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Ok our forums are rather in depth and involving, which makes finding information that could be rather old in the grand scheme of things but here's a question. How come when I go into my advance task killer there are always programs that I have not ran, running in the background and some of those programs I have never used. Every once I awhile I will get a dialog box saying that so many apps have between killed. Why is that?
Rastlin
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Some of these are necessary for the android system to function (like when you ctrl alt del in windows for example) others can be from things that update like weather widgets and others are just bloatware.
A lot of the things in the background that run are TSR programs, (terminate stay resident) Their impact is they take up some ram space but when these program ar not being used, they do not (or theoretically do not) have any impact on performance or battery. They facilitate speeding up the phone when they are called on to perform. This has been a standard in computing for 25 years. The most common or most needed routines are setup in this way.
oka1 said:
A lot of the things in the background that run are TSR programs, (terminate stay resident) Their impact is they take up some ram space but when these program ar not being used, they do not (or theoretically do not) have any impact on performance or battery. They facilitate speeding up the phone when they are called on to perform. This has been a standard in computing for 25 years. The most common or most needed routines are setup in this way.
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THIS. However, if you still have bloatware installed, those programs could be doing behind the scenes business as well.
TheSneakerWhore said:
THIS. However, if you still have bloatware installed, those programs could be doing behind the scenes business as well.
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I wish you guys would stop telling users this ..... Advanced Task Killer DO NOT report in a smart way .. It basically just shows what is cached in the phone's memory, giving the user the illusion that the system is out of or going to run out of memory .... The reason google stopped these task killers from killing other apps is because in its auto kill function, a task killer will bog down the system while fighting to kill apps only to have them re open ..... The phone has a built in task killer, which ONLY shows running apps ( ones that are using CPU and memory) and will use androids memory manager to stop them ... If you are on xda and have not already rooted your phone, I would advise you to do it, download autokiller memory optimizer... This is not a task killer but a tool used to tweak the system's built in memory manager .... Its 200% safer and will keep your phone running smooth ..also once rooted you can delete apps that concern you, but be warned, some apps may be needed by the system and deleting them might cause issues, so please use good old common sense .... hopes this helps ....
Task killers should now be a thing of the past. Newer android OS's 2.0 and above do a much better job at managing running tasks all by themselves. I now only use the included task killer if one app has completely hung on me which is rare. I don't use task managers to kill all running tasks when running benchmarks either because all that does is cause those necessary tasks to start back up during the bench and thus lowering the overall score. Cool, we just had an earthquake.
just get the xda super power app, no task killer needed, has app specific section, that you can confiure every app by itself to be killed on screen off if is running.
I have a " samsung galaxy player 4 ". I was wounder how much memory ( RAM ) it has ?
I thought i had 512.... but its only showing like half that, why ?
Thanks
savvymatthew said:
I thought i had 512.... but its only showing like half that, why ?
Thanks
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The OS e.g. Android and Touchwiz use up about 100mb RAM for itself leaving only 300-400mb for the user. My HTC Desire S has 768mb but really i can only use 623mb hope this helps.
Rueben_ said:
The OS e.g. Android and Touchwiz use up about 100mb RAM for itself leaving only 300-400mb for the user. My HTC Desire S has 768mb but really i can only use 623mb hope this helps.
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Is there a way to install a mod to free up some of the RAM the OS uses? Or a lighter android that doesn't use quite as much?
ZaIINN said:
Is there a way to install a mod to free up some of the RAM the OS uses? Or a lighter android that doesn't use quite as much?
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I would recommend a 3rd party launcher like ADW Launcher on Android market very light weight, also a app like memory booster which frees RAM. Their are no such mods to change the file system usage as changing the amount of RAM the system needs could result in a unstable device. I have a Galaxy wifi 5.0 with 512mb RAM and the 200mb left is enough for me without lag etc. hope this helps
I recommend using Advanced Task Killer. It has a very easy interface, and frees up ram quickly.
What does it say for ram on the player.... I have seen 377... and 345.
I have 345 and Im pretty pissed about it.
I have 342mb of RAM available. But I heard that around 100+ mb are dedicated to the gpu on the galaxy s phone, and the galaxy player has the same hardware so should be the same. So I think it still has 512mb of ram, but just 342 is usable by Android.
Have a look at the output of dmesg (e.g. run the following in a terminal and copy the resultant file to your PC to view: dmesg > dmesg_output.txt) and it tells you how much memory you have and how much has been set aside. Note you will probably want to reboot before you do this as otherwise the interesting messages have scrolled out of the kernel message buffer.
