Database Develop

is compcache worth it

if compcache compresses ram to fit more things in it will also have to de compress things to use them. So there is more stored in the ram but it takes longer to reach them.
what i wanna know is how long it takes to compress and decompress to see if itt is worth it. Any ideas?

That was my way of thinking too. I played with comp, swap, comp+swap, and comp backing swap. My user.conf file is attached to my signature. Swap only is what worked best for me.

It more than anything depends on how the phone is used. If your using apps that take a lot of RAM but don't take too much CPU power (namely something that has huge images, or something like co-pilot which pushes ram to its limits, and background processes), then compcache is good. However, using CPU intensive stuff and applications, swap only is much better. Compcache is good for things that run in the back that don't have to be accessed all the time, such as the launcher.
feel free to correct me/wreck me

thanks for the replies guys the things i doo need swap more than anything so ill stick with swap

B-man nailed it, like I said I'm running swap w/o compcache because as I said it works best for me. CoPilot is laggy and causes background programs to FC on this config, but i rarely use it in favor of google maps which is why it doesn't bother me.

Using NAND as RAM?

After many tests I think that we really suffer from a lack of RAM. But the internal memory (NAND) should be the same speed as RAM I think. So why we don't use another 128Mb of NAND as additional RAM? A sort of swap part, but used as RAM and not as normal swap....
If someone related to the kernel would answer is it possible or not, it would be good)

DiMiK said:
After many tests I think that we really suffer from a lack of RAM. But the internal memory (NAND) should be the same speed as RAM I think. So why we don't use another 128Mb of NAND as additional RAM? A sort of swap part, but used as RAM and not as normal swap....
If someone related to the kernel would answer is it possible or not, it would be good)
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Click to collapse
Using it as RAM would propably require major changes to the kernel if it is even possible which I doubt it is. Using it as swap would be the possible alternative and I pretty sure that is very possible and would help performance but at a cost.
1. You would either have very little left for system and data or you would have to put system and/or data on the SD-card and that alone may make you lose anything you gain from putting swap on NAND.
2. I actually asked the swap-on nand question myself and well, we can't replace our NAND, at least not easily and swap is I/O intensive and intesive I/O will sooner or later wear out the NAND. So basicly this is not a good alternative unless you want to turn your phone into a paperweight sooner than you had planned.
So what we can do is using compcache and/or swap on SD-card. The easiest thing is to just enable some compcache. It uses RAM as swap and uses compression on the contents so we can hold more things in RAM that we would usually be able to. This means Android can keep more apps in "sleep" allowing for faster switching between apps but it will also decrease the possible amount of available RAM for the active app. I usually turn on compcache with the default setting which is to use 25% of the RAM for compressed swap. It might be placebo but IMHO it feels a it "smoother" to use after that.
Another alternative is to use a swap partition in the sdcard. Just using swap means you do not need to load any compcache kernel modules and there is no compression taking place so it's a good alterantive. However you need know your way around partitioning SD-cards to get this running so it's not as easy as just enabling compcache (assuming the build supports compcache).
For the really advanced you can enable compcache with backing swap. It means it uses a certain amount of compressed swap i RAM and when it runs out of space there it starts putting stuff on the SD-card swap partition. Once again, a bit tricky to setup but may be the best alternative.
Read more about it here: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php/Compcache

kallt_kaffe said:
I usually turn on compcache with the default setting which is to use 25% of the RAM for compressed swap. It might be placebo but IMHO it feels a it "smoother" to use after that.
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It make good effect: more applications can run simultaneously.

Making g1 run faster? (10 mb hack)

Hi, I was wondering if I can use the 10 mb ram hack with my g1 with CM 6.0 RC2. I noticed most of the tutoriials are using 4.xx.xx so I wanted to ask before I do it. My phone is kind of slow even though it is overclocked at 576mhz and 64 mb class 6 memory swap. Thanks.

Ties0 said:
Hi, I was wondering if I can use the 10 mb ram hack with my g1 with CM 6.0 RC2. I noticed most of the tutoriials are using 4.xx.xx so I wanted to ask before I do it. My phone is kind of slow even though it is overclocked at 576mhz and 64 mb class 6 memory swap. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no 10 mb hack and won't be. It is not possible with Froyo.

As indicated above there is no 10mb hack and there never will be.
I am currently using the latest nightly and it is super fast and stable. As fast as donut (no ****).
3D Gallery works perfectly and there have been a bunch of small cool features added to the nightly.
I highly recommend it.
Awesome work has been done by Cyanogen and Crew.

ok thanks for the reply guys. Is there any other way to make my rom faster? Thanks.

