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GPU support!! WHY NOT???????

Let me start by saying I love Android. I love Google. Not only is Android an extremely powerful OS with a wonderful interface but I love the whole open ethos behind it, led by Google, the good guys.
But I just can't for the life of my understand why GPU support is not being introduced, or at least acknowledged that it's missing and it's coming.
I'm running Froyo, and whilst it may well be 500 gazillion times faster crunching numbers and performing data intensive tasks and whatever, it doesn't feel it as I use the phone next to an iphone 3gs.
Manipulating every single screen, every single swipe, window, everything including menus and web browsing just doesn't feel as good as on the iphone. Even if it is is technically faster, what good is it when the thing just doesn't feel as good? It might as well be slower, because how something feels has the bigger impact on people's perceptions.
I understand it's not as easy to accomplish as apple did it being as they only have one phone etc, but surely there's got to be some way?
Why is this issue not bigger within the Android community? Everybody knows the iphone is more fluid to use no matter how much we might want to deny it to ourselves.

It's easy to be smoother when you can't do more than one thing at a time.

Apple moves basically a wallpaper with icons, which is just a picture.
Android moves widgets and live wallpaper. Tons of CPU used for that. Turn off your live wallpaper, disable widgets - get the same scrolling as iPhone.
GPU is there and has nothing to do with it.
Search would have helped avoiding useless complaints in capital letters with tons of "?"s.
If the visuals are so important to you - get an iPhone. System limitations - there's only so much that can be done between battery life, multitasking and graphics. iPhone uses graphics at the expense of multitasking, Android does otherwise.

shrub said:
Let me start by saying I love Android. I love Google. Not only is Android an extremely powerful OS with a wonderful interface but I love the whole open ethos behind it, led by Google, the good guys.
But I just can't for the life of my understand why GPU support is not being introduced, or at least acknowledged that it's missing and it's coming.
I'm running Froyo, and whilst it may well be 500 gazillion times faster crunching numbers and performing data intensive tasks and whatever, it doesn't feel it as I use the phone next to an iphone 3gs.
Manipulating every single screen, every single swipe, window, everything including menus and web browsing just doesn't feel as good as on the iphone. Even if it is is technically faster, what good is it when the thing just doesn't feel as good? It might as well be slower, because how something feels has the bigger impact on people's perceptions.
I understand it's not as easy to accomplish as apple did it being as they only have one phone etc, but surely there's got to be some way?
Why is this issue not bigger within the Android community? Everybody knows the iphone is more fluid to use no matter how much we might want to deny it to ourselves.
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I am the most unbiased person I've ever met and I will honestly tell you that the response on my phone is as fast and smooth as I have ever seen on any phone. I don't think it can get better. I do not like the grid popping in the Nexus Launcher though. I wish it would just scroll like the old versions.
You don't have a real question in all honesty. Your question is, why is it not like the iPhone and why is it not "smooth" to you personally. That's just the way one person feels. I like the way the N1 feels across the entire OS. They're two different OS's and Phones so they're never going to be the same. I think you really just prefer one over the other in your own opinion. Neither of them can be called better outside of an opinion so nothing will change.

I will sacrifice fluidity any day for functionality.
Also, do you have any idea of what Android has come from, in the sense of versioning? I am certain that this is almost identical the iPhone OS/Hardware Saga from version 1 and up.

I have a question. Why is there so much comparison to iphone. I think android Smashes them but why post topic after topic about that... where's that one mod. He should delete this.

temperbad said:
I have a question. Why is there so much comparison to iphone. I think android Smashes them but why post topic after topic about that... where's that one mod. He should delete this.
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There is always a comparison of the top two of anything. Android and iPhone are very similar and they're they top devices so they're going to get compared. 99.999% of the comparisons are biased in some way but the fact is that neither of them are factually better than the other. They both have amazing features that the other doesn't and the word "better" and your decision come down to your personal preferences. I don't like iTunes, I think widgets are a MUST for me and I enjoy modding my phone without going through hell to do it or getting the cops called on me so I chose Android. Also I have been behind everything Google has done for many years and I will continue to love the company but biased attitudes are something I try to avoid. Not only do you not learn anything but you look foolish acting that way [I'm not talking about you personally I'm speaking in general].

