I've seen a lot of discussion on various Android/Droid forums on the web over the past month or two about the Bionic, and it having 512MB of RAM. A lot of people don't seem to mind, and some people have even said it doesn't matter because it's DDR2, which is faster than regular DDR.
Well, 512MB of RAM is not enough for a dual-core phone you plan to use for 2 years or more. Here's why, in a rather lengthy post that I also put on MyDroidWorld the other night. I've been on the XDA forums for a long time, though I don't post very frequently and I'm curious to see what people will think of my admittedly long post. So, here is why I think people should think long and hard about whether to buy the Bionic when it does come out, assuming it still ships with 512MB of RAM.
Caching.
Ok - let me explain. The single most important factor in performance of a computer is having enough RAM. When a computer runs out of RAM, it starts to use what's called a page file. It's basically a file on your hard drive that acts as additional RAM. Now, DDR3-1600 speed RAM transfers data at 12.8 gigabytes per second. Phenomenally fast. It also has a reaction time of around 5 nanoseconds, also ridiculously fast. When your operating system has to start using the page file because the physical RAM is full, the performance hit is EXTRAORDINARY. Even the best hard disk drives (not counting SSDs) like the latest Raptor from Western Digital cap out at around 155 megabytes per second for reading and writing, and it has a peak latency of 7 milliseconds for reaction time. 1 nanosecond is 1 million milliseconds, which makes the DDR3 RAM over a MILLION times faster reacting than the hard drive, and the transfer rate of the RAM over 80 times faster than the transfer rate of the hard drive.
In real-world terms, it's like you're talking about an ant versus a Porsche 911 Turbo. Most old computers that have long pauses or hang for several seconds doing even basic tasks, it's because they don't have enough RAM and it's caching stuff between the hard drive and the RAM.
Now, whenever Android runs out of RAM, (same with any operating system) it has to start using its page file, which means it starts using this monstrously slow flash memory as RAM. It's like merging onto a freeway that is gridlocked with traffic when you were going hundreds of miles per hour. The flash memory is a lot slower than the Raptor hard drive for data transfer rates, but it has a read time a lot faster; the best-performing ones are generally under 1 microsecond. 1 microsecond is a thousand times slower than 1 nanosecond. The write times are closer to hard drives, though; generally less than 1 millisecond, so like 10x faster than a hard drive but still 100,000 times slower reaction time to writing data than the RAM is.
What this means is, when your permanent storage is flash-based, it has a much faster reaction time than a hard drive but it's still dog-slow compared to RAM; so when Android runs out of RAM, it caches to the page file on the flash memory, and you'll have the same slowdown effect as you do on an old POS computer, but it's not as noticeable because flash memory reacts faster than disk-based hard drives.
The point of all of this is that, 1GB of DDR1 memory on a phone is FAR better than 512MB of DDR2 memory. The 1GB will prevent you from hitting that metaphorical brick wall of caching data to your flash memory when the 512MB won't. We already use 400MB, or more, of our 512MB of RAM on our existing phones just by turning it on and having a couple of widgets/services in the background above & beyond the stock ones. How do you expect to take advantage significantly higher-end applications and games, which also means (for games, primarily) that they take up more RAM, as well?
You can't have higher-quality graphics without needing more RAM, so when that new version of Angry Birds comes out this fall or something that requires two cores and looks amazing, but uses 250MB of RAM to run instead of the 80MB or whatever the regular one uses now, what do you think has to happen? That's right. Android has to cache that much extra data to your flash memory so it can unload it from the RAM, freeing the necessary space to load Angry Birds HD. This causes more of a delay as it's writing data, and will cause extra choppiness, etc. Another thing to keep in mind is that, as resolutions increase, so do the texture sizes for all applications and widgets that you use, assuming they support the new resolution. More size needed, which takes up more space in RAM.
Don't be fooled. When truly good and proper dual-core benchmarks come out, 1GB RAM dual-core phones will spank their 512MB RAM dual-core brethren for real-world performance in games, and other high-memory applications. Also, excessive caching greatly increases the chance of flash memory going bad. Not a common occurrence if it was fine when shipped, but still something to think about.
So, in summary, even though the performance hit from caching to flash memory isn't as bad as caching to hard disk drives, it's still a tremendous slowdown and it will matter for dual-core phones way more than for single-core ones. The average amount of RAM installed on dual-core desktop computers from Dell/HP/etc. was significantly higher than what the average was for the previous single-core generations were, and there are reasons for that. Primarily, the same reasons I just outlined. In simple terms, faster processors can do more things, which necessarily requires more RAM.
Sorry for the wall of text, I tried to be more concise but it kind of got away from me. I'm not buying a Bionic because it has 512MB of RAM. After owning it a year, it'll be having performance issues on top-end dual-core-required games that run just fine on phones like the Atrix.
I'm sorry because I know this is probably going to come across the wrong way, but WOW, you spent a lot of time writing that up, and too much time for me to read it alll, especially considering Motorola has pulled back on the Bionic and it's receiving "enhancements". I guess what I'm saying is why all the speculation/conjecture until we know the revised specs? Maybe it'll land with 8GB of DDR 6 RAM.
