Develop Bugs

Lowest RAM used ROM?

When I play games on my phone, one of the biggest issues I notice is the stuttering. On a desktop, it is typically an indication of not having enough free RAM, so the swapfile has to be used instead. Looking at the task manager reveals around 220 MB of RAM used out of 330 MB total RAM. That seems like it isn't enough for some of the games I play on my phone. I can't think of any other reason for the phone to experience the same issues when gaming, but I am far from an expert on phone operating systems.
So, which custom ROM running 2.2.1 or newer uses the least amount of RAM? I am mostly looking for RAM use after a fresh install, just after booting up. If there are some tweaks to increase available RAM by a large margin, those would be nice to know too. I'm thinking I probably just need a new phone if I want to play games.

Syntax42 said:
When I play games on my phone, one of the biggest issues I notice is the stuttering. On a desktop, it is typically an indication of not having enough free RAM, so the swapfile has to be used instead. Looking at the task manager reveals around 220 MB of RAM used out of 330 MB total RAM. That seems like it isn't enough for some of the games I play on my phone. I can't think of any other reason for the phone to experience the same issues when gaming, but I am far from an expert on phone operating systems.
So, which custom ROM running 2.2.1 or newer uses the least amount of RAM? I am mostly looking for RAM use after a fresh install, just after booting up. If there are some tweaks to increase available RAM by a large margin, those would be nice to know too. I'm thinking I probably just need a new phone if I want to play games.
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I'd say Miui, go to that thread and download 1.3.5 and not 1.8.19, cuz that has screen flicker . Accelerometer doesn't work, but the ROM is so smooth.

If you want to use a Gingerbread leak, I think it would have to be CompKid's Urban Vendetta ROM. Its 98MB total size. He leaned it up as much as possible.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium

JohnCorleone said:
If you want to use a Gingerbread leak, I think it would have to be CompKid's Urban Vendetta ROM. Its 98MB total size. He leaned it up as much as possible.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
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I think era's fat free eh17 leak is 98mb too.
sent from my uncyanogen modded epic 4g. with the key skips.

Does the ROM size have anything to do with RAM use?

Syntax42 said:
Does the ROM size have anything to do with RAM use?
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Well, there's less bloat that can auto open or run in the background which seems to cause the reboots which seems to be the main culprit of the RAM leak.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium

1GB of ram?

Hi guys
Quick question, i see that specs show the nexus has 1gb of ram.
But my ,"system apps," so it only has 632mb can any one explain?
Thanks

I think that some of the ram is reserved for the gpu. That's why you see less ram.

Just wanted to make sure
Still thou 400mb on gpu?

Tiggerbits said:
Just wanted to make sure
Still thou 400mb on gpu?
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I was in looking at the Rezound and did a hard boot and checked available memory. It only had 250Mb of the 1 G available. The rest must have been taken by Android, Sense and whatever bloat Verizon is loading.

Have a quick look at my screen shot - ( if they work)
I beleive that is should be 1GB of Ram, i understand if some is used for system processes. but 400mb.... far to high i would think.
Any one care to explain?

Some is reserved for the OS to function at all times. Some of it is reserved for the GPU, and radio to use. It is done this way to ensure you have the maximum needed for these to run.
Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

Tidbits said:
Some is reserved for the OS to function at all times. Some of it is reserved for the GPU, and radio to use. It is done this way to ensure you have the maximum needed for these to run.
Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk
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That makes sense.

Nothing is reserved for the O/S, that uses whatever is available. It's probably for the GPU, same as the Nexus S has 512MB, but only 384MB available due to the GPU being allocated 128MB.

[Q] RAM less than specs

I apologize if this is stupid and everyone already knows this.
Why is the RAM listed under About Tablet less than the specs for the fire? Is there a way to change the situation so more ram is available?
Thank you.

