RAM management - Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Questions and Answers

My only criticism with the N8 is RAM management. I moved from the Xperia XZ with 3GB of RAM and purposefully went for a device with 6GB because of reloads. Yet my N8 reloads the sites and apps in question every bit as much. I read that he N8 had much better RAM management with Nougat, is this so?*

My N950F 128 GB model almost never reloads, it only reloads when I execute device maintainance, which clears ram and all cached non essential stuff

I'm on Nougat and mine reloads after opening just two other apps briefly, or one app when using it extensively. Having 6 GB of RAM has had no improvement in this regard over the phones I've had with 2 gb of RAM.
I wish we could dedicate a certain amount of RAM to a few of our most used apps.

I never understood how the phone could use nearly 3.5 gigs of ram for background processes.

It would appear that there is no benefit when using a phone with 6GB versus a phone with 3 or 4GB. What a shame. A massive waste of multitasking possibilities.

You guys do realize free ram is wasted ram on android....
Since android 5.0 Ram management has gotten so much better..So what if you only have say 1 gb free Thats a good thing you are utilizing what you got...Nothing beats a good reboot once every couple days clear it out.Ram managers are a waste of battery...

https://www.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
Good article on RAM and what's stored and used in it.

TheMadScientist said:
You guys do realize free ram is wasted ram on android....
Since android 5.0 Ram management has gotten so much better..So what if you only have say 1 gb free Thats a good thing you are utilizing what you got...Nothing beats a good reboot once every couple days clear it out.Ram managers are a waste of battery...
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That doesn't explain why my 6GB N8 reloads just as badly as my 3GB Xperia XZ. It holds hardly anything in memory before reloading/refreshing. I love the phone but specifically got it for the RAM which in my experience is kinda for show. It doesn't improve anything.

Well, I agree with you being so upset about YOUR particular note 8 behaving as a 3 gb ram device or worse, but my device reloads only sometimes, not all the time, I usually have some 800-1000 mb of free ram, in device maintainance I have some 60 apps unmonitored and 194 to always sleeping untill I run them

Use eternal process lock.. Its an xposed module.. It will lock the app and it will not be killed.

winol said:
Well, I agree with you being so upset about YOUR particular note 8 behaving as a 3 gb ram device or worse, but my device reloads only sometimes, not all the time, I usually have some 800-1000 mb of free ram, in device maintainance I have some 60 apps unmonitored and 194 to always sleeping untill I run them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't reload all the time, it just reloads the same apps with the same frequency that my Xperia XZ did. It must be down to Android ram management rather than the amount of RAM itself.

Related

RAM

Got my Galaxy Note and am loving it! It's model N7000. When I look at RAM usage it's always at 600+/800. Is there a reason it uses so muc memory? And isn't the phone supposed to have 1024MB of RAM?
the rest of the memory is used for apps, cache, rom etc etc.
i wouldnt worry, if you have 600meg showing then youre doing well considering after installing a lot of stuff you usually end up with 300meg plus showing, either way, its not an issue, theres still more than enough there and you really dont need to worry.
TouchWiz steals 200MB of your RAM at startup, so that leaves you with 800MB of free ram for apps and widgets and whatnot..
The same happens with HTC phones, it takes a certain amount of RAM to run Sense on.
My Note also uses 600+ RAM most of the time, it's pretty normal with some apps running. Nothing to worry about though. You've got enough of it anyways.
I'd be worried if 1GB of RAM wouldn't be enough for most of us. But it's plenty.

[Q] is there really 2 gb of memory in this phone?

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.

Is it normal only 1,5 gb ram free?

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.
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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.
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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!
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DUHAsianSKILLZ said:
Yep. But hey at least we got 3 GB of ram instead of 2 GB!
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Click to expand...
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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.
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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
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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

[Q] Memory usage versus the S5?

