Related
I've seen a lot of discussion on various Android/Droid forums on the web over the past month or two about the Bionic, and it having 512MB of RAM. A lot of people don't seem to mind, and some people have even said it doesn't matter because it's DDR2, which is faster than regular DDR.
Well, 512MB of RAM is not enough for a dual-core phone you plan to use for 2 years or more. Here's why, in a rather lengthy post that I also put on MyDroidWorld the other night. I've been on the XDA forums for a long time, though I don't post very frequently and I'm curious to see what people will think of my admittedly long post. So, here is why I think people should think long and hard about whether to buy the Bionic when it does come out, assuming it still ships with 512MB of RAM.
Caching.
Ok - let me explain. The single most important factor in performance of a computer is having enough RAM. When a computer runs out of RAM, it starts to use what's called a page file. It's basically a file on your hard drive that acts as additional RAM. Now, DDR3-1600 speed RAM transfers data at 12.8 gigabytes per second. Phenomenally fast. It also has a reaction time of around 5 nanoseconds, also ridiculously fast. When your operating system has to start using the page file because the physical RAM is full, the performance hit is EXTRAORDINARY. Even the best hard disk drives (not counting SSDs) like the latest Raptor from Western Digital cap out at around 155 megabytes per second for reading and writing, and it has a peak latency of 7 milliseconds for reaction time. 1 nanosecond is 1 million milliseconds, which makes the DDR3 RAM over a MILLION times faster reacting than the hard drive, and the transfer rate of the RAM over 80 times faster than the transfer rate of the hard drive.
In real-world terms, it's like you're talking about an ant versus a Porsche 911 Turbo. Most old computers that have long pauses or hang for several seconds doing even basic tasks, it's because they don't have enough RAM and it's caching stuff between the hard drive and the RAM.
Now, whenever Android runs out of RAM, (same with any operating system) it has to start using its page file, which means it starts using this monstrously slow flash memory as RAM. It's like merging onto a freeway that is gridlocked with traffic when you were going hundreds of miles per hour. The flash memory is a lot slower than the Raptor hard drive for data transfer rates, but it has a read time a lot faster; the best-performing ones are generally under 1 microsecond. 1 microsecond is a thousand times slower than 1 nanosecond. The write times are closer to hard drives, though; generally less than 1 millisecond, so like 10x faster than a hard drive but still 100,000 times slower reaction time to writing data than the RAM is.
What this means is, when your permanent storage is flash-based, it has a much faster reaction time than a hard drive but it's still dog-slow compared to RAM; so when Android runs out of RAM, it caches to the page file on the flash memory, and you'll have the same slowdown effect as you do on an old POS computer, but it's not as noticeable because flash memory reacts faster than disk-based hard drives.
The point of all of this is that, 1GB of DDR1 memory on a phone is FAR better than 512MB of DDR2 memory. The 1GB will prevent you from hitting that metaphorical brick wall of caching data to your flash memory when the 512MB won't. We already use 400MB, or more, of our 512MB of RAM on our existing phones just by turning it on and having a couple of widgets/services in the background above & beyond the stock ones. How do you expect to take advantage significantly higher-end applications and games, which also means (for games, primarily) that they take up more RAM, as well?
You can't have higher-quality graphics without needing more RAM, so when that new version of Angry Birds comes out this fall or something that requires two cores and looks amazing, but uses 250MB of RAM to run instead of the 80MB or whatever the regular one uses now, what do you think has to happen? That's right. Android has to cache that much extra data to your flash memory so it can unload it from the RAM, freeing the necessary space to load Angry Birds HD. This causes more of a delay as it's writing data, and will cause extra choppiness, etc. Another thing to keep in mind is that, as resolutions increase, so do the texture sizes for all applications and widgets that you use, assuming they support the new resolution. More size needed, which takes up more space in RAM.
Don't be fooled. When truly good and proper dual-core benchmarks come out, 1GB RAM dual-core phones will spank their 512MB RAM dual-core brethren for real-world performance in games, and other high-memory applications. Also, excessive caching greatly increases the chance of flash memory going bad. Not a common occurrence if it was fine when shipped, but still something to think about.
So, in summary, even though the performance hit from caching to flash memory isn't as bad as caching to hard disk drives, it's still a tremendous slowdown and it will matter for dual-core phones way more than for single-core ones. The average amount of RAM installed on dual-core desktop computers from Dell/HP/etc. was significantly higher than what the average was for the previous single-core generations were, and there are reasons for that. Primarily, the same reasons I just outlined. In simple terms, faster processors can do more things, which necessarily requires more RAM.
Sorry for the wall of text, I tried to be more concise but it kind of got away from me. I'm not buying a Bionic because it has 512MB of RAM. After owning it a year, it'll be having performance issues on top-end dual-core-required games that run just fine on phones like the Atrix.
