[Q] swap effect - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

is there really a bad effect on sdcards using swap or its just minimal when used in a prolonged time?

Very minimal in my experience, been using swap of and on for years and never had an sdcard go out on me. Even have used methods to turn internal phone memory into a swap partition and never killed a phone
Have said all this, there is a risk and swap will for sure not always make your device faster, sometime slower, but good for multitasking a lot on devices with little ram.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Related

App killer

Hello, I have been searching for app killer information. I see that some people don't think is necessary and some say it is. What's the verdict on this topic? Thx
Sent from my MB855 using XDA Premium App
dont use it, unless you know what your looking for. if you do use one look for one that displays processor cycles or how long the app uses the processor. if a rogue app is uses more than it should you kill it. other than that use. do not use them.
edit.
if an app uses excessive processor time, i just straight up delete it. unless i need it then i kill it.
At the Android BBQ, Cyanogen stated that there is absolutely no need for task killers. Granted this is the same thing he has been saying for some time now but misinformation is a hard thing to overcome.
I am sick of App killers, they may have had a place pre Froyo but any recent android build will not benefit from them. Most of the time quite the opposite of what is expected including but not limited to Higher battery drain, background services not syncing, or Force Close issues. In general if an android phone comes into the store I work at with a task killer it will leave with it uninstalled. If you need something to conserve battery I recommend adjusting your sync settings, brightness/timout, and installed apps settings. If you are running out of memory due to too many programs running you can either buy a new phone that has more memory or uninstall some of said programs.
schale01 said:
I am sick of App killers, they may have had a place pre Froyo but any recent android build will not benefit from them. Most of the time quite the opposite of what is expected including but not limited to Higher battery drain, background services not syncing, or Force Close issues. In general if an android phone comes into the store I work at with a task killer it will leave with it uninstalled. If you need something to conserve battery I recommend adjusting your sync settings, brightness/timout, and installed apps settings. If you are running out of memory due to too many programs running you can either buy a new phone that has more memory or uninstall some of said programs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if the photon ran out of memory you would recommend buying the latest and greatest? And delete customers info?
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
mikel719 said:
So if the photon ran out of memory you would recommend buying the latest and greatest? And delete customers info?
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes and No. A few years ago, 128Mb or even 512Mb on these phone were common. Yes it was nice to have 2Million apps on your phone and 1/2 of them running. It was easy to jam up your phone, so short of a reboot, an app killer was a nice tool.
This has 16Gb (Not Mb) and some space to play on the chip. I work in IT, been doing it for MANY years. Look at the size of these apps in Market Place. If you have THAT many apps, all running at the same time, You need a new phone when available.
BTW: Photon comes with Task Manager out the box, it willdo the same thing.
Just my $0.02!
Thx for the info.. I currently do not have one installed. I never have problems with my photon. Just wondering if it was something I needed.
Sent from my MB855 using XDA Premium App
mikel719 said:
So if the photon ran out of memory you would recommend buying the latest and greatest? And delete customers info?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My point is that it is an app that adds no value to the device.
An example would be a customer with an LG Optimus (140 MB of onboard memory) that has installed every version of angry birds and now wonders why their phone is slow and unresponsive. A task killer will not fix this, they either need to remove some apps or buy a phone that better suits their needs.
That being said I'm not really worried about the photon running out of memory (either the 3GB allocated to app storage or the 1GB of RAM) I'm not saying it's impossible but for the average user, heck even the average power user it is highly unlikely.
So people still don't realize this is Linux. Unused ram is useless ram. Fill it to the brim, it's there to be used 100%.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
schale01 said:
My point is that it is an app that adds no value to the device.
An example would be a customer with an LG Optimus (140 MB of onboard memory) that has installed every version of angry birds and now wonders why their phone is slow and unresponsive. A task killer will not fix this, they either need to remove some apps or buy a phone that better suits their needs.
That being said I'm not really worried about the photon running out of memory (either the 3GB allocated to app storage or the 1GB of RAM) I'm not saying it's impossible but for the average user, heck even the average power user it is highly unlikely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
memory is different from ram. i have 1.6 gigs of apps(240) my phone doesnt run slow at all. i had 200 plus on my galaxy s and my g1(apps2sd). never slowed down any of my phones as long as you dont download poorly coded apps or use 500 widgets/app killers/bad live wallpapers/crappy home replacements. you can use as much storage as you want and never slow down the phone. its the active apps that are running that slow down the phone, not the inactive ones simply stored in memory for quick access. when android needs memory it kills off inactive apps. simple.
Turbo Droid app out the market
3VO 4Life
liljacques said:
Turbo Droid app out the market
3VO 4Life
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely not.
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
charlie2900 said:
Thx for the info.. I currently do not have one installed. I never have problems with my photon. Just wondering if it was something I needed.
Sent from my MB855 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good choice! On both phone and not needing this!
I have my phone and dont have any issues with it. I installed an advanced task killer and thats when I started having problems once I uninstalled it I was good. No problems whats so ever. Another thing I noticed is with the extra task killer when would dock my photon into the hdmi station I would get low memory pop ups since I uninstalled it no more low memory popups.
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App

