Did I do something to slow down my phone? I don't remember my S3 having anywhere near this much trouble with redraws. It is constant. I am almost ready to switch to the stock launcher if I don't find a fix. Does Nova have this issue? Does anyone else with Apex experience this?
Apex Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Keep In Memory
Make sure that's checked.
Use Nova Launcher, much better
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Trying out Nova. So far it seems considerably faster and I've only had one redraw since I installed it. Gonna give it a week or two and then if all goes well I'll upgrade to the paid version.
It's funny how feature for feature it seems exactly the same as Apex.
Before everyone regurgitates the same things over and over again:
1) The keep in memory checkbox exists, but I feel like it doesn't help. I get a dozen redraws everyday still.
2) Nova seems to redraw less than Apex,and when it does, it's less noticeable.
At the end of the day, WHY are redraws even happening? I find this unacceptable.
It's usually a certain widget, despite what settings and mods you might have tried to stop redraws. I found once that Wizz Calendar widget was causing Nova to redraw all the time for me. I removed it and stopped getting redraws almost completely.
just4747 said:
It's usually a certain widget, despite what settings and mods you might have tried to stop redraws. I found once that Wizz Calendar widget was causing Nova to redraw all the time for me. I removed it and stopped getting redraws almost completely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, it could be a certain widget, but the root cause is that launcher redraws isn't prevented by the Android OS. Unless these widgets are gobbling 512mb of RAM, I don't see why a redraw is necessary.
Related
Just wanted to spread the word about this new launcher.It's called Go Launcher. Has some pretty nice features. I would say it's about on the same level as LP and ADW.
http://androidspin.com/2010/12/16/go-launcher-another-home-launcher-replacement/
Thanks bud, looks promising!
Looks very good for customization and whatnot
This seems kinda interesting. I think I may give it a shot.
i am a big big fan of touchwiz. i tried the other launchers and i always went back to touchwiz.
except this time. kinda.
literally, the only thing that is keeping me from using this launcher as my main launcher is that the weather channel wide widget is not generating every time i try. i like this thing that much. it is so much snappier on obsidian 4.2 (yes i know there are other versions out there, but i feel safer using the version on their website as i figure its the finished version) than the modded tw launcher in use there. like noticably faster and more responsive. i will definitely be keeping my eye on its development.
I have tried the Go Launcher for a while. It's pretty good and it's faster than ADW.
In addition, it uses less memory than the ADW and LP. One thing I'd like to see
is the capability to hide the Dock as in ADW. And apparently, ADW has so many
themes which is really attractive.
But overall, Go launcher is a good choice.
zeam launcher
Go launcher is aight, takes up a lot of memory and causes phone to lag after a while. Honestly, try the zeam launcher. Way way better. The app drawer can hold a lot of apps. you'll love it!
domtru said:
Go launcher is aight, takes up a lot of memory and causes phone to lag after a while. Honestly, try the zeam launcher. Way way better. The app drawer can hold a lot of apps. you'll love it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i agree i use zeam and love it
Speaking of go, the sms app is the best I've used thus far. Maybe I'll give the launcher a try.
I'd pass on go launcher if I were you. I tried it for 2 days last week and ended up hating it.
If I spent too much time in an app or just away from the home screen, the launcher would have to reload all of the apps onto the home and app screens. Screen orientation was always buggy as well. Half the time I flipped the screen, the dock bar wouldn't turn with it. I'd have to move to another screen or flip and flip back to get the dock to move. The dock bar email/messaging unread count wouldn't clear after reading either. The app menu scrolling was very choppy, regardless of how long I let it sit to load.
It's a decent looking launcher, but has a ton of bugs still.
Sent from my <tw> powered vibrant.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm still forced to use good old Launcher Pro on my SGS II. Reason being that it's the smoothest launcher I've tried - in a sense that it's the most responsive to swiping screens. Also, its calendar widget is very nice, same as in Go Launcher.
I admit I'm a bit over-sensitive to even slightest lag. Even a several millisecond delay when swiping screens or opening the app drawer pisses me off.
My personal experience:
Go Launcher Pro - best customization, worst response. Heavy and sluggish. After deep sleep, there's a huge delay when swiping screens, until screens are cached. Until they are, it feels slllllloooowwww. Same on my Nook Tablet - horrific delays after deep sleep.