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
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I disagree that ram is the single most important factor of performance of a computer.
hard drives are the biggest bottleneck in a computer. this is why I use a vertex 3 ssd.
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gemro311 said:
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
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I concur, really hope VZW pushes for a premier device
I disagree. Android isn't expanding as an OS at some breakneck pace and 512MB is definitely suitable for the near future. 1GB is absolutely not necessary for great performance in a phone. RAM is a bottleneck, but it is not something that magically allows for better performance if the device isn't hitting the pagefile anyway.
The way that Android manages applications will allow 512MB phones to be relevant for some time. The Bionic will be a solid phone for the next year, but there will always be something bigger and better next year. Phones aren't future-proof.
I was just checking out this thread and wanted to say maybe the reason that the atrix comes with 1gb of ram is because of the extra contraption that you can buy along with. It looks like a netbook but is not very well performing and who would even care to rely on it for anything I don't know.
gemro311 said:
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
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I certainly hope Motorola makes the required improvements, but you also need to keep in mind Verizon approves and in many if not all cases specs the phones they want. They chose the specs, they had to live with the specs. I think once they saw what was coming they figured it was no longer premiere and wanted changes made.
Regardless of why its been pulled back the fact that it was is good, but if its going to take 4-5 months to get it out the door they should have just scrapped it altogether.
E30kid said:
I disagree. Android isn't expanding as an OS at some breakneck pace and 512MB is definitely suitable for the near future. 1GB is absolutely not necessary for great performance in a phone. RAM is a bottleneck, but it is not something that magically allows for better performance if the device isn't hitting the pagefile anyway.
The way that Android manages applications will allow 512MB phones to be relevant for some time. The Bionic will be a solid phone for the next year, but there will always be something bigger and better next year. Phones aren't future-proof.
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Well, wait for Ice Cream and we'll see. Since the future Android version will also run in tablets, it is likely that it will have huge memory requirements.
By the way, my Acer Liquid A1 can't be officially upgraded to Froyo because it only has 256Mb. Later Liquid models with 512Mb are upgradeable. At the time I bought it, 512Mb seemed unnecessary because the Nexus One operating system only supported 256Mb, having the other 256Mb wasted. This was only 12 months ago...
galaxyjeff said:
I was just checking out this thread and wanted to say maybe the reason that the atrix comes with 1gb of ram is because of the extra contraption that you can buy along with. It looks like a netbook but is not very well performing and who would even care to rely on it for anything I don't know.
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I think you are on to something here. I think I read somewhere that the atrix only uses 512 mb when not connected to the dock. I have the inspire which has 768 mb, and I came from the captivate which was 512 mb, and I done know if is the ram or what but this phone performs way better than the captivate. Even when I bought the inspire, right out the box stock, preformed much better than a captivate overclocked with an ext4 filesystem kernel. Not that this is empirical evidence, but hey.
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cryptiq said:
I'm sorry because I know this is probably going to come across the wrong way, but WOW, you spent a lot of time writing that up, and too much time for me to read it alll, especially considering Motorola has pulled back on the Bionic and it's receiving "enhancements". I guess what I'm saying is why all the speculation/conjecture until we know the revised specs? Maybe it'll land with 8GB of DDR 6 RAM.
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I lol'd. But seriously 512 MB of RAM is more than enough... It's a PHONE not a high end desktop system. I play tons of games on my x2 and with alot of crap in the backround open, and I notice zero performance hits. If you are spending all day monitoring your RAM on your phone and trying to measure FPS loss, load time differences, etc. I suggest that you try to pick up a new hobby ASAP, OCDing will be the end of you. Best of luck!
Edit: I wouldn't worry about it either! Bionic probably won't come out anyways, and if it does, another phone with 1GB to satisfy your OCD probably will be out by then.
As of now, I feel ALL future top tier smart phones need to come equipped with at least 1GB of DDR2. The G2x, for example, will most likely have issues running a custom ice cream rom. And people will be upset.. especially after putting up with all of the other various problems that particular phone has.
OP, I don't agree entirely with your explanation of the use of caching by the OS - for all 3 major computer OSes, no matter how much excess RAM you have, they will start caching data to the hard drive, whether you like it or not. Obviously if you run out of RAM, it has to do so, but it'll even do it long before you've hit that cap - just because it determines an application has gone "inactive". Now I haven't read up on Android enough to know whether this is 100% true for it, too, but considering it's running a linux kernel, I would imagine so. So just like the 8GB of RAM in my desktop doesn't necessarily help for everyday computing needs, 1GB vs 512mb on the Bionic may not make a huge difference.
raptordrew said:
OP, I don't agree entirely with your explanation of the use of caching by the OS - for all 3 major computer OSes, no matter how much excess RAM you have, they will start caching data to the hard drive, whether you like it or not. Obviously if you run out of RAM, it has to do so, but it'll even do it long before you've hit that cap - just because it determines an application has gone "inactive". Now I haven't read up on Android enough to know whether this is 100% true for it, too, but considering it's running a linux kernel, I would imagine so. So just like the 8GB of RAM in my desktop doesn't necessarily help for everyday computing needs, 1GB vs 512mb on the Bionic may not make a huge difference.