I've been using an app called Fast Reboot Pro. It appears to simply close processes that are running in the background. It then shows you how much memory was was freed. I hit every so often and especially when things appear to lag. Seem to work pretty well.
jlp2d said:
I've been using an app called Fast Reboot Pro. It appears to simply close processes that are running in the background. It then shows you how much memory was was freed. I hit every so often and especially when things appear to lag. Seem to work pretty well.
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Gingerbread/Samsung has it's own task manager which in turn has it's own widget which does this. No need to install an app for this
I to use fast reboot, find it much more effective than what the player comes with. I also use ram manager pro witch is a very good tool to set different ram profiles, I like "balance (more free memory)" the best. I first select my profile, then I run fast reboot, very effective! The more you run fast reboot, the more memory it frees up, witch is great for big games like asphalt 6. Also, I use zeam launcher, very lightweight, perhaps the lightest, but still a great improvement over touchwiz. Another thing, NO LIVE WALLPAPERS is an absolute necessary! These things eat WAY more ram than they say on taskmanager. THEY CAN EAT 50+ MB OF RAM!! Also, services like widgetlockscreen and such will eat your ram. If you want to play a heavy game, go to running services and kill as many as you can, you can also clear cached apps by hitting the menu button in running services. Hope these tips help you to make the most of our small supply of ram!
Hmm, after more testing, it would appear that wifi burns around 25mb of ram when on! So, if your really short on ram, just turn on airplane mode to kill all antennas. I just played modern combat 3 with 25mb free ram throughout the whole level I had 190mb free originally, that game sure eats the stuff :s The CPU rides at 1000mhz through the whole game, lol, could always use some more of that stuff! That's what oc is for
I found an application named AutoKiller Memory Optimizer by which applying its tweaks It makes my phone more smoothly and saves my battery very well!
There are some reviews below links:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=622666
http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller
http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/details
http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/kernel
If anyone has installed this application plz give your opinion !
and why would you post it in Q and A ?
All these task killers are about the war on RAM.
We, the people who grew up using windows, have an inner belief that more free RAM equals to more speed.
The thing is that android is not windows but linux based, so the rules changes to the more RAM the better perfomance.
What dois this has to do with performance & drain?
Android would load apps before you try to open them, so when you finally do, it's already opened. Android doesn't have to work hence the battery doesn't have to gas it.
Sent from the little guy
gastonw said:
All these task killers are about the war on RAM.
We, the people who grew up using windows, have an inner belief that more free RAM equals to more speed.
The thing is that android is not windows but linux based, so the rules changes to the more RAM the better perfomance.
What dois this has to do with performance & drain?
Android would load apps before you try to open them, so when you finally do, it's already opened. Android doesn't have to work hence the battery doesn't have to gas it.
Sent from the little guy
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I suggest to try it. you will find the changes i mean
Can't, already posted that these apps are crap.
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gastonw said:
Can't, already posted that these apps are crap.
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It's not a regular task killer such as advanced task killer or easy task killer. It's more different.
Really, what does it do?
Sent from the little guy
gastonw said:
Really, what does it do?
Sent from the little guy
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It's not a task killer. It's an app that modify your lmk and add some tweaks. But you can kill some apps from this app too.
First Plz read reviews in first post and also these two reviews:
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Releasing RAM With Autokiller Memory Optimizer
Have you ever wished to speed up your Android, but now known how? Have you tried task killers, but found it hard to tell whether you made an improvement? In this post, we’ll look at Autokiller Memory Optimizer, an app that gives you more control over how Android releases its system resources.
“You shouldn’t be using a task killer with Android” clearly explains why the task killers are not a good solution to fasten up your system in the Android interface. Briefly, we might say that the reason that task killers are no good for Android is that the same system regulates itself for releasing RAM memory. Process are not killed when you close the app; instead the process stays open until the system itself realizes it needs more memory to run a new process. This way, you can actually gain some speed when you restart the app, as its resources may still be in memory.
Just like a computer, a smartphone uses Random Access Memory (RAM) for processing the functionality of softwares and apps. When you are running low on RAM, your phone will start to slow down, because it needs more memory than is available. As a solution to this problem, Android devices has an autokiller that automatically shuts apps down when the memory used is close to the limit. Obviously this limit depends on the capabilities and configuration of your phone.
If you root your phone (and I totally recommend you to do that) you can use apps for changing your system parameters like the RAM auto killing. One of this apps is Autokiller Memory Optimizer available on the Android Market.
