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For the layman?
Please explain how it can help my phone, or if its worth it. Thanks.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=android+compcache
-BMFC
Search dude.
sjbayer3 said:
For the layman?
Please explain how it can help my phone, or if its worth it. Thanks.
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Click to collapse
SEARCH. Come on man, you were smart enough to get to XDA, you should be smart enough to find out about Compcache.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=558614
Thanks for the technical information, but as I stated, I am much more interested in layman understanding.
What will it do for my G1?
How layman can you get?
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 then more RAM is spare than 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.
"How laymen can you get? Blah blah blah virtual addressing blah blah blah dormant memory blah blah blah"
Come on man. He wants to know if it'll make his phone faster, but if there are any noticeable downsides too. I'd also like to know the answer to that.
Wow, you just learned how not to get help on XDA. Congratulations!
Konklone said:
"How laymen can you get? Blah blah blah virtual addressing blah blah blah dormant memory blah blah blah"
Come on man. He wants to know if it'll make his phone faster, but if there are any noticeable downsides too. I'd also like to know the answer to that.
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If you don't want to take the effort to understand what the technology does...you dont need it
Konklone said:
"How laymen can you get? Blah blah blah virtual addressing blah blah blah dormant memory blah blah blah"
Come on man. He wants to know if it'll make his phone faster, but if there are any noticeable downsides too. I'd also like to know the answer to that.
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Click to collapse
RAM have stuff. More RAM make phone faster. Squish stuff in RAM. RAM have more free space. Phone go faster.
AdrianK said:
RAM have stuff. More RAM make phone faster. Squish stuff in RAM. RAM have more free space. Phone go faster.
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As about as "Layman" as it gets!
compcache is a long lost Native American tribe that Android was able to discover and has brought to the forefront of Android users minds!
Layman's terms: compcache is the fastest of all the solutions used to increase "available" memory for our phones active processes, but is the most limited in actually expanding that limit. linux-swap on the SD card is the best solution for MASSIVE expansion needed to run things like Hero ROMs that are larger than the physical memory of our devices.
compache= compressed cache, btw
pjcforpres said:
compache= compressed cache, btw
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noo compACHE is what you get after reading posts like that
AdrianK said:
RAM have stuff. More RAM make phone faster. Squish stuff in RAM. RAM have more free space. Phone go faster.
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Click to collapse
dope lol I love doing that
B-man007 said:
noo compACHE is what you get after reading posts like that
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LOL! Ouch! It aches! It aches! I guess that is what I get for typing on my G1.
AdrianK said:
RAM have stuff. More RAM make phone faster. Squish stuff in RAM. RAM have more free space. Phone go faster.
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Click to collapse
best explanation EVER
here's my 2 cents...
take your closet, fill it with clothes... thats ram being filled
put clothes into airlock bag and suck air out, then put in closet, MORE SPACE!! thats compcache
Space is after all, the final frontier...
AdrianK said:
RAM have stuff. More RAM make phone faster. Squish stuff in RAM. RAM have more free space. Phone go faster.
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Click to collapse
Well, I understand it now.
AdamPI said:
How layman can you get?
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 then more RAM is spare than 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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said my friend
adriank said:
ram have stuff. More ram make phone faster. Squish stuff in ram. Ram have more free space. Phone go faster.
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Click to collapse
lmfao.... Epic win!!!!
senaia said:
best explanation EVER
here's my 2 cents...
take your closet, fill it with clothes... thats ram being filled
put clothes into airlock bag and suck air out, then put in closet, MORE SPACE!! thats compcache
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Click to collapse
Brilliant analogy!
My friend just got his phone from unlocked mobiles, i am still waiting for mine from Handtec... argh... but i just got him to check how much free memory he had from looking at advanced task killer and he only had 37MB free!!? Got him to kill everything and he only got about 130MB free in total.
Can other people check theirs to see, because its looking like the same problem that happened with the nexus one where only 256MB of the 512MB RAM was available to use, until they upgrade it to Froyo 2.2 or change the kernal to allow for Hi Mem support.
rubbish if they havent sorted this!
anyone?
ya.. its the same because of the limitation in 2.6.29 kernel not the phone. More reason to bug Samsung to upgrade to froyo or root the device
Yeah i don't think they've fixed it, ,my phone only reports about over 100 meg free.
where do you go to see memory available?
