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Why 512MB of RAM means no Bionic for me

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.
Sent from my ERIS using XDA Premium App
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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.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

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.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
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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!

How much ram should be free

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
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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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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.

IS IT REALLY 2 gb ram ??

im facing a huge problem now .. when im playing dead trigger 2 and if i go home and make a call and went back to game it restarts it self !! so why this for ??

Is not about how many GB of ram do you have but about how many application still open in background.
How do you go back to the game? I mean after finish the call you click on the Dead Trigger 2 icon on desktop?

no from recent menu !!

Ok, so when you made a call the phone needs more ram and practically Android kill all the unnecessary apps in background and one of them is the game which eat pretty much ram. It's happen to me too with heavy games. Almost all of them.

I have the same problem... thats something I can't just ignore. Android should be the multitasking king compared to systems like iOS and WindowsPhone because of things like the priority of processes...

AntiDroid said:
I have the same problem... thats something I can't just ignore. Android should be the multitasking king compared to systems like iOS and WindowsPhone because of things like the priority of processes...
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Of curse but actually games are not priority to android and that how it's working. With small games this not happen because they use less ram. For android the ram is the only matter.

eclyptos said:
Of curse but actually games are not priority to android and that how it's working. With small games this not happen because they use less ram. For android the ram is the only matter.
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I know. Every process has the same priority.
When I first read about the Android RAM management, I thought: "Wow, great idea", but know I see the result compared to other system using the "old one" and I am just jealous.. :/ 2 GB should be more than enough to keep it while switching the app for ~ 30 seconds, I hope 4.4 does it better

i can multitask with my brother"s iphone 4s better than my z1 !! i played dead trigger 2 and made a call then returned back to the game and every thing is ok !!

Mohaakotb said:
i can multitask with my brother"s iphone 4s better than my z1 !! i played dead trigger 2 and made a call then returned back to the game and every thing is ok !!
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iOS is NOT Android.

theoretical number of ram is 2 but the actual size is around 1.9gb more or less depending on the device, even in PC's its the same!
for example, a 320GB hdd is only 298gb in actual size as the other reserved for cache and HDD firmware!
u don't find the full exact numbers as i explained to you

Just2Cause said:
iOS is NOT Android.
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Did he say that it is android? He just twisted the knife

Nidhal AKA the king said:
theoretical number of ram is 2 but the actual size is around 1.9gb more or less depending on the device, even in PC's its the same!
for example, a 320GB hdd is only 298gb in actual size as the other reserved for cache and HDD firmware!
u don't find the full exact numbers as i explained to you
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Click to collapse
This is only partially true.
HDD Manufacturers like to measure HDD sizes using the decimal system which means 1GB = 10^9 (= 1000000000) Bytes. In other technical appliances they are measured using the binary system meaning 1GB (more correctly 1Gibibyte) = 2^30 (= 1073741824) Bytes. File systems are measured using the binary systems, this is why one could think an HDD has less storage than what is written on.
Ram uses the binary system, so 2 GB of Ram mean 2048 MB. The reason why there is less then 2 GB available is because part of it is being reserved for the GPU, much like on Computers with integrated graphics.

OfficerTux said:
This is only partially true.
HDD Manufacturers like to measure HDD sizes using the decimal system which means 1GB = 10^9 (= 1000000000) Bytes. In other technical appliances they are measured using the binary system meaning 1GB (more correctly 1Gibibyte) = 2^30 (= 1073741824) Bytes. File systems are measured using the binary systems, this is why one could think an HDD has less storage than what is written on.
Ram uses the binary system, so 2 GB of Ram mean 2024 MB. The reason why there is less then 2 GB available is because part of it is being reserved for the GPU, much like on Computers with integrated graphics.
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yeah i know, i totally agree
he thought he'd find the full amount of ram as 2gb in the specs!

Anyway I would also like a refined app priority system. I do like Androids Ram Management in general, but it is quite annoying that large games need to reload just because you switch apps for some seconds.

OfficerTux said:
Ram uses the binary system, so 2 GB of Ram mean 2024 MB. The reason why there is less then 2 GB available is because part of it is being reserved for the GPU, much like on Computers with integrated graphics.
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I think you mean 2048 MB The rest is spot on - reserved RAM has *nothing* to do with the binary vs. decimal issues found in hard drives.

xasbo said:
I think you mean 2048 MB The rest is spot on - reserved RAM has *nothing* to do with the binary vs. decimal issues found in hard drives.
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Corrected

OfficerTux said:
Anyway I would also like a refined app priority system. I do like Androids Ram Management in general, but it is quite annoying that large games need to reload just because you switch apps for some seconds.
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The solution for don't lose the progress on games is to turn on the Airplane mode before gaming so no body can interrupt the progress...ahahah...
Anyway seems like a joke but did you imagine that, after 1 hour somebody call you and you loose everything in the game...:crying:

[Q] is there really 2 gb of memory in this phone?