TouchWiz launcher - pretty damn fast and responsive, but even TW 4.5 has very limited customization. Also, when using multiple widgets, I start noticing an FPS drop in swiping from widget-heavy screens. For example MIUI Clock (from market) - swiping to and from the screen with it will always have noticable frame-skip.
Zeam Launcher - very smooth, but same frame skip problem as TW launcher. Unfortunatelly, very little customization.
Launcher Pro - fastest, lag-free swiping. Sadly, an abandoned project and missing lots of customization that'd be nice for modern ROMs.
Nova Launcher for ICS - fast and smooth, but still FCs every once in a while, lack customization. It's in beta, obviously.
ADW Launcher - haven't tested it for a while, but I remember not-so-great swiping response and lacking customization that I wanted.
What's your experience like? What do you recommend?
DarkDvr said:
I don't know about you guys, but I'm still forced to use good old Launcher Pro on my SGS II. Reason being that it's the smoothest launcher I've tried - in a sense that it's the most responsive to swiping screens. Also, its calendar widget is very nice, same as in Go Launcher.
I admit I'm a bit over-sensitive to even slightest lag. Even a several millisecond delay when swiping screens or opening the app drawer pisses me off.
My personal experience:
Go Launcher Pro - best customization, worst response. Heavy and sluggish. After deep sleep, there's a huge delay when swiping screens, until screens are cached. Until they are, it feels slllllloooowwww. Same on my Nook Tablet - horrific delays after deep sleep.
TouchWiz launcher - pretty damn fast and responsive, but even TW 4.5 has very limited customization. Also, when using multiple widgets, I start noticing an FPS drop in swiping from widget-heavy screens. For example MIUI Clock (from market) - swiping to and from the screen with it will always have noticable frame-skip.
Zeam Launcher - very smooth, but same frame skip problem as TW launcher. Unfortunatelly, very little customization.
Launcher Pro - fastest, lag-free swiping. Sadly, an abandoned project and missing lots of customization that'd be nice for modern ROMs.
Nova Launcher for ICS - fast and smooth, but still FCs every once in a while, lack customization. It's in beta, obviously.
ADW Launcher - haven't tested it for a while, but I remember not-so-great swiping response and lacking customization that I wanted.
What's your experience like? What do you recommend?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where do you get that LauncherPro is an abandoned project? Yeah, it hasn't been updated in quite some time (May 2011, I think), but the forums on their website looks active, and it's still available in the market? I'm just curious, as I use LP, and I'd hate to see development on it stop.
ctomgee said:
Where do you get that LauncherPro is an abandoned project? Yeah, it hasn't been updated in quite some time (May 2011, I think), but the forums on their website looks active, and it's still available in the market? I'm just curious, as I use LP, and I'd hate to see development on it stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Development on it has stopped a long time ago. Last update was simply to add transition effects.
Francisco has moved on to music app and other things. His "representatives" (whatever that means) kept telling everyone on the forums that development is not dead, he simply hasn't touched the code for past, oh, year or so. So yeah. It's as dead as it gets.
Forums are active mostly because people are asking when development will continue, begging for updates.
I find ADW Launcher EX to be smooth, and its far better than normal ADW.
DarkDvr said:
Development on it has stopped a long time ago. Last update was simply to add transition effects.
Francisco has moved on to music app and other things. His "representatives" (whatever that means) kept telling everyone on the forums that development is not dead, he simply hasn't touched the code for past, oh, year or so. So yeah. It's as dead as it gets.
Forums are active mostly because people are asking when development will continue, begging for updates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that sucks. LauncherPro is definitely my favorite launcher at the moment.
DarkDvr said:
TouchWiz launcher - pretty damn fast and responsive, but even TW 4.5 has very limited customization. Also, when using multiple widgets, I start noticing an FPS drop in swiping from widget-heavy screens. For example MIUI Clock (from market) - swiping to and from the screen with it will always have noticable frame-skip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This, for some reason the Program monitor seems to do this whenever I use it, I can have the digital clock and accuweather widget running along with the google search bar and droidstats and its smooth. Use the program monitor widget and it starts to stutter
Go launcher EX is the one that i have fallen for. Fast and stable with alot of customization.
And check out Nemus launcher too.
