Database Develop

[Q] RAM

Can anybody explain to me something about how the RAM works? So the phone has 512 mb of RAM, and only 330 available (I guess the OS takes the rest to 330). From those 330, around 100 are always used by something hidden. What is that?
Also if I stop some of the running services, sometimes that memory remains used.
What does eat my memory over time? I mean after some hours following a reboot my memory slowly starts to become used.
In the Running services tab there is a list of cached services and if I close any of them it eats more memory. How does that work?
I know, these questions are annoying.

128mb for tegra. that's why you have only 300mb+ for available memory

But why if I stop some processes such as the music player the RAM doesn't clear?
And why if I stop something from the Cached Processes tab it eats my RAM? (I can't find out what those cached processes are actually)

as far as i understand the system keeps it in memory in case you open something again and then it doesnt have to load everything over. and if there isnt enough for new apps it clears some ram.
this is not windows and the ram is supposed to be full. if im wrong about that someone correct me...
Sent from my Optimus 2X using XDA App

Yes you're right but the way Android kills processes when needed can be optimized, as sometimes the system is slow to free ram. In fact there are threshold values for different situations, that say to the system to free ram.
So the solution is not a standard task killer, but an optimization of values that triggers memory clean up. It's done for example by scripts like the one I use, see in my signature.

[Q] Galaxy Note RAM capacity

Note Specs say 1GB RAM. My unit shows 385MB used by applications and 100 MB available. Is the rest used by the System?? How to check if my unit has really 1GB RAM installed???

Note has 1gb Ram, 200mb. reserved for GPU
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Galaxy Note RAM capacity
OK, buT 200MB plus 385 MB used + 100MB available still do not make 1 GB!

Note have 792 available on OS, some it is user by android stock apps and services.
When I boot the phone with about 30 services and 400 apps installed I always have free about 380mb, so look the permissions to see what apps are autostarting with the boot and change them.

Galaxy Note RAM capacity
"When I boot the phone with about 30 services and 400 apps installed I always have free about 380mb, so look the permissions to see what apps are autostarting with the boot and change them."
Please tell me how to "look permissions" and change apps at boot???

Moved To Q&A​
Please post all questions in the Q&A section​

I hope you'll find answer to your questions. By the way, I'd like people to understand that free ram is UNUSED/USELESS. Our target as users and/or developers is to achieve the "enough ram for every process and app" objective. That is, we absolutely want that every bit of ram is used to make the whole system faster and readier. If you have services you need ready to be executed in ram, and you have ram for all of them, you have the best resources / results ratio. If you have 1GB of free ram and every app you need must be raised from scratch, you're not using your resources the optimal way. My 2c - maybe ot?
Good luck with your findings, anyway.
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App

Galaxy Note RAM capacity
Thanks for your message. However, I read in many forum messages that too many apps in the RAM slow down the display reaction, which I found myself too.
However, I've just done the 10-second soft reset and found my RAM usage went down to 187MB used and 530MB available for services. Also found in applications management RAM capacity info: 372MB used out of 800MB. I suppose difference comes from the fact that the first capacity info relates to the space available for applications and the second used capacity includes applications AND System.
But in this case it means the Note has 800MB and not 1GB of RAM as advertised!

It has 1GB as stated. 200 MB are used by the OS. 800+200=1000.
Sent from my superior GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

Galaxy Note RAM capacity
Thanks for the message.
But why the active applications list on the bottom says 187MB used and 530MB available RAM , while the task manager/RAM management shows 372 MB used space out of 800MB??
This is what confuses me: in one place it is shown that 178MB is used and in another 372 MB used !???
Please clarify !

Radivoj said:
Thanks for the message.
But why the active applications list on the bottom says 187MB used and 530MB available RAM , while the task manager/RAM management shows 372 MB used space out of 800MB??
This is what confuses me: in one place it is shown that 178MB is used and in another 372 MB used !???
Please clarify !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
depends o nthe kernel you are using, but the note has 1gb of ram of whcih 800 is available for the system to use