No, the ROM, as well as the stock ROM, take about 100 MB of RAM to get System Apps and Processes working as well as hardware running. With 400 MB its enough to do multi tasking, so unless you have like 50 MB RAM, there is no problem. You can't add more RAM, that's how it is. On AOSP you can get 140 MB of RAM free which is enough to play 3D Games and no lag.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire using xda app-developers app

404-Not Found said:
No, the ROM, as well as the stock ROM, take about 100 MB of RAM to get System Apps and Processes working as well as hardware running. With 400 MB its enough to do multi tasking, so unless you have like 50 MB RAM, there is no problem. You can't add more RAM, that's how it is. On AOSP you can get 140 MB of RAM free which is enough to play 3D Games and no lag.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire using xda app-developers app
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Is that 100 MB being used for running the OS or is it used as a ram disk? If that's what Android uses for running, then what is eating up the other ~250 MB of RAM?
The only way I've managed to get ~150 MB free RAM is to go through settings and manually stop all the extra processes that I don't want running in the first place. The benefits are short lived, though, as they always seem to respawn themselves.

Try different ROMs and wait for new version from Devs
pfederighi said:
I apologize if this is stupid and everyone already knows this.
Why is the RAM listed under About Tablet less than the specs for the fire? Is there a way to change the situation so more ram is available?
Thank you.
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Click to collapse
From my understanding, each ROM utilized ROM diffrently, and the RAM always partial taken by ROM to run the OS. Newer kernel version (my case is 3.0.50+) like near future 3.4 may take fewer RAM then the current version, as Hashcode promised. And as you see with USB, SD and HDD, none of them show the correct storage as factory spec. It is always lower

The 1gig is shared between the gpu and cpu, what you see is whats reserved for the cpu.

pfederighi said:
Is that 100 MB being used for running the OS or is it used as a ram disk? If that's what Android uses for running, then what is eating up the other ~250 MB of RAM?
The only way I've managed to get ~150 MB free RAM is to go through settings and manually stop all the extra processes that I don't want running in the first place. The benefits are short lived, though, as they always seem to respawn themselves.
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100 is for Hardware System and the rest ~100 or so is for Keeping the OS running, if you were to take that away you would get a unresponsive Kindle. I have that in Stock ROM I get about 200MB but you have sacrifice some for Heavier
ROMs like JB
Itsbricked said:
The 1gig is shared between the gpu and cpu, what you see is whats reserved for the cpu.
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1Gig?????
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire using xda app-developers app

How much free RAM do you guys have?

Is that normal? How much free RAM do you guys have?

doesn't look like it, but mine is the same. I believe it is the lollipop memory leak issue...so as usual we just have to wait it out

Sucks that just as we are finally seeing 3 Gig of RAM we end up in the same situation as when we had 2Gig ?
I have not upgraded to to 2015 Flagship Standard yet but ...
I was hoping to START at the beginning of Boot Up with about
1.7 -2 GIGs of free RAM for Tasking etc.
I think " upgrading" to Lollipop on many Devices could create more problems than it solves - right ?
And the supposed Wifi Calling and VoLTE are not going to work
because they are Carrier Specific Software which must come directly from your Service Provider.

Free RAM is UNUSED/WASTED RAM! Understand? The more software/applications that are pushed into RAM the better because it is available to do whatever it needs to do without having to go and search for it and place into RAM! If and when you need more RAM for something new, say like opening another application...then Android will move out of RAM whatever is not being used and replace it with the new software. If your phone had 10GB of RAM it would still look nearly full. This is a GOOD thing. It's all still available for use when needed. Remember that RAM is always the fastest part of your phone. Of course the more RAM you have the more applications you can have open at any one time without any lag/stutter. But for now 3GB of RAM is quite good for a cell phone on Android.

XxKINGxX2580 said:
Is that normal? How much free RAM do you guys have?
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Is that a built-in app showing you that?

DanRyb said:
Is that a built-in app showing you that?
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Yes. it's called Smart Manager.

