AussieAndroid
Member
Has anyone found any pros and cons to limiting background processes?
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Help Limiting background processes
- Thread starter AussieAndroid
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- galaxy nexus
I do it quite often, usually to 4 processes. I feel like it makes the system run faster except for launching apps for the first time sometimes. When I limit it to zero though, I find some lag and sometimes stuff just doesn't seem to work (namely nova launcher).
It might be a placebo effect, but I like limiting them. I've read a few times on the forums, by people who seemingly understand the OS much better than myself, that it is pointless because android manages memory really well.
It might be a placebo effect, but I like limiting them. I've read a few times on the forums, by people who seemingly understand the OS much better than myself, that it is pointless because android manages memory really well.
AussieAndroid
Member
Yep, I hear people banter on about that all the time. I agree with them mostly. But, ultimately, there are times when you can tell the system performs faster after forcing some apps to close. I dont use task killers as such, but I do use System panel Lite just to check if any particular apps are causing me a problem (usually they've been android services/apps) and close them down.
I guess there must be a reason why they've built this sort of functionality into ICS now?
breadnatty08
pain rustique
This is correct. Ever since Froyo, Android has done a fantastic job managing RAM/running processes. Also, with the amount of RAM the Nexus has, it just isn't going to matter how many apps you have "running" in the background. I haven't used a task killer in forever. Also, the multitasking button on ICS doesn't actually "kill" the app, it just suspends it from that menu.
As the folks like to say, this ain't know WinMo phone!
jsweetser2
Lurker
I have mine limited to 3. Just a few minutes ago my phone was lagging a bit so i opened up my apps and found only 83 meg available. I opened up my recents and flicked away 12 applications and my available ram opened up to 223. I hardly ever use recents and i use the same three apps most of the time (Tweetcaster, friendcaster, web) so it's helped keep my phone from slowing down after 1-2 days of use.
OfTheDamned
The Friendly Undead
You guys are aware that killing apps takes away from the native way Android functions and kills your battery, right? I'm not talking about limiting apps, I'm talking about killing them. The force close is designed for apps that are not performing properly or somehow are hung up (perpetual download, frozen, etc.). Killing them on a regular basis hurts the overall operations of the device and in most cases can actually cause your phone to lag since you are telling the OS that you will eventually handle these apps and it doesn't need to. The OS hasn't needed micro management since 2.2 and it certainly doesn't need it in 4.0.
If you leave the phone alone to let it run the way it is designed it will learn what needs to be sitting in the background and what doesn't.
If you leave the phone alone to let it run the way it is designed it will learn what needs to be sitting in the background and what doesn't.
wrecklass
Well-Known Member
@OfTheDamned is exactly right. I'm astounded to see posts of this type still popping up two years after Froyo resolved the issue. People are still treating Android like some rotten old Microsoft Operating, talking about freeing up memory as if it were a good thing 
What's even funnier is how they now say they Understand that keeping memory free is not needed any more, but they still do it. Like its a compulsion or something.
Three things:
1 ICS is pretty much holding the number of Apps to a dozen already. Check the list for a few days to see.
2 "killing" apps that are in the background isn't freeing anything. The OS already knows that the resources can be used.
3 The likelihood that you are smarter than the army of Google engineers who designed these things is very slim.
I think the silly system monitoring tools cause more stress than Finals week.
Take the healthy hands challenge and stop monitoring your phone's memory for two weeks. I bet you forget to go back to doing it and enjoy using the phone more.
What's even funnier is how they now say they Understand that keeping memory free is not needed any more, but they still do it. Like its a compulsion or something.
Three things:
1 ICS is pretty much holding the number of Apps to a dozen already. Check the list for a few days to see.
2 "killing" apps that are in the background isn't freeing anything. The OS already knows that the resources can be used.
3 The likelihood that you are smarter than the army of Google engineers who designed these things is very slim.
I think the silly system monitoring tools cause more stress than Finals week.
Take the healthy hands challenge and stop monitoring your phone's memory for two weeks. I bet you forget to go back to doing it and enjoy using the phone more.
AussieAndroid
Member
I think my question is valid considering the function is built into ICS.
Why would these genius google engineers put it in there then?
viebroccoli
Well-Known Member
Let's not call these guys engineers, but they are scientists. Almost all of the Google employees that wrote the code for ICS are most likely Computer Science majors, which, as we all know, do not earn an engineering degree. They do earn a Bachelor of Science, but it is not a Bachelor of Science of Engineering. Just thought I would point that out.
tinytinysky
Lurker
Let's not call these guys engineers, but they are scientists. Almost all of the Google employees that wrote the code for ICS are most likely Computer Science majors, which, as we all know, do not earn an engineering degree. They do earn a Bachelor of Science, but it is not a Bachelor of Science of Engineering. Just thought I would point that out.
actually it's Bachelor of Applied Science... at least in Canada...
and to answer all the people telling others that freeing memory is not needed and don't kill apps? Please remember that some of us have devices like nexus s that only have 512 MB of memory - system stuff = around 300MB.... so after you have a decent library of app downloaded and running tasker? your memory gets crowded very fast and system gets unstable and sometimes restarts.... don't tell me the phone will eventually learn... it's not AI....
I found that limiting it to 0 or a really low number helps the system run much smoother and haven't restarted so far.... my memory requirement for running everything i usually run dropped by 1/3... from 230MB to something like 160...
now... would anybody be kind enough to answer the op how to keep it automatically set? through tasker and secure setting or somehow.... THAT WOULD BE EXTREMELY HELPFUL... thank you...
wrecklass
Well-Known Member
Sorry, I was thinking that this is the Galaxy Nexus forums. In which case thus argument would be inappropriate.