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mariosraptor said:
Go launcher EX is the one that i have fallen for. Fast and stable with alot of customization.
And check out Nemus launcher too.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^^
This. Been using GoEx for a couple of months now. Have tried other launchers (incl Touchwiz), but keep coming back to GoEx for the reasons Mariosraptor mentioned.
I flipflop between LPP and adw Ex. Given up GO, I found it sluggish and I hate the home icon on the dock.
adw>LPP for customisation, LPP>adw for speed. If LPP had more gesture actions and we could resize dock icons it'd be perfect for me, but development is deader than a dodo.
Haven't installed/used TW for 6 months.
B3311 said:
I flipflop between LPP and adw Ex. Given up GO, I found it sluggish and I hate the home icon on the dock.
adw>LPP for customisation, LPP>adw for speed. If LPP had more gesture actions and we could resize dock icons it'd be perfect for me, but development is deader than a dodo.
Haven't installed/used TW for 6 months.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like ADW Launcher EX as well... But the thing I REALLY like about LPP over ADW is the scrollable dock, allowing for 10 more shortcuts. If ADW had that, I would move over in a heartbeat.
Was a launcher pro plus user but go launcher is what I prefer due to its widgets, the Facebook and twitter ones are useful for quick updates. Calendar widget is good as well.
I find the supported decant not as smooth as launcher pro but no big issue.
ADW ex is also good use it on my tablet and its fast and customisable.
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ctomgee said:
I like ADW Launcher EX as well... But the thing I REALLY like about LPP over ADW is the scrollable dock, allowing for 10 more shortcuts. If ADW had that, I would move over in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the dock you can have other five apps in go launche. How? Just make use of the gesture feature on every icon on dock. That is what i have done for a long time.
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the only thing that annoys me with ADW EX is that you can not have folders in your app screens like go launcher. yes i know you can have them on your desktop but not really the point is it and makes the app screen full of apps...specially if you have over one hundred...or the feature is there and i do not know how to work it? any ideas from someone to correct me please
mariosraptor said:
In the dock you can have other five apps in go launche. How? Just make use of the gesture feature on every icon on dock. That is what i have done for a long time.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fair enough - but then you have to remember what each of the icons' gestures launches. It won't display it, right? I still prefer the scrolling dock.
EDIT: also, in LPP, you can add gestures to each of the possible 15 icons in the deck as well. Leading to a whopping potential 30 shortcuts, just in the dock. I don't use the swipe gestures though; 15 total dock shortcuts suffices for me for now.
Personally, i prefer and use 360 Launcher from XDA, that is surely the most customizable, fast, smooth and easy to use launcher ever seen!
Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 usando Tapatalk
Tested some launcher and a lot of rom (most with an other launcher or modded TW)
I always get back to launcher pro!
Sure long time no updates but maybe because most users are happy with it ;-)
CHEERS ;-)
Sent from my Galaxy S2 - I9100 with SensatioN Rom!
I would say that the Go Launcher is the most beautiful one in the matket but from time to time you have lags here and there when you turn on effects like sphere or cylinder. for smoothness you can go for ADW Launcher imo I dont like the aesthetics of Launcher pro at all...
Definitely Go Launcher for me. Highly customisable and zero lag.
Of you have lag on wakeup, maybe try a different kernel and governor etc.
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mariosraptor said:
Go launcher EX is the one that i have fallen for. Fast and stable with alot of customization.
And check out Nemus launcher too.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried Nemus yesterday and I liked it, but it needs a "hide status bar" option IMO.
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imo go launcher ex
they either don't let me resize my widgets or ignore and try to force the widget to the centre of the homescreen with a massive border of space all around.
going to try zeam again but i think after that - there's no more h/w accelerated launchers right?
tommo123 said:
they either don't let me resize my widgets or ignore and try to force the widget to the centre of the homescreen with a massive border of space all around.
going to try zeam again but i think after that - there's no more h/w accelerated launchers right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure about h/w acceleration, but try (free) Nemus launcher from the Market.
It has got a nice group/folder feature for the homescreen.
thanks, i'll see if it does the trick. i need something accelerated though since every other launcher lags. zeam is quick but doesn't do scrollable widgets
Go launcher works well as does Zeam launcher
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I think I heard launcher2 is quite good... Not sure though..
