Develop Bugs

"ReadyBoost" for Android?

Hello,
Why isnt it possible to use SDCRAM as sort of RAM in android? same as VISA/7 Using ReadyBoost to expand the ram with an USB disk on keys?
thanks!

Why would you want that?

since you only use flash based memory anyway: that's called swaping

And is Swap enabled in all froyo roms today?

rommark said:
And is Swap enabled in all froyo roms today?
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Click to collapse
But why would you need it? You have 512MB of RAM, with a clean boot you have around 200-220MB of it free for whatever you want to do with it. Not enough for you?

martino2k6 said:
But why would you need it? You have 512MB of RAM, with a clean boot you have around 200-220MB of it free for whatever you want to do with it. Not enough for you?
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Click to collapse
won't heavy 3d games eat that?

rommark said:
won't heavy 3d games eat that?
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Click to collapse
No. Smartphones =/= PCs. And if you are really out of space for a short amount of time, unneeded processes get killed automatically. Swap was only really needed on the G1 but definitely not on the Desire.

rommark said:
won't heavy 3d games eat that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, that's a bit too much even for a game... unless the code has memory leaks. With so much RAM it'd make more sense to use ramdisk (but who knows for what good use)

martino2k6 said:
No, that's a bit too much even for a game... unless the code has memory leaks. With so much RAM it'd make more sense to use ramdisk (but who knows for what good use)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
RamDisk could be insane for 3d gaming as then the textures would have fast extraction means less delay in rendering....

What Readyboost is NOT
Hey folks. I've only recently discovered Readyboost as I'm primarily a Linux guy. I got all hot and bothered about it immediately as well as it is (despite Microsofts constant onslaught of horrific failures) an absolutely brilliant and elegant technology/idea.
HOWEVER!!!
Nearly everyone is confused about what RB actually does, so I thought I'd take a minute to explain.
ReadyBoost is NOT swap. NOT SWAP!, not swap.
Swap is not something to get excited about, it is a last resort for when you're out of RAM and it's excruciatingly slow. In the land of IT, one of the first things we check for when a server is experiencing horrible performance, is "IS THIS MACHINE SWAPPING". Everyone's gotta learn that swap, while it is more useful than "not enough memory" it is nor more useful than utilizing the memory you already have, and it will always result in poor performance.
ReadyBoost is an additional disc cache for small, non-sequential reads/writes. It works with your existing FS cache but is faster in some cases because FLASH has a much lower seek time. Most FLASH chips have a seek time of <1ms while most rotational discs have a seek time of around 8ms. This adds up on a large number of small non-sequential r/w.
ReadyBoost takes any caching operations which fit it's strength profile (small, non-sequential) and offloads them to your FLASH device. This can increase load speed of some files/application dramatically (2-20x faster).
So, when someone asks you if they can use Readyboost because they don't have enough memory, please, take a moment to explain that RB is not swap, but is in fact a supplementary disc cache for small, non-sequential reads and writes.
That said, I haven't had time to dig into the question of whether or not RB would benefit Linux FS's.

I know this is a really old thread but I just wanted to put my two cents in. Memory boosting apps like ReadyBoost do have a viable purpose. That is keeping older hardware viable as minimum specs increase. There is an Android app that is equivilant to ReadyBoost called Roehsoft RAM Expander. There are mixed reviews for its performance but that is to be expected. If this app helps my aging 8227_Demo head unit work well enough for me to not replace it I will update this post.

[DISCUSS] Why are background apps closing so much more quickly?

