when updating to newer releases of gyanogenmod. The sd card I was thinking of is 4 gigs and may plan on having 1gb swap space (this tablet is for school and other work). The tablet has 32gb storage and that is more than enough for me (I am only using 3gb of space) so I wont need to add anymore storage.
I should also add that when multitasking without zram enabled, the tablet reboots less but still has done it, and so far nothing has been lost in my notebooks. I am thinking that the memory of 1gb is starting to reach its limit, with no apps running I am consuming about 600mbs of it.

vanquishedangel said:
This may be a general question for all android devices or not but I was curious about adding swap space to this device. It has 1 gig of ram and many may consider that to be enough, and it might be. I have cyanogenmod 10.2 installed and tried to enable zram, 10% seems to be the best setting as anthing higher caused a game to pop up a notice saying something about low memory and defaulting to lower values. When I checked to see if zram was used however it turns out it was, about 25mb - 34mb after booting. The issue with zram is when multitasking with lecturenotes and moonreader, The tablet would reboot and my notebook that was open in lecturenotes would be missing notes I took or the settings would be greatly messed up, or both. This was with 10%.
I am thinking since it was used, it might be helpful to have an sd card for this reason, to aid in multitasking. This is important to me because I run several apps at once (I wish cyanogenmod had multi windows, and google wouldn't threaten over it). So the question is will there be a benifit to buying an sd card on ebay (class 10 of course) and using it as swap space. It seems this tablet might be on the cusp of the memory being enough. Also I am thinking this might help to future proof it a bit when updating to newer releases of gyanogenmod. The sd card I was thinking of is 4 gigs and may plan on having 1gb swap space (this tablet is for school and other work). The tablet has 32gb storage and that is more than enough for me (I am only using 3gb of space) so I wont need to add anymore storage.
I should also add that when multitasking without zram enabled, the tablet reboots less but still has done it, and so far nothing has been lost in my notebooks. I am thinking that the memory of 1gb is starting to reach its limit, with no apps running I am consuming about 600mbs of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well in my own personal testing i could not see any benefit while extracting 700mb archives under android with 4gb swap space on a 40mbs microsd card, while under full linux desktop with a same workload, swap differently helps keep the system smooth under heavy io load. The conclusion i drew was the android platform deals to memory management differently than the typical desktop os, due to slower emmc chips used as a boot disk for the majority of android devices using this slow, already bottlenecked memory as swap space doesn't make sense (not to mention the use of 2gb swap space on a limited 16gb storage etc), so android runs almost completely in ram, with stricter memory management and allocation allows android to run fine without swap space, although because of this, androids memory management makes little uses of available swap space

JoinTheRealms said:
Well in my own personal testing i could not see any benefit while extracting 700mb archives under android with 4gb swap space on a 40mbs microsd card, while under full linux desktop with a same workload, swap differently helps keep the system smooth under heavy io load.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been running my desktop without swap for the last 10 years, and as long as you have enough RAM for all your running programs, there will be no problem at all.
Extracting an archive is a mostly sequential operation (single read stream, single write stream), so it also doesn't benefit from caching, which could use the memory that is freed by swapping.

_that said:
I've been running my desktop without swap for the last 10 years, and as long as you have enough RAM for all your running programs, there will be no problem at all.
Extracting an archive is a mostly sequential operation (single read stream, single write stream), so it also doesn't benefit from caching, which could use the memory that is freed by swapping.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh that makes sense. I wasnt sure if swap had an effect directly on the extraction, but seem keeped the rest system more stable/ smooth duing the process in the case of GNU/Linux, with swap off similar operations such as installing packages would more oftern lock the tablet up. Might be a placebo though
I also dont set swap on my Linux desktop, as it has plenty of ram but the benitfit of swap space is somewhat more noticable due to the lack of ram on the tf700.

JoinTheRealms said:
I also dont set swap on my Linux desktop, as it has plenty of ram but the benitfit of swap space is somewhat more noticable due to the lack of ram on the tf700.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just want to share my user experiences on the swap space... It does seem to improve the tf700 with swap space due to the lack of RAM (1GB)..

Thanks for all the useful posts
Thanks for all the posts, I have my sd card on the way. I will post my experience when I get my sd card but I am sure it is safe to say there will be a benefit. I use linux to at home and have 8 gigs of ram on that computer, I lessen the swap after install to about 512mb because 8 gigs is more then enough. I leave some however just incase of any issues like ram going bad. On another computer in the house that has limited ram (1.5 gigs) I have enabled zram (384 mb) and added two old flash cards (1 gig each) to a pci raid card and those were converted to swap. I then altered the fstab to reflect the order of priority I wanted them used in. The reason is that when the swap is used from the hard drive, and the hard drive is being written to, can cause a slow down. So with the 2 flash cards at 1 gig each (the swap seen as 2 gigs) it seemed to speed it up. I just posted that because of the nix users and it seemed like a good plan to run it that way.