122m Avail. memory using adv task killer.
bugger, i thought they would have at least sorted out the kernal to support himem. if XDA developers can do it for android 2.1 then why cant samsung! very lame and annoying as I have seen my friends phone slow down quite a few times now.
I flashed froyo JPD + voodoo lagfix and my RAM manger shows
191 / 304 MB.
I choosed level 1 and 2 and clean memory, now it is using 144 MB.
I guess it is supposed to show 512 MB.
If I kill everything, 142M free (stock JVK). I used to be able to get ~170M free with JPY...
I'm of the, sometimes controversial, opinion that unused RAM is wasted RAM though and don't really care how much is free - as long there's no lag!
Valeo said:
I'm of the, sometimes controversial, opinion that unused RAM is wasted RAM though and don't really care how much is free - as long there's no lag!
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I have same opinion. We will never see 512mb ram available, as someones may think..we HAVE 512mb ram, but due technical issues, it won't be all usable for us..and as a linux based system, it's good to have mem full as possible. Generally speaking...
There is many topics about ram in xda..with lots of information..
sent from my i9000 w/ xda premium
209\329, jvk
As far as i can remember, we don't see the whole 512 mb RAM (or at least 400+) because of PowerVR GPU, which reserves a lot of ram for itself.
Does the froyo update make the full 512 mb ram available? I had heard earlier that only a part of it was available due to 2.1 limitations.
Sent from my GT-I9000 ADJF1 using XDA App
They were always available, ~300Mb for Programs and the rest for the system files... Why should that change?
I think what the OP meant was whether one had more memory for apps as ht tp:// developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html claims that the 2.6.32 kernel upgrade would bring "HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB".
At the moment, we do not have the full memory available in the Linux system:
Code:
$ adb shell
* daemon not running. starting it now *
* daemon started successfully *
$ free
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 333420 329988 3432 0 34724
Swap: 0 0 0
Total: 333420 329988 3432
I do not know whether that is related to the graphics hardware taking some of the memory, or to the kernel version:
Code:
$ uname -r
2.6.29
Edit: What do you mean by 'system files'? The OS is stored on mass storage, right? And Dalvik and friends should appear as userspace processes taking up regular memory.
satta said:
I think what the OP meant was whether one had more memory for apps as developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html claims that the 2.6.32 kernel upgrade would bring "HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB".
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You do understand that this does not compute, since there has always been more than 256MB available
Or has there?
I was wondering about the same thing, kernel 2.6.32.9 (JP3) also shows a little more than 300mb...
buddy01 said:
You do understand that this does not compute, since there has always been more than 256MB available
Or has there?
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Hey, I'm just quoting from an official AOSP site
Mine shows 30 mb available under advanced task killer. What am I missing?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
@satta yeah that's what I meant and that's what I had read. Cheers
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
I've seen Desire have over 400MB of memory available for applications in a video with a some sort of task manager on..
Are you sure, max i got on my nexus one was 312MB in some rare cases, using it without closing apps at all, never got below 100MB... But my Galaxy's max is 170MB, is almost half what my nexus gave me, that kinda suck (don't know if it matter bu tit feels bad in my head )
Desire has 576MB memory.. N1 has 512MB
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Maximum free RAM i got from my sgs is 210mb, easily achieved by using Astro's process manager and killing all non-essential services.
why t.f. do you guys always want to have lots of fre ram? please read a little about android memory management... free ram is wasted ram!
FadeFx said:
why t.f. do you guys always want to have lots of fre ram? please read a little about android memory management... free ram is wasted ram!
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So? We all still want our phones to be as future proof as we hoped they would be when we bought them. And we want the extra RAM simply because it's supposed to be there.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
FadeFx said:
why t.f. do you guys always want to have lots of fre ram? please read a little about android memory management... free ram is wasted ram!
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Click to collapse
As long as it doesn't go below that ~70mb when the phones actually start lagging
Might also want to take into consideration that the counterpart Desire used in this thread is also an android phone, sure too much free memory is wasted memory but too little usable memory = lag and if there isn't a lot to use in the first place then it won't take much for the phone to start lagging.
Some help in JG and onward firmwares but it's still quite funny that a simple user can make a fix to create a solution for the entire problem and Samsung hasn't either thought about this or taken it into consideration. (Mimocan is my hero <3)
edit: WOO my first post after actually following these forums for almost half a year, just registered recently
Hey,
Actually you do not need that much RAM. Im running on JG5, which IMO is the most stable and usable firmware out there. Has been running the phone for 3 days straight without any ATK like apps, and has not experience any lags.
