Database Develop

Is 192 RAM a not enough?

I am planning on buying a HTC G1, but after I read that there is only 192mb RAM I decided to wait.
I have a few questions:
1. Can you make a swapfile on the G1?
2. Would there be a big speed/stability difference with 192 and 256 RAM?
3. How does 2.0/2.1 run compared to 1.6?
I will be using this as a PDA, not a phone and will be doing lots of gaming and web browsing on it.
Thank you,
~moonscapex

Buy a Nexus......

I would, but I can't afford one

moonscapex said:
I would, but I can't afford one
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save up for one. Don't get a g1, it's already too outdated. save up and buy a good phone that'll last a while. By the time you have the money tucked away I'm sure you'll see phones even better than the nexus one.

Yes, I already have a high-end winmo PDA, so I am looking for a lower end Android phone.

I agree with others that say to get a different phone. I love my G1 to death, but there's no way I'd buy one today if I were in the market. It's just too limited.
That said, I'll try and answer your questions.
1. Yes, running swap is possible using a rooted phone and custom ROM. It's debated whether this actually helps any.
2. The 192 vs. 256 MB difference helps a great deal. There's just not a lot of memory left to run many apps and do much task switching on the newer iterations of the OS with only 192MB. The number of apps you can install is also limited by this number (unless you're running a rooted phone and installing apps to your SD card.)
3. On a G1, 2.0/2.1 is pretty slow. At this point I wouldn't use it as a daily use ROM.
The two functions you listed as your primary activities are the two things that the G1 does the worst. It's underpowered for a lot of games (not to mention the horrible battery life when you start playing games) and browsing the web can be a chore given the limited memory and CPU. It works great for basic things like email, maps/navigation, music, productivity apps, but it's pretty slow for other stuff.

OK, thank you. That is the kind of answer I was looking for. I will look into some other phones.

The G1 is ideal for what your looking for. Man people love to drift off don't they

Yeah they do...
Has anyone else tried Android 2.1 on their G1?

If you root it, in addition to the debatable swapping to the SD for more ram and cache, you can overclock the things. Probably a bit hard on your battery and might generate unacceptable heat, don't know. You might just get it up to 2/3's to 3/4th's the speed of a Nexus for the cost of a bigger battery. Maybe then you could run 2.1 effectively. Who knows.
I'd buy it used. They go for about $175 on ebay unlocked. If you screw it up you've not lost that much. You can resell your broken one on ebay for about $75
Regards, PK

Overall the G1 for me has just been fun to root and flash multiple roms. =P Some roms are moderately fast, but are limited to games as we have no video drivers

Thanks for the good answers. So the Open GL drivers are not available on the G1? And how easy is it to brick a G1. Ive flashed many roms on winmo with no problem.
EDIT: Yes I will overclock. Are the Vid drivers available on the Magic?

moonscapex said:
Thanks for the good answers. So the Open GL drivers are not available on the G1? And how easy is it to brick a G1. Ive flashed many roms on winmo with no problem.
EDIT: Yes I will overclock. Are the Vid drivers available on the Magic?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah they are

Personally
I preordered a G1... rooted it early in the beginnings of Haykuro and JF... and 16 months later I still say there isnt a replacement... I got a full upgrade and I still havent taken advantage... The N1 is nice, if you can live wo the hard keyboard... If you want a low end android, the G1 is a good starter phone...
I run both 2.1 and 1.6 roms.. The 1.6 roms are really fast, The 2.1 roms are worth having on your phone to show off... I can stream music on 3G from 8am to about 230-3pm at work on either so batt life is fine either way on a normal day...
I dont know what kind of gaming you do, but my old school emulators do the trick nicely run on any rom and with the hard keyboard controls are great... I use a ram hack that removes the 3d accelerator for another 8mb of usable ram, so I cant comment on 3d games...
Bricking a G1 is almost impossible now with all the good tutorials... the G1 is the easiest to root, hack, flash, customize... all that in my own eyes... Ive brought noobs down the rabbit hole and now they are cookin up roms and themes like crazy...
I on the other hand still patiently wait for a new bigger better stronger phone (with a hard keyboard) to replace my G1 and I know it will not be in the low end android bracket..

protomanez said:
Overall the G1 for me has just been fun to root and flash multiple roms. =P Some roms are moderately fast, but are limited to games as we have no video drivers
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Click to collapse
My setiments exactly. Hate to say it but it's just fun to see or learn somthing new.
Good thread for Android noobes.
Regards, PK

So far I'm convinced about the G1, thanks everybody. When I found out that the keyboard on the magic would not work with a stylus, and only your fingers, it made it obvious for me.
PS: Can you disable the RAM hack without reflashing?

moonscapex said:
So far I'm convinced about the G1, thanks everybody. When I found out that the keyboard on the magic would not work with a stylus, and only your fingers, it made it obvious for me.
PS: Can you disable the RAM hack without reflashing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really. You must replace the kernel, so it's basically just as complicated as reflashing.

I'ts simple.
Flash the boot.img and reboot.
All gone.
(and vice versa)
you wont loose any data or anything.

Where's all my RAM?

I thought I had 512MB of ram on this. I opened task killer and it says 117mb free. Surly Android isn't using all of the other ram?

There is a small bug/issue with the stock Android o/s even 2.1 suffers from this.
With the mod/kernel I use below I can get up to about 275mb right after a fresh app task wipe. Then closer to 200-220mb when under normal use which is pretty good.

Macmee said:
I thought I had 512MB of ram on this. I opened task killer and it says 117mb free. Surly Android isn't using all of the other ram?
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Click to collapse
You need to install a kernel that utilizes highmem. Basically, the easiest way to achieve this is to install a rom which has this by default (cyanogen is a popular option).

It's busy doing what it was put in the phone to do.
The other half hasn't woken up yet.

what they are saying is that google has not yet enabled the other half of the nexus one's RAM yet. so the stock nexus one only has half of the 512MB active, which is 256MB. so some of the custom ROMS, when rooted and installed, open up that additional RAM, giving the full 512MB.
who knows why google did this. maybe they thought it was a battery saving issue and that 256MB was plenty for users. or maybe they have some surprise in store for the nexus and will open it up in an upcoming OTA update.

This is a huge disappointment. I can't root because I can't risk breaking my nexus I paid the full price for it!

paid full wack for mine also, but hey what the heck, rooted and stuff as soon as it came through the door.

Macmee said:
This is a huge disappointment. I can't root because I can't risk breaking my nexus I paid the full price for it!
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Click to collapse
I paid full price for mine too and my wife's N1. You wont brick your phone unless you screw up a Radio flash for the most part.
So either get comfortable with it and flash everything you want, just flash to a new modded o/s or just leave your phone alone and wait for Google.
In the end you do have to be comfortable knowing your warranty could be in jeopardy though. I have heard some cases of HTC still fixing hardware defects on rooted phones.

Ahhh I want to, I really do, but I so much don't want to break this

Macmee said:
This is a huge disappointment. I can't root because I can't risk breaking my nexus I paid the full price for it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has been well discussed at length, and has been one of the bashing points used by the fan boys.
Besides that, the info in here is a bit wrong. It isn't set at 256MB, it is more like just shy of 400 IIRC, want to say 388 to be exact.
Also, have you noticed a lack of RAM yet? You say you still have 100MB free? Well, that is pretty damn good to say the least. Do you really need another 100MB of RAM sitting there doing nothing?
And it isn't a bug either... grrrr... it is because the Kernel's that do support the extra RAM were not stable enough at launch. Can you imagine what sort of uproar there would have been from people if their phone jsut randomly rebooted once every couple days? Maybe even once a day?

You're right. The lowest I've been to is 30mb free, when I was running around 7 apps. I'll just wait for the official google fix

before rooting, task killer would only free up about 70mb, i think. don't quite remember. now, after rooting and flash to enom's rom, task panel can free up around 260mb

timothydonohue said:
before rooting, task killer would only free up about 70mb, i think. don't quite remember. now, after rooting and flash to enom's rom, task panel can free up around 260mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's because you're killing services and apps that don't need to be kill and actually have a negative impact on loading speeds.

Macmee said:
You're right. The lowest I've been to is 30mb free, when I was running around 7 apps. I'll just wait for the official google fix
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There you go! It is one of those things, when you notice your numbers are too "low" you are like what the heck? But until you saw the numbers, you never thought to yourself "man I wish I had more RAM since this thing is slow and can't multi-task my apps right".
I ran bone stock for the first month I had my Nexus One, never said once to myself I wish it was faster or had more RAM, ok that is a lie I always want faster, but never once was I honestly sitting there saying that because the phone was so slow.
I did finally root and start flashing (a month without flashing is a REALLY long time for me, longest I have ever owned a smartphone without flashing). And to be honest, despite what some may say, the custom ROMs really are not that much faster, and it matters about the kernel more than anything. And actually, I run into lag at times with custom ROMs that are not there with the stock ROM, granted some tasks are a bit quicker, I have themese, and what not to make up for it. None the less, speed and stability can co-exist, but you have to give up one for the other in general.

