Develop Bugs

Google Android & Memory Management

Hello Android Gurus
I have bought Galaxy S (My first Android phone) 2 weeks ago and i have been experimenting with it since. I have noticed one thing regarding how android manages memory and its quite alarming.
When i start my phone I typically have around 160 Mb of RAM. As i load an application that requires 10 MB for example, the available RAM evidently drops to 150 MB but when I kill the application the RAM goes up but not to the previous level (e.g. goes up to 157).
little RAM is always lost as applications are opened and closed. This means that after a couple of hours of using the phone, the RAM goes down to 40 MB and the phone becomes REALLY laggy and you have to restart
The above behavior is typical of windows mobile, and that is exactly why i shifted to Android thinking it is better.
My questions to the android experts out there are the following:
1- Why is memory leaking like this. Such a behavior results in a phone with very bad user experience
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
3- Is this due to TouchWiz by Samsung, if yes then i will wait for subsequent updates to see if this problem could be resolved by Samsung
4- Will the 2.2 Froyo update resolve this issue ?
I used to have an iphone 3gs before this one, and no matter how much you open or close applications, the UI is always smooth and responsive. The thing that made me really hate Apple and its products is their "Closed OS" that does not enable you to do much with your phone. That is why i moved to Galaxy S thinking it would give me a better experience
Thanks for your thoughts.

FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA

Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's an awesome video! I never knew the games looked so nice. I'm on a download spree because of that video now

Strange
Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is quite strange, the less RAM you have the more non-responsive the phone is and laggy.
Enough RAM has to be maintained to guarantee a smooth user experience.
If the phone requires 100Mb of RAM to run smoothly, then this much has to be maintained.
from my experience with the Galaxy S, there has to be atleaset 80 to 100 MB to maintain a somewhat smmoth interface.
Edit:
I also understand from your input that this is a Samsung problem, not an android problem, and that no matter how low the RAM is, the interface will always be smooth ??????

Mate, just one word - google.
There are about a billion articles online on android memory management, how to impoove it etc.

Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont understand how this shows anything? You are manually exiting each one of the games, forcing it to quit anyways. A better test is just to hit the home button, and continually load up the next game.

andy2na said:
i dont understand how this shows anything? You are manually exiting each one of the games, forcing it to quit anyways. A better test is just to hit the home button, and continually load up the next game.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This means that after a couple of hours of using the phone, the RAM goes down to 40 MB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+red baloon on vid which says phone was used for >day, so "free" ram was <50MB, becouse browser etc. reserve some MBs for quick comming back.
And still was no problem to run anything I choose.

Dont quite understand..care to explain more? I'm getting puzzled abt this shortage of ram thingy. Some suggest to use task killer to free up rams while you say dont. But looking at your videos its fast..please explain. Thanks
Sent from my GT-I9000

Android handles the memory management itself. The moment it runs below certain amount of free memory it will start the kill apps. There is no need to run an app killer. Altho the default settings are not enough to provide a smooth experience. Check out the freememmanager app in the market to change the settings. As long as min 45 mb is free everything will run smooth.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

RADLOUNI said:
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is typical Android behavior. See ya later.
Really though, if you're killing tasks, then you're already taking horrible advice from people who haven't an inkling of an idea on how Android manages memory.

Keep in mind that your phone is only using 256MB of its total 512MB of memory. Once a newer kernel is released with himem the phone will use all 512MB.
Android's garbage collection can be set to be more aggressive which would sort of fix your issue by killing more background applications. However, you might as well wait for the newer kernel which will fix your problem anyway.

Though it was more 320 out of 512
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

RADLOUNI said:
The above behavior is typical of windows mobile, and that is exactly why i shifted to Android thinking it is better.
My questions to the android experts out there are the following:
1- Why is memory leaking like this. Such a behavior results in a phone with very bad user experience
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
3- Is this due to TouchWiz by Samsung, if yes then i will wait for subsequent updates to see if this problem could be resolved by Samsung
4- Will the 2.2 Froyo update resolve this issue ?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has to do a lot with Android's garbage collector. The reason task-killers are not the best way to go, is because when you kill tasks a lot of the memory is not recovered (garbage collector does not work as it should). Android by default won't start killing apps until you get between 20-30MB of memory. For some reason, in the SGS, as you said, when ram drops below 70MB, the phone starts to feel pretty laggy; the best way to remedy this is to use applications like autokiller or minfreemanager, which require you to be rooted.
For a more in-depth explanation of how android kills processes see this http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/details (from the developer of Autokiller).
I would like to know why the phone feels so laggy when ram drops below 70MB, from what I understand, this shouldn't be the case...

