Database Develop

Does keeping your home app in memory drain more battery?

I don't know if it's me or setting "Home app in memory" on CM drains waaay more battery.
I have 1600 mAh battery that usually lasts 8 AM to midnight and still has 20-30% left. Whereas when I set my phone to keep home app in memory, the battery is under 50% before noon.

It sure will!
And this is why:
When you run a new program and the memory is filled, things need to be dumped from ram to make space.
The home application ONLY needs to be run while you are on the desktop -- it doesn't actually do anything when you have some other application in the foreground. If you force it to stay loaded in memory, then other things (background processes) will get dumped from memory instead -- things that need to be running more or less all the time. So what happens when you force the home application to stay in memory, is that these background processes get into a crazy cycle of constantly trying to RELOAD. Maybe bumping some other stuff out of memory to do so, causing those other things to get into constantly trying to reload. In other words, it causes a much higher CPU load and eats up your batter.

Makes sense, but is there anything that could help, like enabling compcache or swap?

lbcoder said:
It sure will!
And this is why:
When you run a new program and the memory is filled, things need to be dumped from ram to make space.
The home application ONLY needs to be run while you are on the desktop -- it doesn't actually do anything when you have some other application in the foreground. If you force it to stay loaded in memory, then other things (background processes) will get dumped from memory instead -- things that need to be running more or less all the time. So what happens when you force the home application to stay in memory, is that these background processes get into a crazy cycle of constantly trying to RELOAD. Maybe bumping some other stuff out of memory to do so, causing those other things to get into constantly trying to reload. In other words, it causes a much higher CPU load and eats up your batter.
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Click to collapse
Wow...great explanation. Thanks! I'll disable this setting then.

Neejay said:
Wow...great explanation. Thanks! I'll disable this setting then.
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Click to collapse
It's a trade-off. For me returning to the home from any app is way to slow unless I have that feature enabled.
Maybe it's because I have a widget and 8 icons on the main screen?

I have 2 widgets and 4 icons on home screen (total of 7 widgets and 25 icons on 5 screens) so for me disabling "keep home in memory" is not even an option lol

Even just having a lot of applications installed will make it take longer for launcher to start up.... it has to scan through all the programs installed, figure out what icon to use (and deal with it), figure out what name to use, build the menu, etc., etc., etc.

wheres the option for this?

You can find it in Spare Parts app on several ROMs (I use CM).

How to multitasking as Much as possible?

Hi everyone~
I'm the sort of person who loves multitasking, opposite to those people who use task killers every moment
I always find that my Nexus One has more than 200MB of free memory, and internal task killer keeps killing background applications, actually I've never seen my free memory drops below 180MB.
So i was trying to figure out how to let internal task killer Not to kill background apps, and discovered "Autokiller" which can tweak internal task killer parameters.
but unfortunately, even I set every parameter to 0, still internal task killer kills as much as before my apps still are killed and I constantly get over 180MB of free memory.
so could anyone please suggest how to *really* stop internal task killer from killing apps?
Thanks a lot

You can't do anything about it. One of the changes in Froyo was to autokill processes with OOM_ADJ=12 rather than 16 it used to be in Eclair - which essentially leaves only background processes spawned by services, and no "empty" processes anymore.
Autokiller is completely useless in Froyo, and doesn't do a thing - because of the reason I wrote above.
And you can't do anything to keep those processes, except rewriting the OOM manager in the OS code.

Ask this guy, he rolls like a boss.

houzuoguo said:
Hi everyone~
I'm the sort of person who loves multitasking, opposite to those people who use task killers every moment
I always find that my Nexus One has more than 200MB of free memory, and internal task killer keeps killing background applications, actually I've never seen my free memory drops below 180MB.
So i was trying to figure out how to let internal task killer Not to kill background apps, and discovered "Autokiller" which can tweak internal task killer parameters.
but unfortunately, even I set every parameter to 0, still internal task killer kills as much as before my apps still are killed and I constantly get over 180MB of free memory.
so could anyone please suggest how to *really* stop internal task killer from killing apps?
Thanks a lot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what's the actual problem here?

thanks everyone
ok so probably I have to modify OOM_ADJ value in order to not let internal task killer to kill my background applications.
I applogize for my poor English, my question was, how to stop internal task killer from killing background applications.