Wow, I'm surprised to see that I'm one of the only people who completely agree with the original poster.
This isn't limited to the launcher. As the OP stated, literally every on screen motion is smoother on the iPhone.
This isn't because of the lack of multitasking on the iPhone because iOS 4 looks just as smooth.
It is either a consequence of the threading used in gui programs and/or better use of the GPU for animations and scrolling. It seems to me on my Nexus that in most cases scrolling and animations are slower when the CPU is processing something where as on an iPhone the scrolling seems smooth regardless of the processes involved.
One of my complaints along these lines is scrolling in the Android web browser isn't nearly as nice as even the slower iPhone 3G, much less an iPhone 3GS.

dalingrin said:
Wow, I'm surprised to see that I'm one of the only people who completely agree with the original poster.
This isn't limited to the launcher. As the OP stated, literally every on screen motion is smoother on the iPhone.
This isn't because of the lack of multitasking on the iPhone because iOS 4 looks just as smooth.
It is either a consequence of the threading used in gui programs and/or better use of the GPU for animations and scrolling. It seems to me on my Nexus that in most cases scrolling and animations are slower when the CPU is processing something where as on an iPhone the scrolling seems smooth regardless of the processes involved.
One of my complaints along these lines is scrolling in the Android web browser isn't nearly as nice as even the slower iPhone 3G, much less an iPhone 3GS.
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Agreed, Ill take Android's greater capabilities over Iphone's fluidity any day but both would be sweet.

DMaverick50 said:
Agreed, Ill take Android's greater capabilities over Iphone's fluidity any day but both would be sweet.
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Without a doubt. I'm just not convinced the two are mutually exclusive.

Paul22000 said:
It's easy to be smoother when you can't do more than one thing at a time.
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Once I saw this post I knew I didn't have to look at the rest of the thread since this answered it all

I disable screen animations. I have no need for worthless eye-candy. Just give me whatever I tapped on as fast as possible.
Love it.

mortzz said:
I disable screen animations. I have no need for worthless eye-candy. Just give me whatever I tapped on as fast as possible.
Love it.
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I either turn the animations off or turn their speed up. IMO scrolling is more of an issue than animations.
Example:
Goto www.androidcentral.com or www.anandtech.com on a Nexus One and with the page zoomed all the way out try scrolling. At the top of the page my frame rate is <15.
Now do the same on a wee iPhone(even first gen) and see how smooth the scrolling is.
Is it end of the world? No, of course not. I am very satisfied with my phone compared to my previous iPhone 3GS and 3G. That said, considering my main use of my phone(beyond being a phone) is web browsing, I would still love to have the scrolling of my "crap" iPhone.

Its a genuine complaint.
The lack of smooth visuals is getting silly. I think Google bringing in the guy from Palm/Danger is an ackowledgment of this.
Its not cpu , its not ram, its not multitasking. Its Apple that has some if not the best UI guys in the business in terms of visuals. Id say WebOS guys were the tops but they were mostly old Apple guys so go figure.
Apple spends a ton of time and offort making sure everything looks fluid across the entire experience. Android does not. Its simply not something theyve taken seriously until 2.1. They are the best engineers in the world..not GUI designers. The fact the Gallery still has 16 bit depth is a tell tale sign they arent emphasizing visuals.
Anyways the GPU is underused. UI , Games , Codecs theres a alot of room for improvement. Androids UI is "better"...but lets not kid ourselves..the animations and fluidity are heavily in Apples corner. Loks are important; otherwise go date a fat hairy girl.

I thought I was quite picky but I don't notice any problems with my nexus
Maybe I haven't spent that much time playing with iPhones but when I have seen people using them they press something and have to wait for it to load, they get a grey checker pattern when they scroll too fast in the browser. Sometimes their swipes didn't register either.

xManMythLegend said:
Its a genuine complaint.
The lack of smooth visuals is getting silly. I think Google bringing in the guy from Palm/Danger is an ackowledgment of this.
Its not cpu , its not ram, its not multitasking. Its Apple that has some if not the best UI guys in the business in terms of visuals. Id say WebOS guys were the tops but they were mostly old Apple guys so go figure.
Apple spends a ton of time and offort making sure everything looks fluid across the entire experience. Android does not. Its simply not something theyve taken seriously until 2.1. They are the best engineers in the world..not GUI designers. The fact the Gallery still has 16 bit depth is a tell tale sign they arent emphasizing visuals.
Anyways the GPU is underused. UI , Games , Codecs theres a alot of room for improvement. Androids UI is "better"...but lets not kid ourselves..the animations and fluidity are heavily in Apples corner. Loks are important; otherwise go date a fat hairy girl.
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I agree with this wholeheartedly. Android really just isn't the most aesthetically pleasing user interface around, I've never owned an iPhone - and don't plan to, but Apple simply knows their stuff when it comes graphic design..