2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
--> No, this is not typical behavior of Android, i use my HTC Magic before Galaxy S, no lagging problem even the memory is lower than 15MB.

The galaxy S defaults are too low for when it starts removing apps from RAM, you need to root it and then install minfree manager or autokiller (which is not a task killer don't be deceived by the name)

Brantyr said:
The galaxy S defaults are too low for when it starts removing apps from RAM, you need to root it and then install minfree manager or autokiller (which is not a task killer don't be deceived by the name)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
doesn't solve the mystery because this is a non-issue on other android phones.
why do i need to keep 50-70mb free to get a smooth running phone where others can handle 30mb free without problems.

Goshh..thanks for simplified. Now ive removed the task killer..and stand firm by the android golden rules...cheers..
Sent from my GT-I9000

I noticed this same low ram behavior on my galaxy s. After boot the phone shows like 180 mb of ram free after a couple days the phone will drop down to 30 mb of ram all the while I'm killing apps running in the background with task killer.
The phone slows down significantly even after I kill everything.i thought android was supposed to circumvent these kind of low ram Issues.

inurb said:
I noticed this same low ram behavior on my galaxy s. After boot the phone shows like 180 mb of ram free after a couple days the phone will drop down to 30 mb of ram all the while I'm killing apps running in the background with task killer.
The phone slows down significantly even after I kill everything.i thought android was supposed to circumvent these kind of low ram Issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is.
And you're supposed to not be messing with how Android manages things cuz taskkilling screws it up.

reuthermonkey said:
It is.
And you're supposed to not be messing with how Android manages things cuz taskkilling screws it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you suggest that I not force close any apps using taskkiller and just let android 2.1 do it's thing with memory management?
When I had the phone for the first week without taskkiller installed, the device ran very slow after the first couple days of use. Your saying that the slowness will go away as android dishes out memory effectively?
I'll uninstall taskkiller and let the device run longer than a week and see if it ever speeds up. thanks

[Q] Total memory less than 768 MB???

Can anyone explain the amount of RAM that this phone is suppose to have?
The specs for the phone lists 768 MB. However, the total memory that comes up is 617940 kB.
Thanks.

Bull Shot said:
Can anyone explain the amount of RAM that this phone is suppose to have?
The specs for the phone lists 768 MB. However, the total memory that comes up is 617940 kB.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
where are you finding this number? i am at 758 MB. since i have a bunch of apps installed, that would seem about right.

How are you guys getting so much free ram? When I check on Task Killer, whenever I kill all the apps I'm not using it usually shows 358 mb ... and programs I'm not using automatically keep running (i.e Maps).

hmm maybe im not checking the right place? i'm getting my 758 mb number from settings--SD and phone storage. the internal phone storage tells me 758mb.
on an unrelated note though, you shouldn't use task killers. they are considered by most to be more of a drain on your battery life as android is already setup to manage closing unused apps on its own.

Many people use the term "memory" to mean system memory as well as storage. I try to avoid calling system storage as "memory" and tend to use "storage" instead, or refer to the type of storage.
Total ram is around 768mb. Part of it is reserved (not sure why, possibly for filesystem caching) so around 603mb is available. For this platform that is a healthy chunk of RAM to work with. Even with my hefty usage I have ~126mb free.
Internal storage is something like 2gb, with it partially consumed by the Android install as well as NAND configuration adjustments for reliability which cause some of the storage space to be consumed through hardware (there's an excellent explanation of this somewhere, don't have a link handy), resulting in about 1.1gb being available. I have 103 apps installed, 523.5mb of the internal storage used, with 638.8mb available.
There was an excellent tool posted on xda (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1066060) called Android Optimizer that gives a lot of good information about memory, storage, cpu usage, etc. I'd recommend checking it out. It's not available on the market and it is a little buggy so use it with a bit of caution if you choose to use any of the optimization functions.

cool. thanks for the explanation nimdae!