I'm sorry because I know this is probably going to come across the wrong way, but WOW, you spent a lot of time writing that up, and too much time for me to read it alll, especially considering Motorola has pulled back on the Bionic and it's receiving "enhancements". I guess what I'm saying is why all the speculation/conjecture until we know the revised specs? Maybe it'll land with 8GB of DDR 6 RAM.
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
Sent from my ERIS using XDA Premium App
I disagree that ram is the single most important factor of performance of a computer.
hard drives are the biggest bottleneck in a computer. this is why I use a vertex 3 ssd.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App
gemro311 said:
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
Sent from my ERIS using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I concur, really hope VZW pushes for a premier device
I disagree. Android isn't expanding as an OS at some breakneck pace and 512MB is definitely suitable for the near future. 1GB is absolutely not necessary for great performance in a phone. RAM is a bottleneck, but it is not something that magically allows for better performance if the device isn't hitting the pagefile anyway.
The way that Android manages applications will allow 512MB phones to be relevant for some time. The Bionic will be a solid phone for the next year, but there will always be something bigger and better next year. Phones aren't future-proof.
I was just checking out this thread and wanted to say maybe the reason that the atrix comes with 1gb of ram is because of the extra contraption that you can buy along with. It looks like a netbook but is not very well performing and who would even care to rely on it for anything I don't know.
gemro311 said:
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
Sent from my ERIS using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I certainly hope Motorola makes the required improvements, but you also need to keep in mind Verizon approves and in many if not all cases specs the phones they want. They chose the specs, they had to live with the specs. I think once they saw what was coming they figured it was no longer premiere and wanted changes made.
Regardless of why its been pulled back the fact that it was is good, but if its going to take 4-5 months to get it out the door they should have just scrapped it altogether.
E30kid said:
I disagree. Android isn't expanding as an OS at some breakneck pace and 512MB is definitely suitable for the near future. 1GB is absolutely not necessary for great performance in a phone. RAM is a bottleneck, but it is not something that magically allows for better performance if the device isn't hitting the pagefile anyway.
The way that Android manages applications will allow 512MB phones to be relevant for some time. The Bionic will be a solid phone for the next year, but there will always be something bigger and better next year. Phones aren't future-proof.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, wait for Ice Cream and we'll see. Since the future Android version will also run in tablets, it is likely that it will have huge memory requirements.
By the way, my Acer Liquid A1 can't be officially upgraded to Froyo because it only has 256Mb. Later Liquid models with 512Mb are upgradeable. At the time I bought it, 512Mb seemed unnecessary because the Nexus One operating system only supported 256Mb, having the other 256Mb wasted. This was only 12 months ago...
galaxyjeff said:
I was just checking out this thread and wanted to say maybe the reason that the atrix comes with 1gb of ram is because of the extra contraption that you can buy along with. It looks like a netbook but is not very well performing and who would even care to rely on it for anything I don't know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you are on to something here. I think I read somewhere that the atrix only uses 512 mb when not connected to the dock. I have the inspire which has 768 mb, and I came from the captivate which was 512 mb, and I done know if is the ram or what but this phone performs way better than the captivate. Even when I bought the inspire, right out the box stock, preformed much better than a captivate overclocked with an ext4 filesystem kernel. Not that this is empirical evidence, but hey.
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using XDA Premium App
cryptiq said:
I'm sorry because I know this is probably going to come across the wrong way, but WOW, you spent a lot of time writing that up, and too much time for me to read it alll, especially considering Motorola has pulled back on the Bionic and it's receiving "enhancements". I guess what I'm saying is why all the speculation/conjecture until we know the revised specs? Maybe it'll land with 8GB of DDR 6 RAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I lol'd. But seriously 512 MB of RAM is more than enough... It's a PHONE not a high end desktop system. I play tons of games on my x2 and with alot of crap in the backround open, and I notice zero performance hits. If you are spending all day monitoring your RAM on your phone and trying to measure FPS loss, load time differences, etc. I suggest that you try to pick up a new hobby ASAP, OCDing will be the end of you. Best of luck!
Edit: I wouldn't worry about it either! Bionic probably won't come out anyways, and if it does, another phone with 1GB to satisfy your OCD probably will be out by then.
As of now, I feel ALL future top tier smart phones need to come equipped with at least 1GB of DDR2. The G2x, for example, will most likely have issues running a custom ice cream rom. And people will be upset.. especially after putting up with all of the other various problems that particular phone has.