Asked and answered by several of us already. The OS does that.
windstrings
Well-Known Member
While you think this issue would be solved. It's not.
I have. 2 gig ram in my s3 and I feel a slowdown when over half my ram gets depleted. Freeing ram pops it back to instantaneous type. feel again.
While android keeps things in the background. It's true there is no cpu usage, there "is" a memory footprint that's taken.
I'm just not sure if this memory is ram or internal storage merely depleting my stash of 32gb on the phone?
If the latter, it shouldn't be an issue to leave them in pause mode, but if ram is being sacrificed, that's bad.
All i know is "something" takes up ram... Clearing it helps.
Limiting my processes to 4 seems to keep my ram usage down and I therefore don't have to go clear things out manually.
I understand it may cause a slower startup on an app I haven't used in a long time and therefore a tad bit more battery usage to reopen it.. I'm not worried about battery.
On my home windows computers so many programs want to load a startup process for word processors and other big apps to give you that "instant ' feel when you open it..... I turn those off too,
I heard the arguement that engineers know best... Well maybe they often have an adjenda that's different from ours?
Maybe they are trying to make android" feel" faster at the expense of ram? At some point you start choking the goose laying the golden eggs!
Why not give that fake fast feel to the last 4 apps you used as they are the most likely ones you'll reopen again, and have plenty fresh ram available when you want to open that app again you haven't used in 3 hours or more?
Sometimes we get so caught up in theory, we can't see what works!
I have. 2 gig ram in my s3 and I feel a slowdown when over half my ram gets depleted. Freeing ram pops it back to instantaneous type. feel again.
While android keeps things in the background. It's true there is no cpu usage, there "is" a memory footprint that's taken.
I'm just not sure if this memory is ram or internal storage merely depleting my stash of 32gb on the phone?
If the latter, it shouldn't be an issue to leave them in pause mode, but if ram is being sacrificed, that's bad.
All i know is "something" takes up ram... Clearing it helps.
Limiting my processes to 4 seems to keep my ram usage down and I therefore don't have to go clear things out manually.
I understand it may cause a slower startup on an app I haven't used in a long time and therefore a tad bit more battery usage to reopen it.. I'm not worried about battery.
On my home windows computers so many programs want to load a startup process for word processors and other big apps to give you that "instant ' feel when you open it..... I turn those off too,
I heard the arguement that engineers know best... Well maybe they often have an adjenda that's different from ours?
Maybe they are trying to make android" feel" faster at the expense of ram? At some point you start choking the goose laying the golden eggs!
Why not give that fake fast feel to the last 4 apps you used as they are the most likely ones you'll reopen again, and have plenty fresh ram available when you want to open that app again you haven't used in 3 hours or more?
Sometimes we get so caught up in theory, we can't see what works!
I know this is old, but I just have to throw in my 2 cents. Maybe it will help someone else who finds this understand.
Wildstrings, your "the phone is faster when I manually kill off apps" is a total placebo effect. Let me explain:
Normally, Android will leave your most recent apps loaded into memory, so that it doesn't have to reload them from the storage media. They sit idle in memory. This is *not* bad. It's by design, since it can actually save battery life and make the device faster when accessing those apps again.
The speed improvement that you *think* you're seeing from manually killing apps, is that you're spending time doing what Android would normally do for you while launching an app that isn't in memory.
Here's a scenario: Apps A, B, C and D are idle in memory and you launch app E. Android would normally say, OK, let's unload App B because the user doesn't use that one as often and then load App E.
When you manually kill Apps B and C yourself before launching E, it will seem to launch faster, since Android isn't having to unload B first. The truth is, the half-second of "lag" you see while that happens is actually less time than it takes you to "manually" terminate the app yourself. Placebo effect. You're actually spending more time, to make Android take less time.
The truth is, Linux is not Windows, and is not designed to use memory (RAM) even remotely the same way. Having 2/3 of your RAM "filled" is not a bad thing in Linux like it is in Windows. Linux is actually designed to work most efficiently with its memory a little over half filled.
I get what you're saying about the developers having a different idea, and you're correct. The problem, though, is your thinking, not their's.
Wildstrings, your "the phone is faster when I manually kill off apps" is a total placebo effect. Let me explain:
Normally, Android will leave your most recent apps loaded into memory, so that it doesn't have to reload them from the storage media. They sit idle in memory. This is *not* bad. It's by design, since it can actually save battery life and make the device faster when accessing those apps again.
The speed improvement that you *think* you're seeing from manually killing apps, is that you're spending time doing what Android would normally do for you while launching an app that isn't in memory.
Here's a scenario: Apps A, B, C and D are idle in memory and you launch app E. Android would normally say, OK, let's unload App B because the user doesn't use that one as often and then load App E.
When you manually kill Apps B and C yourself before launching E, it will seem to launch faster, since Android isn't having to unload B first. The truth is, the half-second of "lag" you see while that happens is actually less time than it takes you to "manually" terminate the app yourself. Placebo effect. You're actually spending more time, to make Android take less time.
The truth is, Linux is not Windows, and is not designed to use memory (RAM) even remotely the same way. Having 2/3 of your RAM "filled" is not a bad thing in Linux like it is in Windows. Linux is actually designed to work most efficiently with its memory a little over half filled.
I get what you're saying about the developers having a different idea, and you're correct. The problem, though, is your thinking, not their's.