Ram usage

I noticed while I was using the supercharger script that it recommended to use option 8 which is 768hp and not option 9 1000hp. I've read some threads before about people asking why in the task manager it only shows we have 733mb of ram on the phone and that its supposed to have 1gb. I know the system takes up a lot of ram and that's why it shows that. So my question is, does touch wiz use up that much ram? I thought tw was a "light" overlay. I remember when I had a rezound the recommendation for the supercharger script was 1000hp. Sense is supposed to be a "heavy" overlay right? Could it actually be lighter than tw? When I had an inspire it said to use 768hp, the same as now with the Note. But the inspire is "last year's" tech. I would expect the Note to be up there with the Rezound. Maybe this is why we are seeing lag sometimes? ICS seems worse in the ram usage department (600-something in the task manager). It just seems to me that the system is using up an incredible amount of resources that I haven't seen happen on other phones even with sense on them. Whenever I use the script and it recommends 768 it makes me think something is wrong and that's why we have the lag that we do. Thoughts?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
SkizzMcNizz said:
I noticed while I was using the supercharger script that it recommended to use option 8 which is 768hp and not option 9 1000hp. I've read some threads before about people asking why in the task manager it only shows we have 733mb of ram on the phone and that its supposed to have 1gb. I know the system takes up a lot of ram and that's why it shows that. So my question is, does touch wiz use up that much ram? I thought tw was a "light" overlay. I remember when I had a rezound the recommendation for the supercharger script was 1000hp. Sense is supposed to be a "heavy" overlay right? Could it actually be lighter than tw? When I had an inspire it said to use 768hp, the same as now with the Note. But the inspire is "last year's" tech. I would expect the Note to be up there with the Rezound. Maybe this is why we are seeing lag sometimes? ICS seems worse in the ram usage department (600-something in the task manager). It just seems to me that the system is using up an incredible amount of resources that I haven't seen happen on other phones even with sense on them. Whenever I use the script and it recommends 768 it makes me think something is wrong and that's why we have the lag that we do. Thoughts?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same question.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk
My wifes samsung galaxy s2 shows 832mb that's weird?....ours is lower?....good question ?
I heard the same that touch wiz was the lightest... I haven't really messed with my note just yet, but that is a good question hopefully someone has the answer...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717
Free ram is wasted ram.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
no, touchwiz doesnt use up all that portion of ram. these reserved memory, as u mentioned already, is reserved for the system. for instance, your graphical display and other devices etc
i know nothing about the supercharger script, coz i don use that, but i can tell u touchwiz does eat more memory than other launchers. on the other hand, the huge memory usage in the galaxy note or android 2.3+ (esp 4.0+) devices is a result of the tasks triggered by the system like google mail service and the like, and thus slower operations due to limited free memory availability
may be i didnt get to the point, but hope this helps u understand more
SkizzMcNizz said:
I noticed while I was using the supercharger script that it recommended to use option 8 which is 768hp and not option 9 1000hp. I've read some threads before about people asking why in the task manager it only shows we have 733mb of ram on the phone and that its supposed to have 1gb. I know the system takes up a lot of ram and that's why it shows that. So my question is, does touch wiz use up that much ram? I thought tw was a "light" overlay. I remember when I had a rezound the recommendation for the supercharger script was 1000hp. Sense is supposed to be a "heavy" overlay right? Could it actually be lighter than tw? When I had an inspire it said to use 768hp, the same as now with the Note. But the inspire is "last year's" tech. I would expect the Note to be up there with the Rezound. Maybe this is why we are seeing lag sometimes? ICS seems worse in the ram usage department (600-something in the task manager). It just seems to me that the system is using up an incredible amount of resources that I haven't seen happen on other phones even with sense on them. Whenever I use the script and it recommends 768 it makes me think something is wrong and that's why we have the lag that we do. Thoughts?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Our phones do have extra features that those phones do not. I have no idea if this is right or not, but maybe the extra RAM usage comes from the system needing to recognize when we are using the S Pen at any given time. That would explain the difference between GSII and Note.
prayii said:
Our phones do have extra features that those phones do not. I have no idea if this is right or not, but maybe the extra RAM usage comes from the system needing to recognize when we are using the S Pen at any given time. That would explain the difference between GSII and Note.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has always been my thought on the subject as well.
Ics uses more memory than GB. Thats why its only 624 mb of Ram free not to mention the S pen configuration loaded into the OS.
-Once you go NOTE, you'd say 4 inches a Joke
SKyRocKeting727 said:
Ics uses more memory than GB. Thats why its only 624 mb of Ram free not to mention the S pen configuration loaded into the OS.
-Once you go NOTE, you'd say 4 inches a Joke
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're trying to understand why that is like that on our phone and not other newer phones
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
I think its because the Note uses the Tablet platform. Certain apps and programs run in tablet mode automatically. Then again, im just taking a stab at the dark.
-Once you go NOTE, you'd say 4 inches a Joke
SKyRocKeting727 said:
I think its because the Note uses the Tablet platform. Certain apps and programs run in tablet mode automatically. Then again, im just taking a stab at the dark.
-Once you go NOTE, you'd say 4 inches a Joke
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see what you're saying
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
Actually, I cant find the post right now but a developer has already explained that the 250 MB that you are not seeing (750+250 = 1GB) is shared video memory being utilized by the GPU.
The resolution on the Note is significantly higher than most which is why it needs 250 MB dedicated for video alone.
littlewierdo said:
Actually, I cant find the post right now but a developer has already explained that the 250 MB that you are not seeing (750+250 = 1GB) is shared video memory being utilized by the GPU.
The resolution on the Note is significantly higher than most which is why it needs 250 MB dedicated for video alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^ this...it works just like cheap laptops that don't have a dedicated video card. Some of the RAM is "stolen" and allocated towards VRAM.
I think we have our answers. Thanks guys for the posts.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA

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+

Can we defragment phone memory?

Hello
I was wondering if it is possible to defragment phone memory on android devices especially s3,to gain more responsive phone.
Because when to much app is installed on the phone it gets slowing down a bit especially with scattered deleting...
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Not necessary. If it lags with a lot of apps installed then uninstall some apps.
Sent from my GT-I9300
Actually i use all the apps installed
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Are you talking about RAM or SSD fragmentation?
Both are different topics but more or less irrelevant.
First off, Samsung uses the EXT4 filesystem which - like it's predecessor EXT filesystems - is rather resilient against fragmentation and handles it quite good without too much of a performance impact, especially due to new features such as delayed allocation.
Secondly we are talking about a high-speed SSD drive, not some old lame-ass hard-disk. Random access on SSDdrives is typically not much slower than continues access (unlike platter drives where random access is the drive's death sentence).
Because when to much app is installed on the phone it gets slowing down a bit especially with scattered deleting...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My guess is that some of your apps are registering listeners or running as a service in the background, taking away precious RAM.
By having less RAM, the device can cache less and thus the performance degrades. (The same applies when using task killers!)
If you need all your background services, using a zRAM-enabled kernel (e.g. Siyah) is a very good method for at least reducing the footprint.
I typically give 300MB to zRAM which makes the phone a lot snappier. (Until the damn JB memory leak bug strikes again)
amour1991 said:
Actually i use all the apps installed
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no defragment option in android..the memory management in linux is quite different from that in windows..
Guess you could perform a full nandroid backup followed by a restore, not sure how beneficial this would be
Sent via TCP/IP

[Q] Strange Memory Problem

So I know that the Note never lets you have access to its quoted "1gb" of ram and thats fine, having 722ish mbs to work with is fine. But recently after I did a TWRP system restore, my internal memory pool is now recognized as 620mbs. Now I would ignore this if it was just a reporting bug but the memory pool does actually seem to be smaller as multitasking has become awful with apps restarting every time I switch between almost everything. Any advice?
Might be the kernel. I haven't had that issue personally with my note. On my nexus s, I have noticed that it varies with different kernels
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda app-developers app

Categories

Resources