OP, I don't agree entirely with your explanation of the use of caching by the OS - for all 3 major computer OSes, no matter how much excess RAM you have, they will start caching data to the hard drive, whether you like it or not. Obviously if you run out of RAM, it has to do so, but it'll even do it long before you've hit that cap - just because it determines an application has gone "inactive". Now I haven't read up on Android enough to know whether this is 100% true for it, too, but considering it's running a linux kernel, I would imagine so. So just like the 8GB of RAM in my desktop doesn't necessarily help for everyday computing needs, 1GB vs 512mb on the Bionic may not make a huge difference.
raptordrew said:
OP, I don't agree entirely with your explanation of the use of caching by the OS - for all 3 major computer OSes, no matter how much excess RAM you have, they will start caching data to the hard drive, whether you like it or not. Obviously if you run out of RAM, it has to do so, but it'll even do it long before you've hit that cap - just because it determines an application has gone "inactive". Now I haven't read up on Android enough to know whether this is 100% true for it, too, but considering it's running a linux kernel, I would imagine so. So just like the 8GB of RAM in my desktop doesn't necessarily help for everyday computing needs, 1GB vs 512mb on the Bionic may not make a huge difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i beg to differ
my captivate; even though its a single core...is still quite capable at most everyday tasks...only thing lacking is the RAM
my phone will slow to a crawl after entering twitter, switching to pulse and then going back to my homescreen....
not to mention my launcher keeps getting killed by android as it keeps running out of RAM
droid_does said:
i beg to differ
my captivate; even though its a single core...is still quite capable at most everyday tasks...only thing lacking is the RAM
my phone will slow to a crawl after entering twitter, switching to pulse and then going back to my homescreen....
not to mention my launcher keeps getting killed by android as it keeps running out of RAM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have to lol at this one. Absolutely none of those issues have to do with amount of RAM. In fact the launcher problem has nothing to do with RAM at all.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
While I appreciate other people who have the same amount of passion for phones as I do, I just have two words to say about anyone saying phones with 512 mb ram will not get Ice Cream Sandwich. Nexus S.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
mb02 said:
I have to lol at this one. Absolutely none of those issues have to do with amount of RAM. In fact the launcher problem has nothing to do with RAM at all.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it does as android keeps killing it to free up more RAM to use......
droid_does said:
it does as android keeps killing it to free up more RAM to use......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea the task manager is killing the apps to keep ram freed up, as in stopping unused processes etc. That's just the aggressive working of the management software that would run just the same if you even had 8GB of ram.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
timothymilla said:
While I appreciate other people who have the same amount of passion for phones as I do, I just have two words to say about anyone saying phones with 512 mb ram will not get Ice Cream Sandwich. Nexus S.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Remember when everyone thought Gingerbread would require a 1GHz processor as a system requirement, which was later debunked?
http://www.talkandroid.com/23041-so...ngerbread-update-due-to-1ghz-cpu-requirement/
Nobody can say what will and will not get updated for sure, although I will venture to say that it's HIGHLY likely the Nexus S will be getting 2.4, you're right.
zetsumeikuro said:
I lol'd. But seriously 512 MB of RAM is more than enough... It's a PHONE not a high end desktop system. I play tons of games on my x2 and with alot of crap in the backround open, and I notice zero performance hits. If you are spending all day monitoring your RAM on your phone and trying to measure FPS loss, load time differences, etc. I suggest that you try to pick up a new hobby ASAP, OCDing will be the end of you. Best of luck!
Edit: I wouldn't worry about it either! Bionic probably won't come out anyways, and if it does, another phone with 1GB to satisfy your OCD probably will be out by then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
512 mb is not enough for a dual core 4G phone it just isnt. the thunderbolt has 768 mb and its only single core and 4G and let me tell you it would be way faster with the 1024 mb of ram i cant imagine how laggy the bionic would be if you start doing anything with it! the 512 ram will be ate up in no time! i sure hope verizon reconsiders and adds more ram or i probably wont use this device as my daily phone either keep the thunderbolt with more ram which is sad cause it has been out for awhile now and the droid x also has 512 ram and it has been out for a year and they cant make improvements?? and they are going to want $299+++ for this phone ON CONTRACT! it better have more than 512 ram or it aint worth a lick! rip this phone open and put my own ram in it!
As I previously read, out of the 512 MB of our O2X's, some 128-140 MB are reserved for the Tegra chip-set, and the rest of 380 MB are available to Android and applications.
With Froyo, there were usually 180-200 MB of memory free after booting/killing all apps, and like 90-130 MB free after normal usage. I'm not sure, but if I remember correctly, in the running apps screen, the sum of the used/available memory summed up to about the previous stated 380 MB.
After applying the GB update, after booting/killing all apps there are only 140 MB free and about 60 MB after some usage. If I go to Manage Apps -> Running apps, the sum of the used and available memory is around 310-320.
My question is: why is there less memory available in GB? Has LG increased the graphics memory from 128 MB to 192 MB? If yes, is it possible to change this allocation? Or is there a ROM that uses less graphics memory?
Maybe GB reports available memory differently, but it's definitely noticeable that there's less RAM available. If switching from browser to another app, with Froyo the page loaded was kept in memory, however with GB the page always has to be reloaded even if the switch lasted like 20-30 seconds.
Edit: I'd like to use less graphics memory and have more RAM so my apps run faster.