Radivoj said:
why the active applications list on the bottom says 187MB used and 530MB available RAM , while the task manager/RAM management shows 372 MB used space out of 800MB??
This is what confuses me: in one place it is shown that 178MB is used and in another 372 MB used !???
Please clarify !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The difference is because the active applications list in running services does not include the amount of RAM used to cache apps. You can press option key while in running services, there should be an option called "show cached processes".
If you add the amount of RAM used for both cached and running apps in running services, the total should be similar as the amount of RAM used in Samsung task manager.
This is because Android considers cached apps as free memory. They are background processes that are not visible or directly affect our use of the device and can be killed to free up memory to run service processes (i.e. user launched apps).
The cached processes basically are a list of recently used apps stores in reverse order, i.e. the least recently used app is at top of the list and most recently used app is at the bottom of the list. This way if the phone is running out of memory, it will start to kill off app at top of the list, so the app that was last used will be the last one to be killed.
The idea of cached processes is to improve the start-up time of an app the next time the user needs to run it.
P.S. I'm not an expert in Android operating system, this is just my general understanding of how Android RAM management processes.

Thank you very, very much for clarification. Now everything becomes clear and consistent !
Best regards,
Radi

marmotash said:
Note has 1gb Ram, 200mb. reserved for GPU
Enviado desde mi GT-N7000 usando Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
When I check running applications tab insettings, I can see total RAM as 800 MB. Thanks for clarifying. I had the same doubt. But is there any way to check how much RAM is allocated to GPU using any android setting? I am keen to know this.
Many Thanks,
Nikhil Bhalwankar

How Much RAM Does Windows Phone 8 OS use On Startup

Just wondering cos this will influence my next decision, so should i get a phone with 256, or 512 or 1GB.

Lets just say - the more, the merrier, u get me?
More RAM means more tasks can be done simultaneously in less time. So go for the highest amount of RAM possible.

miodrage said:
Lets just say - the more, the merrier, u get me?
More RAM means more tasks can be done simultaneously in less time. So go for the highest amount of RAM possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
true, but will i miss out on anythig if i get a phone with 512mb ram?
i am wondering between the lumia 720 vs the 820. but i am interested in the hd front camera of the 720, which the 820 lacks. i know it will work, but will i have to close apps and stuff? anyone ever run an emulator of windows phone 8 and seen how much ram it actually "needs"?

On 512 MB devices Apps can use up to 150 MB of Memory. If they exceed that treshhold the App will be killed by the OS. On 1 GB devices it's up to 350 MB. This does not mean that the OS is taking up all the rest but there is reserved space for Background Tasks like a Navigation App running in the Background or Skype waiting for incoming calls.
There are no WP8 256 MB devices. Those were only possible with WP7 and had severly limited background processing due to the low Memory.
Certain Apps can't run with only 150 MB of usable Memory - especially games, so developers set a flag in the App so it can't be installed on low Memory devices. Of course most will try to get their Software running on as many devices as possible but sometimes it's just not possible.
The 820 would still be the safe bet.

Apps can use 90 mb on 256 ram devices, 346 on 512 and around 700/800 on 1GB device.
If an does not have enough memory to run but does not exceed the above limit, system automatically tombstones older apps to free memory.

cool, thanks for the info guys, appreciate it
EDIT: just a sec, the vales by StevieBallz & mcosmin222 are quiet different...? am confused.

nstream said:
cool, thanks for the info guys, appreciate it
EDIT: just a sec, the vales by StevieBallz & mcosmin222 are quiet different...? am confused.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My info is based out of the DeviceStatus API from the SDK.
The system holds around 130 MB for background tasks.

Here is Microsoft's documentation on the Topic in MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj681682(v=vs.105).aspx
It depends on wether you use WP7 or WP8. I was talking about WP8 only - WP7 is somehow different because there is no fixed Limit enforced by the OS until it actually runs out of Memory. In WP8 those are hard Limits. For WP7 there were 256 MB devices, for WP8 the Minimum requirement is 512 MB.

Well, that's kinda funny, that WP8 has more memory and can't use it.

