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Fix for many performance problems on the DX2
- Thread starter aostang
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- motorola droid x2
rushmore
Extreme Android User
I need to figure this out in the next few days, since my return date is by Tuesday evening. If I am going to have to constantly battle the memory to avoid audio skips and other lag related issues, I will probably return the DX2 and use my Incredible until the dust settles.
The performance issues are almost certainly due to the low ram mystery. This may be the DX2's Achilles heal. They do everything else pretty darn well (sans the Flash thing), but apparently borked up the ram.
The "Porche with bald tires" analogy is slowly creeping into my mind and we may have no way to change the tires.
I was quick to praise the DX2, but will not be a blind fanboy, so will also point out the apparent issues. N64, Tiger Arcade and PSX gameplay also have the intermittent issues while playing games (the game will pause/lag). My guess is the same thing killing MP3 smoothness.
No such issues on my gTab or Inc in regards to games suddenly pausing or shuddering.
The performance issues are almost certainly due to the low ram mystery. This may be the DX2's Achilles heal. They do everything else pretty darn well (sans the Flash thing), but apparently borked up the ram.
The "Porche with bald tires" analogy is slowly creeping into my mind and we may have no way to change the tires.
I was quick to praise the DX2, but will not be a blind fanboy, so will also point out the apparent issues. N64, Tiger Arcade and PSX gameplay also have the intermittent issues while playing games (the game will pause/lag). My guess is the same thing killing MP3 smoothness.
No such issues on my gTab or Inc in regards to games suddenly pausing or shuddering.
Try CustOOMizing with 6,12,75,125,150,175 as mentioned above. I've been hovering at about 95-105MB free sitting on my homescreen with this.
rushmore
Extreme Android User
Option 6 gives me 120 sometimes, but will quickly go down to the 40mb range. The simple point is we are managing the DX2 like it is the 256mb Droid 1. This issue seems even more stupid than when HTC screwed the Incredible up with a 135mb data/data folder cap.
That said, the Inc does not have the performance issues... Just have to watch home many apps you install.....
Interestingly enough, I just launched and played a game of Pinball HD. After exiting, my free RAM jumped to 140MB and dropped to 136MB but seemed to be hovering there. Letting it sit for a few minutes and power back on, it's at 121MB. Seems to be stabilized at that amount free now. Want to know what this sounds like to me? Being TOO aggressive at caching apps in memory. It's caching them to the point that it's choking the active apps. The last posted memory settings definitely seem to be making a huge difference for me, though.
This really does show how little testing they did with the device before releasing it. It sounds like they needed to use up the Bionic parts that they decided they couldn't or didn't want to use on that phone and tossed together the DX2 as quickly as they could just to move the parts so they didn't take a loss on them.
This really does show how little testing they did with the device before releasing it. It sounds like they needed to use up the Bionic parts that they decided they couldn't or didn't want to use on that phone and tossed together the DX2 as quickly as they could just to move the parts so they didn't take a loss on them.
rushmore
Extreme Android User
Seems the DX2 was a rushed bridge, due to Bionic delays and for component and add-on bleed out.
I still find it hard to return it, due to the good things and rationalizing VZW will get the issues fixed. I like the DX2.
whitesoxwin
Newbie
So doesnt the X2 still seem much faster than the Incredible considering the much faster processor? Im still trying to get a sense for the real world performance issues caused by the low ram. I dont care how much ram shows that its free if the phone seems fast. That said you guys are sure doing a good job pushing me toward the Thunderbolt ;-)
starscream84
Newbie
The other point I was subtlety trying to make was who cares how much available memory there is..... I had a fascinate that always had around 200mb of free ram and it ran like crap due to it using rfs file syste instead of ext4. If you have a lag issue.... don't use blur or find an app or widget that that is causing it, its not the phone. Haha did alot of us come from blackberry 
For general phone navigation (phone wake-up, navigating homescreens (LP), initial launching of apps), the DX1 was faster and more streamlined for me. The DX2 is just that sluggish. Once you get into an app like an emulator, yeah the DX2 is faster and you see the dual-core in action. General phone usage is ruined by the sluggishness otherwise.
i_am_booked
Member
Using these numbers made a huge improvement.
whitesoxwin
Newbie
Thanks, thats the kind of info Im lookin for. I tend to be a heavy multitasker, but the individual apps I run arent that demanding. So, it seems the low ram issue WOULD be a problem for me. If I cant listen to a podcast in the background while switching between email, texts, browser, twitter client, etc without serious lag thats an issue. I wonder if a single core phone such as the Inc2 or Thunderbolt would give me better performance for this usage scenario?
whitesoxwin
Newbie
... and why havent I seen any reviews of the X2 mentioning the lag issues? It seems no one does any significant real world testing these days.
I've been wondering this myself. The forums are littered with people complaining about the lagging and audio glitching, yet just about every "official" review on a website gives it a glowing review for performance. Just goes to show that you can't give an accurate review of a device with just an hours worth of use.
So, is that a no on this?
According to the original thread, you need Busybox.
rushmore
Extreme Android User
Folks, the DX2 appears to have some form of memory leak (or hole). Over time and using the script or not, the DX2's ram can not be accounted for in graduating levels.
An example for now is the total ram consumed by the OS, OS tasks and user apps is 236mb and 33mb free. We can spin and throw theories all day, but there is no practical way to bridge that to 404mb. I also call bunk the device has 512mb of functioning ram, since that would assume 108mb is allocated to the Tegra 2, that does not need anywhere near that much in the first place.
Where is the RAM? Would be nice to get an official answer from Motorola.