Hi,
I'm a bit surprised that if I add free memory and used memory from the Settings app the total is about 1.7 gb. Ain't we supposed to get 2gb? I hope sony didn't do the hdd trick (see wikipedia page on Kibibyte, I cannot post link as a junior member) and even so 2000000/1048576 = 1.907 ... where's my ram?

Under CPU-Z that show : 1.732Mb.

Your OS doesn't need RAM to function right?

Dsteppa said:
Your OS doesn't need RAM to function right?
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yes it does but I thought it will be included in the "used memory"... if the OS takes 300 mb that's ok but why I only got 900 mb free when I kill all apps? I used to have a nexus 4 and with the same amount of memory on chip there was a *LOT* more available in the settings menu.

Geolm said:
yes it does but I thought it will be included in the "used memory"... if the OS takes 300 mb that's ok but why I only got 900 mb free when I kill all apps? I used to have a nexus 4 and with the same amount of memory on chip there was a *LOT* more available in the settings menu.
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That 900MB figure is about the same I normally have free. Various apps and services take up about 800MB on my phone, which seems excessive but I've turned off all background stuff that I can (some Google and Xperia services just won't go away, however). The only good news is that Android will free up memory if it's needed so that 900MB is not a finite figure (at least that's what I assume).

Hmm. I generally have no more than about 300 mb free memory at any given moment. Even just a few minutes after reboot. No weird apps or excessive widgets. Do you guys really have 900 mb free? You can check your memory on the fly using Cool Tool from Google Play.

The Z3C has 2GB of RAM, don't worry. What you are missing is used by shared graphics memory. BTW: This is exactly the reason why the Z3 has 3GB of memory (instead of 2GB) for its screen resolution is full HD opposed to "only" HD on the Z3C.
Anyhow, is it really necessary to start another thread on the same topic if there already is one?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/general/ram-2gb-1-69gb-t2941487

sxtester said:
The Z3C has 2GB of RAM, don't worry. What you are missing is used by shared graphics memory. BTW: This is exactly the reason why the Z3 has 3GB of memory (instead of 2GB) for its screen resolution is full HD opposed to "only" HD on the Z3C.
Anyhow, is it really necessary to start another thread on the same topic if there already is one?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/general/ram-2gb-1-69gb-t2941487
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Click to collapse
I have never had any doubts about the two gigs. But how much free memory do you have on your Z3C after a reboot and after a few hours of typical usage? My other phones with this much ram have generally had a lot more memory available at any given moment. Not that *free* memory is of any particular use in android, but I'm still curious to see whether your Z3C's are the same.

Fruktsallad said:
I have never had any doubts about the two gigs. But how much free memory do you have on your Z3C after a reboot and after a few hours of typical usage? My other phones with this much ram have generally had a lot more memory available at any given moment. Not that *free* memory is of any particular use in android, but I'm still curious to see whether your Z3C's are the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I boot up the phone and immediatly check it shows some 800MB of free memory. About 500 to 600MB after a couple of days, fluctuating though. However, don't think these numbers have any meaning for Android keeps as much in memory as possible in order to increase responsiveness. It also depends on the Apps installed and the bloat disabled/blocked. Further, comparing it to other phones you had earlier might also be misleading since the version of Android could be a different one, hence comparing apples to apples would just not be possible.

Is it normal only 1,5 gb ram free?

When I reboot the tablet and look the free ram memory only have 1,5 ram free, is it the normal when this tab has 3 gb ram? I have thunderrom and skyhigh kernel installed.

Yep. It's for most of the android processes and important things that need to run. I also get that much too.
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yeiyei0891 said:
When I reboot the tablet and look the free ram memory only have 1,5 ram free, is it the normal when this tab has 3 gb ram? I have thunderrom and skyhigh kernel installed.
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Yup that's totally normal I'm running cm12 and it's using 1.5GB.

I'm on stock, non rooted and using ES Explorers task killer i can still have about 1.4GB free.

Ok, then 3gb RAM but really you can use less that half of it.

Yep. But hey at least we got 3 GB of ram instead of 2 GB!
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DUHAsianSKILLZ said:
Yep. But hey at least we got 3 GB of ram instead of 2 GB!
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Yeah i get 2GB to use because my system uses 1GB

yeiyei0891 said:
Ok, then 3gb RAM but really you can use less that half of it.
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I do wish people would actually learn about RAM and why free RAM is actually wasted RAM.
A good summary can be found here: http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care

foxmeister said:
I do wish people would actually learn about RAM and why free RAM is actually wasted RAM.
A good summary can be found here: http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
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Yeah but otoh caching boat load of stuff into ram that won't be used is a waste of battery.
I look at the list of running processes with a system monitor and I have to say WTF does it just load every thing or what. It's running apps I don't even use any more but haven't uninstalled just in case. So if I don't want them running I have to freeze them. And that does not include all the system processes whose purpose I can't even tell. It's kind of nuts.

foxmeister said:
I do wish people would actually learn about RAM and why free RAM is actually wasted RAM.
A good summary can be found here: http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry but you should start to learn yourself. The RAM displayed as free is actually used as a file cache. Besides, Android killing apps in the background means that it takes longer to start a new app in a low RAM situation (because the new app needs to wait until the LMK cleared enough space) and of course you lose the context of the closed app (it needs to reload data from the internal storage or even worse from the web when you restart it).

