Background Tasks

[Droid Ninja]

I was reading a review of this phone on another site. In the review, it was stated that you are able to limit the number of tasks the phone keeps in the background.

2 Questions.

Is this true, and if so how do you adjust this?

And

What benefit does this provide? Faster phone?

 

[scary alien]

I was reading a review of this phone on another site. In the review, it was stated that you are able to limit the number of tasks the phone keeps in the background.

2 Questions.

Is this true, and if so how do you adjust this?

And

What benefit does this provide? Faster phone?

Yep, there's a setting, (Settings -> Developer options -> Background process limit (choose either "Standard limit", "No background processes", "At most 1 process"..., up to "At most 4 processes").

I can't say for sure how this would work or how its actually implemented... I'm guessing that it could be some sort of "run queue" limit where if there are more than the defined limit of processes (running in the background) trying to use the CPU (i.e., waiting for CPU time), then Android would ignore them until the "run queue" was back down to the defined limit.

So, my thinking would be that the fewer the background processes you allow, the less CPU time would be utilized and therefore less contention (competition) for resources (not just CPU, since whatever process IS being serviced could use other resources (memory, I/O, etc.), too).

Just my guess, though...

 

[jbdan]

I was reading a review of this phone on another site. In the review, it was stated that you are able to limit the number of tasks the phone keeps in the background.

2 Questions.

Is this true, and if so how do you adjust this?

And

What benefit does this provide? Faster phone?

Yes in settings, developer options, background process limit. Try it I did. It could certainly help as it allows less processes to run in the background pretty self explanatory there

You will, if you multi-task, run into issues however. Not issues that can't be reversed (just go back in and set it to "standard limit"), but issues that will not let you do several things at once like most of us do on modern smartphones. I'd start by setting to at least 2-3, not 1. Try it and see, if it's something you can use and if it will help you then the only way to find out is use it