Currently running: CM 10.1, build 0319 stock kernel and cpu settings.
TL;DR - The Hercules and its 1GB RAM suddenly seem like it can't multi-task like it once could. However maybe its app developers just heinously demanding more resources so their apps can look amazingly fluid because they forcefully killed everything else in the back?
What's the deal?
I remember a time in yesteryear yonder, whence I would have 5-7 apps running in the back without breaking nary a sweat. SO WHAT THE HELL happened Android? That was back on Touchwiz and Gingerbread!
Today I can't have utorrent and chrome open simultaneously. TWO apps. For instance if I've utorrent downloading, ill switch to Chrome (recent apps switch; not open) and maybe answer a Whatsapp immediately after; utorrent will undoubtedly be killed and must be reactivated.
Now I understand that chrome and utorrent are naturally RAM heavy applications, but it helps further my point. Why are apps being killed so quickly today? Was it Touchwiz that was great at ram management? Was it gingerbread? Or have apps been slowly updating over the last two years and demanding more allocation of RAM from the get go so that everything else gets forcefully killed? I remember when the Hercules was announced and all the reviewers claimed 1GB was such a stupid amount of overkill RAM and we'll never see it taxed. Now that 2GB has become the standard with the introduction of the GS3, I theorize app devs are being more liberal in demanding resources from devices without giving too much consideration for older models. So apps are killed more frequently to make room to the foreground.
So why do you care?
-The stock stopwatch app will die if you run a few more apps afterwards. This is just derp. Really, try this yourself. Can you imagine your morning alarm was silently force killed because you were reading a website before bedtime?
-Some audio apps can be killed as well. ie Doggcatcher. Audio actually stops if certain conditions of apps are opened after Doggcatcher. Derp.
-Device slows to a complete crawl during the course of a day. I don't believe I've ever owned a device (clamshell Sammy, Blackberry or Android) that didn't exhibit facepalm-worthy memory leak issues. If Android was designed to have its RAM filled, why do slowdowns exist?
-Incoming phone calls suffer lag when re-acquiring attention. This seems bizarre because in About > System you can see the Hercules indicates it has 768MB RAM, indicating a quarter is reserved for system apps. Which means it shouldn't really have this problem.
-Application settings requesting 'Persistent Notifications' to ensure app foreground attention. Apps like Tasker, utorrent, Battery Guru request this to remain alive. Is this the solution now? And is this 100% immune if system requires the resources?
-Apps take longer to open. I can't quite pinpoint this. Just a feeling.
Alright man relax, the Galaxy S4 and HTC One come packing with 2GB
Upgrading to a new flagship doesn't seem to be the solution to stifle this issue. App developers are excellent at what they do and naturally want their product to look its best with the resources available to it. With 3D games exhibiting the capabilities of a Snapdragon 600 and Tegra 4, where's the incentive to tell either to slow down? This same logic can be directly applied to the smartphone spec war and the recurring battery life bottleneck story.
Excellent read here from Gizmodo:
http://gizmodo.com/5992917/battery-life-is-the-only-spec-that-matters
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what's your point?
I'm not sure I have one. I'm just observing whats happening. We are finally actually seeing applications that are pushing our hardware to its limits. While 1GB of onboard RAM used to be a drool inducing spec, 2GB is not really a huge leap considering the jump the Snapdragon S3 made to the S4, S4 Pro and now the 600 in magnitudes of processing power. 2GB would certainly be astronomical, if it took a trip back in time and only had to run 2011 apps. I guess my point is: I'm throwing a tantrum that the Hercules is showing its age, even if it's not its fault.
Forgive my rambling and lack of proof-reading. At work.

