Incredible has 512mb or RAM, why are phones coming out with 768mb and 1gb? Increased performance?

[MrVB]

My Incredible has 512mb of RAM. I dont understand why phones now are coming with 768mb and 1gb of RAM. Will this increase performance and how??? 512mb is enough.

 

[Sevreth]

This is the memory needed to multitask. The larger it is, the more apps can be "floating" around in the RAM ready for use. Phones and Tablets with 256mb are known to be really poor multitaskers because of this.

-Sev

 

[MrVB]

So going from 512mb to 1gb of RAM will not increase performance under multitasking???

 

[Medion]

So going from 512mb to 1gb of RAM will not increase performance under multitasking???

It will, but not to the degree that it does on a desktop. Whereas a desktop PC multi-tasks by having applications run simultaneously, Android tends to pause background apps in favor of the foreground app. However, Android also frees up memory as needed by closing apps. So, the more memory you have, the fewer apps get closed. This leads to a few bonuses. First is better battery life form not having to go full power during the opening of an app, since it resides in memory. The second benefit is that switching apps is near instantaneous since you don't have to re-load the app.

Also, as this technology improves, apps are using more resources. 512MB of RAM is more than adequate today, but if you're up for a renewal, you want as much RAM as possible for future proofing. What's adequate today will be insufficient tomorrow.

 

[MrVB]

Ok, but how long does it take for Android to free up memory when needed?

 

[euph_22]

Ok, but how long does it take for Android to free up memory when needed?

1/100th of a second. Ok, it isn't QUITE that fast, but it's essentially instantaneous. Purging the memory happens in a fraction of time it takes the processor to load whatever app needs the extra RAM.

 

[ardchoille]

I've delved into Sense 3.0. htc can say anything they want and some will buy it, but I'm here to tell you that Sense 3.0 is huge and requires a lot of memory.

 

[MrVB]

1/100th of a second. Ok, it isn't QUITE that fast, but it's essentially instantaneous. Purging the memory happens in a fraction of time it takes the processor to load whatever app needs the extra RAM.

But that is not what alogcat reports. Where did you get this figure from?? You didnt just make it up did you?

 

[sdrawkcab25]

But that is not what alogcat reports. Where did you get this figure from?? You didnt just make it up did you?

logcats don't process information as quickly as the kernel handles the memory. Memory management is instantaneous, if Android needs memory, it instantly kills an app.

Logcats are hardly the place to learn how Android operates. Check out:
http://source.android.com

Or

http://developer.android.com

if you want to learn how memory management works.

 

[MrVB]

logcats don't process information as quickly as the kernel handles the memory. Memory management is instantaneous, if Android needs memory, it instantly kills an app.

Logcats are hardly the place to learn how Android operates. Check out:
Welcome to Android | Android Open Source

Or

Android Developers

if you want to learn how memory management works.

Please before we move on please lets stop with the misinformation. Nothing is "instantaneous" as you claim and the links you provided offered no insight into how long it takes for android to process and free up memory.

aLogcat shows each process that the system is running along with how long it takes to process each process. According to the logs memory management takes often 1/4 to 1/2 of a second to process a single remapping of memory and when adding them up during dynamically remapping this time is clearly noticed to the user experience.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Like I said, alogcat is not 100% accurate, and of course nothing in the universe is actually instant, but it is a matter of perspective, and to the user it is instant.

And those links provide a plethora of information on Android's memory management, you have to do a little research yourself if you truly want to learn.

 

[MrVB]

Like I said, alogcat is not 100% accurate, and of course nothing in the universe is actually instant, but it is a matter of perspective, and to the user it is instant.

And those links provide a plethora of information on Android's memory management, you have to do a little research yourself if you truly want to learn.

Actually no its not instant to the user. You can clearly notice delays and lag when memory gets low. This is the reason why when people reboot thier phones it feels much faster, its because the memory is empty and no memory management is in play.

Again, no where in the links you provided states how long it takes for android to reallocate memory. You are making things up while I am providing actual real evidence.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

If you believe you already know the answer, why are you asking the question?

Since you don't want to believe anyone on this forum, you will have to do the research yourself.

And again it does discuss memory management a lot in the links I provided, you actually have to spend time exploring/reading the site, not just browse over the headlines.

 

[euph_22]

But that is not what alogcat reports. Where did you get this figure from?? You didnt just make it up did you?

I pulled them from thin air...I can do that since I've had 6 years of school in Computantional Math/Computer Science, not to mention the years of recreational learning software development, and what not.

Please before we move on please lets stop with the misinformation. Nothing is "instantaneous" as you claim and the links you provided offered no insight into how long it takes for android to process and free up memory.

aLogcat shows each process that the system is running along with how long it takes to process each process. According to the logs memory management takes often 1/4 to 1/2 of a second to process a single remapping of memory and when adding them up during dynamically remapping this time is clearly noticed to the user experience.

1) you clearly didn't read them. They explain in GREAT detail how android memory management works. And just because the RAM management service is running for .25 seconds doesn't mean it takes that long to actually clear the data. The actual purge happens as instantly as matters in a computer.

2) compared to loading the NEW data that replaces the old data in RAM the purging process is basically unnoticeable. If you're waiting for a app to load up, it THAT apps fault, not the app it's replacing in RAM.

Oh, and this might be a better resource for you.


BACK ON TOPIC: Software tends to bloat to fill up the available resources (thanks to lazy/bad software engineering). Because all the phones that will be getting Sense 3.0 have 1GB ram, HTC doesn't bother to keep it's resource utilization down. As hardware gets faster and faster, Software Engineers get lazier and lazier about writing efficient code. Which means we're constantly and vastly under-utilizing the available performance of the hardware.

 

[NightAngel79]

I think we have resolved the question brought up in this thread perfectly. Thanks for all the great info euph and others.


/thread has run its course though. please PM if anyone disagrees