No the Vram is the same. The phone still has 380 mb ram to use for the OS and apps. Also free ram is wasted ram since apps are not cached so they will not launch faster.
taxas said:
No the Vram is the same. The phone still has 380 mb ram to use for the OS and apps. Also free ram is wasted ram since apps are not cached in for they will launch faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And therefore taskplanners are also not needed ;-)
KillerbeeNL said:
And therefore taskplanners are also not needed ;-)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not completely true. Android kills automatically unneeded processes, that's true, but sometimes it happens that an app remains in background and uses the 100% of the CPU, so i use the task killers to terminate it.
Try Super charger, very efficient and not as resources consuming than apps. Search the dedicated thread.
And I don't think there is a way to free graphical memory. I don't think it's software driven but physical...
The only thing that had been made is to free the reserved memory for OTA LG service, that leaves you some more memory, but only available in some roms.
Striatum_bdr said:
Try Super charger, very efficient and not as resources consuming than apps. Search the dedicated thread.
And I don't think there is a way to free graphical memory. I don't think it's software driven but physical...
The only thing that had been made is to free the reserved memory for OTA LG service, that leaves you some more memory, but only available in some roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its possible to give the GPU less memory, different defs have done it (i.e benee). But as far as i know most of them removed that tweak since it was causing alot of bugs.
And yes, free ram are most likely wasted ram.
Sent from my Optimus 2X using Tapatalk
If ya want to change vram look at this: https://raw.github.com/gist/1170959/73e5f41b1ad8b3bb65c8bd22d422a4fd877204a3/CarveoutMemory
It contains a little info about the things you need to change. Some skills required though
kiljacken said:
If ya want to change vram look at this: https://raw.github.com/gist/1170959/73e5f41b1ad8b3bb65c8bd22d422a4fd877204a3/CarveoutMemory
It contains a little info about the things you need to change. Some skills required though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi kiljacken !
I remember that you've made some times ago a kernel with 64mb more of ram...
Also for the stock rom...
butI can't find it anymore...
Any help?
Thanks for the replies guys!
It seems like if possible, it's very complicated to change the video memory allocation, so I'll leave it like that.
hey all!
i have question like that! im working on electronic factory and have no problems with solder out and in BGA chips even the smallest ones! now the question! if i will solder out the ram chip and solder back in 1GB ram chip of the same tipe and company(i have acces to all the part available on the market)?
oleg1981 said:
hey all!
i have question like that! im working on electronic factory and have no problems with solder out and in BGA chips even the smallest ones! now the question! if i will solder out the ram chip and solder back in 1GB ram chip of the same tipe and company(i have acces to all the part available on the market)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How small is the solder required? Would be amazing if we could upgrade.
Sent from my LG-P990 using Tapatalk
oleg1981 said:
hey all!
i have question like that! im working on electronic factory and have no problems with solder out and in BGA chips even the smallest ones! now the question! if i will solder out the ram chip and solder back in 1GB ram chip of the same tipe and company(i have acces to all the part available on the market)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm very unsure. I am sure though, that both kernel and boot image changes would be needed to run with the added memory
i think it's impposible to change the graphic memory size, maybe RAM hack? if you want to free RAM just use supercharger, i already used that and my free ram about 117-130 MB
It's completely possible, it's something that's controlled by the kernel.
Such kernels already were in the spring which reduced video memory by 64 Mb
Rusty! said:
It's completely possible, it's something that's controlled by the kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so if I'm understanding correct if i will solder in new memory chip all i will need is to find how to change the ram value from 372 to 872?
oleg1981 said:
so if I'm understanding correct if i will solder in new memory chip all i will need is to find how to change the ram value from 372 to 872?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose if LG's programmers were careful enough not to hard-code any values, the phone should detect the memory like a computer detects new RAM. However ROMs which target multiple devices with different RAM, like CM, shouldn't have such issues...
I would LOVE 1GB ram! What would such ram cost?
Guys, RAM amounts are hardcoded into the kernel, so a custom kernel would be needed to use the ram. IF it's even possible to use such amounts of RAM. There migth be limitations in the bootloader, which will cause problems, but kernel changes should be enough. If you try it on your device I would be glad to provide a kernel that supports that amount of RAM, but I don't think it's doable. AFAIK the RAM is tightly packed in the device with many other components. It might even be built into the SoC making it impossible to change. But IDK, feel free to try what you want, but remember it's your device that gets destroyed if something goes wrong.
Do it OP!
Sent from my Optimus 2X using Tapatalk
I saw a lot of complaints about lags, when the memory is filled, etc.
As we know, ssd performance degrades as it gets filled, that's true, however, project butter is based on a lot of caching.
I would suggest to keep your storage at least 15% free, and more importantly, check the cache size of your favorite apps, especially after a big write operation, like downloaded a hd movie or installed a large game. These kind of operations tend to take space aggressively, leading to cache performance suffering. Just clear the cache if the cache is big.