There's been some info on this issue on the android-platform groups and the skia rendering engine group (Skia acutally has an experimental OpenGL rendering branch).
From what I understand, hardware acceleration can't be implemented in older devices (ex: G1) because they only support one OpenGL instance at a time, meaning the launcher could be in conflit with apps. It also seems as if the stuttering we feel is actually caused by Android's garbage colletor because it blocks the UI thread when it kicks in and not because the phone's cpu cant keep up with scrolling. If you watched some of the Google I/O 2010 videos, they said they know of the issues with the garbage collector and they are working on it.
My guess is that hardware acceleration will come sooner or later (specially with the Tegra 2 chips and tablet format ) but if you want to make things move a bit you can always go to code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914 and star the issue (consider it a vote ).
New here btw, hello all

dalingrin said:
I either turn the animations off or turn their speed up. IMO scrolling is more of an issue than animations.
Example:
Goto www.androidcentral.com or www.anandtech.com on a Nexus One and with the page zoomed all the way out try scrolling. At the top of the page my frame rate is <15.
Now do the same on a wee iPhone(even first gen) and see how smooth the scrolling is.
Is it end of the world? No, of course not. I am very satisfied with my phone compared to my previous iPhone 3GS and 3G. That said, considering my main use of my phone(beyond being a phone) is web browsing, I would still love to have the scrolling of my "crap" iPhone.
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I just tested anandtech.com on my N1 using Dolphin HD and have Froyo installed. The page was pretty much butter smooth except the top which had a flash banner ad and a flash "news reel". Of course the iPhone is going to be smoother at the top of that page since it doesn't show any flash elements. Not to say I don't want smoother scrolling when there are flash elements, but I'd rather have them showing with a little choppy frame rate than not at all.

RE: GPU Support
It's a common misconception that Android is slow changing windows and stuff- just go to Spare Parts and turn the window animations off.

my nexus next to the iphone, the nexus is just as smooth and fast to my eyes. the nexus is actually buttery smooth. using launcher pro. maybe that is what makes the difference i bet.

Apps that use gpu acceleration?

If you google android gpu acceleration, you'll see numerous threads on other sites of people asking for it and others saying there hardware is smooth enough.
I don't want to discuss the merit of gpu acceleration as I think it's a given. What I'd like to know is a list of apps that do. But also, if these apps can, why isn't it utilized system-wide? Other threads mentioned older hardware could only have one opengl layer, so if your launcher was gpu accelerated, then a game wouldn't launch. I doubt this is the issue now with more recent hardware.
Is there any side project trying to add this to say cyanogen?
Anyway, I know launcher pro is accelerated. The scrolling through applications is like night and day with other launchers. Also the latest Opera is accelerated. It seems like the built-in gallery app is accelerated. I'm not sure about any of the pdf viewers. ezpdf seems the smoothest, but again, it might be just more optimized over other pdf readers.
So is there a list of apps that utilize the gpu? (besides games obviously)
I'm not sure if it's a video driver issue from device to device, but if that's so, how can a small app like launcher pro work accelerated on numerous devices?

sark666 said:
But also, if these apps can, why isn't it utilized system-wide?
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Because a lot of Android phones can't take it.
Other threads mentioned older hardware could only have one opengl layer, so if your launcher was gpu accelerated, then a game wouldn't launch. I doubt this is the issue now with more recent hardware.
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Yeah, but Android's target is a huge range of hardware- some very crappy. Read up on Android's "fragmentation problem."
Is there any side project trying to add this to say cyanogen?
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A composite based GUI is a HUGE project. It is WAY beyond the scope of this community. It is what delayed Windows Vista for so long, and was a huge reason why many people didn't like Vista (as hardware around its launch couldn't handle the interface).
It took the Linux desktop over three years to add a decent composite GUI, and that was with MANY large companies working on it.
Composite based GUIs are VERY VERY difficult to get right. The only reason Apple has it right is from the get go that was the best part of OSX. Apple's engineers somehow got its composite GUI (called Quartz) on old low-MHz PowerPC machines, and that miracle of technology has not been duplicated anywhere else. In fact, that was the competitive advantage that Apple took with it to the phone market once phones were as powerful as old PowerPC machines.
Other OS's that use a GPU accelerated GUI just have to have very strict minimums for hardware. For example, look at the minimums for Window's phones. Any one of those would be high-end in the Android market.
I'm not sure if it's a video driver issue from device to device, but if that's so, how can a small app like launcher pro work accelerated on numerous devices?
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Run Launcher Pro on an older Android device like a Droid 1 and you would be singing a different tune as to how smooth it is. The fact of the matter is that the Android eco-system isn't ready yet....