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i beg to differ
my captivate; even though its a single core...is still quite capable at most everyday tasks...only thing lacking is the RAM
my phone will slow to a crawl after entering twitter, switching to pulse and then going back to my homescreen....
not to mention my launcher keeps getting killed by android as it keeps running out of RAM
droid_does said:
i beg to differ
my captivate; even though its a single core...is still quite capable at most everyday tasks...only thing lacking is the RAM
my phone will slow to a crawl after entering twitter, switching to pulse and then going back to my homescreen....
not to mention my launcher keeps getting killed by android as it keeps running out of RAM
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I have to lol at this one. Absolutely none of those issues have to do with amount of RAM. In fact the launcher problem has nothing to do with RAM at all.
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While I appreciate other people who have the same amount of passion for phones as I do, I just have two words to say about anyone saying phones with 512 mb ram will not get Ice Cream Sandwich. Nexus S.
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mb02 said:
I have to lol at this one. Absolutely none of those issues have to do with amount of RAM. In fact the launcher problem has nothing to do with RAM at all.
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it does as android keeps killing it to free up more RAM to use......
droid_does said:
it does as android keeps killing it to free up more RAM to use......
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Yea the task manager is killing the apps to keep ram freed up, as in stopping unused processes etc. That's just the aggressive working of the management software that would run just the same if you even had 8GB of ram.
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timothymilla said:
While I appreciate other people who have the same amount of passion for phones as I do, I just have two words to say about anyone saying phones with 512 mb ram will not get Ice Cream Sandwich. Nexus S.
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Remember when everyone thought Gingerbread would require a 1GHz processor as a system requirement, which was later debunked?
http://www.talkandroid.com/23041-so...ngerbread-update-due-to-1ghz-cpu-requirement/
Nobody can say what will and will not get updated for sure, although I will venture to say that it's HIGHLY likely the Nexus S will be getting 2.4, you're right.
zetsumeikuro said:
I lol'd. But seriously 512 MB of RAM is more than enough... It's a PHONE not a high end desktop system. I play tons of games on my x2 and with alot of crap in the backround open, and I notice zero performance hits. If you are spending all day monitoring your RAM on your phone and trying to measure FPS loss, load time differences, etc. I suggest that you try to pick up a new hobby ASAP, OCDing will be the end of you. Best of luck!
Edit: I wouldn't worry about it either! Bionic probably won't come out anyways, and if it does, another phone with 1GB to satisfy your OCD probably will be out by then.
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512 mb is not enough for a dual core 4G phone it just isnt. the thunderbolt has 768 mb and its only single core and 4G and let me tell you it would be way faster with the 1024 mb of ram i cant imagine how laggy the bionic would be if you start doing anything with it! the 512 ram will be ate up in no time! i sure hope verizon reconsiders and adds more ram or i probably wont use this device as my daily phone either keep the thunderbolt with more ram which is sad cause it has been out for awhile now and the droid x also has 512 ram and it has been out for a year and they cant make improvements?? and they are going to want $299+++ for this phone ON CONTRACT! it better have more than 512 ram or it aint worth a lick! rip this phone open and put my own ram in it!
Related
How much RAM does the Captivate really have? Reason I ask is my friend's Droid Incredible constantly has about 270-280MB free, even when he was on 2.1. My Captivate has about 150MB free after doing a task kill. I thought these were supposed to have 512MB of RAM, but this post says that the new Samsung Continuum has the same 336MB as the Samsung Fascinate. So, who knows for sure, with rock solid concrete proof that these phones have 512MB??
"The device looks to have the exact same 1 GHz Hummingbird processor, 336 MB of RAM, and Super AMOLED display as the already released Fascinate (we assume the camera and battery are going to be the same as well). "
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/09/30/new-hi-res-images-info-on-verizons-samsung-continuum/
From what I have read. The cappy has 512 but can't use all of it till froyo. 2.1 can't see all 512.
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derek4484 said:
How much RAM does the Captivate really have? Reason I ask is my friend's Droid Incredible constantly has about 270-280MB free, even when he was on 2.1. My Captivate has about 150MB free after doing a task kill. I thought these were supposed to have 512MB of RAM, but this post says that the new Samsung Continuum has the same 336MB as the Samsung Fascinate. So, who knows for sure, with rock solid concrete proof that these phones have 512MB??
"The device looks to have the exact same 1 GHz Hummingbird processor, 336 MB of RAM, and Super AMOLED display as the already released Fascinate (we assume the camera and battery are going to be the same as well). "
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/09/30/new-hi-res-images-info-on-verizons-samsung-continuum/
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You are trying to hard.
Check out the official specs on samsungs web site:
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SGH-I897ZKAATT-features
If you don't believe that, then i don't know what to tell you.
alphadog00 said:
You are trying to hard.
Check out the official specs on samsungs web site:
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SGH-I897ZKAATT-features
If you don't believe that, then i don't know what to tell you.