You can't modify it, it's hard-coded in the OS (kernel?). You need to recompile the OS for that.

thanks a lot guys

[Q] How to have more free memory

Hi guys thanks for your time, so this is my doubt
When i turn on my phone i have 170 MB available memory but after a while down to 70 MB sometimes to 40 MB, what should i install to have more than 100 MB free?? i already have [email protected] 256Hz #97 Kernel and 2.2.1 XXJPY firmware.
thanks
regards

Usually this won't matter because with the Android OS, it will usually keep all the stuff you close (internet, contacts, recently accessed menus etc) cached in it's RAM as a non active application until you happen to tab into it again, thus instantly loading.
Android is also smart enough to know since the application is inactive, if it's eating your memory, it will force-close these applications to free up memory for the new applications. ie, I'm running internet, close it, and my memory is up to 280mb, then try to run AngryBirds and it will close the Internet app + others if it has to.
So... usually not an issue, but if it does become an issue you can run a service/task killer app that will handle all nonactive apps and terminate them. Or you can just clear level 1+2 ram periodically and it will reset it back to default until it starts filling with crap again.

Ok i have advanced task killer but i was reading in some topics in this forum that some guys have more than 150 MB free without using a task killer

Advanced task killer eats your battery

android doesn't need a task killer, as it kills tasks itself.. i don't know why there are so many out there they just eat up battery..
one app I would suggest is 'auto-killer' its free and I have mine set to aggressive. that's all you need to do then forget about it.. it keeps your memory from getting bogged down.

ok thanks for the tips

[q] best autorun task killer

Please tell my which is best software that stops applications to run automatically at startup
tell me the application which works

no one is using any app. to stop unnecessary start up of tasks

try autostarts its very good
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Ditto on Autostarts. Also, Autokiller Memory Optimzer works really well, it doesn't kill tasks itself, it tweaks the Android function thar does it to work better.

auto killer mem optimizer workd well for me.but now i simply don use any of those batt saving app,mem apps etc i jus kill apps in inbuilt task killer...iam using my phone to the peek cause at the end ill b getting a 2ghz dual core by selling sgs.......cant stick to old things lol........cheeerz

tarunagg said:
Please tell my which is best software that stops applications to run automatically at startup
tell me the application which works
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Click to collapse
... what?
Do any of you even understand how Android works?

so mind sharing ur exp wiv us on how it works???

manosv said:
try autostarts its very good
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Click to collapse
+1 Autostarts. It amazes me what runs on the phone after start-up, after you switch states or update apps. The perfect cure for batt draining nonsense

rocky23 said:
so mind sharing ur exp wiv us on how it works???
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Click to collapse
Google it. Android is Linux based. Its memory management is not the same as Windows. I'd explain further, but you're the 4,753,857,195 person to ask.

I spent 10s and googled it for you. Here's a quick link that explains it in simple terms.
http://lifehacker.com/5650894/andro...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
Basically having applications in RAM is a GOOD thing. Constantly killing them is likely to WORSEN PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE.

Shanakin said:
I spent 10s and googled it for you. Here's a quick link that explains it in simple terms.
http://lifehacker.com/5650894/andro...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
Basically having applications in RAM is a GOOD thing. Constantly killing them is likely to WORSEN PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE.
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Click to collapse
That's right. On the other hand - permitting almost every app to load at startup isn't the best approach, as you will soon run out of memory - therefore using apps like autostart makes sense imho. But constantly killing everything isn't the right approach either. Android removes "old" apps automatically.
Bottom line:
- just letting those apps load at startup, which you use on regular basis, is fine
- using a "ram tweaker", auto-kill app, etc. is not
Kind regards,
ww

webwude said:
That's right. On the other hand - permitting almost every app to load at startup isn't the best approach, as you will soon run out of memory - therefore using apps like autostart makes sense imho. But constantly killing everything isn't the right approach either. Android removes "old" apps automatically.
Bottom line:
- just letting those apps load at startup, which you use on regular basis, is fine
- using a "ram tweaker", auto-kill app, etc. is not
Kind regards,
ww
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And when you run out of memory, Android will free memory by automatically killing cached (unused) apps. Therefore, I don't see the point of stopping apps from running at start--unless they're actually doing something in the background and not letting your phone sleep.
RAM tweaks (or memory management), on the other hand, is the only thing I use. I adjust OOM settings to adjust which apps Android closes to free memory, as well as how much free RAM Android should keep open in various situations.

