• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Why is my ram high?

M

Micmic9999

Lurker
I just got the galazy s2 and the ram on it is already high. Even the next morning it isnt any lower either. I was wondering why it isnt low because i do 'exit' the application but it doesnt do much. How do i make it go down? Thanks =]
 
Hello Micmic, welcome to the forums.

RAM being pretty well loaded up is not necessarily a bad thing, as that area is what is polled first for programs that need to start quickly, otherwise there would be more of a wait as the system sought out and invoked those programs (apps/widgets, some services, etc).

High capacity RAM will usually mean more of those programs can be easily called up by the system, so it's better, obviously. ;) But we should not expect our RAM to be empty, although we can pare things down by removing or disabling things the device assumes we need but we as users don't, such as various apps listed in the application manager.

It takes some use for things to settle down, but occupied RAM is not necessarily a bad thing.
 
Hello and welcome to Android Forums! :)

If I can expand on what the venerable Frisco has explained, the first thing you must do is try and think about an entirely different OS memory management model. Most people coming from a desktop environment think that "free ram" equates to performance since when actual memory is maximized, a desktop OS resorts to virtual ram which can slow a computer to a crawl. This is a discrete limited resource memory model. It means that as long as you have an application loaded in memory, it will always occupy those resources.

Android is a hierarchical model. It has complex algorithms to give apps priority to memory. And it also saves states of recently run apps and tries to preload apps based on usage, anticipating their need. Android will always try to make use of as much memory as it can. Trying to free it will only frustrate you because when you clear some memory, Android will go and load something else into it.

Think of it this way. If you have an application open on a pc, it takes much less time to bring the focus to the foreground than it does to actually launch it. And, if you are using several apps, you can switch seamlessly between them, rather than having to shut them down to open another. If you'd like to read further there is a rather good article in a link in the following thread directly from the developers at Google.


Why You Don't Need a Task Killer.
 
Problem with my Galaxy S is that my RAM stands at 283 MB out of 329 MB. All very well to say it's not a bad thing, but at this level I feel that the phone is slowing down. When I try to access an app it throws me out.

Is there anything that can be done. I clear out the Cache of each app but it does not do much. I also clear active apps and nothing happens. Any suggestions?

Appreciated
 
I've seen that on the SGS4G. What is puzzling, is if you check in settings about running apps also in Astro file manager, what those apps say the system is using doesn't jive with the Task manager that is installed by Samsung.

So either Samsung's task manager is not correct, or something else in the system but hidden is running.

Why the discrepancy?

Both Astro and Applications will say about 183MB. Samsung's task manager will say about 223. Applications is also a Samsung system app, not a 3rd party like Astro.

Phone is rooted - no social apps, no automatic downloading, swype gone, Maps gone. It's not having wifi on. So it's not the usual culprits. I'm just curious.

BTW- the applications setting for running stays constant and so does Astro. Samsung's task manager is all over the place with usage.
 
Astro and other apps probably don't have permission to see all the hidden system apps that the default task manager can see.

Unless Astro (or other apps) were specifically coded to work with root access to see the hidden folders and system processes. If that is the case, then it is weird that the numbers don't match.
 
Yes, but going to applications>running services agrees with Astro. Not the task manager.
Settings>Applications>Running Services is built into the phone so it's Samsung. It should show all the running apps.

Do you mean Samsung would hide stuff from its own system app?
 
That's actually an Android system app, not a Samsung app. But it is possible that particular apps/processes are being hidden and one of these reporting services is just not including them.

I would just be more inclined to believe the Android one. After all, the garbage collection process (the process responsible for managing/cleaning RAM as necessary) would refer to the Android reports. And, the GC is constantly managing the number. Get an app that will watch the logcat (like any of these) and you can see what the GC reports as available memory. It's called "GC_CONCURRENT"
 
I've got the Gemini App Manager and it concurs with the Task Manager. Gemini has an option called "Taskill". It kills something. Not open apps because there are none. Then there is an option called "One key RAM optimizer" and that generally brings down the RAM to below 200MB. But the RAM goes back up to 267MB. All very confusing. Is it that difficult to see what's guzzling up RAM? I have downloaded quite a few apps like Whatsapp, Go!Chat (Facebook), Deja Office, and more.

Thanks
 
jerofld said:
That's actually an Android system app, not a Samsung app. But it is possible that particular apps/processes are being hidden and one of these reporting services is just not including them.

I would just be more inclined to believe the Android one. After all, the garbage collection process (the process responsible for managing/cleaning RAM as necessary) would refer to the Android reports. And, the GC is constantly managing the number. Get an app that will watch the logcat (like any of these) and you can see what the GC reports as available memory. It's called "GC_CONCURRENT"
Click to expand...

Task manager came with the phone - so did settings>apps>running.
Aren't they both Android then? If so, which one is the dominant one?

I've only added Astro to manage ebooks, but I look at all the permissions, etc. whether or not I change anything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom