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Help free up some RAM??

T

Tboltfan25

Android Enthusiast
My phone tells me i have about 120mb free at any given time, and i see people who have 250-300 free...how do I free up some RAM on my TB?? Any suggestions?
 
Tboltfan25 said:
My phone tells me i have about 120mb free at any given time, and i see people who have 250-300 free...how do I free up some RAM on my TB?? Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

I'm approaching 400MB of free RAM after a fresh reboot. Running stock Sense. 386MB to be more precise.
 
Well doesn't it depends on how many or how much apps you are running? I have a decent of apps and I have about 200mb. Stock rooted ROM.
 
Papadroid said:
120 MB of free RAM is plenty. In the Linux world free RAM is wasted RAM.;) The only time I've seen lag on phones is when the free RAM is under 30 MB. But I have yet to experience that on the Bolt.:D
Click to expand...

exactly!

but to the OP, to answer your question, download advanced task killer and kill all the running apps.

p.s. task killers are a waste of time/space/money/resources.

just expanding on the post above mine, RAM for android is not the same as RAM for windows. the less ram the faster your phone will seem (until you get really low like under 50mb i would start worrying) i constantly have around 120mb and the phone never lags....ever.
 
Turdbogls said:
exactly!

but to the OP, to answer your question, download advanced task killer and kill all the running apps.

p.s. task killers are a waste of time/space/money/resources.

just expanding on the post above mine, RAM for android is not the same as RAM for windows. the less ram the faster your phone will seem (until you get really low like under 50mb i would start worrying) i constantly have around 120mb and the phone never lags....ever.
Click to expand...

Sounds good! I have absolutely no lag or issues with the 120-150 free i usually have at any given time, so I won't even worryabout the numbers...I was more curious as to why my phone only has 120mb free and others say they have anywhere from 200-350mb free all the time...just wanted to know the differences.
 
You don't need to worry about freeing RAM, free RAM in Linux is wasted RAM.

* Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when more memory is needed.
* Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when it
 
Turdbogls said:
exactly!

but to the OP, to answer your question, download advanced task killer and kill all the running apps.

p.s. task killers are a waste of time/space/money/resources.

just expanding on the post above mine, RAM for android is not the same as RAM for windows. the less ram the faster your phone will seem (until you get really low like under 50mb i would start worrying) i constantly have around 120mb and the phone never lags....ever.
Click to expand...
You don't want to use a task killer:

I develop Android apps so I though I'd explain why a task killer isn't needed on an Android system.

Activities
Android apps use activites to preform tasks. For example, if you use a file manager to send a picture via email, the file manager calls the send activity within an email app, passes the file name to it and the email app sends the picture.. not the file manager. This will result in seeing the email app as "running" even though the user didn't actually launch that email app.

Smaller apps
Using activites helps developers design smaller apps. A file manager app that contains every bit of code needed to do everything a file manager does would likely be so large that no one would want to install it. Developers know that an android phone more than likely has an email app so there is no need for the developer to include email code in his/her file manager to send a picture when he/she can call an activity in an existing email app to do the job. This results in a smaller file manager app since there is no need to include email code or any other code for an activity that can be done via an app that is already present on the phone. This also alleviates redundant code. When you install an app outside of the android market, also known as sideloading, the file manager app calls the package installer (already present in Android) to install the requested app.

Running apps vs. cached apps
The "Manage Applications" list included in many android devices lists running apps as well as cached apps. Cached apps don't use any CPU or battery, they're cached so they will load faster the next time you need them. Killing cached apps results in those apps requiring more time to load the next time they are launched.

System management
By default, every android application runs in its own Linux process. Android starts the process when any of the application’s code (activities) needs to be executed, and shuts down the process when it’s no longer needed and system resources are required by other applications.

If you see an app running that you didn't launch, it's most likely because an activity within that app was called by another app to perform a task. If you kill the app you didn't launch, the system has to relaunch that app in order to complete its task. This is why some people kill a task and then see it immediately running again. Constantly killing that app creates a situation where the user is battling the system resulting in wasted system resources.

Android is Linux
Android is not a Windows-based OS, it is based on Linux. Many of the apps you think are running aren't actually running, they're cached, this is typical with a Linux operating system and is much more efficient than other systems. Cached apps don't use any CPU or battery, they're cached and will load faster the next time they're needed.
 
Awesome posts :-)
This was the best explanation I have seen on not using a task killer!

Now a question...
Would it be better if we were able to see which apps are cached and which are running?

Thanks,
Bryan
 
trapperjohn said:
Awesome posts :-)
This was the best explanation I have seen on not using a task killer!

Now a question...
Would it be better if we were able to see which apps are cached and which are running?

Thanks,
Bryan
Click to expand...
Changes in Gingerbread separate running and cached apps into two different lists. But, it begs the question.. "why?" Killing running apps is detrimental to the system and killing cached apps makes android cache other apps in their place. I suppose it would be nice as far as knowledge of what the system is doing.. but I don't see the point otherwise.
 
trapperjohn said:
Awesome posts :-)
This was the best explanation I have seen on not using a task killer!

Now a question...
Would it be better if we were able to see which apps are cached and which are running?

Thanks,
Bryan
Click to expand...

yes, and there is a great app for this. its called watchdog (lite version should be fine) it will alert you to any app that is actually running in the background using resources. you can then kill the app. this will stop the app from draining the battery and using the processor.

for example, when tuneIn radio first launched their app, it would completely drain the battery by running in the background when i was finished listening to my radio station. i didn't even know it until i downloaded watchdog. it prompted me right away, i killed it and put it on the black list, which would kill the app every time for me.
watchdog is the only "task killer" that should be used on these phones.
 
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