Ties0 said:
ok thanks for the reply guys. Is there any other way to make my rom faster? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course reduce or remove swap,
android has it's own swap mechanism that causes little ram to actually be least recently used, thus if swap is enabled the phone will be constantly swapping it in/out!
In addition to reducing the life of the SD card its slow. I understand a very little bit of swap *may* allow some edge cases where a *little* more ram is needed or to offload something like launcher that may be configured to stay in ram to work faster.. however you can't forget the speed issue.
Try this enter console on your phone and run:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/sdcard/swapspeedtest bs=1048576 of=64
Note the time it takes, that is the time to write 64mb on a swap out operation.. if it seems too long to wait for a task its too much swap. 12mb is almost acceptable. I just stick to comp cache only. . Upped it from the default 12 to 15 MB since I had one or two tasks that just needed a tad more memory to play nice.
Also what is slow, returning to home? A particular app? I doubt its everything, usually its launcher and there are ways of locking it in home, upgrades to awd, and alternative launchers. These may help.

ezterry said:
Of course reduce or remove swap,
android has it's own swap mechanism that causes little ram to actually be least used, thus if swap is enabled the phone will be constantly swapping it in/out
In addition to reducing the life of the SD card its slow. I understand a very little bit of swap to allow some edge cases where a little more ram is needed or to offload something like launcher that may be configured to stay in ram.. however you can't forget the speed issue.
Try this enter console on your phone and run:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/sdcard/swapspeedtest bs=1048576 of=64
Note the time it takes, that is the time to write 64mb on a swap out operation.. if it seems too long to wait for a task its too much swap. 12mb is almost acceptable. I just stick to comp cache only. . Upped it from the default 12 to 15 MB since I had one or two tasks that just needed a tad more memory yo play nice.
Also what is slow, returning to home? A particular app? I doubt its everything, usually its launcher and there are ways of locking it in home, upgrades to awd, and alternative launchers. These may help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the detailed response! I will try lowering the swap partition, I always thought it would be fast because of the class 6 speeds. Does putting all my apps on SD make it slow as well? Also, returning to home is the main lag I'm talking about as it takes quite a while to see my apps. Thank you!

ezterry said:
Of course reduce or remove swap,
android has it's own swap mechanism that causes little ram to actually be least used, thus if swap is enabled the phone will be constantly swapping it in/out
In addition to reducing the life of the SD card its slow. I understand a very little bit of swap to allow some edge cases where a little more ram is needed or to offload something like launcher that may be configured to stay in ram.. however you can't forget the speed issue.
Try this enter console on your phone and run:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/sdcard/swapspeedtest bs=1048576 of=64
Note the time it takes, that is the time to write 64mb on a swap out operation.. if it seems too long to wait for a task its too much swap. 12mb is almost acceptable. I just stick to comp cache only. . Upped it from the default 12 to 15 MB since I had one or two tasks that just needed a tad more memory yo play nice.
Also what is slow, returning to home? A particular app? I doubt its everything, usually its launcher and there are ways of locking it in home, upgrades to awd, and alternative launchers. These may help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have about 3-5 apps that I would like to be running at one time? Should I be using CompCache or Swap? Currently I am on SuperD 1.9.3 WGK. I have been reluctant to run Froyo roms because they are so much more memory hungry in my experiences. My current rom runs pretty fast with a 96mb swap. If I were to fun a Froyo rom, what can I do to be able to run the 3-5 apps and retain speed?

Ties0 said:
Thanks for the detailed response! I will try lowering the swap partition, I always thought it would be fast because of the class 6 speeds. Does putting all my apps on SD make it slow as well? Also, returning to home is the main lag I'm talking about as it takes quite a while to see my apps. Thank you!
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Click to collapse
If you are using BOTH SWAP & have applications installed to the sdcard, then it will ****REALLY**** be slow.
With just applications on the sdcard, your speed should be fine.