Ok, got the sd card
So I recieved the sd card today and applied the swap space to it using root swapper (max setting is 256mb, I figured i can find a way to increase it later if I need to). The defaut location in many of the swap applications will not work on this device however, the sd card mounts at /storage/sdcard1 in my case. So it has to be entered manually (might just be cyanogenmod). Also the device was picky when insalling the card, it would only say blank sd card or cannot read filesystem. I had to install the card in the dock, format it from cwm recovery, (vfat if I remember correct, ext2 and ntfs had issues, avoided ext3 and ext4 cause journaling will cause more wear and tear).
The sd card is a scandisk ultra sdhc uhs-1 8 gigs. From my research that is the fastest this tab can handle. I also use optimising programs like greenify (epic save everything app), pimp my rom (almost every tweak applied), and some pretty efficient tweaks in the settings as well. I also have HALO))) installed and working (epic multiwindow app that works with native programs and almost any rom).
The resuts:
I tested it many ways, I rebooted to see use (none was used because swap starts after boot), I opened apps normally (browsers and things), and it showed 9kb's was used. I then put it to the tests, I open four windows in halo, these were youtube, moonreader pro with a pdf ebook, lecturenotes (awsome note and handwriting app with tons of functions), and Supernote pro (not the best note app). Constantly switched between the apps and messed with settings with them open. The max of swap used was around 10mb(keeping in mind that when I switch windows the app(s) I leave get paused making it hard to tell actual usage because I had to swith the terminal and type "free". I then ran antutu bechmark and gpubench (my tab stills score pretty well) and got a little higher swap usage but not much.
As for the feel of it, it seemed to help when opening many windows in halo, this is the primary reason for my doing this. As for other more normal uses I really didnt see too much of a difference, I did test games however and they did seem a little better (could be placebo) but I am not really sure why they would except android cached other apps to free memory. Reopening apps seemed faster. Also because of apps like greenify my memory usage is decreased so I am sure typically swap would have seen more use.
The conclusion is that at this point I really didn't notice much of a boost for any normal use, but I will definately keep the swap space on due to the boost when using halo and not to mention that I will be updating to android 4.4 soon and it might need more memory. Swap at this point seems more like a pre emptive strike, but it does help with multitasking.

about swap
://androidforums.com/boost-mobile-warp-all-things-root/610449-ram-swapping-without-swapper2.html I actually followed a guide on android central and redid the swap file to 1 gig to swap instead of using a program, this worked better. (add http in front), when i disabled swap it was noticeable that there was a boost. then reenabled it this method.

Do you wish you have bigger ram?

Im on xt1033 (no external sd). Im satisfied with the performance on my moto g but i hate it when i switch app (browser) sometimes it reloads the whole page as if it closes the browser because it doesnt have enough ram. I watched a couple of vids in yt about adding ram thru sd card, sadly ours dont have external sd card. I know we can partition our internal storage, right? Anyone here have done this? So we can add it as ram? I have 16gb model and i still have 7.5gb of free storage i have my phone for 8months now so im pretty sure im not needing more storage anytime soon. Anyone wanna try to experiment on this? So we can add another 500mb or a gig of ram?

Use a different ROM which has a little different policy of managing RAM... I too was frustrated by this problem but I have tried many ROMs but to no avail...Then I tried nexus 5 experience ROM and that has fixed the problem for me...So basically just use a custom ROM
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Hi, thanks for the suggestion but I'm not open to try any custom rom as of the moment. As long as the stock is the current version. I will still go with the stock.

kiko321 said:
Hi, thanks for the suggestion but I'm not open to try any custom rom as of the moment. As long as the stock is the current version. I will still go with the stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a 150 dollars device... it's even too much good for its price. My average ram consumption with the phone just rebooted is around 500mb, you need to check which apps use too much ram (like 30mb+) and close them or, with root, you can prevent them from boot. Anyway, apps that require big amount of ram will always reload if you leave them in background.

As said above, you can't expect much more of such a cheap device as the Moto G.
On the other hand, 1GB RAM is still quite good amount to run you off pretty much everything. You can have insufficient RAM only if you use your phone as a computer replacement, which is very bad idea.
In that case you should get for example Xperia Z, which is way more suitable for that purpose or Note2. This will cost you significantly more cash of course.
Also you can't increase your RAM off the storage of the device, being it sd or emmc. You can't repartition the emmc either, this will most likely hard brick the device.
Swap is not a substitute for RAM and it never have been.

Thanks, i already have the boot manager via xposed module but still im experiencing it. anyway it was just an idea. Coz i have a lot of space in my internal.
I just noticed that even if i still have 100+ mb of free ram background app still reloads when reopen.

kiko321 said:
Thanks, i already have the boot manager via xposed module but still im experiencing it. anyway it was just an idea. Coz i have a lot of space in my internal.
I just noticed that even if i still have 100+ mb of free ram background app still reloads when reopen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would recommend the Android Assistant app, it has a lot of features including a boot manager and also an easy button to free up RAM. There is ads tho unless you use Adaway.
My biggest gripe with the lack of ram on the G is when I'm trying to stream Pandora while using the navigation...I usually end up driving in silence until the annoying lady tells me where to go

The best way to prevent your problem is fine tuning minfree controls...I use trickster mod to make these settings...Do go through this link...It gives you details on how to fine tune them to solve your problem...
http://m.androidcentral.com/fine-tuning-minfree-settings-improving-androids-multi-tasking
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Hit the thanks button if I helped you 8)
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