Whats up with the "lag fix"?

[JRust00]

I just purchased my Samsung Captivate. I love this phone vs. my iPhone 3G. Its so liberating to be free from apple. Anyway, the only issue i have with my galaxy S is the lag. Its not so bad, I just would like to discover its potential. Therefore, I have a have several questions about the lag fix and rooting.

1. What exactly is rooting? What are the pros and cons?
2. What is the best lag fix? Is it safe? What are the long term effects, if any? (data Corruption)?
5. If I root and do the lag fix, what happens when the 2.2 update arrives?
4. And finally, if I happen to screw anything up, is there a way to revert back to how it is now?

Thanks

 

[harryzwd]

the quickest way to improve performance on your captivate is to replace whats called the "launcher" - i.e. the touchwiz interface.

search the forums for terms like "home switcher" , "adwlauncher" and "launcherpro"

i use adwlauncher and the phone feels a lot snappier. one you install them off of the market and try them out you'll see what i mean. i could never go back to touchwiz....

 

[sremick]

The best lag fix is honestly to wait a month.

Honestly... you see a lot of people on these forums who are hardcore techy geeks, and/or don't mind if their actions totally hose their phone (either because the Captivate isn't their primary phone, or they have the means and skills to fix it). So the cellphone equivalent of open brain surgery is tossed around constantly as casually as if it were changing the battery. But make no mistake: these actions are not trivial, and not without significant risk and side-effects that the "just root it!" fanboy probably neglected to mention. Even when they work, they have numerous fine-print "gotchas" and implications which aren't given enough mention. But you'll also find no shortage of people who have "bricked" their phones trying to apply one of the snake-oil "lag fix" band-aid hacks, either through their own mistakes or just mysterious bad luck.

Meanwhile, Samsung has an update in the works which we already know (via an early leaked debug build) that improves GPS, improves lag and improves battery life. The final version of the update is due in September. Also, Samsung will be releasing an update for Android 2.2 "Froyo" which will add additional huge speed increases.

Unless you consider your phone expendable and something you're willing to sacrifice for the sake of impatience, your best path is to just wait it out. Take the time to learn the other aspects of your phone in the meantime.

 

[MassacrMan]

The best lag fix is honestly to wait a month.

Honestly... you see a lot of people on these forums who are hardcore techy geeks, and/or don't mind if their actions totally hose their phone (either because the Captivate isn't their primary phone, or they have the means and skills to fix it). So the cellphone equivalent of open brain surgery is tossed around constantly as casually as if it were changing the battery. But make no mistake: these actions are not trivial, and not without significant risk and side-effects that the "just root it!" fanboy probably neglected to mention. Even when they work, they have numerous fine-print "gotchas" and implications which aren't given enough mention. But you'll also find no shortage of people who have "bricked" their phones trying to apply one of the snake-oil "lag fix" band-aid hacks, either through their own mistakes or just mysterious bad luck.

Meanwhile, Samsung has an update in the works which we already know (via an early leaked debug build) that improves GPS, improves lag and improves battery life. The final version of the update is due in September. Also, Samsung will be releasing an update for Android 2.2 "Froyo" which will add additional huge speed increases.

Unless you consider your phone expendable and something you're willing to sacrifice for the sake of impatience, your best path is to just wait it out. Take the time to learn the other aspects of your phone in the meantime.

Finally someone who thinks like I do, seriously do what he says. Just wait...

 

[noc]

Finally someone who thinks like I do, seriously do what he says. Just wait...

I would like to add to that and advise you to wait. I've personally fiddled with my phone a lot since the 2nd day I've gotten it. It's been like 2 weeks, and I've spent SO much time fixing it up and getting it to work the way I want it to work. It's good to learn your phone, but save yourself the headache because I believe the froyo update, which should speed up your phone a bit. And even if you still think the phone lags too much, I believe froyo should have some built-in recovery options that help you back up data. My biggest headache from messing with the whole lag fix deal is the fact that I could never ever get it to uninstall properly, and would inevitably have to re-flash my phone. I could never get backups to work properly, so contacts was always a mess to figure out. Although I did learn from my mistakes, I seriously would've loved spending my time fishing instead of what I did. So just wait!

 

[George0211]

Unless I misunderstand what you guys mean by "lag", I have to say, I have no such issues with my Captivate.
Could you please describe, how it "lags"?

 

[thindery]

If waiting isn't an option and you want to go ahead and flash some new stuff go over to xda:
Samsung Captivate - xda-developers

in the developer forum you will find your answers. you will need "odin3" and know how to get into download mode. The stickied thread will tell you.

There are a handful of roms. You can do stock, or some different firmware builds. JH3 just got leaked so that is the "newest" firmware for the phone but it isn't official anything. It's just a testing firmware Samsung has put on a website. I am using the previous leaked one, JH2.

