[Q] zRAM worth it? - HTC One X+

Is it worth having zRAM on the HOX+? 1GB doesn't seem enough for multi-tasking, the device feels sluggish when switching between multiple applications.
From what I understand zRAM takes a chunk of the RAM and turns it into swap space, in compressed format. Of course, that means a bit less RAM available to apps traded for faster swap.
Any thoughts from the devs who have experience with zRAM? Worth the trouble?

Zram/compcache is a kernel feature, so unless you can get a kernel dev to include it in a kernel (or your able to compile your own kernel). This isnt an option for you.
Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk 2

Take a look here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2012320 and here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=35510415&postcount=283

Related

Developers Needed - Free the RAM

Developers please help. It seems that our Nexus Ones are restricted to only 180 MB RAM as their is a bug in the kernel. Can anyone make or compile a RAMhack that can open up the extra 100-150 MB RAM. The below is an excerpt from another thread under the Nexus One - Nexus One forum here in XDA. Im wondering how much faster this thing will fly. It seems a MEMhack such as the one they used to free the 10MB for the dream might be the same approach. Apparently Google will patch this but there is no ETA on the next update.
A "memhack" kernel update in the next Nexus One OTA should give us an additional 100-150MB RAM. Who wants to try to compile a kernel that does this now?
reserved for space
flak0 said:
Developers please help. It seems that our Nexus Ones are restricted to only 180 MB RAM as their is a bug in the kernel. Can anyone make or compile a RAMhack that can open up the extra 100-150 MB RAM. The below is an excerpt from another thread under the Nexus One - Nexus One forum here in XDA. Im wondering how much faster this thing will fly. It seems a MEMhack such as the one they used to free the 10MB for the dream might be the same approach. Apparently Google will patch this but there is no ETA on the next update.
A "memhack" kernel update in the next Nexus One OTA should give us an additional 100-150MB RAM. Who wants to try to compile a kernel that does this now?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it's really only a matter of time on this ... once the 2.6.3x kernel is perfected for the mahimahi HW ... we'll get it. Think tank not really necessary ... as it's in the works.
~enom~
Ummmm. I thought that was the goal here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=616383
Doubt we need the 2nd thread.
That is correct that is the goal however, until the .32 kernel is perfected is there a way to hack the current Kernel like it was done for the Dream to get the extra memory back. I am just making a suggestion. I know the only issue with the .32 kernel is the proximity sensor fails from what I have read. Can this be confirmed?
All sensors work fine with 2.6.32. Google put the sensor code in git a few days ago. I am having issues with the camera, but another person in the kernel thread said he got it working, but I can't confirm it yet.
As for the memory hack, I do not know how to do it, but the memory map and allocation are in <kernel dir>/arch/arm/mach-msm and the two files are line 959 in board-mahimahi.c and board-mahimahi.h has the memory map table breakdown.
Edit: I just got the camera working
Wont enabling that ram for program use affect the GPU(Like on the G1)?
~~Tito~~ said:
Wont enabling that ram for program use affect the GPU(Like on the G1)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, there is ram that isn't even allocated in the nexus unlike the G1. You would just move everything around and nothing would be adversely affected (in theory).
staulkor said:
No, there is ram that isn't even allocated in the nexus unlike the G1. You would just move everything around and nothing would be adversely affected (in theory).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats a bug google said would be fixed and more ram would be avail for the Nexus.
According to swetland, the only way is via the .32 kernel due to the problems caused by the 1:1 requirement. Otherwise it sounds like things go bad very quickly.
swetland said:
Roughly 220MB is available to userspace in the shipping build (ERD79).
Quite a lot of memory is dedicated to the radio firmware (41MB), dsp firmware (32MB), display surfaces (32MB), gpu (3MB), camera (8MB), a/v buffers (41MB), and dsp buffers. Much of this needs to be set aside for these specific tasks due to hardware requirements of very large physically contiguous buffers which can be difficult or impossible to obtain after boot once the physical memory space gets fragmented.
The big limitation though is that the Linux kernel needs to do a 1:1 physical:virtual map of general purpose memory used by the kernel and userspace (which excludes the special purpose stuff described above). This eats into the available kernel virtual address space, which is also needed for cross process shared memory used by the binder, etc. Run out of virtual memory and things get unhappy.
In 2.6.32, HIGHMEM support for ARM will allow us to avoid this requirement for a 1:1 mapping which will allow us to increase memory available to userspace without running the system out of virtual memory adddress space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bofslime said:
According to swetland, the only way is via the .32 kernel due to the problems caused by the 1:1 requirement. Otherwise it sounds like things go bad very quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the details. I wasn't aware of what was causing the problem before reading this. This makes a lot of sense.

