Develop Bugs

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
Gesendet von meinem MI 2 mit Tapatalk

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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Click to collapse
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.
Sent from my X9006 using Tapatalk

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.
Sent from my X9006 using Tapatalk
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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!

Can you lower the ram usage?

Hi there,
I have the ZF2 with 4GB of ram. After a couple of days of usage, it seems impossible to lower the ram usage below 1.8GB even when I clear the cache of all apps.
However, when I restart the device, my ram usage is below 1GB.
I have uninstall or disabled every app I could without rooting. & I don't want to root now.
Nonetheless, I would like to keep the ram usage of my device as low as possible (2GB of ram use seems a lot to me, especially when I have one or two apps open)
Did you find a tricks or ways to keep 2gb or more ram free at all time ?
Thank you.

Simply, there is no clear way and those numbers are normal. The best memory management is with native linux, not yet available on zenfone 2.

What's the point of always having 2gb of free ram? RAM is completely useless if you aren't using it.

yumms said:
What's the point of always having 2gb of free ram? RAM is completely useless if you aren't using it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not a question of useful or useless. It's a question of is it possible and if yes, how.

Yes, keep the phone in deep sleep with all apps closed and disable everything in autostart , better yet, you can just power off the device
p.s: not even custom roms will run that low, I had cm12.1 with lg g3 3gb ram, I disabled basically everything and phone will still boot with at max 2gb free ram, maybe 2.2gb if you start killing launcher and sytem apps lol
4Gb ram with 2.2-3Gb free Ram is plenty for a cellphone. Its even plenty for a desktop unless you run hard core 3d games like crysis.
The lowest I have seen is 150Mb/1Gb usage with Nexus 7 v1 tablet yet it was hell slow. Note that the more Ram you have, the more the system will use it and cache in it. This will increase apps loading speed since they are directly loaded from Ram vs local storage.
I would love to have an app that lets you select what to cache in Ram, e.g. large high-resolution PDFs that take forever to open and load :crying: I have 300-800Mb PDFs that will take 1 min just to open.

Indeed, an option to decide what to cache would be great.
Can we expect less usage and caching with the 5.1 update or with a custom Rom?
Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

[QUESTION] Apps being killed

Hello.
I got a Mi A2 Lite a few days ago, is my first Android One. My model have 3Gb of RAM.
I'm facing the following problem:
Let's say I'm playing Lords Mobile (the only game I play). Then, I receive a message on WhatsApp. I go there and reply. I then go to Facebook and/or Chrome to check something, and want to go back to Lords Mobile. The game was pulled out from memory, and need to reload again from zero. Same with Chrome, it shows all my tabs I had opened, but is surelly reloading again from zero. Is like the "clear all" of 'recent apps' on some other phones.
I think 3Gb of RAM is enough to handle these apps, don't? I don't have too much apps installed, and the memory use is about 2Gb. I don't know if this behavior is native, by the way. Another example: if I go to sleep just after play, when I go to game again in the morning, the game reload from zero.
Is this normal? Any way to make this model handle the memory in a better way, if is the case?
My device is on Pie, July security patch. No root.
Thanks in advice

It gets better over time. There is "AI" that figures out what to keep in memory.
But in general, pie seems to be worse than previous releases at keeping things in memory, even when memory is not full.

a1291762 said:
It gets better over time. There is "AI" that figures out what to keep in memory.
But in general, pie seems to be worse than previous releases at keeping things in memory, even when memory is not full.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks.
Is there a way to get rid of AI, or set an app to be excluded from this?

romulocarlos said:
Is there a way to get rid of AI, or set an app to be excluded from this?
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Click to collapse
Not that anyone seems to know. Maybe custom ROMs help?
I just used my phone like normal and noticed that it got better at not unloading apps that I came back to regularly.
You can try to force Android Go mode, since it's designed for really small RAM use but I tried it and didn't like it (changes some things).

a1291762 said:
Not that anyone seems to know. Maybe custom ROMs help?
I just used my phone like normal and noticed that it got better at not unloading apps that I came back to regularly.
You can try to force Android Go mode, since it's designed for really small RAM use but I tried it and didn't like it (changes some things).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I don't go for Android Go, seems worse. lol
Any other suggestions will be welcome.

It's not AI, it's the Kernel's scheduler profile, and Xiaomi is famous for tuning it with an aggressive policy towards keeping as much RAM available as possible. The only way to improve it is by installing a custom kernel.

slimshady76 said:
It's not AI, it's the Kernel's scheduler profile, and Xiaomi is famous for tuning it with an aggressive policy towards keeping as much RAM available as possible. The only way to improve it is by installing a custom kernel.
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Click to collapse
Well, custom kernel and ROMs means unlocking bootloader... I can't do this for now. But, anyway, thanks!

3 gigs of ram is barely enough for pie. On the 4 gig version I have barely 1 gig free at idle. But mostly, the app kill is done by a crappy A.I. system that does some battery optimization.

TheoXSD said:
3 gigs of ram is barely enough for pie. On the 4 gig version I have barely 1 gig free at idle. But mostly, the app kill is done by a crappy A.I. system that does some battery optimization.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, taking in note what @slimshady76 wrote above, maybe the "Butterfly for daisy" will be a good deal. But I can't do it now.

I just made a test on last 2 days.
I uninstalled any optional app on phone I downloaded, and disabled a lot of system apps. Lords Mobile won't unload from memory when switching and/or when I sleep and back to game at morning.
So, is a lack of memory, but I still thinking 3Gb is enough to handle it. When 10.0.12.0 comes available to download, I'll try Butterfly kernel.

How much memory does your Android OS and Android system uses?

How much memory does your Android OS and Android system uses? and what rom are you using?

14GB before a clean flash, after 11GB. Using stock rooted

Cappucinto said:
14GB before a clean flash, after 11GB. Using stock rooted
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry i mean by memory is RAM.

Hoshiiiii_ said:
How much memory does your Android OS and Android system uses? and what rom are you using?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen you put this same question everywhere.
Modern operating systems are complex and Linux/Android is no exception.
There is no simple calculation of "used" or "unused" memory. Unused RAM is wasted RAM. Linux has various caches and overcommit to help. Android has cached processes.
My phone seems to keep an amount of RAM "free" so that a new app can be opened quickly. If that RAM was used instead, it might take some time to free it (eg. Asking apps/services to stop).
My phone seems to hold around 10 apps in memory at once. The apps the system decides to keep running is... Something that I am frustrated by since I got this phone (yes, even Oreo and pie had issues).
Previous phones running older Android versions kept less RAM "free" and made more sensible choices about what apps to keep running.
But older phones were slower to launch apps too. Most of the time I'm not sure if an app was cached or not when I start it on this phone.
What I notice is multitasking between apps and having them die. Meanwhile an app i haven't opened for hours sits there cached in RAM. That's what I don't understand about the Android 10 experience on this phone.