Ties0 said:
Also, returning to home is the main lag I'm talking about as it takes quite a while to see my apps. Thank you!
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Click to collapse
This is a symptom of launcher being evicted from ram, try the stay in ram option in settings->adw launcher->system settings->system persistent in the more recent versions of adequate (I think included with rc2 if my memory serves me)
It may not be perfect as it will still get killed if a very large application is loaded.
Either you need a launcher that behaves as a good android application, and can quickly reload it's last state, even if it was not in ram when you requested it.. or launcher needs to be considered outside the usual android memory management and to be kept in ram.
These persistent processes are where you may depending on your usage of the phone find comp cache or swap in low amounts (32mb combined is probably the absolute max) may help as they will have allocated ram that is rarely used and not automatically freed as they are persistent..

ezterry said:
This is a symptom of launcher being evicted from ram, try the stay in ram option in settings->adw launcher->system settings->system persistent in the more recent versions of adequate (I think included with rc2 if my memory serves me)
It may not be perfect as it will still get killed if a very large application is loaded.
Either you need a launcher that behaves as a good android application, and can quickly reload it's last state, even if it was not in ram when you requested it.. or launcher needs to be considered outside the usual android memory management and to be kept in ram.
These persistent processes are where you may depending on your usage of the phone find comp cache or swap in low amounts (32mb combined is probably the absolute max) may help as they will have allocated ram that is rarely used and not automatically freed as they are persistent..
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the detailed response! I just changed the adw launcher and deleted my swap partition... It seems to be much slower when pressing home (icons are taking a while to load) so I might just use 32 mb for swap.
EDIT: question, what exactly does ext4 do? I know swap is like external ram, but what does ext4/ext3/etc exactly do? and how much should I put in? I tried googling but could not find the answer. Thanks!

Ties0 said:
EDIT: question, what exactly does ext4 do? I know swap is like external ram, but what does ext4/ext3/etc exactly do? and how much should I put in? I tried googling but could not find the answer. Thanks!
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Click to collapse
On CM6, nothing. On CM 4 & 5, it was used for Apps2Ext (formerly known as Apps2SD - before Google came out with their own flavor). However, CM6 does not have Apps2Ext. It has been indicated that it will be targeted for 6.1.

Compcache

Just curious, I've been flashing the latest nightlies and in the cyanogenmod settings I see 'use compcache'. I have it unchecked, any difference if I check it. I found a you tube video about 2 phones running with and without compcache. Compcache seemed to load pages better over time, but not initially. Any help would be much appreciated

Copied from this post on another thread..
Very roughly you have a finite amount of memory (RAM). When memory is accessed it is virtual addressing, so an application is given a piece of memory, but this isn't real RAM, the operating system manages this and maps it to where the data really is. Because of this system, the OS can give out more memory than is actually available. It can then store some of this memory on a storage medium and "swap" it with some other programmes memory when one is needed and the other isn't. This is how swap works.
With compcache, instead of storing the dormant memory on a hard disk it is compressed and stored in the RAM itself on a virtual disk. This takes up some RAM, but because it is compressed, more RAM is spare tha n if the data were left in memory as it is. Again this has the effect that more memory space can be handed out than the RAM that is really there.
Because Android manages applications so that when memory runs out it just closes applications running in the background, more applications can reside in the larger virtual memory space than before, making multi-tasking more pleasant and responsive.

I know that nfinitefx45 took compcache out of his latest builds in both the Stock and ZenHeroFX ROMs. I don't know all the technical reasons behind it, but I think it just didn't improve performance enough to be worth leaving it in. Granted those are Sense-based ROMs though which are generally a little slower and "bloatier" in nature than AOSP, so the performance difference maybe be greater in CM.

chromiumleaf said:
I know that nfinitefx45 took compcache out of his latest builds in both the Stock and ZenHeroFX ROMs. I don't know all the technical reasons behind it, but I think it just didn't improve performance enough to be worth leaving it in. Granted those are Sense-based ROMs though which are generally a little slower and "bloatier" in nature than AOSP, so the performance difference maybe be greater in CM.
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Click to collapse
Thank you for the response, just wasn't sure. Since Darch left it unchecked, I figured I would ask

[Q] Nexus one flash partition layout, lowest 63MB...

I've been trying to recover some space on my Nexus one and have been largely successful in doing so with a combination of tricks, but while looking at my partitions and tallying up the numbers something didn't seem to be adding up right; the unit is supposed to have 512MB flash, but I was coming up about 60MB short.
I found this thread which discusses the partition layout of the N1; the sizes they show all seem to match up well with what my device shows. Now, the hex address of the end of the last partion (user data) ends just a couple MB short of 512MB; the start of the first partion (misc) however seems to start over 60MB into the memory space... is there a reason for this, and if so what's occupying those lowest 63.75MB of flash space?

Baseband, AKA "radio", is what you're looking for. Unless you want your Nexus not to boot anymore, it's not advisable to try and repartition baseband space.
Instead of working hard and uselessly wasting effort, use A2SD or any other kind of linking to SD-mounted EXT partition. No matter what you try, Nexus doesn't have nearly enough internal space for any common use.