Hmm, compiz made huge improvements quite rapidly so I don't know about 3 years to get it right. The benefits were immediate; maybe refinements as it went along.
Regardless if it is huge undertaking, google has to address this. I've read articles where they say it's more garbage collecting vs an accelerated gui. Here's a brief but good article on it: http://www.satine.org/archives/2011/01/01/the-care-and-feeding-of-the-android-gpu/
And linux is a good example, the initial beginnings of compiz were a very small group of developers and features were being added very rapidly.
It turns a lot of people off android when they see a sluggish OS, or the appearance of a sluggish OS.
At any rate, my question still stands. you mention older devices needed to being supported. Then how does an app like launcher pro do it? I'm sure it doesn't have custom drivers for all the various gpu's out there? Same with Opera.
And I'd still like a list of (if there is one) of gpu accelerated apps. If the OS doesn't have it, then it would be nice to have it at the app level. Although I see that causing more headaches down the road instead of the OS doing it.
Anyway, google doesn't sound like they are taking this issue seriously. Or dismissing it as not necessary, but I think that's a mistake. On a traditional desktop OS, it's a nice to have but not really necessary, as most things are static. But given the size of the these devices, menus/icons etc are usually moved about cascade and expand etc. Items are dragged and moved etc. All this calls for an interface that maintains a high fps or otherwise it gives the perception of feeling laggy.

Trust me...rewriting Android to do automatic compositing is a huge undertaking. This would be very difficult to do while maintaining compatibility which existing applications. Honeycomb has compositing but it isn't enabled in applications by default because it can break applications with custom drawing. I don't see any reason for us to attempt to implement composting when its already done about as well as anyone can do it in Honeycomb.

sark666 said:
Hmm, compiz made huge improvements quite rapidly so I don't know about 3 years to get it right. The benefits were immediate; maybe refinements as it went along.
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GPU GUI acceleration on the Linux desktop didn't start with Compiz. GPU GUI acceleration started in 2004 when Keith Packard added the composite patch to Xorg. David Reveman began working on XGL and Compiz around that time, and didn't release a workable beta version until 2006.
Yet that beta version relied on XGL, which was basically running the Linux desktop like you would a video game. It wasn't until AIGLX became stabilized in open source and closed source drivers in 2007 that GPU GUI acceleration on the Linux desktop was finished (I am huge Xorg junkie, that is why I know these random facts).
Regardless if it is huge undertaking, google has to address this. I've read articles where they say it's more garbage collecting vs an accelerated gui.
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From what I have heard, Honeycomb supposedly has a GPU accelerated GUI. But we don't know till we can see the code.
It turns a lot of people off android when they see a sluggish OS, or the appearance of a sluggish OS.
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I would say that the sluggishness is only obvious next to iOS- other mobile OSes also lack such abilities. Compared to iOS Android has mostly targeted the lower-end user segment where quality of experience is less important than raw price (hence the many underpowered Android phones).
Eventually due to attrition the baseline will increase in power and old phones will be cut off for new features such as this. I have already heard that Gingerbread runs terrible on a Droid 1, which is barely a two year old phone.
Then how does an app like launcher pro do it?
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Same way games do it- they just run like crap on older phones. Google can't afford to take that approach with the entire OS.
And I'd still like a list of (if there is one) of gpu accelerated apps. If the OS doesn't have it, then it would be nice to have it at the app level.
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Me too.
Anyway, google doesn't sound like they are taking this issue seriously.
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I think that is an accurate assessment. I think Google believes that in time the hardware itself wil cover this inadequacy- it matters less on dual core phones. Its all those poor people that bought early Android phones that have had to suffer the most...

I'm sure it's not trivial, but again standalone apps seemed to have done it. I know OS wide is another issue. But really, honeycomb is really late when it comes to this. It really should have been a 2.x feature. I"m the exact opposite of an apple fan boy, but the first iphone in 2007 had this. That set the bar right there. What 4 years later and google is almost on it? And yes iphone is a fixed device, but still. An abstraction layer should have been worked on so if a device has a gpu it's used, otherwise fallback to software.
And on a side note, It would still be nice to know apps that do implement this now.

sark666 said:
An abstraction layer should have been worked on so if a device has a gpu it's used, otherwise fallback to software.
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I am a huge fan of this stuff (I actually had a blog about composite back in the day) and I can tell you after hacking on many devices and OSes, only ONCE have I seen a decent software-based compositor. OSX. That is it, in the whole world.
In fact, Apple's entire "magic" empire of devices is built on that unique competitive advantage. Part of what has made it work is that composite was there from day one- unlike a Linux, Windows or Android, OSX/iOS has ALWAYS had composite so applications had to work with it.
And it wasn't a painless process. Early OSX versions (until Tiger I think) all had major composite bugs (to the point I am good at spotting them). Part of Apple's advantage is that initially the OSX base was so small that it didn't matter what broke and what didn't.
So essentially it is not a 4 year gap, but is more like a 10 year advantage. All those old PowerPC Mac users paid out the nose to make modern Apple phones the pleasant experience they are.
To me the saving grace of Android is that Google allows developers to replace major parts. So maybe the entire OS will never have real GPU acceleration, but Google doesn't stop the Operas and Launcher Pros of the world to replace essential functions with apps that CAN leverage that ability. That way different parts of the OS get fixed up by those who are best at that part, and those with weaker hardware can do without.
So yeah, a list would be nice.