If you want to do a whole bunch of stuff look for the thread about "Unleash the beast". Basically it will update your phone with a bunch of stuff. It will give you a new firmware and implement a lag fix, it will root the phone and let you sideload apps (download any app you want without att saying no, like wireless thether for free). It will also delete all the att crapware.

If you don't want to do all of that you can pick and choose what you want (ie firmware version, rooted, which lag fix, sideloading, etc.). But you will have to do it all manually and not use the unleash the best method.

I can't comment on which lag fix is the best. I can say people have seen improvements with the different options all around.

Best thing to do is just read through the threads and really educate yourself on what the options are. Read how to do it and follow instructions to a T. the xda site is great for help if you somehow mess things up.

2 weeks ago I was afraid to root, but I read a lot about how to do it, etc. Probably spent about 6 hours over the course of a few days reading up on stuff. needless to say, here I am 2 weeks later and can't wait to get off work and flash the new firmware jh3 and start testing it. It's a whole lot of fun considering how much control you have over this device.

 

[sremick]

Unless I misunderstand what you guys mean by "lag", I have to say, I have no such issues with my Captivate.
Could you please describe, how it "lags"?

Examples:

- Sometimes when returning to the home screen, you get a dock but no icons. It might take several seconds (even 30+) for the icons to appear.

- You can be typing along fine on the on-screen keyboard then suddenly find a keypress didn't register. Thinking it your own fault, you try 2 more times... then suddenly get 3 of the character in a row after a couple seconds.

- Pressing one of the 4 bottom "soft buttons" doesn't register, taking several tries.

- Holding down "Home" to bring up the task list doesn't work at first, but you keep holding then eventually you get a bunch of haptic-feedback pulses as if you pressed it 10 times in a row.

- Other parts of the UI are randomly unresponsive, taking several tries.

- Trying to move an icon to another screen/folder doesn't work... the icon retains its glow/highlight but then just sits there, without moving. You have to click back/undo then try again.

- Pulling down the notification bar isn't smooth, and you watch it slide down choppy with pauses.

Those are just some examples that come to mind.

 

[George0211]

Examples:

- Sometimes when returning to the home screen, you get a dock but no icons. It might take several seconds (even 30+) for the icons to appear.

- You can be typing along fine on the on-screen keyboard then suddenly find a keypress didn't register. Thinking it your own fault, you try 2 more times... then suddenly get 3 of the character in a row after a couple seconds.

- Pressing one of the 4 bottom "soft buttons" doesn't register, taking several tries.

- Holding down "Home" to bring up the task list doesn't work at first, but you keep holding then eventually you get a bunch of haptic-feedback pulses as if you pressed it 10 times in a row.

- Other parts of the UI are randomly unresponsive, taking several tries.

- Trying to move an icon to another screen/folder doesn't work... the icon retains its glow/highlight but then just sits there, without moving. You have to click back/undo then try again.

- Pulling down the notification bar isn't smooth, and you watch it slide down choppy with pauses.

Those are just some examples that come to mind.

WOW, definitely haven't experienced that and I've had the phone for almost 3 weeks now.

 

[ckyllr]

If waiting isn't an option and you want to go ahead and flash some new stuff go over to xda:
Samsung Captivate - xda-developers

in the developer forum you will find your answers. you will need "odin3" and know how to get into download mode. The stickied thread will tell you.

There are a handful of roms. You can do stock, or some different firmware builds. JH3 just got leaked so that is the "newest" firmware for the phone but it isn't official anything. It's just a testing firmware Samsung has put on a website. I am using the previous leaked one, JH2.

If you want to do a whole bunch of stuff look for the thread about "Unleash the beast". Basically it will update your phone with a bunch of stuff. It will give you a new firmware and implement a lag fix, it will root the phone and let you sideload apps (download any app you want without att saying no, like wireless thether for free). It will also delete all the att crapware.

If you don't want to do all of that you can pick and choose what you want (ie firmware version, rooted, which lag fix, sideloading, etc.). But you will have to do it all manually and not use the unleash the best method.

I can't comment on which lag fix is the best. I can say people have seen improvements with the different options all around.

Best thing to do is just read through the threads and really educate yourself on what the options are. Read how to do it and follow instructions to a T. the xda site is great for help if you somehow mess things up.

2 weeks ago I was afraid to root, but I read a lot about how to do it, etc. Probably spent about 6 hours over the course of a few days reading up on stuff. needless to say, here I am 2 weeks later and can't wait to get off work and flash the new firmware jh3 and start testing it. It's a whole lot of fun considering how much control you have over this device.

I just did all of the above and my battery and my quadrant scores took a dump. They are worse than what I had before. I don't know why though... All I know is my battery went from 100% to 22% in 6 hours while I was sleeping and my quadrant score of 900 to 770. Battery killer was ADW launcher but I don't know why that was eating up the battery so much last night. Either way, I recovered everything back to original state before I start flashing and I'm glad I did.