That answers my question, thank you.
As I mentioned in my original message, I was successful in freeing enough space on my device; a combination of moving apps and libraries (copy to system/lib and symlink back to original location) into the system partition and clearing out bulky or unnecessary apps has left me with over 60MB of free data space without even having to resort to fancy A2SD business (just normal android move to SD card). I was simply curious about what was filling in the remaining space on the flash chip and the radio pretty much fits the bill.

As someone with pretty average amount of user apps (a bit less than 100) and 700 MB user space taken, I can't see the point in doing what you mentioned for anything but pure fun. But if that suits you - I won't argue.

Well, by my app drawer I'm sitting at ~125 (44 purely in data, 34 moved to SD with standard android method, rest either native system or moved there) apps, and if my "puny" N1 can have 60MB free and not even need ext-style A2SD I'm not quite sure how the N1 doesn't have "nearly enough internal space for any common use". Seems to me the point (not "pure fun" as you dismissively imply) of doing what I've done is to able to keep using a pretty decent phone that still has more than enough storage space if you make the least bit of effort to manage it.
But hey, who am I to judge if you prefer to buy whatever latest phone the carriers tell you you should want every 12 months just so they can cram more bloated apps on it?
I appreciate the answer to my initial question about what's using the lowest block of flash storage (I was simply curious about what was using it - I couldn't find information if it was flash overprovisioning or some other low-level portion of the OS using it), but I don't really appreciate the unnecessary negative attitude and commentary for what was just a simple question. Thanks anyways.

I guess you didn't understand my point(s). I'll elaborate:
First and foremost, my point is this: N1 is a crap of a phone. Having it for over 1 year, and trying to adapt it to my wife for 3 or 4 months later on before giving up on it, taught me that this phone can't be dealt with by anyone who doesn't want to accept its touchscreen limitations. It was so refreshing having the phone (MT4G in my case) just react without fuss and not expecting it to crap out at any given time - not even mentioning the huge speed-up. The price of "upgrade" (selling the N1 and buying any previous-generation phone, like DHD/MT4G/DS/DZ) can be brought down to as low as $50, and the benefits are huge, I already wrote it a couple of times on the forum.
To the storage point (actually, several points):
N1's NAND is painfully slow, compared to anything, even to regular Class 2 SD card. You can try copying any large file from NAND to EXT and back, from NAND to NAND and from EXT to EXT and see what takes more time. You're likely to discover that A2SD actually adds performance instead of hurting it.
My app data (/data/data/*) alone takes roughly the same space as your whole internal /data storage has, so I guess the amount of apps alone isn't that meaningful of a measurement. I still call it a perfectly normal and average data usage - I don't have anything special installed, no heavy games that save 200+ MB of data on internal memory, just apps like Goggles, Flash, iGO and a couple of other big apps that aren't movable by normal means (and tend to crap the system out when they're forced to move). The problem in your approach is not even the one-time amount of work you had to invest to make that space, but the amount of work you'll have to invest to keep the phone running - moving system updates to /system upon every update, clearing browser cache, etc - generally, keeping things in constant check. Free time is something you learn to appreciate when you don't have enough, and more hassle-free setup is always preferred IMHO.
But again, different people have different needs, so while I can post my point of view - I don't argue with yours.

Thank you for elaborating, actually; it clarifies much that was not apparent in your earlier posts. This thread isn't really about the pros and cons of the N1 so all I'll say is that the advantages of the N1 (small size, OLED, build quality, tricolor trackball LED, etc..) still outweigh its manageable downsides for me, even compared to very modern handsets - so I'll stick with it until I can find a suitable upgrade that I'm happy with (is it so hard for HTC to make a <=4" qHD AMOLED? Seriously...).
Your point about the NAND being slow is interesting; this is something I hadn't heard and will have to benchmark; if it pans out it would be a point in favor of A2SD, but not really in favor of replacing the device over it
The upkeep I don't find that bad; Titanium backup makes integrating updated system apps a single touch for the batch, and I've only got a couple libraries symlinked into system that are unlikely to be frequently updated. With the space I've freed I shouldn't need to clear browser caches nearly as often - so it actually saves me time and frustration regularly for the one-time effort.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply and to clarify your points

If a2sd+ doesn't work for you you could do custom mtd partitions like I did using fireats custom mtd if u google it u will find it basically you can shrink ur system partition down to almost half because it is being wasted I mean whatever size u want to define it as. I'm using miui and my system partition that i defined is 120 mb (4 mbs are free just in case) and my cache partition is 15 mb. Now that leaves 301 mbs free for user data. I have 107 user apps installed about 10 games or so and I still have 120 mb free for user data for me that's more than enough. This way ur phone won't be buggy because u will only use the system partition for ur rom again I would suggest miui since it takes minimal space and is very smooth and stable with amazing battery life (I use tiamat kernel). Hope this helped
---------- Post added at 06:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:52 PM ----------
Oh if u use a2sd in conjunction with custom mtd then u can have close to 750 mb of space available for user data given that ur sd ext partition is 512 mb (which was stable for me using 8gb card) that's basically rivaling new phone memory so don't just call the nexus one off just yet it can surprise anyone that knows how to play with it or stuck with it for 2years like me lol.