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Ok, so it says 512MB of RAM. Well why cant we access the whole 512MB?? People were just saying "well 2.1 cant access all of it", which was garbage. My friend's droid incredible on 2.1 accessed all 512MB of its RAM. Now that Froyo is out for Captivate, its own built in task manager says it only has 304MB of RAM.
So, how am I trying hard? And what am I trying hard to do? I'm just wanting to know a solid answer. Where the EFF is the rest of the 512MB of RAM that these phones supposedly have? I regret buying a samjunk phone every day. Should have never wasted a dime on Samjunk.
Take it back; sell it; get rid of it then.
No one forced you to buy it or keep it.
The spec sheet says it has 512MB of RAM - some speculate that some of it used as video memory; other mentions say there is a RAM disk taking up space.
I have many apps open and running and i have not had a problem with running out of memory - so I am not to worried about what is available.
The initramfs uses a few MB - not much, single digits. The stock kernels also include ramdisk support and set up 8 8KiB ramdisks iirc. None of this accounts for the amount "missing", but space reserved for two or three screen-sized buffers, and for texture memory, etc might explain it. I have no idea where people get this idea that eclair kernels can't support 512MB.
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Unhelpful said:
The initramfs uses a few MB - not much, single digits. The stock kernels also include ramdisk support and set up 8 8KiB ramdisks iirc. None of this accounts for the amount "missing", but space reserved for two or three screen-sized buffers, and for texture memory, etc might explain it. I have no idea where people get this idea that eclair kernels can't support 512MB.
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Thank you. Educated answer. I know it has a 512MB chip in it, I dont think anybody is disputing that. What I was wanting to know or figure out is where is the missing RAM? From 512 to 304 is a good bit missing. So out of the 304MB the OS takes up about 160-180, that leaves us with about 120-140ish for program memory. To me, it doesnt make much sense to put 512 in a phone then hide almost half of it from programs. I demo'ed a Moto Droid last November for a month and it came with 256MB and after doing a task kill it would have about the same as these Galaxy S phones do. My guess is that some of the system ram is being reserved for video ram, or other's have speculated that there is a ram disk in there. Maybe a combination of both, vram and ram disk. I think its wrong for samsung to advertise "512MB RAM" to compete with the likes of N1, Droid incredible, EVO 4G, all of which have a true 512MB, but our phones have a large portion of that 512, thats not accessible. It'd be a lot more honest if they advertised 304MB.
Actually 128 MB of the RAM is dedicated to the gpu. I don't know specifics but I'm guess this is part of the reason why the galaxy blows everything else away in gaming. It is a little dissapointing but whatever. I feel the same way bout it as everyone else.
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Anybody checked how does it look in i9000 or other GalaxyS-family phones?
Tear-downs have revealed that the phone does have 3 different chips that add up to 512 mb. Unfortunately a sizable portion is reserved for an unknown reason.
Has anybody been able to get a solid answer about where the missing 208MB of RAM is? Is it a ramdisk, is it video ram, is it a little of both? Who knows? Samsung knows but they wont admit that it doesnt have 512MB.
I've emailed samsung customer service several times explaining that my phone system information says 304MB RAM. They just reply, "Captivate does indeed have 512MB of RAM. Thank you for your inquiry.... blah blah blah."
It does have a 512MB chip in it, but what's it being used for, is what I'd like to know. N1 doesnt have this problem. Droid incredible doesnt have this problem. Droid X doesnt, etc. The G2 does, its advertised as 512MB but when you do system info on it, it has 380MB.
I just spoke to samsung level 5, its top secret and they will never disclose the answer! Muahahaha
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itsjustaphone said:
I just spoke to samsung level 5, its top secret and they will never disclose the answer! Muahahaha
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lol!
As much as I would also like to know where the rest of the ram goes, it doesn't matter so much when we dominate the quadrant scores with a small tweak
EDIT-forgot link: http://smartphonebenchmarks.com/
ThisWasATriumph said:
Tear-downs have revealed that the phone does have 3 different chips that add up to 512 mb. Unfortunately a sizable portion is reserved for an unknown reason.
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Could u please elaborate this? Or atleast could u pls link to that site?
I've seen other phones that will be released this Q1 or Q2 having 1GB of RAM whilst the Optimus 2X only has 512MB.
I myself have kind of got the feeling that 512MB's would be enough and that 1GB is unnecessary, but I would like your opinions, and maybe an explenation to why 512MB's would be enough?
Since Atrix won't be released in Sweden that pretty much leaves it to Optimus 2X or the Galaxy S2, but the S2 will probably be like 200 dollars more. Would that really be worth the money RAM-wise (other differences doesn't matter that much to me)?
I'm of the mind that 512MB will be fine for the forseeable future. If you consider that the most demanding apps are typically games, and the most impressive games (since GameLoft, Epic etc have signed on with nVidia...) will be developed to Tegra 2 specs, I can't imagine those Tegra 2 specs would preclude running on 512MB of RAM. Following that assumption, by the time 512MB of RAM isn't enough, you will probably be due for an upgrade anyway.
I'm starting to think that the only reason the Atrix has 1GB is because the WebTop mode runs well over 512MB in typical operation. Then, of course, the Galaxy 2 has a gig so that it doesn't look inferior on paper.