I've been using chrome intensively for the past week (the first week with my n7), chrome had built >200mb cache already. I cleared it, now my n7 is like butter flying again.
i dont get where you get off saying that performance decreases when the SSD is filled up. I had my nexus 7 filled up almost to the max (16gb) and it didn't lag one bit. It's probably just the babies around here that like to complain everything that are experiencing the lag. what about the other two hundred and forty million people out there not complaining?
It has been proven that the lag exist and if you haven't experienced then good for u. Half of the people will never experience because not all of users will fill up space fully. Other half doesn't know about existence of this forum and lag thread etc.
Sent from desire s
Foka002 said:
It has been proven that the lag exist and if you haven't experienced then good for u. Half of the people will never experience because not all of users will fill up space fully. Other half doesn't know about existence of this forum and lag thread etc.
Sent from desire s
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sure the lag exists... but he's saying it's due to storage issues. I personally don't think so; SSD do not lag, they might take .5 milli second to read through, but so what? we've become a generation of no patience. There must be some other issue regarding the lag that people are experiencing. I can almost 100% guarantee its not the SSD
Some apps collect memory when they run for long periods of time and start to hog the system down.
However, the main culprit in Android lag is the way it treats UI rendering. It has nothing to do with how much an ssd is filled.
Beards said:
Some apps collect memory when they run for long periods of time and start to hog the system down.
However, the main culprit in Android lag is the way it treats UI rendering. It has nothing to do with how much an ssd is filled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Project butter has triple caching for cpu, gpu, display. Ui rendering is gpu and display related, it needs caching too. Do you now where it's the cache from? It's part of ssd.
MRsf27 said:
i dont get where you get off saying that performance decreases when the SSD is filled up. I had my nexus 7 filled up almost to the max (16gb) and it didn't lag one bit. It's probably just the babies around here that like to complain everything that are experiencing the lag. what about the other two hundred and forty million people out there not complaining?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't have the problem, which doesn't mean other people don't either.
Here is the lag thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=31647380
MRsf27 said:
sure the lag exists... but he's saying it's due to storage issues. I personally don't think so; SSD do not lag, they might take .5 milli second to read through, but so what? we've become a generation of no patience. There must be some other issue regarding the lag that people are experiencing. I can almost 100% guarantee its not the SSD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ssd cannot get that magic latency number all the time. It needs memory banks to increase throughput. It has to have enough space for memory banks, if there is not enough space left, the throughput and latency will suffer. This can explain some larger ssds are faster than smaller ones, with the same everything else.
angellsl said:
Ssd cannot get that magic latency number all the time. It needs memory banks to increase throughput. It has to have enough space for memory banks, if there is not enough space left, the throughput and latency will suffer. This can explain some larger ssds are faster than smaller ones, with the same everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand what you're saying, however, the speed at which a SSD will read is gonna be faster, regardless of these memory banks; I'm sure thats why when they release a 16gb version of a device and you only get 13gb, it has to be accounted for something. they do not have 3gb worth of worthless OS apps. i'm sure that's saved up storage for extra memory.
MRsf27 said:
I understand what you're saying, however, the speed at which a SSD will read is gonna be faster, regardless of these memory banks; I'm sure thats why when they release a 16gb version of a device and you only get 13gb, it has to be accounted for something. they do not have 3gb worth of worthless OS apps. i'm sure that's saved up storage for extra memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Storage capacities mentioned by retails usually follow 1000MB = 1GB, whereas the true value is 1024MB = 1GB. This is one cause for lower then reported size available.
Another reason is, possibly, the space just isn't accessible. For example, I have a 500GB HDD. Only 465GB is usable. Regardless if the 500GB reported is 1000MB=1GB or 1024MB=1GB, 465GB is still falls short. And this is with a complete drive wipe too. My 80GB HDD also does this (74GB usable), and I'm almost certain 99% of storage media does this too (I have yet to see any storage device listed that has the exact amount of storage usable as specified on the box).
To further what I mentioned above, the storage chip used isn't as static with usable storage space when manufactured. What I mean is, one 16GB SSD chip might have a few MB difference on usable space then another 16GB chip of the same make. To compensate for this, and to keep a uniform device specification, the partition is just locked at 13GB usable.
I have a feeling storage media is just marked to what "nice" number it rounds to, regardless if it has that much or not (16GB = 20GB, 91GB = 100GB, etc.).
espionage724 said:
Storage capacities mentioned by retails usually follow 1000MB = 1GB, whereas the true value is 1024MB = 1GB. This is one cause for lower then reported size available.
Another reason is, possibly, the space just isn't accessible. For example, I have a 500GB HDD. Only 465GB is usable. Regardless if the 500GB reported is 1000MB=1GB or 1024MB=1GB, 465GB is still falls short. And this is with a complete drive wipe too. My 80GB HDD also does this (74GB usable), and I'm almost certain 99% of storage media does this too (I have yet to see any storage device listed that has the exact amount of storage usable as specified on the box).