There have been so, so, so many posts on this topic that I will not rehash them all here. Instead, I will ask a simple question: For what do you use all that free RAM?
Ask yourself that question, and be serious about it. I think you will find yourself uninstalling your task managers and memory optimizers before long.
Edit: to avoid unnecessary discussion, Watchdog is in fact neither of those, and I would highly recommend it as the only memory app you will ever need.
Edit 2: the total RAM displayed is the RAM that is actually available to be used by anything the user may want to run. As a poster earlier said, the system reserves a certain amount of RAM for its own use to keep important processes moving along. The reserved RAM is not available, and so doesn't appear in total RAM. Unless you want to uninstall the OS. Then you could have access to all 768 MBs.

I would like to reiterate why you should not use automatic task killers.
As of, I believe, Android 2.0, the garbage collection and memory management was significantly improved. However, this was not a new system in Android, it always existed.
How it works:
If you haven't noticed with Android, when you leave an app, it doesn't close it unless the app specifically does something to end the process. This is by design. Android allows the app to remain in memory. Frequently used apps will load faster with this design. A "task" that is not killed and is in the background ONLY consumes memory, it does not "run" (in Linux terms, the process is actually in a "stopped" state so the task can't do anything anyway). Only a "service" can run in the background. Most apps that have long running services have lightweight services.
If an application loads that requires more memory than is available, Android will examine backgrounded tasks for candidates to be killed to free up memory. This makes it so as many tasks as possible can remain in memory for better performance. In understanding this, you should know that if you have a large amount of memory, and memory usage is high, this is a GOOD THING. With the amount of memory in the I2, there is a lot of breathing space for this.
There is one other case where a backgrounded task will be killed: if it has been in the background for a certain period of time without being brought forward. Killing a task to free up memory to load another task can actually be a little cpu expensive (but not THAT much) so this can make it slightly easier.
Please note that backgrounded tasks WILL NOT contribute to battery drain. Only tasks at the front and services will. Killing your backgrounded calculator will do nothing for you other than free that small amount of memory it uses. Used memory does not contribute to extra battery drain as DRAM refreshes happen on ALL cells anyway.
Background services can also be made candidates for being killed. If an app needs more memory than can be made available by killing backgrounded tasks, then services become targets to be killed as well.
Automatic task killers cause a couple of problems. A less major problem is you lose that one benefit you get by keeping tasks in the background: performance. I don't just mean how fast it loads. If it can bring a backgrounded task to the front from memory rather than load from storage, you remove extra processing to load the app, including storage access, that contribute to higher battery drain. The other problem is a poorly configured task killer can break things like notifications.
Managing your services is always a good idea. Having a lot of services running means background processes that are capable of contributing to battery drain. Additionally, there are apps with misbehaving services (services that consume resources or use features they shouldn't). While I'm against automatic task killers, using something to monitor and manage services is a good idea. Just always keep in mind the implications for killing a service: it may affect a feature to an app that you would rather not impact.

Excellent explanation nimdae! Task killers are the devil.

On another note, my posts are getting too long...

nimdae said:
On another note, my posts are getting too long...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Everything is longer in Texas.

xgunther said:
Everything is longer in Texas.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what s...no, that's too easy.
Move along, nothing to see.

Before I read this I was like a task Nazi. I killed my tasks often, but now I think I will just let them be. Nice write up BTW. Very informative.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA App

TB13 said:
Before I read this I was like a task Nazi. I killed my tasks often, but now I think I will just let them be. Nice write up BTW. Very informative.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Remember: I'm not saying don't manage things. Poorly behaving services are the #1 cause of high battery drain (at least on non-LTE devices), and this will be even more problematic when you overclock.

xgunther said:
Excellent explanation nimdae! Task killers are the devil.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried not using them and I get better battery life with them...I use it maybe 3 times a day after heavy multi tasking. It's to each their own..but I see results for it..like 5 extra hours.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App

knipp21 said:
I tried not using them and I get better battery life with them...I use it maybe 3 times a day after heavy multi tasking. It's to each their own..but I see results for it..like 5 extra hours.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you get that much extra, you have a misbehaving app. Better to get the app developer to fix it or find an alternative.

nimdae said:
If you get that much extra, you have a misbehaving app. Better to get the app developer to fix it or find an alternative.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, I don't need to use it often though lol
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App

I'm in Texas as well.
sent from a phone without root.

I use a task killer only to manually kill an app that freezes or something. Its easier than going to manage applications. I have the autokill disabled.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App

AngelsPunishment said:
I use a task killer only to manually kill an app that freezes or something. Its easier than going to manage applications. I have the autokill disabled.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CyanogenMod (maybe other ROMs) have a feature to kill a frozen app by holding the back button (long press, whatever). However, this can also be an annoyance on systems where for unknown reasons it registers a long press on a tap (my eris did this a lot).