mettleh3d said:
Currently running: CM 10.1, build 0319 stock kernel and cpu settings.
TL;DR - The Hercules and its 1GB RAM suddenly seem like it can't multi-task like it once could. However maybe its app developers just heinously demanding more resources so their apps can look amazingly fluid because they forcefully killed everything else in the back?
What's the deal?
I remember a time in yesteryear yonder, whence I would have 5-7 apps running in the back without breaking nary a sweat. SO WHAT THE HELL happened Android? That was back on Touchwiz and Gingerbread!
Today I can't have utorrent and chrome open simultaneously. TWO apps. For instance if I've utorrent downloading, ill switch to Chrome (recent apps switch; not open) and maybe answer a Whatsapp immediately after; utorrent will undoubtedly be killed and must be reactivated.
Now I understand that chrome and utorrent are naturally RAM heavy applications, but it helps further my point. Why are apps being killed so quickly today? Was it Touchwiz that was great at ram management? Was it gingerbread? Or have apps been slowly updating over the last two years and demanding more allocation of RAM from the get go so that everything else gets forcefully killed? I remember when the Hercules was announced and all the reviewers claimed 1GB was such a stupid amount of overkill RAM and we'll never see it taxed. Now that 2GB has become the standard with the introduction of the GS3, I theorize app devs are being more liberal in demanding resources from devices without giving too much consideration for older models. So apps are killed more frequently to make room to the foreground.
So why do you care?
-The stock stopwatch app will die if you run a few more apps afterwards. This is just derp. Really, try this yourself. Can you imagine your morning alarm was silently force killed because you were reading a website before bedtime?
-Some audio apps can be killed as well. ie Doggcatcher. Audio actually stops if certain conditions of apps are opened after Doggcatcher. Derp.
-Device slows to a complete crawl during the course of a day. I don't believe I've ever owned a device (clamshell Sammy, Blackberry or Android) that didn't exhibit facepalm-worthy memory leak issues. If Android was designed to have its RAM filled, why do slowdowns exist?
-Incoming phone calls suffer lag when re-acquiring attention. This seems bizarre because in About > System you can see the Hercules indicates it has 768MB RAM, indicating a quarter is reserved for system apps. Which means it shouldn't really have this problem.
-Application settings requesting 'Persistent Notifications' to ensure app foreground attention. Apps like Tasker, utorrent, Battery Guru request this to remain alive. Is this the solution now? And is this 100% immune if system requires the resources?
-Apps take longer to open. I can't quite pinpoint this. Just a feeling.
Alright man relax, the Galaxy S4 and HTC One come packing with 2GB
Upgrading to a new flagship doesn't seem to be the solution to stifle this issue. App developers are excellent at what they do and naturally want their product to look its best with the resources available to it. With 3D games exhibiting the capabilities of a Snapdragon 600 and Tegra 4, where's the incentive to tell either to slow down? This same logic can be directly applied to the smartphone spec war and the recurring battery life bottleneck story.
Excellent read here from Gizmodo:
So what's your point?
I'm not sure I have one. I'm just observing whats happening. We are finally actually seeing applications that are pushing our hardware to its limits. While 1GB of onboard RAM used to be a drool inducing spec, 2GB is not really a huge leap considering the jump the Snapdragon S3 made to the S4, S4 Pro and now the 600 in magnitudes of processing power. 2GB would certainly be astronomical, if it took a trip back in time and only had to run 2011 apps. I guess my point is: I'm throwing a tantrum that the Hercules is showing its age, even if it's not its fault.
Forgive my rambling and lack of proof-reading. At work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol...I totally agree. My apps seem to close a lot quicker, yet my RAM never dips below 280 MB free. Don't really get it myself...

Nexus 7 (2013) same problems as old?

I have one of the 2012 Nexus 7s that turned INCREDIBLY sluggish after about 6 months. It is to the point where I don't even use it anymore, my wife uses it to read and I've gone back to my iPad 2 (ugh).
I've read that the problem with the OG Nexus 7 was the flash memory that Asus used, it degraded quickly or caused bottlenecks, or wasn't trimmed properly, etc.
Can someone that is really familiar with this (not just guessing) tell me if the hardware on the Nexus 7 (2013) is built to prevent this? I really want the new N7 because it was the only Android tablet I've bought (also bought XOOM and Transformer) that could replace the iPad 2 for me.