Another thing is that, IMHO ATKs slow down the system.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
The current Samsung froyo builds do not support highmem. It is a kernel compile time config option. Samsung will hopefully enable it in later builds.
Highmem made a noticeable difference in performance on my nexus one.
ed10000 said:
So? We all still want our phones to be as future proof as we hoped they would be when we bought them. And we want the extra RAM simply because it's supposed to be there.
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Click to collapse
Nonsense. You are not entitled to more free ram in any way.
Every os uses a part of the ram for the kernel code and its buffers.
In addition the advanced graphics will need memory for its texture storage and graphic representation.
A froyo kernel will not make a major difference.
The sg has 512 memory today and it is using it as it should...
akselic said:
As long as it doesn't go below that ~70mb when the phones actually start lagging
Might also want to take into consideration that the counterpart Desire used in this thread is also an android phone, sure too much free memory is wasted memory but too little usable memory = lag and if there isn't a lot to use in the first place then it won't take much for the phone to start lagging.
Some help in JG and onward firmwares but it's still quite funny that a simple user can make a fix to create a solution for the entire problem and Samsung hasn't either thought about this or taken it into consideration. (Mimocan is my hero <3)
edit: WOO my first post after actually following these forums for almost half a year, just registered recently
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Click to collapse
lagging is actually not caused by to less free ram, in android there is no such. the used ram is caused by apps that you opened and then exited again. if you open a new app that needs more ram than aviailable (actually with a little gap of some mb) the system will close apps that are not used anymore and only kept in ram for faster opening. the lag comes from bad i/o speeds of the nand (internal memory) where apps data is stored. on i7500 there is 192mb of ram and it works ok with froyo (thanx to drakaz and gaosp team!) only thing is that every app you open forces the app you opened before to be kicked out of ram what makes switching between apps makes somewhat a pain.
also free memory and usable memory is apples and pears, useable is all memory that contains no actually running in foreground app or service. and free memory is the rest that contains absolutely no information and thus WASTED
edit: btw i7500 is running well with 20mb free ram.
I often have no more than 30 MBs free, and not running THAT many apps. What is strange is that sometimes there is 70-80 MB free, and I have not done anyting. What happens in the background is a mystery... Any suggestions?
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.
I know there are 512MB RAM in Droid 3, in addition to 16G internal storage. However, I don't know what go to the RAM. Are the bloatware going to take part of it, or they are simply stored in the 16G internal storage? What about the OS?
Hope I can get some insights on this. Thanks.
i dont understand. your post sounds as if you think programs are installed on the RAM. they arent. RAM is random access memory, programs arent stored on here, they use RAM to run commands. The 16gb is what your programs will be installed to
Not all 512MB will show as total memory its around 370-380 I think that is because the graphics use some of the RAM. Some bloatware will preload into the RAM as well as some of your apps. But when RAM is needed for the program you are currently running lower priority apps preloaded will close. So even if you see bloatware running in the background it cannot take away RAM when you need it.
The 16GB is flash memory for installing programs, etc. Android is not like older versions of Windows Mobile where apps were installed directly to the RAM so the 16GB of memory and the 512MB of RAM are for two totally different tasks.
Thank you.
After I posted the question, I did some research on google. Basically your replies are pretty in line with what other say. The 512MB RAM is used when running program, and OS too. Motorola says there is a 1.5 secured storage space in the phone. I guess that is where the app are stored physically. When being run, the app will be loaded into RAM.
Yes, the sum of used RAM and free is less than 512MB. I guess the difference goes to the OS and graphics. That's what I learn after posting the question. If there is anything you think might help understand these terms, please share.
Thanks for all the feedbacks.
newshook said:
Thank you.
After I posted the question, I did some research on google. Basically your replies are pretty in line with what other say. The 512MB RAM is used when running program, and OS too. Motorola says there is a 1.5 secured storage space in the phone. I guess that is where the app are stored physically. When being run, the app will be loaded into RAM.
Yes, the sum of used RAM and free is less than 512MB. I guess the difference goes to the OS and graphics. That's what I learn after posting the question. If there is anything you think might help understand these terms, please share.
Thanks for all the feedbacks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ram is memory, the internal storage (both the 16gig and the secured partition/the 1.5 gig) are hard drives