Well even Windows XP seems to dust Android's best. For example, browsing these very forums on my pathetic netbook is smooth but on NC it is extremely slow unless Opera Mobile is used. Even Honeycomb's browser is slow scrolling these forums. It is pretty mind blowing that in 2011 there would be 2D GUI inadequacies like this.
But the reason is as has been said: there are phones with really poor GPUs running Android. So Google basically set the bar too low in order to probably lower the cost to develop an Android device and now they don't want to break compatibility. Although I don't see why 3.0 couldn't have been more ambitious.

Not Quite A List of Android GPU Apps
GPU Acceleration will be system wide when Ice Cream Sandwich is released. I stumbled upon this thread hoping to find specific apps. I am of the Nvidia Bootcamp, so that influenced me to get a Droid X2. There are some killer apps that work perfect with GPU acceleration. I am rather surprised to find that this thread became a history lesson, much which I knew and Wikipedia could tell me.
I am using a Movie Player on Android called MX Video Player (FREE and Free Codec Download Required). It works extremely well. This app is an excellent example of quality software taking advantage of GPU acceleration, before a system wide implementation. I doubt "MX" will get better when ICS is here.
As for CyanogenMod none that I know of other than the ICS port they are cooking up. Has to do with ICS SDK API 14, that is the framework for it?
When I find more I will add to the list here, that is if I dont forget.
Oh and that snyde XP comment.... Let me know how the android gui and os is when it has had ten years in the limelight, with patches and bug fixes!

Performance of last year WP devices?

Considering the availability of snapdragon 800 devices (such as Lumia 1520), is a device like Lumia 920 (or HTC 8x) still powerful enough to handle all games and apps?
I'm thinking of getting a secondary windows phone. I wonder how last year's devices perform these days.

Right now? Easily. The high-end launch devices (Lumia 92x, HTC 8X, Samsung ATIV S) are still plenty powerful for all apps on the market. The newest high-end phones are definitely more powerful, but aside from maybe a short reduction in loading times and faster bootup, plus of course better performance in JavaScript and so on, it shouldn't be a problem. Apps are pretty much required to run well even on 1GHz dual-core CPUs, like the mid-to-low-range phones have; 1.5GHz dual-core (like the high-end launch phones) is plenty.
Now, eventually that will no longer be the case, and the launch phones will go obsolete before the new ones. But the high-end launch phones will probably last longer than the low-end ones of the new generation anyhow, and the low-end launch ones will be the first to go. Microsoft will want to avoid that happening for as long as possible, so you should be good for a while.

GoodDayToDie said:
Right now? Easily. The high-end launch devices (Lumia 92x, HTC 8X, Samsung ATIV S) are still plenty powerful for all apps on the market. The newest high-end phones are definitely more powerful, but aside from maybe a short reduction in loading times and faster bootup, plus of course better performance in JavaScript and so on, it shouldn't be a problem. Apps are pretty much required to run well even on 1GHz dual-core CPUs, like the mid-to-low-range phones have; 1.5GHz dual-core (like the high-end launch phones) is plenty.
Now, eventually that will no longer be the case, and the launch phones will go obsolete before the new ones. But the high-end launch phones will probably last longer than the low-end ones of the new generation anyhow, and the low-end launch ones will be the first to go. Microsoft will want to avoid that happening for as long as possible, so you should be good for a while.
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Thanks for such a detailed and helpful response. Much appreciated!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

You're welcome! There's other concerns besides the raw CPU power to consider, of course, such as the 1520 having a 1920x1080 resolution screen and BT 4.0 with low-energy mode, and newer phones will probably have more RAM and Flash storage as prices per gigabyte for such things continue to fall. Still, I've been very happy with my ATIV S (SGH-T899M) even though it's missing a few things that the newer phones have.
Oh, and while I appreciate the post, there *is* a Thanks button too... Much quicker!