just root the thing and move on with life... ive got news for you... if you drop the thing on concrete and shatter the screen, HTC doesnt care whether its rooted or not... YOU BROKE IT YOU FIX IT
my car has like 50,000 mile warranty on it, but im pretty sure if i pour jet fuel into it instead of gasoline and I blow my block, the dealership is going to laugh at me and my warranty even if my car only has 200 miles on it...
root it and take care of it... its really not that hard...

Longterm Day to day stability: UnOff 1.5 or Gtrab?

Hey guys, I'm just looking for the most stable ROM. I'm tired of 6.1's non finger friendly menus and add-on software to correct that. I tend to not flash much as I really don't have the time. When I do flash a ROM, I prefer that it be for the next several months. So in terms of stability, should I be going for UnOff 1.5 or Gtrab's R3 Pure?

826x.blogspot.com

ring-bearer said:
826x.blogspot.com
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I'm weary of the Sense ROMS, I figure that'll just introduce more problems than its worth, not to mention background processes taking up extra RAM, no?

sonus said:
I'm weary of the Sense ROMS, I figure that'll just introduce more problems than its worth, not to mention background processes taking up extra RAM, no?
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Click to collapse
+1 for Williyung's ROMs. Most recent without Sense is here, and is very good indeed and I used it for several weeks (before getting bored one evening and one thing lead to another ... )

try Xperia Infinite for me its the best rom i ever had.

sonus said:
I'm weary of the Sense ROMS, I figure that'll just introduce more problems than its worth, not to mention background processes taking up extra RAM, no?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Willi makes perfect ROMs without Sense. Just scroll down a bit on his page and find the latest.
NRG's ROM without Sense ("Titanium") is also really damn good - there's extra stuff we don't need, and battery life is a tiny bit sub-par, but it's got lots of nice tweaks. I use it day to day. Only bug I found is that camera videos only play with CorePlayer.

826x.blogspot.com is what you need

in my opinion.. it just depends on the user and how the user manages to deal with everyday hassle with his unit..if you just want the "SHOWOFF" material.. then i recomend sense roms..but not the battery hungry ones..
for me i use my unit as simple as a phone..multimedia..net browse..games (if bored)
there are alot of roms to choose from you just have to try and choose what will fill your needs.. or if none of them meet your standards.. then last resort will be cooking your own ROM
i only think of one thing whenever i flash.. it's like you're trying to put and to run a ferrari engine into a BMW or a Benz..

oio_sdk said:
826x.blogspot.com is what you need
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes + 1

I tried the Clean Revolution rom lately......
Found it really stable and there is no extra apps wat so ever....

thread closed, not rom development.

ROM recomendation

I am a Tilt 2 user... I have been playing with alot of the different roms out there and i find them all to be very similar. I dont know what the difference is in Manilla, and Sence. I kinda fingured out what HTC messaging is... Not a big fan of it.
Here is what I am looking for:
SPEED.... when I press a button... i want it to get to that screen fast! I dont use many apps other than basic features. MMS, SMS, EMAIL, PHONE, and Camera. I do sometimes use the GPS. but not often. I could care less about the stocks feautre.
I prefer the windows threaded mesages... not the HTC one.
I do like the Facebook integration on some of the roms but that is not required.
What would you guys say is my best option at this time? Titanium?

I second this. I have never worked with a phone that is so SLOW.
I have no choice but to use this phone as it is supplied by work.
Fast rom needed.
HALP!

yes, go with the energy titanium rom, it's quite zippy if you're looking for that. but realize this phone only has a 528 processor so it still won't be all that fast if you're comparing to other people.

I realize that it wont be as fast as the 1GHz HD2 that is out now... but i just want to squeeze a bit more out of the device i already have.