Just my conjecturous 2 cents.
Sjael said:
I'm of the mind that 512MB will be fine for the forseeable future. If you consider that the most demanding apps are typically games, and the most impressive games (since GameLoft, Epic etc have signed on with nVidia...) will be developed to Tegra 2 specs, I can't imagine those Tegra 2 specs would preclude running on 512MB of RAM. Following that assumption, by the time 512MB of RAM isn't enough, you will probably be due for an upgrade anyway.
I'm starting to think that the only reason the Atrix has 1GB is because the WebTop mode runs well over 512MB in typical operation. Then, of course, the Galaxy 2 has a gig so that it doesn't look inferior on paper.
Just my conjecturous 2 cents.
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Thanks for your reply! I also thought about the RAM being for the WebTop but then Samsung released the S2 lol.. I would probably agree with you that 512MB will be enough in at least the coming year or so, hell, you can almost run a game like World of Warcraft on 512MB RAM.
Maybe Motorola and Samsung are just putting in hardware that is ahead of the future to atract the customers that want 'the best'. Of course, they are probably slightly better but from what I understand it is kind of hard to fill up 512MB RAM which they also say in Anandtechs review of the Atrix.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4165/the-motorola-atrix-4g-preview
If only LG could put in at least 768MB I wouldn't have to worry
Have to agree with Sjael about the 512MB of RAM in the Atrix being for the laptop dock. In that preview you posted in the benchmark tests the optimus came out on top of the atrix pretty much every time. So don't let the 512 MB of RAM detour you!
I would not mind 512MB RAM(Actually, you can use only 372MB of ram because of the android system)
512MB ram is not that small, and there is no app that needs more than 512MB.
I'm using Optimus 2X, but 512MB RAM was okay
pokerfake said:
I would not mind 512MB RAM(Actually, you can use only 372MB of ram because of the android system)
512MB ram is not that small, and there is no app that needs more than 512MB.
I'm using Optimus 2X, but 512MB RAM was okay
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'Okay' doesn't sound too convincing. Could you tell us about the phone in general? Are you satisfied, how is the battery life etc?
Battery time is simuliar with Samsung Galaxy
LG home sometimes reset after I play some heavy 3D game. I think that its because of RAM, but this problem does not happen if you change your home program
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pokerfake said:
Battery time is simuliar with Samsung Galaxy
LG home sometimes reset after I play some heavy 3D game. I think that its because of RAM, but this problem does not happen if you change your home program
Sent from my LG-SU660 using XDA App
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What about gps ?
GPS is waaay better than Samsung Galaxy S
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pokerfake said:
Battery time is simuliar with Samsung Galaxy
LG home sometimes reset after I play some heavy 3D game. I think that its because of RAM, but this problem does not happen if you change your home program
Sent from my LG-SU660 using XDA App
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The LG launcher doesn't look too attractive anyway so i'll probably go for LauncherPro
pokerfake said:
GPS is waaay better than Samsung Galaxy S
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Really ? Oh, this is a great news !
1GB is better than 512MB
but....... i think 512 is enough, also
Well we now have some empirical evidence...
The +64MB RAM kernel gives back 64MB to the user and it makes a *huge* difference to performance in general day to day use for me. I no longer need to use minfreemanager and my launcher and background apps hardly ever get shut down by the system now.
I used to be of the mind that 512 was enough (=372) but with +64 (=436) there's a world of difference.
So, in my experience 512 is a constraint.
Its not the 512mb itself being the limit here, its the way these 512mb are used and how Android is configured to manage the memory by the manufacturer - but yes more ram to work with are allways a benefit.
512mb is plenty in the HTC Desire which default has about 440mb for the user, while the LG only has 372mb (more ram allocated for video than the Desire perhaps ?)
Furthermore the default minfree setting in the Desire is configured to allways leave 140mb free, while the LG is default configured to only leave around 80mb free.
This cause the LG to run low on memory, needing the system to free up memory by shutting down apps that are preloaded, faster and more often than on the Desire.
The extra 64mb you free with the other Kernel can be configured either as more ram for preloadet apps or as just free ram - depending on how agressive you set the minfree setting. The result you get will be a combination of this - if minfree are still set to 80mb then the 64mb are just used to preload more apps, which you will feel as a benefit if switching to one of these preloaded apps, but wont feel as a benefit if you need to run an app that use up more than the free 80mb and which hasnt been preloaded. On the other hand you could divide it and set the minfree setting to 110 and let the rest 34mb be used to preload apps in, that way a running app could use more ram before it would need to shutdown preloaded apps.
I cant say which setting would be the best overall - but for certain the configuration of the memory works better in the Desire than the one in the LG - despite both having 512mb ram
i thought the cappy had 512 mb of ram... why do all the roms have like 341? im confused >.< either i looked at 3 faulty spec sheets for the captivate or we arent utilizing the full ram potential for the captivate. would someone explain the truth on this matter to a captivate noob like me?
i could be wrong but i believe the 341 is available to use ram, while the rest is being used by the phone to function.
nehal51086 said:
i could be wrong but i believe the 341 is available to use ram, while the rest is being used by the phone to function.