GoodDayToDie said:
You're welcome! There's other concerns besides the raw CPU power to consider, of course, such as the 1520 having a 1920x1080 resolution screen and BT 4.0 with low-energy mode, and newer phones will probably have more RAM and Flash storage as prices per gigabyte for such things continue to fall. Still, I've been very happy with my ATIV S (SGH-T899M) even though it's missing a few things that the newer phones have.
Oh, and while I appreciate the post, there *is* a Thanks button too... Much quicker!
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Important things to consider. thanks again! (Thanks button clicked) I have one last question. Do you see any advantages in owning a Phablet Windows Phone device over a Phone?
Does it have any extra functionalities, or anything unique that makes it special aside from having more tiles on the home screen? That's something that I'm really curious about

I don't own one myself, but the only thing that comes to mind is the ability to get a bunch more tiles on the Start screen (three "normal" columns, plus each tile is shorter as well - they're still square, after all - so you get more of them vertically at once). That's a nice feature, one which I enabled (via registry hack) on my ATIV S (at 4.8", it's just below the 5" cutoff for that feature to happen automatically) as soon as I got GDR3. Aside from that, and the phenomenal resolution of the 1520, though, I'm not aware of anything much.

GoodDayToDie said:
I don't own one myself, but the only thing that comes to mind is the ability to get a bunch more tiles on the Start screen (three "normal" columns, plus each tile is shorter as well - they're still square, after all - so you get more of them vertically at once). That's a nice feature, one which I enabled (via registry hack) on my ATIV S (at 4.8", it's just below the 5" cutoff for that feature to happen automatically) as soon as I got GDR3. Aside from that, and the phenomenal resolution of the 1520, though, I'm not aware of anything much.
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That's interesting, i didn't know registry hacks for WP8 devices are possible. Can it be done for all devices with GDR3?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Nope, I'm afraid they're still limited to Samsung's WP8 lineup. Check the interop-unlocks thread in my sig for more info.

GoodDayToDie said:
Nope, I'm afraid they're still limited to Samsung's WP8 lineup. Check the interop-unlocks thread in my sig for more info.
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Then i may end up buying the Ativ S. Thanks man, I learned a lot from you. XDA needs more guys like you
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Well, we're still looking for unlocks in other lines (Lumias especially, given their popularity, but others too). You really can't give timelines on that kind of thing, though, and Samsung is already trying to break the one we have.

How much average free RAM do you have left on your Note 4 during Usage?

Though I continue be impressed by the Battery Life and ability to move Apps to SD on the T-Mobile Note 4, I've noticed the free RAM availability is pretty slim when using the device on a day-to-day basis. The T-Mobile Note 4 is probably one of those carrier devices that I've experience containing little or not bloat. Not sure if the 3GB RAM specification lives up to its value. Makes room for Samsung to add more to the background process. In reality, a stock Vanilla Android device uses about 1/3 of its RAM whereas anything overlaying it like Touchwiz or HTC Sense uses more.

arjun90 said:
Though I continue be impressed by the Battery Life and ability to move Apps to SD on the T-Mobile Note 4, I've noticed the free RAM availability is pretty slim when using the device on a day-to-day basis. The T-Mobile Note 4 is probably one of those carrier devices that I've experience containing little or not bloat. Not sure if the 3GB RAM specification lives up to its value. Makes room for Samsung to add more to the background process. In reality, a stock Vanilla Android device uses about 1/3 of its RAM whereas anything overlaying it like Touchwiz or HTC Sense uses more.
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After an heavy debloat and greenify a lot, I have about 1.2 gig free after reboot and then drop and stay around 400-500mb after some use. I use next launcher, though, which is heavy on ram and I currently(temporarily) use Pimp my Screen which is ridiculiously heavy. I use a Wave live wallpaper, which I never used a live wallpaper on my S2, 3, or 4, but I had ram to spare and I like it. So, thats rpobably 200mb used up in looking pretty. After fresh Rom, I was losing 2% overnight. So I'm pleased but I agree that more RAM in phone is more RAM used by phone and you kinda end up with the same numbers in the end.

This has been long discussed and resolved years ago. Android is designed to utilize as much RAM as possible to function smoothly. If you're phone is running poorly or not quickly enough, chances are it's a rogue app that was made poorly causing your issue.
RAM usage should not be likened to an OS like Windows.

Not being an Apple fanboy, it seems Apple was able to optimize their apps just right to go hand-in-hand with the available RAM.
mzrdisi said:
This has been long discussed and resolved years ago. Android is designed to utilize as much RAM as possible to function smoothly. If you're phone is running poorly or not quickly enough, chances are it's a rogue app that was made poorly causing your issue.
RAM usage should not be likened to an OS like Windows.
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Exactly my thought, "So I'm pleased but I agree that more RAM in phone is more RAM used by phone and you kinda end up with the same numbers in the end."
I'll need to monitor which apps causes my device to occupy over 90% of the RAM at all times. Ironically, my device has not once froze up or restarted. I'm stunned if the device can keep up in this environment.
Bubba Fett said:
After an heavy debloat and greenify a lot, I have about 1.2 gig free after reboot and then drop and stay around 400-500mb after some use. I use next launcher, though, which is heavy on ram and I currently(temporarily) use Pimp my Screen which is ridiculiously heavy. I use a Wave live wallpaper, which I never used a live wallpaper on my S2, 3, or 4, but I had ram to spare and I like it. So, thats rpobably 200mb used up in looking pretty. After fresh Rom, I was losing 2% overnight. So I'm pleased but I agree that more RAM in phone is more RAM used by phone and you kinda end up with the same numbers in the end.
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I'm not sure why but I like to see free ram. Iknow what people say about killing apps and then they restart…… but I'm a bit of a battery dork and spend decent time on tweaks for power. I feel like I get as good or better than I've seen posted and I try to have as much ram as possible free. It has always worked for me, but my phone habits may be different from others. I don't even have a facebook account.
Oh yea, Apple has to pre-optimized because their user can't do it for themselves!)