TheGoD said:
Sorry but you should start to learn yourself. The RAM displayed as free is actually used as a file cache. Besides, Android killing apps in the background means that it takes longer to start a new app in a low RAM situation (because the new app needs to wait until the LMK cleared enough space) and of course you lose the context of the closed app (it needs to reload data from the internal storage or even worse from the web when you restart it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you in a low RAM situation when you have 1GB free out of 3GB? NO! 0.5GB out of 3GB? NO!
Does it take a significant amount if time to reclaim resources when android does require additional RAM, because it genuinely is in a low RAM situation? No, because it unceremoniously terminates unused processes, releasing resources to the kernel almost immediately. This is very different from garbage collection to release unused memory from active processes.
Don't just believe me though - take it from the people who actually wrote the OS - http://android-developers.blogspot.de/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html?m=1
It's also worth saying that you've also validated my statement "Free RAM is wasted RAM" by saying that the OS "uses" free RAM as a file cache.
All that being said, the context of this entire thread is why the OS is "using" 1.5GB out of 3GB pretty much at boot. All I've said is why this is perfectly normal, and in the general usage case, actually not undesirable.
Of couse there will be specific usage cases, where this is not going to be the optimum approach, but this is only going to affect a very small minority of users, with extremely memory demanding applications.

barth2 said:
Yeah but otoh caching boat load of stuff into ram that won't be used is a waste of battery.
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Click to collapse
No. RAM impact on battery life is, for all practical purposes, insensitive to the amount of RAM being used. When sections of RAM are clear, the locations are not zeroed out or anything. Instead the space is just added to a free space table. Stuff in RAM not being used does not waste battery. The exception to this is if that RAM is being occupied by a misbehaving program that is driving CPU usage.
foxmeister said:
Are you in a low RAM situation when you have 1GB free out of 3GB? NO! 0.5GB out of 3GB? NO!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Foxmeister is exactly right. In nearly all real world cases, higher RAM usage leads to faster performance and better battery life.

GeorgeP said:
No. RAM impact on battery life is, for all practical purposes, insensitive to the amount of RAM being used. When sections of RAM are clear, the locations are not zeroed out or anything. Instead the space is just added to a free space table. Stuff in RAM not being used does not waste battery. The exception to this is if that RAM is being occupied by a misbehaving program that is driving CPU usage.
Foxmeister is exactly right. In nearly all real world cases, higher RAM usage leads to faster performance and better battery life.
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Click to collapse
No, but you still have to get the data into RAM. That takes power, which it is wasted if the data is never used.

barth2 said:
No, but you still have to get the data into RAM. That takes power, which it is wasted if the data is never used.
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Click to collapse
It's a trade off - preload the processes and data so that they can be accessed far more quickly (less lag) if and when required. Once in memory, if they are not being used the battery drain is negligible.
The reduction in perceived lag is *far* greater than any battery drain.
Regards,
Dave

barth2 said:
No, but you still have to get the data into RAM. That takes power, which it is wasted if the data is never used.
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Click to collapse
LOL! Now are in angels dancing on a the head of a pin territory:laugh:

GeorgeP said:
LOL! Now are in angels dancing on a the head of a pin territory:laugh:
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Click to collapse
Lag is mostly a function of user expectation.
When you open a new app that is not running, you expect a delay. So as long as it's not excessively long, you don't feel lag. unnecessary preloading then just increases bootup time and long boot up time DOES bother people.
Now it makes sense to preload frequently used apps and some system apps that have high probability of being needed. But what I was talking about is seeing apps I used once once weeks ago still get loaded, while some apps I use every session, like my browser, not loaded on start up. The algorithm needs tweaking.
(Large apps like games have long load time, but you are not going to cache those so they are not in the conversation.)
Most lags people experience is in app lag. It's mostly due to loading graphics onto the screen, screen painting, and garbage collection.
What baffles me is I have an iPad 3 (there have been 4 generations of iPads since then) , which on paper is like a Toyota Camry compared to the Tab S BMW 300. And yet on many same apps the iPad feels smoother, scrolling around is less jerky. The only place where the Tab S is superior is 3d games like asphalt with high details and because it has 3x memory, apps need reloading less.

barth2 said:
Lag is mostly a function of user expectation.
When you open a new app that is not running, you expect a delay. So as long as it's not excessively long, you don't feel lag. unnecessary preloading then just increases bootup time and long boot up time DOES bother people.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The vast majority of users (i.e. the sort of user who doesn't frequent sites like XDA) probably don't reboot their tablets/phones very often at all, so most people probably aren't that bothered.
I rather suspect that the engineers at Google have experimented with an awful lot of different strategies, before settling on what we have now.
Is it perfect? No. Like everything software related, it could do with improvement but this is always a continuous, on going process
Regards,
Dave