I'm no memory genius, but I did some searching around, followed some blogs and it seems the problem was the actual speed of the memory.
and after seeing comparrison benchmarks, the internal memory on the 2nd Generation was about 2X as fast as the 1st gen. so, while it seems they put in nicer memory, We'll have to wait and find out.
FWIW, i never had a problem with my OG N7, neither did my wife with Her's. both were day 1 purchases.
edit: Source: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...-just-how-much-faster-is-it-a-lot-apparently/

The main problem with the old N7 even the TF700 (both Tegra 3 devices) was the single channel memory, as well the lousy NAND that was put in the devices which really caused it to lag.
The NAND is by far sub-par on the device and that a MicroSD card can typically help increase the performance by placing all the data on it is pretty bad as MicroSD cards in itself are pretty slow as well even for the best ones.

i got the new one. i feel as tho there is still some slight lag in certain programs. even though it has 2gigs of ram, i would have thought it would be flawless and smooth. maybe it's beccause i just turned it on and started using it. but i can tell you that the chrome browser is way faster on 4.3 than 4.2.2.
also the sound is loud and clear! screen resolution is unbelievable. but with 2gigs of ram, i expected it to be much smoother.

mrazndead said:
i got the new one. i feel as tho there is still some slight lag in certain programs. even though it has 2gigs of ram, i would have thought it would be flawless and smooth. maybe it's beccause i just turned it on and started using it. but i can tell you that the chrome browser is way faster on 4.3 than 4.2.2.
also the sound is loud and clear! screen resolution is unbelievable. but with 2gigs of ram, i expected it to be much smoother.
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Click to collapse
i just got the new one and it was a bit sluggish until i took the latest OTA. now i'm on JSS15J build it is running really really smooth. love it so far.

Did you run fstrim ("Lagfix.apk") on your original N7?
For what it's worth, Android Police has benchmarked it and said that it's working reasonably well - better than the original. If this is your concern, though, I would wait for Anandtech to review it. They were extremely concerned about flash performance last time around, and I think they'll cover it in their review this time around.
And yes, the JSS15J build does make a hug difference in fluidity. Definitely worth getting it.

I just ran AndroBench not sure how it compared to other current tablets.
Sequential Read 58.8 MB/s
Sequental Write 14.29 MB/s
Random Read 12.01 MB/s 3074 IOPS(4K)
Random Write .84MB/s 216 IOPS(4K)

vnangia said:
Did you run fstrim ("Lagfix.apk") on your original N7?
For what it's worth, Android Police has benchmarked it and said that it's working reasonably well - better than the original. If this is your concern, though, I would wait for Anandtech to review it. They were extremely concerned about flash performance last time around, and I think they'll cover it in their review this time around.
And yes, the JSS15J build does make a hug difference in fluidity. Definitely worth getting it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been running fstrim on mine, but it still lags horribly. It worked fine for the first few months. I should have known what the quality is like when I had to return my first one because of screen separation issues, then had the same problems with the second one and just kept it.
I am definitely waiting on the anandtech review, because I trust their attention to detail.

I have two "old" N7s. None has any lag !!!!!
Maybe due to constant wipes/flashes ? I kinda leave my daughter's N7 (~14months old) alone and it doesn't have lag that I can notice.
Anyway, Windows lags overtime too. That's why I do an image backup of a fresh installation. Once in awhile, I restore the image to
get a fresh Windows. It helps a lot.

Jrockttu said:
I have been running fstrim on mine, but it still lags horribly. It worked fine for the first few months. I should have known what the quality is like when I had to return my first one because of screen separation issues, then had the same problems with the second one and just kept it.
I am definitely waiting on the anandtech review, because I trust their attention to detail.
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Click to collapse
Good news! http://www.anandtech.com/show/7176/nexus-7-2013-mini-review/4 seems to suggest that not only is the eMMC faster out of the box on the N7-2013 (which I've anecdotally observed), but that they've included fstrim in Android 4.3 for the N7-2012. That suggests that at you should at least see more consistent performance over a longer period of time than the N7-2012 on the new one, and that your N7-2012 should speed itself up a little bit...
So promising, definitely, but I'm guessing if you really wanna know before buying, you'd have to give it a good 4-6 months of someone using it before getting the definitive word on it.