I'm just saying, I'm sure the Software engineers know quite a bit more about the subject than hobbyists like many of us on here.
People obsess about battery life all the time and all of these tweaks and apps people use I find don't do any real good. I'm not saying they don't help at all, because it would seem based on some people's claims it does. But I feel there are so many other factors that really are the problem. Primarily how you just simply use your phone. And 2nd, which is the issue I find most often on Android is someone downloading a terrible app that is running in the BG allll day without them really knowing it. (GPS being used frequently or the kernel is kept awake for long periods of time)
But my point above was that you will and really shouldn't see your device with 50% or more RAM on an Android device. It's just not designed to be that way. If the apps you are using are basically "made" properly. You don't need to worry about having to close apps or block them from running.

One of the culprits using a lot of RAM is Lookout Mobile Security. I have T-Mobile Jump. Never knew Lookout was one of the culprits.

Limitations Make you a Better Dev: How to Improve Efficiency and beyond.

Hear me out for a few minutes guys.
Programmers now days are great...right? No... they really are not. Because programmers are making programs/games on extremely powerful machines (if you think about it) and have zero concept of "limits". A game for example, Titan Fall on PC is 50GB's. Why... for the love of all that is good, is this game 50GB's? Why? Because the programmers that made it suck. There are so many games that take up WAY too much space and take WAY too much power to run...
BUT
But this is NOT the programmers fault... They were not trained correctly. Hence my topic point.
Limitations Make you a Better Dev.
What is a limitation? It's something that limits you, like a gallon container can... only hold a gallon. Makes sense right? Well, let's move on the programming. Most programmers now days are making games/programs in what I like to refer to as "Creative Sandbox Mode". They don't really have limitations. They can almost do anything! But this is a problem... let's see an example to illustrate the reason why.
We will use the game "Kerbal Space Program" as our example for this topic. (Fantastic Game BTW) For those who have not seen/heard about it. It is a game where you build space rockets in, for the most part, a very well simulated Solar System. You start from a planet similar to earth. The only difference is the size of everything is scaled down. But just keep in your mind, "You build rockets to go to space".
Now, moving on...
When this game came out at first as early access. It was basically a sandbox, while you had no "God mode", you had access to all the rocket ship parts and they had zero costs. You could build anything, and people made all kinds of nonsense, went to the Mun (Game's name for the planet's moon) and beyond to other planets.
Sounds great right? It was... but then something changed a few years later.
Career and Science Sandbox were added. What is this? Well it's a mode with progression in mind, Career has you earning money through space missions and contracts, and Science Sandbox requires no money... but requires "science" points to acquire new parts.
You start out now...with very limited parts, and the things you are asked to do in the missions seem "impossible" at first.
"You mean I have to get to orbit with ONLY these parts? WHAT? THERE IS NO WAY!..."
Except...it was possible. Suddenly people, while under a great limitation, began to progress. They learned new and better ways and deigns to make more efficient rockets. You advance, and learn and become better. You progress, slowly unlocking more parts...but always being under this limitation wall, it forces you to grow and learn even more.
Now...end game. You've unlocked all the parts. You build the "best rocket" you can muster. Compare it to your "best rocket" while you played in Free Sandbox mode... It's a 1000x better. It can go much further on less fuel, it's less heavy, and it has far more research and science ability that ever before. Smaller rockets can now go beyond the moon and back, where as before, huge ones barely made it into orbit...
What does this mean? Now...with your super efficient skills, you can go EVEN further than ever before, you're able to truly maximize the potential of the parts given to you.
You've become efficient . You've become a better player.
But the KEY here for relation to my topic is... "truly maximized potential"
Now, let's get back to programming. Now that we have an understanding of what my point is. Back in the day, game developers had extreme limits. Hyper tiny storage sizes, extremely low amounts of ram and processing power. You couldn't just do whatever you wanted. The PC wouldn't even run.
Look at games like Super Mario Bros, a classic simple game... But, fast forward to later in the NES's lifespan, look at Megaman. The difference in total quality, and game play, it's a night and day difference. You go from a super basic, jump on enemies, beat the same boss over and over, running through basic one color levels... to a game that has a "level select" and unique and difference bosses, and... TONS of different enemies. You see levels with lots of animations and color! Holy crap! This is amazing! AND WHAT!? YOU GET WEAPONS THAT DO DIFFERENT THINGS!? *mind explodes*