[Q] BTRFS+Compression+SSD optimization on folio

would it be possible to change the filesystem from ext4 to btrfs with compression and ssd optimization.
i do have the knowledge about the possible of having more cpu overhead than the improvement in transfer speed.. but when it comes to space saving, i think it does worth it. i have been using btrfs compression on opensuse for quite a while. the space saving is amazing. with compression enabled, the space usage is half the normal size.
the only concern im having about getting this to be done is the kernel. does the kernel we are using support btrfs compression at the first place(mblaster?)? i do not have the technical knowledge of how to get this done. hope someone could turn this idea to a reality.
gingerboy92 said:
...does the kernel we are using support btrfs compression at the first place(mblaster?)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, sorry. Btrfs is not in atm (could be changed for a test), but I don't know if compression would be supported. Also I am not convinced that compression would help a lot on the folio for two reasons: First the compression end uncompression both need cpu cycles, slowing down the system. And second the kind of files you typically have on such a device (mp3, videos etc.) are not really compressable. I doubt you would get more then a few percent more storage out of your device.
ehem.. about the cpu cycle, lzo compression could reduce the cpu usage, but i don't know by how much, probably still wouldn't worth the gain too. i don't know. but even if it does gives a worthy gain, maybe there's too much work to be done, lzo needs kernel 2.6.38 kernel to work if i'm not mistaken. compression(if possible) could be applied to something like the boot partition? maybe it could improve boot time, just a maybe.
looks like i didn't consider everything before i speak. thanks mblaster. ^.^
mblaster said:
Nope, sorry. Btrfs is not in atm (could be changed for a test), but I don't know if compression would be supported. Also I am not convinced that compression would help a lot on the folio for two reasons: First the compression end uncompression both need cpu cycles, slowing down the system. And second the kind of files you typically have on such a device (mp3, videos etc.) are not really compressable. I doubt you would get more then a few percent more storage out of your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, what is stored on storage ? Mp3, mp4? ~ all of them are mostly compressed, where other - mathematical/lossles compression wouldnt help - in most cases would it make worse
gingerboy92 said:
ehem.. about the cpu cycle, lzo compression could reduce the cpu usage, but i don't know by how much, probably still wouldn't worth the gain too. i don't know. but even if it does gives a worthy gain, maybe there's too much work to be done, lzo needs kernel 2.6.38 kernel to work if i'm not mistaken. compression(if possible) could be applied to something like the boot partition? maybe it could improve boot time, just a maybe.
looks like i didn't consider everything before i speak. thanks mblaster. ^.^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
compression is already applied on kernels.
usually you compile a kernel into bzImage, the "z" just means it's compressed.
modern linux kernels allow you to choose from gzip, bzip2, lzma, xz, lzo, lz4.
this includes ramdisk.
If you need space, just use an sdcard or microusb or Mount a network share...
Gesendet von meinem folio100 mit Tapatalk

[Q] Do all of the ICS roms here have that 624mb limit?