XxKINGxX2580 said:
Yes. it's called Smart Manager.
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I just found it a few hours ago but thanks for replying LOL. This is my first Samsung that I'm using TouchWiz in years haha.

jaseman said:
Free RAM is UNUSED/WASTED RAM! Understand? The more software/applications that are pushed into RAM the better because it is available to do whatever it needs to do without having to go and search for it and place into RAM! If and when you need more RAM for something new, say like opening another application...then Android will move out of RAM whatever is not being used and replace it with the new software. If your phone had 10GB of RAM it would still look nearly full. This is a GOOD thing. It's all still available for use when needed. Remember that RAM is always the fastest part of your phone. Of course the more RAM you have the more applications you can have open at any one time without any lag/stutter. But for now 3GB of RAM is quite good for a cell phone on Android.
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This right here, folks.

jaseman said:
Free RAM is UNUSED/WASTED RAM! Understand? The more software/applications that are pushed into RAM the better because it is available to do whatever it needs to do without having to go and search for it and place into RAM! If and when you need more RAM for something new, say like opening another application...then Android will move out of RAM whatever is not being used and replace it with the new software. If your phone had 10GB of RAM it would still look nearly full. This is a GOOD thing. It's all still available for use when needed. Remember that RAM is always the fastest part of your phone. Of course the more RAM you have the more applications you can have open at any one time without any lag/stutter. But for now 3GB of RAM is quite good for a cell phone on Android.
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Come on... I have Galaxy S4 now (going for S6 today). The S4 comes with 1.8GB usable memory but when it reaches arount 1.5 GB it starts lagging, and by lagging I mean a lot! The fact is that when the device has less RAM it gets laggy and it works better when it has more free memory.
Anyway the higher memory usage is probably of how Lollipop works - it preloads the entire app in the RAM instead of loading it from the flash. It is meant to speed up loading but it takes more memory and I can argue for the effect.

once there are some custom roms, this "issue" will be addressed.
until then, you just have to deal with it

How much free RAM do you have?

Hi everyone,
Been using my G4 for just over a week now and have noticed that the free RAM drops significantly after some use (just a few hours), on average I have about 80% RAM used meaning that I have around 550MB free, now I haven't noticed any slow downs/lags but am just curious, how much free RAM do you have and what kind of user are you? Lets gather some facts. I am a relatively light user, probably have less third party apps than the amount of apps preloaded (Google + LG).
Note: I am running the latest version of LG's stock MM, no root.

ShinOrochiX said:
Hi everyone,
Been using my G4 for just over a week now and have noticed that the free RAM drops significantly after some use (just a few hours), on average I have about 80% RAM used meaning that I have around 550MB free, now I haven't noticed any slow downs/lags but am just curious, how much free RAM do you have and what kind of user are you? Lets gather some facts. I am a relatively light user, probably have less third party apps than the amount of apps preloaded (Google + LG).
Note: I am running the latest version of LG's stock MM, no root.
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Android is dicfrent than windowz android manages ram on its own if it runs low itll clear itself to make room for the new i run about the same. All these task killers waste battery now. Its ok leave it be. Ever since kk adroid handles much better

Yes using RAM in modern Linux systems and in Android means that the operating system pre caches things to actually speed up your device.
You had to went away from the idea of having as much free RAM as possible. Having unused RAM is actually a waste of resources isn't it? Why not using that free resources when not needed? Well and the result is a more or less intelligent handling of RAM usage where you will see high RAM usage.
So if you have less free amount of RAM it means all is fine :laugh: :victory:
Sent from my LG-H815 using XDA Labs

I also would like to point that apps like Messenger used around 80mb in my S4 Mini (with 1.5GB) and the same version of the app uses around 150 in this phone. So android is doing its good work using the memory efficiently so you have the best efficiency when switching apps and so.
Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

I was reading this article which pretty much explained everything RAM related. I used to own the OnePlus X which also had 3GB of RAM and with that I had around 1.5GB free, with the G4 I have less than half that . Then again the OPX pretty much ran on AOSP android with is feature-less.

anytime enough.You run out ram? Your device freezing?

kabirjedi said:
anytime enough.You run out ram? Your device freezing?
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No my device doesn't freeze, I get occasional stutters/lags but these are minor. So it is not really a major issue, I was just curious. It is all about the balance, AOSP=fastest performance but least features, custom UIs=slower performance but much more features, for me the features and UI presentation are most important, I can slightly compromise on performance, AOSP is just plain boring, nothing about the UI appeals to me.