The Memory is reserved. The reason is that the System should work predictably - both for users and for Apps. If I have a Navigation Software running in the Background it Needs a guarantee that it will have enough Memory available. I can't just stop Navigation because the Facebook App is loading a big Image. Or if I receive a Skype call I want to talk to someone but perhaps would not want my currently active App to just be closed down because it takes too much Memory. So: no, the Memory is not unused. If Apps don't use their alloted share it is also used to Keep several Apps available for fast switching (e.g. Twitter is still in Memory but asleep).
That actually is an improvement over WP7 were an App was regularly only allowed to use 90 MB of Memory. This was not enforced by the OS so you could go above it if there was enough space available. The Problem was that at some Point it would run out of Memory and then would be killed. That would sometimes happen at 90 MB, sometimes at 150 MB. So a developer could test his App on his device without background Music, etc. and see it crashing all the time on people's devices. This Situation can no longer occur.
The Basic Problem is that Smartphone OS's don't use virtual Memory like on a PC. There if you run out of physical Memory Little used data is swapped out to the hard drive (which slows the System considerably). This normally isn't done on Smartphones because it is taxing on the Flash Memory. 256 MB WP7 devices still implemented it to allow them to even run 90 MB big Apps and Background process were completely deativated on those devices. WP8 also Needs more Memory for the OS itself than WP7 did.

Yay, thanks again guys

P7-L10 ram usage.

Is it normal that p7 have always high ram usage? Just after boot my ram usage is always about 40% after playing 20min games like san andreas ram usage is 70% even if I close it from recent apps. At the moment when Im writing this my ram usage is 58% and I don't have any other apps running.

RICKROCKER said:
Is it normal that p7 have always high ram usage? Just after boot my ram usage is always about 40% after playing 20min games like san andreas ram usage is 70% even if I close it from recent apps. At the moment when Im writing this my ram usage is 58% and I don't have any other apps running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After I deleted all c..p from Huawei,all google services and all unwanted apk-s on my p7(untill he was working) ram usage goes extremely down.
Sent from my HUAWEI P6-U06 using Tapatalk

Why is it an issue? The RAM needs to be as full as possible with apps you frequently use.
When an app needs more RAM, but it's not "available", android removes an app from the RAM you didn't used a while. It's already in sleep mode by then.
Always the same threads in the forums about RAM....they shouldn't put the RAM-available option in the phone

Mwolthuis said:
Why is it an issue? The RAM needs to be as full as possible with apps you frequently use.
When an app needs more RAM, but it's not "available", android removes an app from the RAM you didn't used a while. It's already in sleep mode by then.
Always the same threads in the forums about RAM....they shouldn't put the RAM-available option in the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would not worry about the ram usage. as this is the google 4.4.2 designed for. ( you do do a google search to find lots of info...) 4.4 version will allow max no. of apps to 'stay' in the memory, but NOT active. so next time, it saves battery power to reload them. if you do worry about ram usage, you can set up the 'protected apps' and uncheck all the apps. then when the screen is off, the apps are killed. but next time if you want to use it,it will have to be reboot again.

I have unchecked almost all apps from protected apps. I'm aware of that if app needs ram android will delete apps from recent apps, but my problem is very much like this: At the moment my ram usage is 60% without any apps running or any app in recent apps. If I open GTA san andreas It's laggy as ........ but if I open it right after reboot when ram usage is 40% it's working like a charm. Here is my ram usage after night with no apps running.

RICKROCKER said:
I have unchecked almost all apps from protected apps. I'm aware of that if app needs ram android will delete apps from recent apps, but my problem is very much like this: At the moment my ram usage is 60% without any apps running or any app in recent apps. If I open GTA san andreas It's laggy as ........ but if I open it right after reboot when ram usage is 40% it's working like a charm. Here is my ram usage after night with no apps running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your screenshot don't show that's your apps are closed.
Show a screenshot the tab "Active apps" under the options.
In one case I agree with you. Huawei apps takes to much RAM. My old phone Samsung Galaxy S3 had always ca 350 MB RAM free from 1GB RAM and I had more apps installed. Now with Huawei (my first Huawei), I have 2GB RAM and it's at most 800MB free RAM.
So then I compare, my Samsung used only 700 mb ram (with more apps and running apps) and Huawei take 1200MB RAM (with lesser apps).
What I saw sometimes, that's installed apps use more RAM on Huawei than on my Samsung.

Ram being used

Wondering what is taking so much ram up when no applications are running is it just TouchWiz? Anyway to free up ram on stock?

I noticed the same thing however when I go to settings then application manager and see the apps that are running I noticed that it shows that I have 1gb of ram free ?

Something is up with your phone because mine only uses 1.3gb of ram with no apps running, with a bunch of apps it's like 2.3gb-2.5gb

Mine is the same as the OP...not sure what gives

Free RAM is wasted RAM.