The phone itself isn't slow... Bad made ROMs make it slow.
Try LBFAR or Simplicity. In my *PERSONAL* opinion they are a lot of faster then any Energy ROM.
Also they aren't bloated with crap...

dragonlord785 said:
yes, go with the energy titanium rom, it's quite zippy if you're looking for that. but realize this phone only has a 528 processor so it still won't be all that fast if you're comparing to other people.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If speed is your main objective, give overclocking a shot.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=698374

Jackos said:
The phone itself isn't slow... Bad made ROMs make it slow.
Try LBFAR or Simplicity. In my *PERSONAL* opinion they are a lot of faster then any Energy ROM.
Also they aren't bloated with crap...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Massive +1 to this. I use Simplicity myself most of the time. It's pretty light and fast. (Not to say that LBFAR isn't light or fast. It is both. It's just a little bit too psychadelically colored for me.)
Also, Jackos's ROMs are pretty nice as well, and are generally what I'm running if I am not on Simplicity. They're not built specifically for speed, but they're really well crafted and end up being faster than many other ROMs because of it. They're also rock solid. Just tossing that out there, as Jackos seems to have passed on the opportunity to toot his own horn.

Jackos
I am downloading Jackos right now... if the silly file host didnt limit me to 1 file per hour i would have already had it.. but its going now. I am going to try a couple of differnt ones... as well as over clocking app.

Jackos said:
The phone itself isn't slow... Bad made ROMs make it slow.
Try LBFAR or Simplicity. In my *PERSONAL* opinion they are a lot of faster then any Energy ROM.
Also they aren't bloated with crap...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, if your looking for speed improvement with lack of visual effects this is true

Use the standard ROM and disable HTC sense, it won't get any faster or stable.

Mirror in my sig.

Language
Jackos, I just downloaded the rom from your previous post on this thread... once I installed it, It did not apear to be in english? did I download the wrong one? it also did not apear to include the radio from the rom... but that is easy enough to fix.

Dracothearies said:
Jackos, I just downloaded the rom from your previous post on this thread... once I installed it, It did not apear to be in english? did I download the wrong one? it also did not apear to include the radio from the rom... but that is easy enough to fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you may have downloaded the polish version. Make sure the name of the file has WWE in it and not PLK. Im using Jackos S2 ROM WWE JackFULL v1.7 right now and it is flawless. Also the ROM download includes the Radio 4.49.25.91 and task29. Hope this helps

FL5 said:
If speed is your main objective, give overclocking a shot.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=698374
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 to that

Shouldn't a new user first choose a RELIABLE ROM and later try some extreme tools like overclock?!
I disagree with this.
-1 to that

Jackos said:
Shouldn't a new user first choose a RELIABLE ROM and later try some extreme tools like overclock?!
I disagree with this.
-1 to that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't say that he shouldn't perhaps pick a new ROM that he likes, first. But I also wouldn't call overclocking an "extreme" tool - OCT seems to work very well and my phone is 100% stable, without dynamic overclocking.

I would never recommended an overclocking tool for a new user.
Firstly, how can you be sure that the tool doesn't deal damage to the processor? It's out for just around 2 months.
Secondly, it does shorten the battery life (it may does dmg to the battery too).
Thirdly, it may cause lockups, power management problems, SoD etc.
Yes I would call the current OCT1.5 tool stable enough running at 710Mhz and yes it does speedup our devices, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

Jackos said:
Shouldn't a new user first choose a RELIABLE ROM and later try some extreme tools like overclock?!
I disagree with this.
-1 to that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jackos said:
I would never recommended an overclocking tool for a new user.
Firstly, how can you be sure that the tool doesn't deal damage to the processor? It's out for just around 2 months.
Secondly, it does shorten the battery life (it may does dmg to the battery too).
Thirdly, it may cause lockups, power management problems, SoD etc.
Yes I would call the current OCT1.5 tool stable enough running at 710Mhz and yes it does speedup our devices, but I still wouldn't recommend it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, totally valid points. I kinda fired that suggestion out off-the-cuff right before class started last night, and very obviously didn't flesh it out appropriately.
Overclocking IS an advanced tool and it does impact the stability of a device. Some handsets tolerate it much better than others, but without first having a good working understanding and feel for both the hardware and the ROM you're using, it can cause no end of frustration trying to figure out what settings work for a setup individually (it's like voodoo magic; all settings very much have been found NOT to work for all people).
The first step should be to find a stable ROM and become familiar with how it works, and then start dabbling carefully only AFTER reading the bejeezus out of the OC thread (seriously, RTFM), should a person still be interested.
That being said, in my experience the settings that work seem to be more hardware-dependent than ROM-dependent. After pretty thorough experimentation to find the settings that work well for my TP2, I've been able to carry those settings across several different ROMs without issue. Of course, that being said, I will fully admit that I believe that no amount of care will cause an overclock setup to be as stable as a non-overclocked setup.
Also, yes, overclocking definitely burns through battery life, just like turbocharging burns through gasoline, and this almost assuredly decreases the useful lifespan of your battery. While I'm less certain about the potential for processor damage, that does very possibly exist as well.
That being said, I'm a reckless jerk and always load OCT as one of the first steps on a new flash. However, I do so after having taken all of the above into consideration. It was hasty and ill-advised to recommend that a new user jump in uninformed. My bad.