As the developer says: “AutoKiller Memory Optimizer is designed to fine-tune Android system’s inner memory manager routines to keep your device fast and smooth. It also features a full-powered process manager which lets you control your whole system.”
Warning: Messing around with system configurations like this is potentially dangerous to your phone, and not for the faint-hearted! Check out our other How To articles for safer tips on improving performance.
Going for It
The system itself divides the process into six different types, and here’s where it gets technical. The six types are as follows.
FOREGROUND_APP: This is the process running the current foreground app. We’d really rather not kill it! Value set in system/rootdir/init.rc on startup.
VISIBLE_APP: This is a process only hosting activities that are visible to the user, so we’d prefer they don’t disappear. Value set in system/rootdir/init.rc on startup.
SECONDARY_SERVER: This is a process holding a secondary server — killing it will not have much of an impact as far as the user is concerned. Value set in system/rootdir/init.rc on startup.
HIDDEN_APP: This is a process only hosting activities that are not visible, so it can be killed without any disruption. Value set in system/rootdir/init.rc on startup.
CONTENT_PROVIDER: This is a process with a content provider that does not have any clients attached to it. If it did have any clients, its adjustment would be the one for the highest-priority of those processes.
EMPTY_APP: This is a process without anything currently running in it. Definitely the first to go! Value set in system/rootdir/init.rc on startup. This value is initialized in the constructor, careful when refering to this static variable externally.
For every type of app, the system has a limit of pages (1 page=4 kilobytes) predefined. Autokiller Memory Optimizer allows you to modify this.
For the changes you can make you have the freedom to set as you wish, but there is a lock on the three first types of apps (this can be removed in the Preferences tab) and there isalso a list of presets configuration as follows (the numbers corresponds to megabytes remaining before shutting apps in the last 3 types of apps): Moderate (30, 35, 40), Optimum (40, 50, 60), Strict (60, 70, 80), Aggressive (82, 90, 98), Extreme (150, 160, 170), Ultimate (200, 225, 250) and (a wink from the developer about the TV series) Lost (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42).
Autokiller presets
Within these presets, you should try different ones, because every phone has its own RAM capacity and it would not be a good idea to set a killing parameter that is very close to your RAM total capacity as your phone would be killing apps constantly and you wouldn’t be able to use it at all.
Processes list
The app also categorizes the running apps in the six types and you can kill them manually for RAM release in the tab processes and the same occurs with the services in the current tab.
Services list
This app has also a donate version with some more features like the Chuck Norris mode when you can configure the app to use aggressive killing to release memory. It also gives the ability to set a different preset when the screen of the phone is off (this is very useful because when the screen is off you do not need memory to run new apps, but it still consumes battery).
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Tweak your system thanks to AutoKiller Memory Optimizer
Summary
Relax, I’m not trying to fool you into thinking that a task killer is really a tweak. Don’t be fooled by the ‘AutoKiller’ part of the app’s name, focus on the other words instead, because AutoKiller Memory Optimizer will allow you to fiddle around and make a few adjustments. Read on and find out what kind of adjustments I’m talking about, and whether the app is worth your time.
Features & Use
AutoKiller Memory Optimizer is there to help you bring your system up to par by conducting a bit of fine tuning. The app comes with a task manager. Use the task manager to get rid of lagging processes, the logic behind this being that if you’ve got something running that’s not really doing anything useful, but does consume 98% of the CPU as well as a hefty chunk of memory you should really unload energy hoggers. Your system will thank you by running smoothly. The task manager also displays the oom_value for ever app—more details below.
The app allows you to regulate the settings for the OOM killer, the automatic killer integrated in every Android device whose role it is to create more memory space wherever possible. As you know, in the Android world applications are never halted or shut down, they are merely rendered inactive—until the memory pipes up and the Out Of Memory Killer rears its head. But when does memory shortage become critical? And who decides which apps should be banished, and when should this occur? If you want to make these types of decisions yourself take a look at AutoKiller Memory Optimizer.
Android divides running apps into six categories ranging from the app that you’re currently working with to ‘empty apps’ (i.e. apps that you left by hitting the back button at some point). Once RAM space becomes too low the OOM killer will start by banishing said empty apps, and, if need be, continue working its way up. AutoKiller Memory Optimizer lets you decide how much free RAM space is required for your device run smoothly. There are different presettings to pick from (‘moderate’, ‘aggressive’, etc) and you can check out the developer’s website to read up on user experiences.
Bottom line:
AutoKiller Memory Optimizer affords you easy access to essential systems settings, allowing your Android to perform as optimally as possible. How essential this kind of app is is contingent on lots of factors: which device you’re working with, how good the manufacturer’s presettings are and what can be done to adjust them.