vnangia said:
Good news! http://www.anandtech.com/show/7176/nexus-7-2013-mini-review/4 seems to suggest that not only is the eMMC faster out of the box on the N7-2013 (which I've anecdotally observed), but that they've included fstrim in Android 4.3 for the N7-2012. That suggests that at you should at least see more consistent performance over a longer period of time than the N7-2012 on the new one, and that your N7-2012 should speed itself up a little bit...
So promising, definitely, but I'm guessing if you really wanna know before buying, you'd have to give it a good 4-6 months of someone using it before getting the definitive word on it.
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Click to collapse
I totally agree it's faster. Just loaded up my tablet... 435 Meg free. Nice and quick still. No issues. Delete the items using the space up and very quick still. Benchmarked nearly identical.
Performance has been top notch. Games are quick, large ones at that, switching between apps have been quick.
Sent from my Nexus 7 (2013) using XDA Premium HD app

Sluggish?? My nexus 7 32gb has 5gb left of storage after putting my movies and shows and it has no sluggish apps or any slowdown problems.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

i noticed immediately how much faster the new n7 is compared to my old one. its like night & day.

I think the real problem with the old Nexus 7 is Android 4.2.
Like many others who remained on or switched back to 4.1, I can tell my device runs as snappy as ever.
Sure, the memory may not be the best / fastest, but these annoying lag problems people report of are most probably simply due to 4.2 or other misconfigurations. People just don't wanna acknowledge it because they think: "Back to 4.1? Never!" or such.

hasenbein1966 said:
I think the real problem with the old Nexus 7 is Android 4.2.
Like many others who remained on or switched back to 4.1, I can tell my device runs as snappy as ever.
Sure, the memory may not be the best / fastest, but these annoying lag problems people report of are most probably simply due to 4.2 or other misconfigurations. People just don't wanna acknowledge it because they think: "Back to 4.1? Never!" or such.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not custom ROMs...?

Is LG's skin really so heavy on RAM usage?

I was watching a video review of the LG G3 by The Nerd Herd, and the guy said, and even showed that the LG's skin constantly used over 2 gigs of RAM all the time. Here's the link with timecode, so you can see the part where he talks about it: YouTube.
I want to buy the phone, but 2GB version is my only option and I'm a little bit worried after seeing this. Is this version noticeably slower than the 3GB version? How bad is it?
I also wanna mention that I will install a custom software for sure, probably the CloudyG3, or Cyanogenmod, or something close to stock Android, so I won't stick with LG's firmware.

It really isn't bad at all, I have had this phone since Kitkat and at maximum the RAM will go as up as 80% percent. It never passes it and it usually is at 56% percent with a GB free for use of the 1.8 it shows. I love this phone and actually the only problem I have is the fact that it overheats and it scares the hell of me but it never throttles or anything

In this moment, and for current android versions, 2GB is more than enough. I've read an article about tests with both G3 versions, and 3GB version was 5% or so faster, unnoticeable in real life usage. Before I bought my phone, I had same dilemma, so I've investigated a lot and asked oppinions from some professionals, and I am convinced that 3GB is not needed in this moment ;

I can't tell you exactly how much RAM I'm using, but it's really not going to be that much. If I've got a lot of stuff open and I'm constantly doing things, sure I'll get the odd slow down, but it runs smoother than a baby's bottom, and that's coming from someone who is incredibly picky with their system (My old S3 had over 200 custom flashes... oops).

Best way to increase performance?

I really love this phone but it's getting old, I'm looking on how I can increase its performance.
I'm currently running LineageOS 19.1 and while perf is decent I want to know what else I can do before looking at getting another device.
I thought I could try overclocking so I rooted it but all the apps are showing normal max cpu frequency. I changed cpu governor to performance but according to Geekbench 5 the gains are minimal. Also I'm not a fan of root, it's too much hassle with SafetyNet etc, but if there is a way to make it faster I will see if I can live with root.
Or is there another kernel that I can try?
Thanks for all the suggestions.