I had tried two ICS roms so far as we lose over 100mb in useable ram going from gingerbread to ice cream sandwich. Just wondering if all of the ICS roms are like that or not?
Any idea why we lose 100mb? I'd really like to have it back
It seems like that RAM is being allocated to integrated graphics and I did notice this across the board between dagr8's and smartguys port of team perfection ROMS.
Subscribed for more information, good question if we can change allocation.
Of course all of the ics roms will have the same amount of usable ram. They all use the same kernel, the stock kernel in the leak, cause without source it's pretty much going to stay that way.
I don't get the obsession with usable ram... It's Android, free ram is wasted ram. Stop worrying and let the lmk do its job.
studacris said:
Of course all of the ics roms will have the same amount of usable ram. They all use the same kernel, the stock kernel in the leak, cause without source it's pretty much going to stay that way.
I don't get the obsession with usable ram... It's Android, free ram is wasted ram. Stop worrying and let the lmk do its job.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's this misconception that used RAM = slower, laggier performance and that also is not the case.
People need to check their Windows PC conceptualization of RAM usage at the door.
-Ryan
studacris said:
Of course all of the ics roms will have the same amount of usable ram. They all use the same kernel, the stock kernel in the leak, cause without source it's pretty much going to stay that way.
I don't get the obsession with usable ram... It's Android, free ram is wasted ram. Stop worrying and let the lmk do its job.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you are correct. Samsung dedicated more ram to the video card, which is probably to fix the black crush and gradient issues that are in the stock rom. Apparently the video ram allocated in gingerbread cant drive this monstrous display like they thought.
it does suck losing it, because its just that much less left for multitasking, but it fixed the display issues so its a good trade off for me.
also, this issue is not in android devices with tegra 3. With tegra 3 the video card has dedicated video ram, meaning that a 1gb android device shows 1 gb of total ram since its not shared with the video card. This is great because it means better multitasking because more apps stay in memory.
studacris said:
Of course all of the ics roms will have the same amount of usable ram. They all use the same kernel, the stock kernel in the leak, cause without source it's pretty much going to stay that way.
I don't get the obsession with usable ram... It's Android, free ram is wasted ram. Stop worrying and let the lmk do its job.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The obsession with usable ram is smoothness, it makes a difference, if it didn't why aren't we still all using 512mb phones?
Once the ram is filled up swapping has to occur, when this happens cpu cycles and flash read/write cycles are introduced and they slow down your experience..
Losing 100mb of ram is a big deal, its over 33% of available ram for me. And it does effect performance unfortunately.
ryandelman said:
There's this misconception that used RAM = slower, laggier performance and that also is not the case.
People need to check their Windows PC conceptualization of RAM usage at the door.
-Ryan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It feel totally makes a difference, I have been complaining about this issue for the longest and all I hear is that it doesn't do anything to our phone. If it doesn't do anything why do I keep getting a message that states that I have no more ram and that it will close everything to free up ram. This is one thing that I really don't like about Android, I sure hope that this changes in the future, because no matter how much ram is installed on our phone we will always have an issue because we cant control what apps we can fully close..
omniphil said:
The obsession with usable ram is smoothness, it makes a difference, if it didn't why aren't we still all using 512mb phones?
Once the ram is filled up swapping has to occur, when this happens cpu cycles and flash read/write cycles are introduced and they slow down your experience..
Losing 100mb of ram is a big deal, its over 33% of available ram for me. And it does effect performance unfortunately.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100=1000/3? You might want to double check that one.
No matter how many tabs I open in chrome, along with beautiful widgets and Facebook, 2 email accounting syncing and Engadget, joystick, reddit and XDA apps running I never take a performance hit.
My advice is to spend less time running quadrant, your rams are being out to good use.
jimmer411 said:
100=1000/3? You might want to double check that one.
No matter how many tabs I open in chrome, along with beautiful widgets and Facebook, 2 email accounting syncing and Engadget, joystick, reddit and XDA apps running I never take a performance hit.
My advice is to spend less time running quadrant, your rams are being out to good use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he meant 1/3 of free ram. Typically a stock gingerbread from had 320-350mb free ram.
EvoXOhio said:
I think he meant 1/3 of free ram. Typically a stock gingerbread from had 320-350mb free ram.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct.. I lost 100mb or so of free ram, which forces the phone to swap more often. If we lost it to help the video card then that's fine, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something else.
Maybe with an official build of ICS the sluggishness will be better...
Interesting point here... I saw a screen shot of an international Note on ICS and the max free RAM was at 803 MB. Maybe its just an issue with our ics leak that we have so little free RAM?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
Been doing some testing on this. It appears that limiting the background applications to three returns the free memory back to gb levels. Been testing this all day with my objection rom, and my used memory has not gone above 472 used with 3 background applications running. That leaves plenty of room to run my games in the forground or office applications. Phone has been running smooth and with out error.
In objection rom to limit the back ground applications. Settings /development options / limit back ground process.
Also been looking at my wife's nexus with non rooted ics. Her phone shows 728 Meg of available ram. Not sure why our leaked version is showing only 656.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
Thanks! after reading this post...I went into the ICS settings on Unofficial ROM and set the settings to 3 background and kill apps on exit..it improved A LOTTTTT....Ive been lurking a long time and this is the best advice I have read!