High RAM usage?

I've noticed on my e975 EU version even with 0-1 apps open the ram free is only 1gb... Other phones have far more ram available including my previous nexus 4. Anyone else notice this? I often find with quite a few apps open I only have 2-300mb free

I've never seen less than 500mb free but its true. Never more than 1gb.

I checked earlier with 0 apps running it was at almost 1gb used.. what on earth is using almost 1gb!? If phones with only 1gb can use less than that on jelly bean.. why does this phone use so much?

According to ram usage i am using approx 400mb, task manager says im using 800mb. Maybe 400mb is reserved for system? This is on stock rom with only a few apps installed.
Keep in mind free ram is wasted ram. Free ram is like having a fast car and only using first gear. Still curious to know where it all ram is used nontheless.
Sent from my LG-E975K using xda premium

I get what your saying with 'Free ram is wasted ram' but when you run out of ram.... things will start to stutter.
Having a few apps open to find you only have like 300mb left is insane.
I've had phones with only 1gb ram before and with lots of apps open they are using like 700mb/1000mb... it's almost like this phone is going 'Oh I have 2gb available so i'm just going to chomp up 1gb for the sake of it and leave you with 1gb left....'

If you're root use an app called "Greenify". Simply hibernate the apps that don't use adding to the list of the app, then add the widget to hibernate the app that you added (all except whatsapp, twitter in my case). In addition I use a tasker manager (don't added to greenify) and add a widget too, that combination gave me 1,2 gb free using a lot of widgets

Im stock un-rooted.
I only have 2 widgets on my home screens, 1 is the standard world clock and the other is play music. Tried removing both and it barely made a dent...

kalo88 said:
Im stock un-rooted.
I only have 2 widgets on my home screens, 1 is the standard world clock and the other is play music. Tried removing both and it barely made a dent...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's weird, only 900 mb free?? Mmmm, try using advanced task manager from the play store (I don't remember if root is needed), that will free you more memory. But in the 900 doesn't mean that the phone will be heavier, backward the used ram is exploited to make the Optimus lighter

Seems odd eh...

I also have 600 - 700 MB of RAM when I do not use anything.
There are just icons on my homepage, and a calendar widget (stock one).
At this case, It gives me 600-700 MB of free RAM. I always use "clear RAM" button. But why it gives us so limited free ram?
I used to use 4X HD with 1GB of RAM. There were 350-400 MB free which almost same with this optimus g?
Can someone explain this situation?
Or I think we need a new update. or CM10.1

It just feels like the phone is using up too much or isn't optimised properly.
As said above, phones with only 1gb available use about 3-500mb... Our phone with 2gb available seems to use about 900mb-1gb with nothing running. It's like it's gone 'Oh there's twice as much free so I'll just use twice as much...'

What about the AOSP custom Roms ...is the ram usage is same on that kind of Roms too?
Sent from my LG-P500 using xda app-developers app

No clue, i'm 100% stock unrooted Maybe someone will know.
My nexus 4 was far better at ram usage than my optimus g mind you. No matter what it never used more than 1.2gb

I think the Lg UI(stock firmware) is a memory hungry ...i suggest to try AOSP roms with lg skin :thumbup:
Sent from my LG-P500 using xda app-developers app

Using cm10.1 and have always about 1.4gb free, and this is more than enough for everything.

Y, stock rom have a crazy high ram usage, now im on PA and got 1.2gb free.

My doubt would be if, on stock rom, you get many slowdowns when you experience this high RAM usage. For me (who doesn't still have a LGOG, but is seriously thinking of buying one), it's the thing that matters most - if the lack of free RAM results in worse usage.
Otherwise, most efforts could do more harm than good - a task killer that kills an app which will restart seconds later is wasting RAM and battery instead of saving them.
I'd give priority to greenifying unruly apps you need often and freezing apps you rarely/never need but won't/can't uninstall (with Titanium Backup, or any other app that can freeze system apps) - always making sure you're not freezing some system app that will bring your phone to its knees. With this well configured, I'd say a task killer would only bennefit those of you that rarely use your phone. Everyone who often takes it out of their pocket and updates Facebook/Twitter or plays games should let Android take care of itself, as it will keep in memory the apps you've been using the most - as it should.