To further what I mentioned above, the storage chip used isn't as static with usable storage space when manufactured. What I mean is, one 16GB SSD chip might have a few MB difference on usable space then another 16GB chip of the same make. To compensate for this, and to keep a uniform device specification, the partition is just locked at 13GB usable.
I have a feeling storage media is just marked to what "nice" number it rounds to, regardless if it has that much or not (16GB = 20GB, 91GB = 100GB, etc.).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"usable" space. that unusable space must be used for something regardless if we can't access it.
MRsf27 said:
i dont get where you get off saying that performance decreases when the SSD is filled up. I had my nexus 7 filled up almost to the max (16gb) and it didn't lag one bit. It's probably just the babies around here that like to complain everything that are experiencing the lag. what about the other two hundred and forty million people out there not complaining?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Complete and utter logic fail... Good job!
Sent from my GT-P7310 using Tapatalk 2
angellsl said:
I saw a lot of complaints about lags, when the memory is filled, etc.
As we know, ssd performance degrades as it gets filled, that's true, however, project butter is based on a lot of caching.
I would suggest to keep your storage at least 15% free, and more importantly, check the cache size of your favorite apps, especially after a big write operation, like downloaded a hd movie or installed a large game. These kind of operations tend to take space aggressively, leading to cache performance suffering. Just clear the cache if the cache is big.
I've been using chrome intensively for the past week (the first week with my n7), chrome had built >200mb cache already. I cleared it, now my n7 is like butter flying again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i will second the OP's cache fix and say it worked for me as well. my Chrome cache was up to 144MB and reboots would not fix the constant lag, so i cleared the cache, rebooted, and it was back to blazing fast for me.
MRsf27 said:
sure the lag exists... but he's saying it's due to storage issues. I personally don't think so; SSD do not lag, they might take .5 milli second to read through, but so what? we've become a generation of no patience. There must be some other issue regarding the lag that people are experiencing. I can almost 100% guarantee its not the SSD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You seem to be confusing the Nexus 7's emmc storage for a high speed ssd. It is only capable of ~15MBps read and write.
Depending on how cache is chunked (assuming it even is), it could easily cause the lag people are seeing.
---------- Post added at 11:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:12 PM ----------
espionage724 said:
Storage capacities mentioned by retails usually follow 1000MB = 1GB, whereas the true value is 1024MB = 1GB. This is one cause for lower then reported size available.
Another reason is, possibly, the space just isn't accessible. For example, I have a 500GB HDD. Only 465GB is usable. Regardless if the 500GB reported is 1000MB=1GB or 1024MB=1GB, 465GB is still falls short. And this is with a complete drive wipe too. My 80GB HDD also does this (74GB usable), and I'm almost certain 99% of storage media does this too (I have yet to see any storage device listed that has the exact amount of storage usable as specified on the box).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, the term Gibibyte (GiB) is now used for 1024 values in storage - although you're right about it being due to manufacturers.
A 500GB hard drive will always be 465GB, you're right that 1GB = 1000MB, but you also need to take into account that 1MB = 1000KB and 1KB = 1000B.
If you do the sums, you'll find the exact difference is always 7% (by dividing 1 by 1. 024 three times) . Which is why you'll find 465 is 93% of 500, and the same for 74 of 80.
MRsf27 said:
sure the lag exists... but he's saying it's due to storage issues. I personally don't think so; SSD do not lag, they might take .5 milli second to read through, but so what? we've become a generation of no patience. There must be some other issue regarding the lag that people are experiencing. I can almost 100% guarantee its not the SSD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's because of certain apps which are running. When mine starts to lag, I clear caches and stop apps. Mine wouldn't lag before I installed a few new apps in the past couple weeks. could be news360 or pulse or flipboard. Could also be nexus 7 media importer. Mine never lagged before I installed any of those.
My lag had gotten bad. Androbench showed SQL speed in 1 or less. But I've found a workaround which really 1000% improves it. Running Francos kernel with fsync off...
Makes a HUGE difference for me in all apps. Especially Facebook and TiVo.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
---------- Post added at 04:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:10 AM ----------
BTW - Google now app loads instantly now. Took at least 10 seconds. Before. Same for Google chrome.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Don't even bother filling. Encrypt and watch the speed drop to 1/10 on a blank fresh install. :/ deal breaker for me, unfortunately. I have to be able to encrypt and won't put up with a tablet that feels two years older than it is.
These are after encryption and before. Clean machine with 4.1.1 and everything killed. In a day with 2 or three things installed, the encrypted result halves.
Lag existence even if when i play a game like pool....
Envoyé depuis mon Nexus 7 avec Tapatalk
Hi,
I'm a bit surprised that if I add free memory and used memory from the Settings app the total is about 1.7 gb. Ain't we supposed to get 2gb? I hope sony didn't do the hdd trick (see wikipedia page on Kibibyte, I cannot post link as a junior member) and even so 2000000/1048576 = 1.907 ... where's my ram?