What is Zram and the best uses/setting for it? :)

I'm currently running the devil kernel on my phone, using the new devil app to control settings but I really don't know a couple settings though. First what I'd zram and is it better than swap? And what's the best value to set the zram at? I have it on 150mb.
Also what's better zram or swap?
Dude look @ the op
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk 2
No info about what it is in the op U_U
well, based on my reading...(Basically meaning take this with a grain of salt because I may not perfectly re-present the information, but this is how I've come to understand it lol )
zram basically compresses unused apps within the system RAM. This allows the system to swap less needed processes to the zram partition for faster access at a later time, instead of killing them. This does take up some of your ram though, so I imagine that the value you are setting is determining exactly what percentage of your ram that the zram partition is allotted.
Swap instead uses a small portion of the SDcard like RAM. The phone will attempt to keep as much within the ram as possible until fill, and then begin using the swap partition on the SDcard. At that point, the phone will begin moving inactive blocks of memory to the SD, freeing up RAM for active processes. If one of the pages on the SD needs to be accessed again, it will be moved back into RAM, and a different inactive page in RAM will be moved onto the SD ('swapped').
Swap files don't restrict available RAM but writing to the sdcard impacts the speed of opening apps.
Now, which is better? No idea ^^ Lol
Holly crap I'm enabling swap lol. Do I need to repartition my SD card for swap?
I wouldn't enable swap, you don't need it, zram us nifty but also not need. Your system can handle memory just fine without you. Just let it to its thing and you will be fine.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
I agree completely. My former device had a hack that we came up with that would force app2sd on a 2.1 build. This was great at the time but it cause some serious lag. We then enabled the swap to help with the memory issues. It worked for awhile but then all these apps started to come out that were, not to sound funny, memory hogs. This device only had 128mb of user RAM, so it was a constant struggle to get it working. Gotta remember that this was pre-GB times, so Froyo was the ICS of that time.
Here is more to read from this devices section about how swap works. The thread was revived on Post #9 and my explaination is Post#16.
Moral of the story is that I agree with Eco, let the phone work for you and not you against it. There are few memory issues with the Vibrant. Is it running 2gb of RAM? No but do you really need something like that on a phone?
Woodrube said:
I agree completely. My former device had a hack that we came up with that would force app2sd on a 2.1 build. This was great at the time but it cause some serious lag. We then enabled the swap to help with the memory issues. It worked for awhile but then all these apps started to come out that were, not to sound funny, memory hogs. This device only had 128mb of user RAM, so it was a constant struggle to get it working. Gotta remember that this was pre-GB times, so Froyo was the ICS of that time.
Here is more to read from this devices section about how swap works. The thread was revived on Post #9 and my explaination is Post#16.
Moral of the story is that I agree with Eco, let the phone work for you and not you against it. There are few memory issues with the Vibrant. Is it running 2gb of RAM? No but do you really need something like that on a phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly, Android is designed for low Memory systems. It can handle out of Memory situations on its own, and will kill unneeded apps as is necessary to free ram for running apps. Don't worry about how much "free" ram you have because it doesn't matter. You want more free ram learn to set the ram usage settings to be more aggressive at killing idle apps. It'll and up using more battery, but if free ram is what you want then that's how to do it.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Woody said:
I agree completely. My former device had a hack that we came up with that would force app2sd on a 2.1 build. This was great at the time but it cause some serious lag. We then enabled the swap to help with the memory issues. It worked for awhile but then all these apps started to come out that were, not to sound funny, memory hogs. This device only had 128mb of user RAM, so it was a constant struggle to get it working. Gotta remember that this was pre-GB times, so Froyo was the ICS of that time.
Here is more to read from this devices section about how swap works. The thread was revived on Post #9 and my explaination is Post#16.
Moral of the story is that I agree with Eco, let the phone work for you and not you against it. There are few memory issues with the Vibrant. Is it running 2gb of RAM? No but do you really need something like that on a phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good old g1 and mytouch days
No signature for you!
Woody said:
There are few memory issues with the Vibrant. Is it running 2gb of RAM? No but do you really need something like that on a phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, yes. There are certain apps, like Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype and probably more, that have their background services running even if you close the app. Those services are for sending notification, but they are slowing down this device very much (Even if only the Facebook service is running). So I do feel the device does not handle memory so good. And I can't blame it, since it has a limited memory, but I do wish I had more RAM.
Don't enable zram or swap unless you have the EU bug or like your shizz lag like a mo'fo'. If your phone is playing nicely, then disable both. Allow Purging of Assets also.Set it to two processes in Dev Section.
Sent from a Beaner
Like the SIG D'fresh!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Dougfresh said:
... Set it to two processes in Dev Section.
Sent from a Beaner
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By this do you mean the "Background Process Limits"?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app
scottPilgrim said:
hey devil, got a question for you...
any particular reason why you removed zRAM from your kernel? i was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on why it isn't necessary on this device.
Thanks man
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Xenoism said:
zram basically compresses unused apps within the system RAM. This allows the system to swap less needed processes to the zram partition for faster access at a later time, instead of killing them. This does take up some of your ram though, so I imagine that the value you are setting is determining exactly what percentage of your ram that the zram partition is allotted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really needed on our device that have 2gb of ram memory.
Have ever been in a situation where you have been out of free ram? Neither have I.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2
Our devices don't have 2gb ram memory. They have 512mb ram memory
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app
cannondaleV2000 said:
Our devices don't have 2gb ram memory. They have 512mb ram memory
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1+