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nemus launcher seems to be the best i've tried so far. zeam doesn't support scrollable widgets anymore so that's not an option.
i used go launcher till a few hours ago and it's laggy as hell once you add widgets etc. it's widgets were nice though. launcher pro is dead now with the author claiming something new is coming out to (i assume) get people to buy the old version
i'm using my old pure messenger for fbook and sms widgets. gmail now includes a decent full screen widget. i just need a decent scrollable calendar one.
Found SS launcher the other day and I'm hooked. Man, it is so different I love it. Can even add things below the screen and scroll vertically on a page. It lags a bit sometimes but with updates it will get better.
Also, 360 launcher. Top stuff. Heaps of themes available from the launcher like go launcher.
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sxi200 said:
Found SS launcher the other day and I'm hooked. Man, it is so different I love it. Can even add things below the screen and scroll vertically on a page. It lags a bit sometimes but with updates it will get better
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. Bought the pro version, ridiculously customisable, have hardly scratched the surface yet. Had some bootloops and lag, but they seem to have disappeared today.
My current setup with it is intensely boring, but I'm into lists at the mo, and my battery time is huge.
Only downside is centring widgets - a PITA.
B3311 said:
+1. Bought the pro version, ridiculously customisable, have hardly scratched the surface yet. Had some bootloops and lag, but they seem to have disappeared today.
My current setup with it is intensely boring, but I'm into lists at the mo, and my battery time is huge.
Only downside is centring widgets - a PITA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice! I did notice it on the desktop thread earlier. The beauty of it are the endless possibilities.
As for widgets, yeah they can be tricky to centre. Sometimes they are a bit small as well so I drag half to the next page, enlarge then centre. I have a few hidden out of view like the power and music widgets.
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guys how can we use nova and apex launcher..wen i try to install it is showing there is problem in parsing the package..any ideas??
p.s sory my bad it was a corrupted file..
vivekrules said:
guys how can we use nova and apex launcher..wen i try to install it is showing there is problem in parsing the package..any ideas??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are only compatible with ics.
Sent from my GT-I9100T
Nova allows you to resize widgets on the ics beta. Works quite well too.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
after changing the density to 160 (from 240) there was something up with all the stock launchers (mentioned in the subject). some wouldn't allow the resize option at all, another did but i couldn't move widgets to the top or sides. there was this big border where i couldn't have any shortcuts or widgets.
h/w acceleration...
So, I don't get is Go Launcher h/w accelerated? If not which are?
go definetely isn't. zeam feels like it is but has no scrolling support so not worth looking at.
ok, trying nova again. for some reason it works properly now i've installed it off the market.
Zeam is too simple and minimalistic for me, I really like the "TSF Shell" but it's not complete yet, a lot of things to do... and it's EXPENSIVE... But it has H/W acceleration and it has a lot of interesting functions... just watch on youtube. It's nice and smooth!
Didn't try NOVA because I'm still on GingerBread (LA4), and as far as I know it's only for ICS...
I wonder why GO developers are ignoring H/W acceleration =(
me too. go launcher with hw accel would be worth a go again. at this point, anything without that isn't worth looking at IMO. far too laggy in comparison. nova now (even with 7 screens full of widgets) is nice and fast. like the stock samsung browser
Does anyone else find that their launcher reloads all the time? I just unlock the screen sometimes and it has to reload
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Yep. But Apex is doing it as well.
Yep which is quite annoying. Any solutions?
Oh same here.
After using the browser for a while it loads the homescreen again.
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Yeah Apex also does it.. maybe there isn't enough RAM so it drops the launcher out of memory. Seems a bit daft when there are a ton of other background processes that could be dropped instead. Maybe the launcher doesn't have a high enough priority.
I have the same issue, very annoying.
Have you guys tried changing the settings for tolerance of running background apps in the Developer options?
For myself I only get a reload of TW after exiting the browser or playing something like Shadowgun.
If you're using Apex launcher (and if you're not, you really should be!) Go to advanced options in the apex app and check keep in memory. I haven't had a single reload since.
I've been testing go launcher to see whether it suffers from home screen redraw issues and so far it seems that after about an hour of testing by using apps, keeping around 8 max apps in memory , the launcher has not redrawn yet.