I can not see anywhere where the device lists 512mb ram.
http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/U...bile-Phones/ci.DROID-X2-by-MOTOROLA-US-EN.alt
An example for now is the total ram consumed by the OS, OS tasks and user apps is 236mb and 33mb free. We can spin and throw theories all day, but there is no practical way to bridge that to 404mb. I also call bunk the device has 512mb of functioning ram, since that would assume 108mb is allocated to the Tegra 2, that does not need anywhere near that much in the first place.
Where is the RAM? Would be nice to get an official answer from Motorola.
I can not see anywhere where the device lists 512mb ram.
http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/U...bile-Phones/ci.DROID-X2-by-MOTOROLA-US-EN.alt
esmith818
Android Enthusiast
Although the total onboard RAM is not listed on the spec sheet rushmore linked to, Motorola does have an online fact sheet for the X2 which indicates 512 MB although I agree that I'm having a hard time figuring out where the RAM is hiding.
I sent an email to Motorola support requesting clarification on how RAM is allocated on the X2. I'll post back if they respond with anything helpful.
I sent an email to Motorola support requesting clarification on how RAM is allocated on the X2. I'll post back if they respond with anything helpful.
I have been following these posts because like others i have concerns about the dx2 ram. I noticed on the quadrant app if you look under system info it shows 413mb of ram, it states how much you have available, but then below that it says that about 188mb are innactive. Anyone know what that means? I just thought it was interesting. Iam assuming that the difference between 512mb and 413mb is what tegra has allocated, but the 188mb???
(I had posted this comment on another thread, but doesn't appear to be real active)
(I had posted this comment on another thread, but doesn't appear to be real active)
rushmore
Extreme Android User
That would be 99mb and appears to be the general assumption. The actual amount that seems missing though is at least 200mb.
Sorry I didn't chime in with this sooner. I really didn't think about it until I woke up this morning. The Tegra 2 chip uses shared RAM for its GPU memory. That missing memory is allotted to the Tegra 2 as video RAM. That's not an unheard of amount of RAM for a 3D video card, considering PC video cards these days come with 1GB+ of dedicated video RAM. My laptop has 2GB dedicated lol. Regardless, that does start to starve the system of memory and the phone should have been designed for 768MB or 1GB of memory then. Here's a supporting article (different phone, same concept). One to the last paragraph is the point of importance.
NVIDIA Tegra 2 review and multi-core support in Android | AndroidNexus.com
Another article stating the shared memory architecture:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Tegra-250-Notebook-Processor.54654.0.html
Also, the Atrix has 1GB of RAM with its Tegra 2 processor. This still does not excuse Motorola from such crappy memory allocation stock. The memory settings mentioned above are still holding strong for me after 24 hours. I was sitting at 92MB of memory free when I woke up, took a phone call and some text messages and it dropped to 76MB. Launched Need For Speed Shift and quit it, memory free jumped back to 140MB, exactly where it jumped to after I launched and quit it yesterday afternoon. Phone is still just as responsive as yesterday. The trickling down memory you're seeing is just app caching, which is what is killing the phone with the stock memory settings.
The odd thing is that the DX2 has more than 384MB allocated to the userspace. Maybe Moto knew about "some" of the RAM problems, so allocated a bit more to the system and less to video. Allocated VRAM doesn't have to be on exact multiples of RAM chips (24MB was a common option back in the day on PCs). At this point, though, I'll stand by the belief that any Tegra 2 (and most likely any new OMAP such as the D3) should really have 1GB of memory since 128MB+ will likely be allocated to video going forward.
NVIDIA Tegra 2 review and multi-core support in Android | AndroidNexus.com
Another article stating the shared memory architecture:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Tegra-250-Notebook-Processor.54654.0.html
Also, the Atrix has 1GB of RAM with its Tegra 2 processor. This still does not excuse Motorola from such crappy memory allocation stock. The memory settings mentioned above are still holding strong for me after 24 hours. I was sitting at 92MB of memory free when I woke up, took a phone call and some text messages and it dropped to 76MB. Launched Need For Speed Shift and quit it, memory free jumped back to 140MB, exactly where it jumped to after I launched and quit it yesterday afternoon. Phone is still just as responsive as yesterday. The trickling down memory you're seeing is just app caching, which is what is killing the phone with the stock memory settings.
The odd thing is that the DX2 has more than 384MB allocated to the userspace. Maybe Moto knew about "some" of the RAM problems, so allocated a bit more to the system and less to video. Allocated VRAM doesn't have to be on exact multiples of RAM chips (24MB was a common option back in the day on PCs). At this point, though, I'll stand by the belief that any Tegra 2 (and most likely any new OMAP such as the D3) should really have 1GB of memory since 128MB+ will likely be allocated to video going forward.
rushmore
Extreme Android User
I get this and the reported 404mb that shows in sytem info, but have two problems in regards to the DX2:
1. Adding the OS, OS tasks and user apps, plus the free ram does not even add up past about 270mb. So if 384/404mb, where is the other 100 plus mb? THIS missing RAM is what is choking the performance.
2. Tegra 2 with 512mb and Froyo on the gTablet has no memory or performance issues. I would expect the same results from the DX2.
There is no apparent way to bridge the missing RAM, even when considering a preset allocation. Something is borked and not just my mind.
mntbighker
Well-Known Member
Agreed, DX was more fully baked and responsive. It is worth noting that since they both have similar CPU clock speeds there is no reason the DX2 should be any faster. The dual core can buy a lot in certain circumstances and it can do things the DX simply can't. But for general use I won't hold my breath DX2 will ever feel a world quicker. At least that seems to be the way of things.