Increasing RAM size

Is it still possible to increase the RAM size of the Poco F1? I have the 6gb/128gb variant and I want to have maybe 2 to 4gb more RAM. I read around that it can be done with a swap file on older phones but I already tried that and even added up to 6gb but it doesn't seem to get used. Is there a custom ROM or magisk zip that can be used for that? My phone currently runs on Corvus with NGK.
The reason why I want more RAM? Egg NS. My phone frequently runs out of RAM and the game force closes.
Thanks!
Oyee said:
Is it still possible to increase the RAM size of the Poco F1? I have the 6gb/128gb variant and I want to have maybe 2 to 4gb more RAM. I read around that it can be done with a swap file on older phones but I already tried that and even added up to 6gb but it doesn't seem to get used. Is there a custom ROM or magisk zip that can be used for that? My phone currently runs on Corvus with NGK.
The reason why I want more RAM? Egg NS. My phone frequently runs out of RAM and the game force closes.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are these apps and games you use?
How do you fill the entire memory?
I switched to LineageOS + NGK because it's more stable. So far I only have DamonPS2 and Egg NS installed after flashing the ROM. Had no problems with DamonsPS2 even with stock ROM. Anyway, I said before the app in question is Egg NS, a switch emulator. The app needs 8gb RAM so the Poco F1 is short of 2gb that's why it force closes randomly. I get smoother framerates compared to stock but then I still run out of RAM.
Well, short of swapping the DRAM modules for bigger ones it would be impossible, and even then who knows if it would work?
Although now that you've posted this question, I'm left wondering if anyone has successfully done this… I know that Scotty from Strange Parts (and others) have swapped NANDs for bigger storage, but RAM I've never seen.
I think ram is included in the SOC, which means cpu, gpu, controllers, everything else will be also replaced if someone were to upgrade ram, basically changing the core of the phone.
I'm trying to make it work like this one. A really old post from 2012 so I doubt it'll still work for Android 10.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1659231
Oyee said:
I'm trying to make it work like this one. A really old post from 2012 so I doubt it'll still work for Android 10.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1659231
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In that case why don't you try zRAM instead? Depending on the kernel your zRAM (or swap, for that matter) capabilities may differ, but give it a go!
IDK about other kernel utility apps, but EX Manager has the options.
Ok I'll give that one a try. Just tried Roehsoft RAM expander and it still works but the game runs really slow when it's already using the swap memory. At least it doesn't force close now. lol

Categories

Resources