So I'm not well versed in the amount of memory certain functions should take up, but what I have noticed is that the S6 is supposed to have 3G ram right?
Well on my S5 I would have around 1k-1.2k ram unused on average when I would check. The S5 had 2gb of ram and had around conservatively 1000mb free from my experience. So if the S6 has an entire GB more, why am I constantly at ~800 ram free. What is that extra ~1.2k being taking up by the system that's so significant in difference from the S5?
If this has already been answered then apologies but I've been looking around for a while and I haven't come across an explanation yet
Alarand said:
So I'm not well versed in the amount of memory certain functions should take up, but what I have noticed is that the S6 is supposed to have 3G ram right?
Well on my S5 I would have around 1k-1.2k ram unused on average when I would check. The S5 had 2gb of ram and had around conservatively 1000mb free from my experience. So if the S6 has an entire GB more, why am I constantly at ~800 ram free. What is that extra ~1.2k being taking up by the system that's so significant in difference from the S5?
If this has already been answered then apologies but I've been looking around for a while and I haven't come across an explanation yet
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've wondered about this as well, theoretically with the extra 1gb of ram, the s6 should have more free time available, but I've noticed that the s6 with 3gb vs 2gb on the s5 has less free ram available.. I want to know what's using that extra gb of ram as well?
Alarand said:
So I'm not well versed in the amount of memory certain functions should take up, but what I have noticed is that the S6 is supposed to have 3G ram right?
Well on my S5 I would have around 1k-1.2k ram unused on average when I would check. The S5 had 2gb of ram and had around conservatively 1000mb free from my experience. So if the S6 has an entire GB more, why am I constantly at ~800 ram free. What is that extra ~1.2k being taking up by the system that's so significant in difference from the S5?
If this has already been answered then apologies but I've been looking around for a while and I haven't come across an explanation yet
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's all to do with the way Android works. Android LIKES to fill your RAM up as much as it can. This is the reason why RAM killer apps don't work and end up doing more harm than good. Usually end up wasting more battery because as soon as you clear the ram the OS is just going to go and fill it up again a few minute later.
Ram management has been very good since ice cream sandwich (except for the memory leak on 5.0.2) Just let it do it's thing. And as H3adru5H said don't use app killers anymore, this isn't gingerbread.
ThePagel said:
Ram management has been very good since ice cream sandwich (except for the memory leak on 5.0.2) Just let it do it's thing. And as H3adru5H said don't use app killers anymore, this isn't gingerbread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, from what I understand as long as you have an acceptable amount available, ie apps aren't FCing/dying in the background, the amount of free ram is fairly irrelevant. Not really worried so much as curious :cyclops:
I'm looking around on google, so again I won't be offended if you're too busy to answer, I like solving things on my own but I'm a giant noob
Would that mean that the extra ~1gb being taken up on the S6 is just extra optimization of the phone that manages itself and I shouldn't take notice of it?
Also, you said don't use app killer apps cause they tend to do more harm than good. What about opening up non system apps that use data and what not, some still seem to be listed in memory after closing them in the TW tasks menu which is what I've been using the app killer for. I have an ignore list with system stuff and just about everything that stays open anyway on it. Does android manage the closed apps' memory automatically now or something?
Thanks
edit: I use greenify anyway so I guess it's kind of redundant to be killing off the apps I have set to hibernate /derp. I just hate things lingering in the background doing nothing so anytime I can avoid that I try to