Under CPU-Z that show : 1.732Mb.
Your OS doesn't need RAM to function right?
Dsteppa said:
Your OS doesn't need RAM to function right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes it does but I thought it will be included in the "used memory"... if the OS takes 300 mb that's ok but why I only got 900 mb free when I kill all apps? I used to have a nexus 4 and with the same amount of memory on chip there was a *LOT* more available in the settings menu.
Geolm said:
yes it does but I thought it will be included in the "used memory"... if the OS takes 300 mb that's ok but why I only got 900 mb free when I kill all apps? I used to have a nexus 4 and with the same amount of memory on chip there was a *LOT* more available in the settings menu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That 900MB figure is about the same I normally have free. Various apps and services take up about 800MB on my phone, which seems excessive but I've turned off all background stuff that I can (some Google and Xperia services just won't go away, however). The only good news is that Android will free up memory if it's needed so that 900MB is not a finite figure (at least that's what I assume).
Hmm. I generally have no more than about 300 mb free memory at any given moment. Even just a few minutes after reboot. No weird apps or excessive widgets. Do you guys really have 900 mb free? You can check your memory on the fly using Cool Tool from Google Play.
The Z3C has 2GB of RAM, don't worry. What you are missing is used by shared graphics memory. BTW: This is exactly the reason why the Z3 has 3GB of memory (instead of 2GB) for its screen resolution is full HD opposed to "only" HD on the Z3C.
Anyhow, is it really necessary to start another thread on the same topic if there already is one?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/general/ram-2gb-1-69gb-t2941487
sxtester said:
The Z3C has 2GB of RAM, don't worry. What you are missing is used by shared graphics memory. BTW: This is exactly the reason why the Z3 has 3GB of memory (instead of 2GB) for its screen resolution is full HD opposed to "only" HD on the Z3C.
Anyhow, is it really necessary to start another thread on the same topic if there already is one?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/general/ram-2gb-1-69gb-t2941487
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never had any doubts about the two gigs. But how much free memory do you have on your Z3C after a reboot and after a few hours of typical usage? My other phones with this much ram have generally had a lot more memory available at any given moment. Not that *free* memory is of any particular use in android, but I'm still curious to see whether your Z3C's are the same.
Fruktsallad said:
I have never had any doubts about the two gigs. But how much free memory do you have on your Z3C after a reboot and after a few hours of typical usage? My other phones with this much ram have generally had a lot more memory available at any given moment. Not that *free* memory is of any particular use in android, but I'm still curious to see whether your Z3C's are the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I boot up the phone and immediatly check it shows some 800MB of free memory. About 500 to 600MB after a couple of days, fluctuating though. However, don't think these numbers have any meaning for Android keeps as much in memory as possible in order to increase responsiveness. It also depends on the Apps installed and the bloat disabled/blocked. Further, comparing it to other phones you had earlier might also be misleading since the version of Android could be a different one, hence comparing apples to apples would just not be possible.
When I reboot the tablet and look the free ram memory only have 1,5 ram free, is it the normal when this tab has 3 gb ram? I have thunderrom and skyhigh kernel installed.
Yep. It's for most of the android processes and important things that need to run. I also get that much too.
Sent from SMT800 using Tapatalk.
-Helper around Tab S forums√
Active Everyday√
yeiyei0891 said:
When I reboot the tablet and look the free ram memory only have 1,5 ram free, is it the normal when this tab has 3 gb ram? I have thunderrom and skyhigh kernel installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup that's totally normal I'm running cm12 and it's using 1.5GB.
I'm on stock, non rooted and using ES Explorers task killer i can still have about 1.4GB free.
Ok, then 3gb RAM but really you can use less that half of it.
Yep. But hey at least we got 3 GB of ram instead of 2 GB!
Sent from SMT800 using Tapatalk.
-Helper around Tab S forums√
Active Everyday√
DUHAsianSKILLZ said:
Yep. But hey at least we got 3 GB of ram instead of 2 GB!
Sent from SMT800 using Tapatalk.
-Helper around Tab S forums√
Active Everyday√
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah i get 2GB to use because my system uses 1GB
yeiyei0891 said:
Ok, then 3gb RAM but really you can use less that half of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do wish people would actually learn about RAM and why free RAM is actually wasted RAM.
A good summary can be found here: http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
foxmeister said:
I do wish people would actually learn about RAM and why free RAM is actually wasted RAM.
A good summary can be found here: http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah but otoh caching boat load of stuff into ram that won't be used is a waste of battery.
I look at the list of running processes with a system monitor and I have to say WTF does it just load every thing or what. It's running apps I don't even use any more but haven't uninstalled just in case. So if I don't want them running I have to freeze them. And that does not include all the system processes whose purpose I can't even tell. It's kind of nuts.
foxmeister said:
I do wish people would actually learn about RAM and why free RAM is actually wasted RAM.