upichie said:
And when you run out of memory, Android will free memory by automatically killing cached (unused) apps. Therefore, I don't see the point of stopping apps from running at start--unless they're actually doing something in the background and not letting your phone sleep.
RAM tweaks (or memory management), on the other hand, is the only thing I use. I adjust OOM settings to adjust which apps Android closes to free memory, as well as how much free RAM Android should keep open in various situations.
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Well actually I don't see the point that an app, that I hardly use once per month should be loaded everytime I start the phone or change my internet connection. Also more apps at startup increase the time when the phone is available...
But on the other hand, you are certainly right, after a while, only the latest apps are still in background / memory. What I have recognized nevertheless: if you use a lot of apps with push functionality and load on startup, the phone runs out of memory...
Kind regards,
ww

How to stop "running" and "cashed processes"?

I know that android is very good at handling background processes and ram but I have so many apps that I don't use at all. They consume big amount of ram and for instance, sometimes browser loads pages again when I get back to it from another app. I assume this is because of ram. So I guess, if I can shut down some running apps in the background, available ram would be more.
I can see them at settings-apps-running(or cached processes).
For example, right now in "running" section I have 9 processes and 3 of them are poweramp, awesome beats, accuweather.com and in "cached processes" I have 10 processes and 6 of them are beautiful widgets,calendar storage,google account manager, google search, calendar, google play store. Other processes are system services that I have no problem with. When I go to developer settings-background process limit and block them, there are no cached processes anymore but that probably has a side effect. I wish I could choose which apps I want in the background.
I can shut down these apps manually but every time I restart the phone, they are there again. How can I stop them?

if you rooted, you can use Autostarts or ROM toolbox from the playstore. it can change the receivers of the apps not to start at boot

CooLasFcuK said:
I know that android is very good at handling background processes and ram but I have so many apps that I don't use at all. They consume big amount of ram and for instance, sometimes browser loads pages again when I get back to it from another app. I assume this is because of ram. So I guess, if I can shut down some running apps in the background, available ram would be more.
I can see them at settings-apps-running(or cached processes).
For example, right now in "running" section I have 9 processes and 3 of them are poweramp, awesome beats, accuweather.com and in "cached processes" I have 10 processes and 6 of them are beautiful widgets,calendar storage,google account manager, google search, calendar, google play store. Other processes are system services that I have no problem with. When I go to developer settings-background process limit and block them, there are no cached processes anymore but that probably has a side effect. I wish I could choose which apps I want in the background.
I can shut down these apps manually but every time I restart the phone, they are there again. How can I stop them?
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Click to collapse
The simple answer is that you don't need to stop them!
As you say, Android is already very good at keeping track of background processes, to the extent that if a new program needs more RAM, Android itself will kill a background process that hasn't been used for a while to free up RAM for the new program.
The Cached processes screen SHOULD be full of recently used programs; it shows that Android is doing what it is supposed to do and is shifting inactive processes out of active RAM in case you want to load it again, without completely dumping the process memory.
Now, as for the side effect you mentioned, that would be a significant hit on battery life. By holding programs in RAM as it is supposed to do, the OS can load the program quickly and cleanly and more efficiently by simply reading the RAM rather than reading flash, writing to RAM, then reading from RAM. The general mantra for UNIX based systems is that unused RAM is wasted RAM.
Another thing to note is that if you do not close tabs when switching active programs (including going to homescreen) then the Browser is designed to hold that tab in memory. Even if you close the Browser (excluding closing the tab specifically with the "little x"). Even if you reboot the damn phone, it will still load the tabs/pages you had open last. The pages are not held in memory as such, just what was open and what tab order, so if you do open the browser after a while, it will load the last page from scratch.
TL;DR version: The running and the cached processes will remain exactly where they are until a new program needs more RAM than is available, at which point Android will kill something to make room. You do not need to do this manually. It will cause more power drain by making very inefficient use of RAM/Flash memory. Empty RAM is wasted RAM.

whilst Chaos is right, I notice severe performance drops when ram is filled, despite Androids theoretical advantage. It doesnt work...
Best to prevent from loading altogheter.
Root, lose warranty, backup apps, uninstall or freeze apps so the bloatware is removed.
For others, change autostart settings in Romtoolbox. So they wont start on boot.
Search for safe stuff to delete. There are lists for that
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Or just dont install the apps that you dont really need.
Via GtN7000

LoVeRice said:
Or just dont install the apps that you dont really need.
Via GtN7000
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Click to collapse
Lol, even then you might still need to remove bloatware lol
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Thanks so much for detailed answers.