Don't use task killer apps, they aren't good for Android. Maybe something like a LMK Manager but you need root to change lmk.

kalo88 said:
It just feels like the phone is using up too much or isn't optimised properly.
As said above, phones with only 1gb available use about 3-500mb... Our phone with 2gb available seems to use about 900mb-1gb with nothing running. It's like it's gone 'Oh there's twice as much free so I'll just use twice as much...'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
M$ Windows does the same thing - if you have 2GB it uses only the half, if you have 8GB is use nearly 3,5-4GB. I think it preloads a few things including the most common used apps in memory perhaps?

Using a lot of RAM... for some reason?

Ok so I was running an app to check on CPU speeds (unrelated research) when I noticed that this same app was saying I only had 340mb of RAM free...
This seemed a bit strange, considering this tablet has 3GB of RAM on board, and I'm not really running anything at the moment.
I went into the storage setting page, and looked at running processes, and it says that I am using 2.5GB of my RAM.
but... if I add up all the ram usage on all the running processes, it only adds up to about 500mb....
So what is using up the other 2gb?
If anyone has any suggestions, it'd be nice, as at the moment it seems I only have 1gb of usable RAM in this device...
EDIT:
Nevermind, I think I solved it... sort of. I found that the ram clearing button is in a different place than I remember, and I have managed to clear out some more space... though even after a full reset 1.5gb of ram is immediately being used. Seems a lot.
Though this is a stock rom etc so I suspect thats normal.

electrical tcfpain
nirurin said:
Ok so I was running an app to check on CPU speeds (unrelated research) when I noticed that this same app was saying I only had 340mb of RAM free...
This seemed a bit strange, considering this tablet has 3GB of RAM on board, and I'm not really running anything at the moment.
I went into the storage setting page, and looked at running processes, and it says that I am using 2.5GB of my RAM.
but... if I add up all the ram usage on all the running processes, it only adds up to about 500mb....
So what is using up the other 2gb?
If anyone has any suggestions, it'd be nice, as at the moment it seems I only have 1gb of usable RAM in this device...
EDIT:
Nevermind, I think I solved it... sort of. I found that the ram clearing button is in a different place than I remember, and I have managed to clear out some more space... though even after a full reset 1.5gb of ram is immediately being used. Seems a lot.
Though this is a stock rom etc so I suspect thats normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You probably aren't using all 2.5GB for actual running programs.
Windows 7 does a great job of managing money. If it has any unused memory it will hold often used programs or data in memory in case it's needed. If a running program needs that memory it's quickly shifted. Otherwise when you reopen that program you recently closed, it may load quickly from memory rather than from the drive. I suspect Android does things similar.
Modern systems programmers consider "free" memory to be wasted, so they put it to the best use they can anticipate. That gives you the benefit of all memory as often as possible. If they only allowed the memory to be used for what's needed right now, your Note would only have about 1 GB memory, and would be considerably slower.
It's a little like having the cook wash your car while waiting three hours for the turkey to cook. You get both the turkey and the car wash.

jnichols2 said:
You probably aren't using all 2.5GB for actual running programs.
Windows 7 does a great job of managing money. If it has any unused memory it will hold often used programs or data in memory in case it's needed. If a running program needs that memory it's quickly shifted. Otherwise when you reopen that program you recently closed, it may load quickly from memory rather than from the drive. I suspect Android does things similar.
Modern systems programmers consider "free" memory to be wasted, so they put it to the best use they can anticipate. That gives you the benefit of all memory as often as possible. If they only allowed the memory to be used for what's needed right now, your Note would only have about 1 GB memory, and would be considerably slower.
It's a little like having the cook wash your car while waiting three hours for the turkey to cook. You get both the turkey and the car wash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing you mean android, not windows 7
Though I imagine both do the same thing lol

nirurin said:
I'm guessing you mean android, not windows 7
Though I imagine both do the same thing lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used Windows 7 as an example because I know how it works. Like you, I imagine Android 4.3 does the same thing.