Multitasking/RAM

You're busy and don't have time to wait, which is why you need to stop reading this thread and get back to organizing your Pogs. Rate this thread to express how the LG Nexus 5X performs when multitasking. A higher rating indicates that the LG Nexus 5X keeps many apps in memory so that they don't need to reload, and that when moving between apps, transitions are smooth and performance is excellent.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
Does a pretty good job keeping apps in RAM considering it only has 2GB RAM. Can hold about 6 apps.
Holds up just fine with "only" 2GB of RAM. Would I want more? Sure. I don't think there is such a thing as too much RAM. However, the Nexus 5X does hold up just fine with 2GB RAM.
I think amount of RAM is fine, but...
Nexus 5X is very capable phone and multitasking is mostly fine, but I feel that it could be better if LG would use faster flash storage(throughput), when compared to lets say Samsung flash memory that is included in Galaxy S6 and such.
For the most part it seems ok, but i do frequently experience phone locks and lag. Snapchat seems to absolutely hammer the RAM and makes the phone practically unusable, known issue from what i've seen on the Play Store reviews.
Not sure if it's my configuration...
Maybe it's the apps and features I have configured, but I see the memory becoming a problem. I'm sitting at 80% or memory used most of the time, while my N5 (with the same amount of ram) is at 46%. My N5X leaves about 350MB free, which may not cut it for intense use. I'll need to look into tweaks to reduce the OS use of memory, but I'm surprised that the N5, with the same amount of memory but a slower processor, is running more smoothly.
Never had a dropped application. 2GB is enough. I only use 200MB and have 1.7GB available which is enough to run intensive games (which required around 800MB to run).
EDIT: I am using PureNexus as my ROM so it's probably due to optimizations.
2GB is good enough for now, but given that this is a 64-bit device that means installed apps are going to take up more space both in the storage and memory. 2GB may not suffice down the road, even though it's more than enough for now.
Yap, 2 GB is good enough for now.
I really don't think the 2GB is going to be a big problem for me personally.
The 5x seems to do nice job managing the memory. Granted i only use it for browsing and reading mostly. Also the occasional video. No lagging yet.
ProjectJourneyman said:
Maybe it's the apps and features I have configured, but I see the memory becoming a problem. I'm sitting at 80% or memory used most of the time, while my N5 (with the same amount of ram) is at 46%. My N5X leaves about 350MB free, which may not cut it for intense use. I'll need to look into tweaks to reduce the OS use of memory, but I'm surprised that the N5, with the same amount of memory but a slower processor, is running more smoothly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm looking into this also, the nexus5 was just right with my usage, but the 5x is just short with the same apps
Opera mobile which uses a lot but the system is also at 650-700mb ram
Less RAM Available!!
This is my main concern along with battery
I use tasker, twilight, autovoice, Google now, join, and many other apps that need to be kept in ram
That would let me a few MB for keeping other apps like chrome or tapatalk. I predict redraws for that apps... Right?
(I'm still deciding between 5x and moto x style)
Sent from my Redmi Note 2 using Tapatalk
Multitasking sucks on this phone!
Almost all of the apps refresh everytime, and the available ram is always around 400mb even when there's no apps running in the background.
Any way to.improve this?
Coming from Nexus 6 I have to agree the available memory is too low. Apps almost always close in the background and have to constantly refresh and lose progress. And its not like I've got tons of app running all at once, just simple apps like Firefox, inbox and WhatsApp. I'm running latest version of PureNexus Rom and available memory is always below 500MB. Wouldn't recommend this phone to anyone.
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After 10 months I still have no issues with RAM management on this device. My apps rarely reload and I've never seen a launcher redraw. I'm able to do GPS navigation in the hot sun while streaming Spotify and still able to answering a SMS with Google voice without any of them closing.
Those who load up on lots of background services might have issues, however starting with Android N that will no longer be a problem. See XDA article below on Android N limiting 3rd party background services.
http://www.xda-developers.com/how-android-n-will-improve-battery-and-memory-management/
on hindsight whether 2gb of ram is enough will depend on how app developers are able to optimize their apps so that it does not hog unnecessary memory. however in the wake of the latest android n os with increase system ram consumption. i believe much modifications will have to be done to keep the 5x optimise and smooth for daily usage
Since Android N, i noticed something strange in games.
For exemple in Deus Ex Go or The Room 3.
The games runs well, but after some minutes, it starts to lag.
Don't know what's happen, it's like game is loading its content, level after level but never clean it after levels are done.
fruity101079 said:
Since Android N, i noticed something strange in games.
For exemple in Deus Ex Go or The Room 3.
The games runs well, but after some minutes, it starts to lag.
Don't know what's happen, it's like game is loading its content, level after level but never clean it after levels are done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's probably more related to CPU throttling.
Android is doing the best it can with what is has on this device, but 2 GB of ram just isn't enough to handle heavy multitasking without some rather large hiccups where the device just slows down and chugs for a bit.

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