The phone has killed apps but not the launcher.
Sure its a tired launcher but its fast as hell especially with animation settings at 0.5 and seems so far to be resistant to home screen redraw.
Will post back if anything changes but so far all good.
Cheers.
Nova launcher is waaaayyy better than go launcher and never redraws either!
I don't like those Chinese type things like miui or go launcher etc.
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Every launher so far redraws including nova. I'm not saying go launcher is amazing I'm just saying so far it is the only launcher that doesn't suffer from home screen redraw.
Tw , apex and Nova all suffer from redraw from time to time whether people like to admit it or not.
Just trying to help :-D
Peace.
biffsmash said:
Every launher so far redraws including nova. I'm not saying go launcher is amazing I'm just saying so far it is the only launcher that doesn't suffer from home screen redraw.
Tw , apex and Nova all suffer from redraw from time to time whether people like to admit it or not.
Just trying to help :-D
Peace.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I would admit it if it did.
I don't work for nova or anything!
Maybe you should try android.mimic.ca and use that to upload your services.jar and change the oom priority settings.
It stops the launcher being killed off.
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nodstuff said:
Well I would admit it if it did.
I don't work for nova or anything!
Maybe you should try android.mimic.ca and use that to upload your services.jar and change the oom priority settings.
It stops the launcher being killed off.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Surely this procedure is just moving the problem elsewhere. The screen re-draws because it needed the RAM to service what you were just doing. Then you hit home and it assigns the memory back to the launcher.
So, what would the performance have been like with the app/webpage you were looking at before hitting home if the launcher is now hogging the RAM it needed. Surely instead you'll now get crashing browsers as its out of RAM.
The real cure to this is trying to reduce the amount of RAM the whole OS is using. The ROMs are huge especially compared to the S2 which never suffered with the re-draw problem as it always had loads of memory/RAM to play with.
All these new features have cost us performance as the RAM is the same as the last model. I'd rather of had 2 cores with 2MB of RAM rather than 4 cores with 1MB of RAM. How did Samsung get this the wrong way round? Guess it must have been the whole "Quad Core" marketing crap balanced with cost of production.
The problem is de-bloating and thining the ROM down to stop this RAM issues makes this an S2 with a bigger higher res screen. All the new features need to be taken out.
I experienced my first redraw on Go launcher first time i launched firefox after installation yesterday. I uninstalled immediately as I didn't like it.
This issue would suggest 1GB internal RAM isn't sufficient for the S3.
mwatson said:
Surely this procedure is just moving the problem elsewhere. The screen re-draws because it needed the RAM to service what you were just doing. Then you hit home and it assigns the memory back to the launcher.
So, what would the performance have been like with the app/webpage you were looking at before hitting home if the launcher is now hogging the RAM it needed. Surely instead you'll now get crashing browsers as its out of RAM.
The real cure to this is trying to reduce the amount of RAM the whole OS is using. The ROMs are huge especially compared to the S2 which never suffered with the re-draw problem as it always had loads of memory/RAM to play with.
All these new features have cost us performance as the RAM is the same as the last model. I'd rather of had 2 cores with 2MB of RAM rather than 4 cores with 1MB of RAM. How did Samsung get this the wrong way round? Guess it must have been the whole "Quad Core" marketing crap balanced with cost of production.
The problem is de-bloating and thining the ROM down to stop this RAM issues makes this an S2 with a bigger higher res screen. All the new features need to be taken out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't move the problem, the oom settings were too aggressive.
I haven't had a launcher redraw since, never had an app crash and don't experience this music stopping problem that other people are having.
Its not a lack of ram that's the problem, its Samsung poor ram management settings.
Although that's not to say these roms couldn't do with losing a few pounds, 600mb+ for a rom is obscene.
Its still early days in S3 development so I'm sure the devs will sort it all out.
Remember the s2 has had loads of time for devs to fine tune every aspect of roms and kernels etc.
Modifying the launchers oom priority has worked for me so at the end of the day people can try it or not.
I'm happy with how I have my system running.
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go launcher works very great for me! no lag at all
You can try moving your launcher to the system/app folder ... tha "status" of system application is different than "standard" apps.
I haven't had a redraw since the latest few jb. I completely forgot about the problem until I saw this thread.
not that it matters, but I'm on apex launcher.