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that would make sense, but that makes the specs misleading... i traded my HD2 for a cappy because the spec sheet said 512mb of ram and the HD2 only has 411 available to the OS when running android from nand because the rest is dedicated to winmo only (which sucks massively), and i wanted more ram lol, guess i should have looked harder into things, but regardless the captivate is "better" in very many areas, but RAM is literally my deciding factor for so many things lately (like t-mobile with the sensation or sprint with the evo 3d, i would say evo 3d because it has 256mb or so more ram)
This question has been asked and answered several times....
the phone does have 512mb of ram. Like the person above me said the phones os and graphics take up a portion of the ram. All computers and smart phones work the same way.
As a side note android handles ram very well. You don't need to manage it at all by freeing it up. free ram is wasted ram as the os will have to load it back up anyways
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
crystalhand said:
This question has been asked and answered several times....
the phone does have 512mb of ram. Like the person above me said the phones os and graphics take up a portion of the ram. All computers and smart phones work the same way.
As a side note android handles ram very well. You don't need to manage it at all by freeing it up. free ram is wasted ram as the os will have to load it back up anyways
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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i know this very well, free ram can be considered wasted ram, unless you need 200mb or so free for a tegra class game, but i think android handles ram awesomely to an extent but can be improved by implementing autokiller memory optimizer in a knowledgable and appropriate way that doesnt hurt optimizations android already has in place, zipaligning, increasing the dalvik heap size, etc... can all be done, im not asking about how android handles ram or anything, and im sorry i didnt know the question had been asked several times i am brand new to the captivate today, literally, and was doing not but seeking information i didnt understand or know, thank you for the explaination though i appreciate it, and im glad to know that my new captivate will utilize the left over 171mb of ram for something unlike my HD2 that couldnt access the last 100mb because it was designated to winmo only. i had an idea that was the case and i was just clarifying to myself because i kept reading rom changelogs stating "enabled more ram now 341mb available" or something along the lines of that and thought to myself "there should be more available already" lol
I honestly think 341MB is enough.
341 MB is alot. But something is taking all that up too. On a fresh boot, half of it is used, and I have 140~170 MB. Its even worse on GB. Most ive gotten is 100 MB free.
So if the half of the 341 plus the mysterious 171 MB that is nowhere to be found, I dont get whats using the other 171 that is not part of the 341. Lol confusing
Same happens to me. Who knows, lol
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
I think its the user interface graphics, like scrolling quality is good because that ram is dedicated to things
like that
Sent from cyanogen mod 7
no 1GB ram, no talk. moto, how do you expect me to use a flagship phone without 1 gb ram
thomaslau said:
no 1GB ram, no talk. moto, how do you expect me to use a flagship phone without 1 gb ram
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Where you need 1GB RAM? They are Just Numbers. Cyanogenmod requires under 100MB RAM. I bet you will never fulfill your RAM, even, if you install hundreds of apps.
I have Sense on my phone, and it is damn RAM hog. Buy still I have 157 MB in use and 358 MB free.
It Is Not Just A RAM. Almost all of your RAM could be free, and still your phone is lagging like hell.
Stop watching numbers. For example, if you use AMD's processor, with six cores. GHz are higher than Intel. And still Intel's processor wins and washes AMD with lesser cores and lower GHz.
I bet Droid 3's software is much more lighter and uses less RAM, CPU etc. than hTC's Sense.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App
Not to mention ddr2. The ram in the d3 is far better than any other phone.
From what I can gather about how android works, faster ram >>> more ram.
Compared to my rooted/rommed Incredible, the Droid 3 blows it out of the water speed wise. Even faster than my Xoom, which is to be expected I guess
It's not their flagship phone, Droid Bionic will be which will have 1gb ram.
512mb is enough anyway like someone else said.
if you dont like it, and especially if you never use it, dont post your bull**** here
theclueless said:
if you dont like it, and especially if you never use it, dont post your bull**** here
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because i like droid 3, i post here!!!!!! i want to buy one
1gb ram is for webtop!!!!! why dont they give us webtop and how do you guys know android 4.0 wont have webtop function?
Would anyone actually use webtop?? The last I had looked, it hadn't really taken off with the Attrix. It's a unique idea, but at somewhere around $500 last I had looked for the laptop dock (its been awhile, so I may be wrong), you can buy one of several android tablets (Asus Transformer, Acer Iconia) and have a serperate fully functional device.
Plus the fact that the Droid 3 already has a physical keyboard.
That said, I would have been happier with 1 GB of RAM (not a deal killer though). I'm more worried about future possibilites. In 2 years, this will probably be like the original Droid is now, able to run the most current version of android, but not at its best. 1 GB would have made it more future proof, but in the end its personal choice that decides.
I'm loving mine so far, just waiting to get root going so I can start doing some cleaning.
woundtrauma said:
Where you need 1GB RAM? They are Just Numbers. Cyanogenmod requires under 100MB RAM. I bet you will never fulfill your RAM, even, if you install hundreds of apps.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App
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512MB means not even 200MB free RAM after boot. No problem to fill that out which means the system kicks not recently used apps out of ram.