See what happen? NES programmers got better over time, they learned to maximize what the NES could do despite its limits. Games that at the start of its' life that would have been thought impossible... were suddenly happening.
So let's fast forward to today... what do we have? For the most part... our computers today have near limitless abilities. Most computers have over a 1000GB's of storage, over 4GB's of ram (if not over 8GB), and processors that can do millions, if not nearly billions of calculations per second... Vs computers with 32KB's of Ram, 1 MB of storage, and a 10 mhz processor.
So we should be seeing games with extremely outrageous levels of ability and graphics right...? No... we don't. Well, we have a few. And I think the reason is older devs who were used to coding efficiently. They suddenly become god like. But new programmers? They don't understand limitations like older ones do... so they code poorly without knowing it. This is why you have games like Dark Souls 2, which on PC runs at 60fps at 1440p without the SLIGHTEST hint of issues. (Seriously, it's the smoothest PC game I've ever seen). But then games like Arkham Knight, just barely run at all. (if it even starts...) Also... the version of the Dark Souls 2 that contains all the DLC and improvements to the game (SotFs), weighs in at 23 GB's. Whoa... that's so much! ... Well, it's an extremely huge game, most playthroughs will last you at least 50 to 70 hours. There is so much to see in the game, and it's intense. And...then you have Titan Fall. A multiplayer game with a few maps, no singleplayer (at least when I played it), and it's 50GB's? What? Why? Even GTA 5 is 55GB's (ish) and it's an absolutely MASSIVE map, with detail unlike any seen before. And they crammed it into 50GB's? Wow. While Rockstar and From Software have had a few bad ones *cough* GTA IV and Dark Souls 1 on PC *cough*. They still proved in the end, they knew how to properly make a PC game.
Also, for an example of "getting a ton" from very little processing power. Look at the gameboy advance. It had a 16.78 MHz processor... yet look at the outrageous abilities it had. Look at the games, compare them to mobile "games" (Mobile games are trash). Could you honestly recreate The Legend of Zelda: A link to the past run with just 16mhz of power? If someone didn't tell you it was possible, you'd most likely say, "You cannot do that...". But you can, they did. This is highly efficient coding.
Another example is Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and 2. If you've not played this game series, I advise you ALL to look it up. This game, released in 1999, was coded by one man. And in 1999 (where the average CPU was Pentium 3) this game let's you build Parks, like with roller coasters and rides. This game could have THOUSANDS of guests (People in your park, 1000 to 4000+) , all with different likes and needs (ride types, needs like food or the restroom), with dozens, if not 50 to 100+ rides going on at the same time... and it ran perfectly fine. In fact, when I played it, I never remember it ever slowing down or crashing, not once. Could you build an entire game with 100s of rides and 1000s+ of guests each with their own unique needs, and plus all the other things going on, on a Pentium 3? With ZERO lag and near instant startup?
This is just one of my issues with devs/programmers today. It's not just about games, or graphics in games mind you. It's about programs, applications, media, just everything. Devs today, learn in a near unlimited environment. They don't learn tricks, they don't learn workarounds, they don't learn how to truly maximize what they have because nothing forces them too.
Now, as a big note... I don't want to sit here and sound like I'm saying any devs are dumb, or don't work hard. I don't mean that at all, because it truly isn't their fault. Schools and such today don't teach with limitations, in computer science and in everything else (that's another topic).
They don't force you to make a massive game that fits in a CD (700MB) that runs well, they don't teach you how to truly optimize, they don't teach you how to overcome limitations because they don't challenge you with limitations.
Limitations, force you to get better. I ask that all new and aspiring devs now days, to try to limit yourself... because in the end... you'll become a far better programmer than you thought possible! You created an android app that runs fine on a snapdragon 810? Alright, how about you make that same app run just as well on a phone with a dual core processor and half a GB of ram from 2010. Start with limitations, you'll think... "This is not possible" , but image to yourself that it is the only way... you soon start finding tricks and learn how to overcome the limitations and create an app that works fantastically with very minimal power and resources. Then, with your new found efficiency skills, you'll see a whole new world of possibilities on more powerful chipsets. Just like in the space game, when you are forced to do more with less, you soon found yourself able to go much further than before when you did have more.
Limitation Forced Growth increases your efficiency. This can allow you to make night and day more powerful applications that run with far less power.
Discuss.