A good summary can be found here: http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry but you should start to learn yourself. The RAM displayed as free is actually used as a file cache. Besides, Android killing apps in the background means that it takes longer to start a new app in a low RAM situation (because the new app needs to wait until the LMK cleared enough space) and of course you lose the context of the closed app (it needs to reload data from the internal storage or even worse from the web when you restart it).
TheGoD said:
Sorry but you should start to learn yourself. The RAM displayed as free is actually used as a file cache. Besides, Android killing apps in the background means that it takes longer to start a new app in a low RAM situation (because the new app needs to wait until the LMK cleared enough space) and of course you lose the context of the closed app (it needs to reload data from the internal storage or even worse from the web when you restart it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you in a low RAM situation when you have 1GB free out of 3GB? NO! 0.5GB out of 3GB? NO!
Does it take a significant amount if time to reclaim resources when android does require additional RAM, because it genuinely is in a low RAM situation? No, because it unceremoniously terminates unused processes, releasing resources to the kernel almost immediately. This is very different from garbage collection to release unused memory from active processes.
Don't just believe me though - take it from the people who actually wrote the OS - http://android-developers.blogspot.de/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html?m=1
It's also worth saying that you've also validated my statement "Free RAM is wasted RAM" by saying that the OS "uses" free RAM as a file cache.
All that being said, the context of this entire thread is why the OS is "using" 1.5GB out of 3GB pretty much at boot. All I've said is why this is perfectly normal, and in the general usage case, actually not undesirable.
Of couse there will be specific usage cases, where this is not going to be the optimum approach, but this is only going to affect a very small minority of users, with extremely memory demanding applications.
barth2 said:
Yeah but otoh caching boat load of stuff into ram that won't be used is a waste of battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. RAM impact on battery life is, for all practical purposes, insensitive to the amount of RAM being used. When sections of RAM are clear, the locations are not zeroed out or anything. Instead the space is just added to a free space table. Stuff in RAM not being used does not waste battery. The exception to this is if that RAM is being occupied by a misbehaving program that is driving CPU usage.
foxmeister said:
Are you in a low RAM situation when you have 1GB free out of 3GB? NO! 0.5GB out of 3GB? NO!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Foxmeister is exactly right. In nearly all real world cases, higher RAM usage leads to faster performance and better battery life.
GeorgeP said:
No. RAM impact on battery life is, for all practical purposes, insensitive to the amount of RAM being used. When sections of RAM are clear, the locations are not zeroed out or anything. Instead the space is just added to a free space table. Stuff in RAM not being used does not waste battery. The exception to this is if that RAM is being occupied by a misbehaving program that is driving CPU usage.
Foxmeister is exactly right. In nearly all real world cases, higher RAM usage leads to faster performance and better battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, but you still have to get the data into RAM. That takes power, which it is wasted if the data is never used.
barth2 said:
No, but you still have to get the data into RAM. That takes power, which it is wasted if the data is never used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a trade off - preload the processes and data so that they can be accessed far more quickly (less lag) if and when required. Once in memory, if they are not being used the battery drain is negligible.
The reduction in perceived lag is *far* greater than any battery drain.
Regards,
Dave
barth2 said:
No, but you still have to get the data into RAM. That takes power, which it is wasted if the data is never used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL! Now are in angels dancing on a the head of a pin territory:laugh:
GeorgeP said:
LOL! Now are in angels dancing on a the head of a pin territory:laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lag is mostly a function of user expectation.
When you open a new app that is not running, you expect a delay. So as long as it's not excessively long, you don't feel lag. unnecessary preloading then just increases bootup time and long boot up time DOES bother people.
Now it makes sense to preload frequently used apps and some system apps that have high probability of being needed. But what I was talking about is seeing apps I used once once weeks ago still get loaded, while some apps I use every session, like my browser, not loaded on start up. The algorithm needs tweaking.
(Large apps like games have long load time, but you are not going to cache those so they are not in the conversation.)
Most lags people experience is in app lag. It's mostly due to loading graphics onto the screen, screen painting, and garbage collection.
What baffles me is I have an iPad 3 (there have been 4 generations of iPads since then) , which on paper is like a Toyota Camry compared to the Tab S BMW 300. And yet on many same apps the iPad feels smoother, scrolling around is less jerky. The only place where the Tab S is superior is 3d games like asphalt with high details and because it has 3x memory, apps need reloading less.
barth2 said:
Lag is mostly a function of user expectation.
When you open a new app that is not running, you expect a delay. So as long as it's not excessively long, you don't feel lag. unnecessary preloading then just increases bootup time and long boot up time DOES bother people.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The vast majority of users (i.e. the sort of user who doesn't frequent sites like XDA) probably don't reboot their tablets/phones very often at all, so most people probably aren't that bothered.
I rather suspect that the engineers at Google have experimented with an awful lot of different strategies, before settling on what we have now.
Is it perfect? No. Like everything software related, it could do with improvement but this is always a continuous, on going process
Regards,
Dave