Mine has Google Talk... Though I don't know if it does video right now. It's got a camera, so if it doesn't now, I assume it will later.
thomaslau said:
no 1GB ram, no talk. moto, how do you expect me to use a flagship phone without 1 gb ram
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its not verizons flagship phone...have you seen any commericials for it? didnt think so. if they really wanted to sell this phone, they would invest in advertisements for it...just saying
KingKuba13 said:
It's not their flagship phone, Droid Bionic will be which will have 1gb ram.
512mb is enough anyway like someone else said.
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The D3 appears to be allocated better, out of box, compared to the DX2. gTablet proves 512mb works fine with a dual core and so apparently does the D3.
I wonder if some of the ram in the Bionic will be allocated to web top?
i dont think bionic will have webtop~ 'cause the ad on bestbuy only mentioned mirror mode
Mirrored mode refers to 1080p HDMI mirroring. Plug your phone into your HDTV and watch the video you recorded in all its glory.
The Motorola phones with 1GB of RAM like the Atrix and (allegedly) the Bionic are webtop machines. Half the RAM is dedicated to the phone, half to the webtop. For that reason, we can assume there will never be a webtop option for the D3. But frankly, the D3 would be the last Moto phone you'd put on a webtop. It has a great keyboard built in, so the synergy really isn't there. I hope I'm wrong and everyone gets all the tech porn that they're wishing for.
KingKuba13 said:
It's not their flagship phone, Droid Bionic will be which will have 1gb ram.
512mb is enough anyway like someone else said.
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Sorry to correct you, but the Droid Bionic will only have 512MB of RAM.
Besides, I was skeptical about the D3 having only 512mb of ram, until I threw everything I could at it and it just kept on hauling a$$. The memory management of android 2.3.4 combined with the D3 hardware is very good.
thomaslau said:
i dont think bionic will have webtop~ 'cause the ad on bestbuy only mentioned mirror mode
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Screenshots of the about phone screen show a webtop version.
droid-life.com/2011/06/06/more-droid-bionic-pictures-surface-4-5-qhd-screen-new-3d-blur-and-android-2-3-4/
KingKuba13 said:
It's not their flagship phone, Droid Bionic will be which will have 1gb ram.
512mb is enough anyway like someone else said.
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Click to collapse
bionic will have 512mb for phone.... it's a larger screen, no keyboard, and webtop support.... other than that, same damn phone.
(another 512mb for webtop, not accessible by the phone)
it's HYPE.
i'd take 384mb of DDR3 over 1gb ddr, or 512 ddr2
xxspark89xx said:
Sorry to correct you, but the Droid Bionic will only have 512MB of RAM.
Besides, I was skeptical about the D3 having only 512mb of ram, until I threw everything I could at it and it just kept on hauling a$$. The memory management of android 2.3.4 combined with the D3 hardware is very good.
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When it comes out you'll be proven wrong. It will have 1gb ram.
I agree on the D3, since I have tried everything to choke it. Heavy Flash sites, hi-def video, multi-tasking, 150 apps installed, N64 and PSX games, etc. Nothing (so far) has tripped the D3 up. My DX2 was a blithering mess after an hours use and MP3 audio pops happened regardless of multi-tasking or not.
Game emulators including the Quake games are far better with the keyboard, which appears to be the best ever made for a phone (FWIW, since a phone). N64 and PSX game performance is faster than the A500, gTablet, DX2, and Thrive. All Tegra 2, but different OS versions.
1GB of ram certainly would not hurt, but I am not seeing anything so far that had an issue. No lag is what seem the oddest.
It is like the DX2 and D3 were firmware developed by two different companies. People that ignoring the D3 due to 512 ram alone, are missing out.
My phone shows ive around 120 to 140 ram is that enough so that the phone functions smothly without laggings? And i wanna know what free ram u guys have while using ur phone ....
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
I mean total memory free***
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
Around 100MB +/- 50 free is nominal, I guess.
The way I understand it:
It's going to vary quite a bit, depending on what your doing, number of additional serviced installed, etc. But generally speaking, Android is a very different animal compared to -- say -- Windows. Free RAM doesn't really have an affect on performance, it's just RAM that's not being exploited. There are several parameters that tell the OS how much RAM should be free in a number of different circumstances, also when and how often to kill other services. i.e. As RAM usage increases, apps and services with increasingly higher priorities will be killed to free up RAM. So like if you run Angry Birds, you may start with 100MB free which will drop down to say 70 maybe even 50, but after a few minutes of running, the OS begins to try to free up memory to get it back to what ever the desired free RAM is set to. So after a few minutes, your RAM may go all the way back up to 100MB. Where Windows would just start to pound away at a page file on the hard drive, Android will start to kill applications then eventually kill lower priority services in order to free up the RAM it needs.
So basically every time you run a RAM heavy program, Android will start to kill the previously used programs (settings screen, browser, facebook, whatever), as they are now deemed lower priority. It's always fighting to maintain a certain about of RAM.