I've already been using root access with shell and titanium backup to move apps and libraries into the system partition without resizing it, so I'm already using the available space there. The only major difference is you've dramatically shrunk your cache partition from the default of (IIRC) 100MB down to 15MB; this seems like a pretty huge reduction, and I feel this would have performance implications, especially when running larger apps...
Other than that, if I find my current space as set up proves to be inadequate in the future (it seems just fine for now) then a2sd appears to be the best option for those who need even more additional space on a nexus one.

15 mb is more than enough for cache partition unless u plan to download huge 3d games and as we all know gaming isn't the reason that we have held on to nexus one for so long I haven't seen any app large enough to not install due to my partition size. I messed around with that too first I had it set at 5 mb but that made market force close every time then I set it at 10 was stable but large apps couldn't download and then I tried 15 and hasn't given me a single problem. Otherwise all that space is wasted so why not dedicate it to user data? With 20 mb partition u can download almost all games that can function on nexus one but since I'm not a big mobile gamer I stuck with 15 mb cache.

Most normal programs don't use /cache.
To fix your cache market issue:
Code:
su
busybox mv /cache/download /sd-ext/download
ln -s /sd-ext/download /cache/download
If you don't have a sd-ext you could use /sdcard/download instead. The directory will already exist if you've downloaded anything from the browser, so I just remove /cache/download before linking. I used to get package file invalid errors from this setup though...
Ti backup will also let you move stuff to /system and re-odex your rom instead of shrinking /system. Sure, everytime system stuff updates you need to click a few times, but unless space is real tight, it works fine. The re-odex-ed rom seems to boot faster for me than with external dalvik-cache, too, but that could just be me pretending. I've never busted out the stop-watch.
I like to keep apks on a2sd and put dalvik-cache on internal memory. It's kinda like raiding the two interfaces together to get the sum of the bandwidths of both when launching a program.
siberx: I'm sticking with the N1 until I find a decent phone that has been designed to fit in my pocket instead of sitting in a purse or on the bar too... I considered the glacier for a while, but, near as I can tell, the only benefits of going there are better touch screen and gpu.

I used firerat's mtd patch to rejigger my girlfriend's desire paritions to something more sensible (something like a 230mb system partition stock? ridiculous!) and that worked smashingly; the same trick against my N1 didn't go so well though. Seems like my Nexus with CM6.1 on it is still using the cache partition for dalvik at least partially, and I think shrinking it down to 20mb made it too small to boot right. Not a big deal anyways; I've got enough space to work with as is
I tried to do some benchmarks on my internal flash for comparsion, but the only decent benchmark I could find (without getting manual about it on command line) was Passmark's mobile benchmark; problem is they wan't 90MB free to run the internal memory benchmark, so my 60MB isn't cutting it for that
Anybody know of a decent benchmark that will bench both internal and SD read/write speeds that doesn't need such a huge chunk of free space?
ezdi: I considered for awhile buying a G2 for the faster CPU/GPU and improved touchscreen, but ultimately decided against it due to the extra weight and thickness (combined with the nexus' other advantages like OLED and tricolour LED). Eventually some manufacturer will figure out there's a still a market for compact high-end phones...

ezdi said:
siberx: I'm sticking with the N1 until I find a decent phone that has been designed to fit in my pocket instead of sitting in a purse or on the bar too... I considered the glacier for a while, but, near as I can tell, the only benefits of going there are better touch screen and gpu.
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Click to collapse
Better touch screen is a reason enough by itself.
GPU, much faster and bigger internal memory (both system and data), much faster and bigger RAM, and most of all - 90% HW-compatibility to one of the most popular devices in the world (DHD) - means staying updated and speedy with ROMs that fly where they crawl on Nexus (if they exist at all). Plus - all ROMs besides ICS are 100% functional, CM, MIUI, Sense 3/3.5, you name it. And if it's not enough, 20% hassle-free overclock is standard.
From quite satisfied Glacier owner.