It's probably close to it's maximum performance and an unstable SoC is an ugly thing...
Take out the trash. Apps that are constantly running in the background and aren't needed. No social media, shopping or banking apps should ever be installed. Apps using battery and bandwidth needlessly need to be dealt with. If the app is doing either it's also sucking up your cpu cycles and resources. Use a logging firewall to help spot habitual offenders.

blackhawk said:
It's probably close to it's maximum performance and an unstable SoC is an ugly thing...
Take out the trash. Apps that are constantly running in the background and aren't needed. No social media, shopping or banking apps should ever be installed. Apps using battery and bandwidth needlessly need to be dealt with. If the app is doing either it's also sucking up your cpu cycles and resources. Use a logging firewall to help spot habitual offenders.
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Click to collapse
Thanks, already done as much housekeeping as I could and I have minimum of what I need. Banking apps are among them since I don't like their web versions. I could start uninstalling what is not needed but there is a risk of removing something necessary and I don't want to spend too much time on it. LOS already comes without bloat. I'll do some more monitoring but as you said it's probably close to its max performance. Luckily it's not at the level of being unusable (yet), just slightly annoying, with things like keyboard taking those 3 seconds longer to load haha.

One thing that's really killing performance is the 3gb of ram. It has to constantly juggle that.
After using the N10+'s for years I'm sold on 12gb of ram or more. The additional ram impacts battery life little but provides real time performance increase and future proofing.
Not using scoped storage also aids performance. I still use Android 9 and 10 and will not upgrade either. They would take a performance and usability hit if I did. The performance of newer phones is dismal; it comes at a high power consumption cost, little real time performance increases and decreased functionality/usability. Those are some of the reasons I happily run 2 flagships that are over 3 yo with firmware that old as well.
Seems all Google and Samsung can do anymore is dropped balls. They excel at that now and at bs hype that I'm not buying... literally.

blackhawk said:
One thing that's really killing performance is the 3gb of ram. It has to constantly juggle that.
After using the N10+'s for years I'm sold on 12gb of ram or more. The additional ram impacts battery life little but provides real time performance increase and future proofing.
Not using scoped storage also aids performance. I still use Android 9 and 10 and will not upgrade either. They would take a performance and usability hit if I did. The performance of newer phones is dismal; it comes at a high power consumption cost, little real time performance increases and decreased functionality/usability. Those are some of the reasons I happily run 2 flagships that are over 3 yo with firmware that old as well.
Seems all Google and Samsung can do anymore is dropped balls. They excel at that now and at bs hype that I'm not buying... literally.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, ram seems to be a bottleneck definitely. I tend to buy several years old devices and my budget is low, but I like to have the os up to date as much as possible. I was actually looking at OnePlus 5T with 8G ram. Another thing I like is small form fatcor. Anything larger than 6" seems too big for me. Hence I stick with my Xperia for now.

Paulkw said:
Yeah, ram seems to be a bottleneck definitely. I tend to buy several years old devices and my budget is low, but I like to have the os up to date as much as possible. I was actually looking at OnePlus 5T with 8G ram. Another thing I like is small form fatcor. Anything larger than 6" seems too big for me. Hence I stick with my Xperia for now.
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Click to collapse
Since my N10+'s effectively supersede my laptop the size is desirable for me. It's a relatively light phone and in a Bolt case it still has a reasonably slim profile so it doesn't seem that big. It has a lot of performance enhancing features/add ons including the spen. It's also great for watching vids, all in all a more than fair trade off for me.
However I can see it from your point of view. Form factor is an important consideration and if it will integrate effectively into your lifestyle. The S22U is bigger and 30gms heavier, blah! Then there's the hump back N20U