I have an average of about 150mb on the latest CyangenMod build (not ICS). However once I start up my phone and run the auto kill after about 10 minutes, I can have 200+ (sometimes as high as 250).
Bobbar said it well in terms of how much you need. To be honest, when I was on the stock rom, I would sometimes have less than 70mb free, yet my phone still wouldn't lag much. You can help with any launcher lag by disabling desktop animations and such.
I'm generally in the range of 60 - 90 MB free RAM at any given moment. My D3 does not lag at all. What you are reporting is absolutely fine.
My first phone regularly reported 25 - 40 MB free RAM at any given moment. Android runs fine on the D3 - it's best not to spend too much time worrying about it, IMO.
If you have a bunch of RAM free all the time it just means you're losing out on multitasking. Some people tweak their OOM values and such so that they have copious amounts of free RAM, this is not necessarily a good thing. IMO
Android aggressively pre-loads applications into memory. The most ideal situation is actually higher memory usage - as most apps don't need ridiculous amounts of memory to operate, and more apps cached in memory means faster launch times for those specific apps.
If you have a bunch of apps not closing and lagging your phone then try Auto killer.
Sent from my XT862 using XDA App
I've got 240MB free at any given moment with stock ROM and doesn't lag at all.
So, not to get off topic, what exactly do all these newer phones need 1GB of RAM for? Just to load up more apps into memory? I get it, it should make them load up faster...but is it necessary on Android?
It just blows me away how much these manufacturers charge for phones these days. Seems like we're just getting into the same kind of specs 'arms race' that people have been going through on their PCs for a while now, just so they can try to make more money. That's pretty sad, considering I have a fine experience with the D3 and G2x.
BenSWoodruff said:
So, not to get off topic, what exactly do all these newer phones need 1GB of RAM for? Just to load up more apps into memory? I get it, it should make them load up faster...but is it necessary on Android?
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1 gig of RAM would be a great thing, for instance for running GNU/Linux in chroot, which I do...
The prob is the Droid 3 doesn't have anywhere near enough total RAM, not to speak of free RAM.
BenSWoodruff said:
So, not to get off topic, what exactly do all these newer phones need 1GB of RAM for? Just to load up more apps into memory? I get it, it should make them load up faster...but is it necessary on Android?
It just blows me away how much these manufacturers charge for phones these days. Seems like we're just getting into the same kind of specs 'arms race' that people have been going through on their PCs for a while now, just so they can try to make more money. That's pretty sad, considering I have a fine experience with the D3 and G2x.
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Some.of.the Phones with 1gig ram have the lapdock, it docks with a keyboard/screen to be a pseudo laptop. When docked half the ram is set aside for the lapdock
Sent from my XT860 using xda premium
BenSWoodruff said:
So, not to get off topic, what exactly do all these newer phones need 1GB of RAM for? Just to load up more apps into memory? I get it, it should make them load up faster...but is it necessary on Android?
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Click to collapse
Well, Android has gotten fatter, for one. Another would be Motos Webtop.
The more memory you have, the more apps you can have stored in it at any one time. Devices with small amounts of RAM (256 or so) may only be able run one major app at a time. But once you get into the 512 - 1GB+ range, users can freely switch between several heavy apps without them getting killed to free RAM. So you could switch between Angry Birds, then the browser, then YouTube or Email and Messaging without having to relaunch any of them.
So manufacturers tossing in more and more RAM does end up being a pretty good selling point.
It just blows me away how much these manufacturers charge for phones these days. Seems like we're just getting into the same kind of specs 'arms race' that people have been going through on their PCs for a while now, just so they can try to make more money. That's pretty sad, considering I have a fine experience with the D3 and G2x.
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Just looks at how powerful these devices are compared to just a few years ago. The innovation and power is increasing at an almost logarithmic rate. The price for a high-end smart phone has remained about the same, but the rate at which they are being cycled for newer, faster devices is crazy. So, in this sense, it may be accurate to compare it to PCs. But, it's only us enthusiasts that really feel the hit to the pocket book, because we always want to be on the bleeding edge. And most users, average users, will stay with the same device for a long time, they don't feel the same 'pain' as the enthusiasts group.
Back in 2005, before the iPhone and all that stuff, a smart would cost you almost $700 and it came with a steaming, stinking pile of Windows Mobile. We have it so good these days.
I have around 200MB at boot (CM7).
Yes, that should be enough RAM to use most apps without lagging. That's about what I had with stock, and I rarely ran out.
aman321 said:
My phone shows ive around 120 to 140 ram is that enough so that the phone functions smothly without laggings? And i wanna know what free ram u guys have while using ur phone ....
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
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512mb it's a little down for me... because i like multitasking and for example if you download something from a web page, using opera mobile or stock browser and you open facebook's app while you listening music (poweramp or winamp) it will kill your internet browser (cancel your download) due to your less ram avaible.
A great solution for us would be if we can enable a swap on our droids but it seems to be difficult (or imposible due to our locked bootloaders)... but if somoene is interested here is a link to the current topic http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1407671
With swap enabled our device will move to virtual memory our background apps leaving free ram to our current app.