Screen & Controls
AutoKiller Memory Optimizer is set up in a very logical way. While high skilled, expert knowledge of Android isn’t essential in order to get the best performance out of the controls, it doesn’t hurt to have some experience. You can find in depth information and details regarding the settings options on the developer’s website, which means that you really don’t need much background knowledge in order to get something out of this app.
If you have a bit of experience you will find that the app’s controls are intuitive; if you’ve never worked with tweaking before I recommend that you give this app a miss.
Speed & Stability
AutoKiller Memory Optimizer is fast, stabil and dependable. I’ve been using the app for just over a month and it hasn’t crashed once so far.
Yada yada, that app tells android how to behave.
Custom kernels do that as well, so there you have it
Sent from the little guy
gastonw said:
Yada yada, that app tells android how to behave.
Custom kernels do that as well, so there you have it
Sent from the little guy
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Lol yes, the more ram android uses the better performance BUT it makes most apps to run and remain active in the background using valuable memory which I might need for something else, for example something like a HD game like NOVA 3, and battery life does increase because active app = active CPU = battery drain.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
Hello world,
I have been using several ROMs for my 16GB Nexus 4 and I have a complain about RAM usage: it is never close to its full potential.
I did the following experiment: I opened up lots of apps(dialer, messaging, browser, facebook etc) not very demanding the ram usage was about 50-60% and most of the apps were loaded in RAM as there was no latency in switching between them. The I've opened up GTA 3. And the RAM usage was barely around 60-65%. Overall not much of an increase. I figured out that even though I had over 30% free RAM and android killed my other apps because even though they were in Recents it took the same time to open up.
So my QUESTION is: Is there any way to enable agressive multi tasking (90-95% ram usage) or a way to disable android task killimg mecanics in order to achieve a higher number of apps loaded in ram, therfore improving the overall speed?
Now I am running PSX ROM with S4 patch and Neo kernel
Peace
You can look into supercharging and adding swap or compcache/zram
Depending on how you use your phone will tell you if any of this will help or hinder your device
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
demkantor said:
You can look into supercharging and adding swap or compcache/zram
Depending on how you use your phone will tell you if any of this will help or hinder your device
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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Thanks for the tips, but I want app switching to be fast, therfore no ZRam. As far as I know zram is slow virtual ram that allows many apps to stay in "memory" but switching to them is not fast. If I am getting something wrong, please tell me. Also I want to use the full potential of my RAM not having maximum 65% in high stress situations.
Try tweaking minfree values, google android ram minfree to get a better concept of it.
Basically its to adjust the number of pages at wich the system will start killing apps/processes with a given priority (foreground, background, services, system, etc).
dxppxd said:
Try tweaking minfree values, google android ram minfree to get a better concept of it.
Basically its to adjust the number of pages at wich the system will start killing apps/processes with a given priority (foreground, background, services, system, etc).
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Higher minram=killing tasks much often, right?
DEV_Geek said:
Higher minram=killing tasks much often, right?
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Yes, exactly that. So keep minfree as low as posible, but still give system core processes the priority. This way, ram will have to be really full (really low free ram) for apps to get killed.
dxppxd said:
Yes, exactly that. So keep minfree as low as posible, but still give system core processes the priority. This way, ram will have to be really full (really low free ram) for apps to get killed.
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Will try soon. Thanks once again for helping a noob. I will keep you posted with the results.
Peace
dxppxd said:
Yes, exactly that. So keep minfree as low as posible, but still give system core processes the priority. This way, ram will have to be really full (really low free ram) for apps to get killed.
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Didn't worked out quite well, all my minfree settings are below 6MB, but still below 1GB ram is used
how to get more free ram?? i have mmx a92. it lagging.. plz help (using Ram booster Pro)
Apps (activities) are usually cached, and "use" RAM. When RAM is needed, though, cached apps are "killed" to make space. This is all handled by the LMK (you can Google it if you want more information,) automatically. So in a certain aspect, free RAM is wasted RAM - if it is needed, it'll be made available. Struggling to get more free RAM is useless.
Take killers are also bad... Not only do they go against what I described above, but some apps use services. Those run in the background to provide various utility to the app, and can restart when killed. Task killers will kill them, but they'll only restart. So you'll only be gaining more CPU usage, more battery draining, and your task killer will actually be using RAM for itself.
In short: it'd probably be best if you got rid of your task killer, and learned to stop worrying (about the RAM) and love the bomb.