I haven't noticed a big difference with overclock, so I decided not to use it... The truth is that the phone is perfectly fine. The biggest culprit in all of the slowness is HTC "Bloatware" Sense. I'm seriously considering paying for SPB mobile shell or something similiar and scrapping Sense completely right now, it just doesn't make up for how demanding it is.
/rant off.

I am open to the possibility that at least some of what I perceive could be a placebo affect, but I definitely feel that there is a difference when my TP2 is overclocked to 787mhz, and I currently feel no compulsion to discontinue doing so.
Thing is, I have to admit that the perception is primarily felt when trying to feed the Sense 2.5/CHT resource devourer combo, and even then the TP2 falls noticeably short. It is painfully obvious that Sense was not meant for the TP2, and OC is really just the slap-patch that allows it to limp along at an arguably acceptable pace.
I've been internally debating about going back to SPB MS myself. The amount of functionality that it has is incredible considering the scant resources it uses. I actually meant to drop it back in this past weekend before I got swept up in other nonsense, as I found a little app/toggle somewhere here on xda that claims to switch between manila and SPB MS. I've got CHT on right now, because it is oh-so-pretty, and I am quite fond of my current layout's aesthetics, but it is a total dog, even on Simplicity.

Can a ROM make my phone quicker?

I'm with the stock LG ROM on the LG Thrill.
Can I do something to make my phone faster.

Yes roms and the right tweaks and this phone is awesome
sent from my acidhazard thrill

A custom ROM will make your phone run faster. There are you can tweak the build.prop and other things like scripts to improve the phone as well. Right now I just flashed the Mokee v1.0 ROM and it is the best ROM I have ever used on this phone. I would definitely recommend getting a CM7 ROM as long as you don't care about 3D and HDMI as they are broken currently with CM7.

I find the phone quite snappy, but then again I'm coming from a Samsung Epic. That phone was good but is getting very long in the tooth. I'm using Thrillseeker 2.1 on mine and so far I can say yes, it does improve the phone's speed. Next on the to try list is CM7(which is downloading on my phone as we speak). It's a boring day at work, might as well be productive, right?

N3M3S1S357 said:
I find the phone quite snappy, but then again I'm coming from a Samsung Epic. That phone was good but is getting very long in the tooth. I'm using Thrillseeker 2.1 on mine and so far I can say yes, it does improve the phone's speed. Next on the to try list is CM7(which is downloading on my phone as we speak). It's a boring day at work, might as well be productive, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The right kernel is really all you need ... But you need to know about basebands also if you wanna get into that .. if you wanna keep it simple just download a few different roms and see what works best for you
Sent from my Inspire 4G running CoreDroid [email protected] Ghz

scripts
WattB006 said:
A custom ROM will make your phone run faster. There are you can tweak the build.prop and other things like scripts to improve the phone as well. Right now I just flashed the Mokee v1.0 ROM and it is the best ROM I have ever used on this phone. I would definitely recommend getting a CM7 ROM as long as you don't care about 3D and HDMI as they are broken currently with CM7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi dude can you explain further about that scripts and how to usw that? tnx a lot dude

Actually, I've been fighting this for a while.
Sometimes the phone is blazing, other times it chugs like molasses.
I've slowly chipped away at the issues, because it's obvious not everybody has these issues, but considering how many times I've tried custom ROMs and kernels, and nothing fixes it, it has to be something I'm running.
Over time, I got rid of Folder Organizer, because that seemed to make it chug. The device seems to have very little RAM and it goes REALLY slow when it's close to full. I also tried things like deleting the downloaded files for the GameLoft titles to speed up the media search on boot. (Less files searched, less RAM used, right?)
Recently one change I made that seemed to help IMMENSELY was uninstalling SwiftKey. I'd LOVE if I could get some help confirming. The circle-swipe to unlock seems much smoother, even after a day, after getting rid of SwiftKey. I'm guessing it just used too much RAM.
At this point, I'd be at a lost otherwise. I changed launchers and used CPU monitors to see what's using up all the CPU, but came up empty.
Additionally, if you haven't tried using Seeder, I'd install that. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1987032