I was wondering about this as well. On my Note 2, when I clean the ram, it will go to 480-500 / 1.75g on this tab, ext I could get is 1.33/2.75.......
I went through and turned off a lot of the apps, it helped free up a little bit.
Does anyone have a list of the apps that are safe to turn off?
:beer:
Sent from my SM-P600 using Xparent Cyan Tapatalk 2

I have LTE version with Snapdragon and when I start the tablet, it uses about 890MB of 2,35GB available (yes, it has 3GB RAM, but graphic processor uses some of this RAM)... When it loads all apps to RAM (about 50 of them, we know android do this) and I start few apps(FB, Gmail, Chrome, Hangouts for example), I still use only about 1,3GB of RAM... So almost 1GB is still free

In Android having too much free ram is not a good thing. Let your apps use it, you don't have to worry about not having enough ram, OS manages it well for you.

ddavtian said:
In Android having too much free ram is not a good thing. Let your apps use it, you don't have to worry about not having enough ram, OS manages it well for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Android is a mobile OS which means that it can backup and restore not needed apps if necessary and the 3GB are only the runtime memory beside this it can use the whole internal memory for "running" apps. So long Android got enough memory it holds all apps in memory which speed up the whole device. Therefore it is positive that the Note use his whole 3GB memory and don't think that killing apps or free memory will be a good idea. It will slow your device and produce lags.

ddavtian said:
In Android having too much free ram is not a good thing. Let your apps use it, you don't have to worry about not having enough ram, OS manages it well for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Elim said:
+1
Android is a mobile OS which means that it can backup and restore not needed apps if necessary and the 3GB are only the runtime memory beside this it can use the whole internal memory for "running" apps. So long Android got enough memory it holds all apps in memory which speed up the whole device. Therefore it is positive that the Note use his whole 3GB memory and don't think that killing apps or free memory will be a good idea. It will slow your device and produce lags.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are both right. Android is based on linux. Linux uses ram very effectively to cache apps and data to speed up your system. When something needs ram it removes a different app or data from the ram to keep moving. It works totally different from Windows. Check out this article.
http://www.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care

Every day since Android came out someone asks this question somewhere... Is Google offline?
Sent from my SM-P605 using XDA Premium HD app

If you want to change how your ram is managed, and you have root, you can use the v6 supercharger or a simple minfree setting app. V6 is in the developer section of the general android forum on this site. I've found that m ram fills up from cached apps. V6 will let you auto clear however often you want.

High memory being use

After installed few apps to the new oppo find 7a, the memory in use constantly stay at over 1GB and only 300-400MB available. anyone else has the similar issue? even close all the recent apps doesn't seem to increase the memory available. is it ROM/OS related issue?

I got 1,23Go RAM used for 542Mo available after clearing recent apps.

This is a common misconception, but on Android unused memory is wasted memory. It's good to have that being used by Android daemons running in the background as it speeds up processes and user experience.
I'd say don't worry about.

seanpr123 said:
This is a common misconception, but on Android unused memory is wasted memory. It's good to have that being used by Android daemons running in the background as it speeds up processes and user experience.
I'd say don't worry about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply. it's just my OCD...i always wanna see more memory available than in use...

Just as Sean said, unused ram is useless ram.
It's all about access speed, the more data you store in ram the more content is quickly available.
Flash memory has an average transfer rate of 5 to 7mb/s while ram has an average transfer rate of several gb/s.
The difference in speed here is very noticeable and the main reason why recent android versions (or Linux in general) caches so much data in ram.
Long story short, the more ram is in use, the faster your phone gets.
400mb is basically the safety threshold that it keeps unoccupied just to be sure it has some left in case of an emergency (you trying to open content that isn't already cached).
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seanpr123 said:
This is a common misconception, but on Android unused memory is wasted memory. It's good to have that being used by Android daemons running in the background as it speeds up processes and user experience.
I'd say don't worry about.
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If I don't reboot my Xperia Z for a few days it ends up with like 170mb of free ram and loses its power to multi task and the phone because laggy as hell lol >_>

That's a different issue I would say.
The services occupying the ram should give up caching memory once a newcomer requires ram.
This changes nothing about the fact that, if it's done right, caching is the way to go.
Probably a bugged software component rather than an broken ideal.
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MrColdbird said:
That's a different issue I would say.
The services occupying the ram should give up caching memory once a newcomer requires ram.
This changes nothing about the fact that, if it's done right, caching is the way to go.
Probably a bugged software component rather than an broken ideal.
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after 2-3 days of use, i find that the free (unused) RAM are actually not a problem, doesn't matter there is 300MB left or 600MB left, i can hardly tell the difference. but the most important thing is, the experience is very smooth and running well, no laggy. i'm actually very impressed. i think OPPO did a great job on managing background apps and optimizing user experience on the find 7a here!