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Question on memory and sluggishness

pjduncan

Lurker
Jul 28, 2009
2
0
At times I have problems with sluggish behavior. One example is using the Home replacement called dxTop. In their FAQ it states that sluggish behavior and needing to redraw icons can be caused by low memory, which makes sense. I'm having a hard time figuring out how the G1 uses it's memory for various functions and how it reports this info to the user. Perhaps someone could lend some clarity.

In printed specs I've seen the G1 as having 192MB RAM and 256MB ROM. When I check the system monitor app, I get the following info
 
At times I have problems with sluggish behavior. One example is using the Home replacement called dxTop. In their FAQ it states that sluggish behavior and needing to redraw icons can be caused by low memory, which makes sense. I'm having a hard time figuring out how the G1 uses it's memory for various functions and how it reports this info to the user. Perhaps someone could lend some clarity.

In printed specs I've seen the G1 as having 192MB RAM and 256MB ROM. When I check the system monitor app, I get the following info…

Memory Usage
Available: 96.0MB
Memory Used: 73.0MB

Storage
System: 258.0MB
Used: 144.0MB

When I install too many apps and get the low mem warning it seems to be whenever that Memory Used figure (now at 73MB) approaches 75MB. Here are some questions I would have.

Where does the 258MB listed under Storage come from… this seems more than the total RAM in the system?
Is there more than one type of RAM in the phone (not counting SD) that isn't reflected in the 192MB?
How much mem is available to store downloaded apps?
Does the amount of downloaded apps consume memory that is used by running programs such as dxTop causing them to run slower simply by having inactive apps on the phone… or would slugginshness only be caused by running apps/services?
What is the indicator for how much memory is available for data space for running apps and services… is this indicated by one of the numbers listed in the "system monitor" quoted above or is there another way of checking the used mem?

Many thanks. Hopefully I'm not the only person for whom these answers will help.

Rather than attempting to answer all your questions in detail... I will try to give a simple explanation.

1.) the phone has 3 types of memory ROM, Ram, and sdcard storage ...

2.) rom Is for storage of system OS and apps, Ram is used for runnig the OS and apps, and the Sdcard is for general storage.

3.) when too many apps are running and there is not enough RAM the OS system will cache things off into the ROM as an like a swap area... So if you have a lot of space in the ROM used Apps storage ... then then means less area that the OS can use as swap space when running multiple apps...

4.) decreasing the number of large size apps can greatly improve performance because they free up swap space on the ROM ... the other way that many of us have gone ... is to root our phones and move ALL apps to the SDcard ..
This includes OS apps, default apps and third party apps ...

Before i rooted ...at times i had only 6 or 7MB of free space on the phone's Rom and had the Low-Memory Indicator on All the time ... and a very slow laggy phone ... After rooting and Moving APPs and Cache to a ext2 partition on the sdcard ... the phone now has like 74MB of free rom space ... and will/can also use the ROM and the SDcard like ROM and has 709MB of total space and 502MB of available space on the SDCard for apps and ROM extension... and 57MB of ROM space on the Phone ... this makes the phone run very nicely and allows fro more powerful apps and more backgroud processes running ...

So hope that helps you understand what is going on with memory in your G1 Dream ... and why many people root their phones ....

And I have 292 apps on my phone ...

PS: Oh I had been running a home replacement system "aHome" until just recently ... These run on top of the system and are memory hogs and will cause slugish lagging phone performance ...
I loved my aHome and the features and appearance ... but ditching it made fro improved performance ...
 
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Yes, I certainly have read enough to see the big advantage to rooting. It seems crazy that Google/T-mobile don't allow the use of the SD card for app storage or app cache data. In fact I'm slightly peeved by the fact that this isn't made clear in the specs before one buys and starts lurking on the forums. It really is a design flaw.

That having been said, I rely on my phone too much to risk messing it up with the very complicated rooting process. I might have tried it if I had found out about the need before installing apps and using the phone for so long.

justjimjpc, yeah I realize that dxTop is probably part of the problem. Starting some apps and returning home certainly can take longer now... not always, but sometimes. I hadn't noticed that nearly as much before installing dxTop.

Based on what you said I assume the ROM listed in the G1 spec is Flash... right? So apps are stored in Flash (256MB in G1 spec). They are copied (?) to RAM (192MB in G1 spec) to execute and use RAM for data structures? If memory runs low code and/or data is freed from RAM and reloaded from Flash later?

I'm still trying to understand exactly how installing and running apps affects these memories. When I install an app it will then increase the "Used" portion of the "Storage" as listed in "System Monitor" which refers to Flash? When apps run in foreground or as services they increase the "Memory Used"? What triggers the low memory warning? It seems the solution to this is removing apps, so I assume the warning is for low available Flash, not RAM? Is the 96MB of Memory listed as available in System Monitor simply the amount left over from 192MB after the OS needs are removed?
 
Upvote 0
Yes, I certainly have read enough to see the big advantage to rooting. It seems crazy that Google/T-mobile don't allow the use of the SD card for app storage or app cache data. In fact I'm slightly peeved by the fact that this isn't made clear in the specs before one buys and starts lurking on the forums. It really is a design flaw.

That having been said, I rely on my phone too much to risk messing it up with the very complicated rooting process. I might have tried it if I had found out about the need before installing apps and using the phone for so long.

justjimjpc, yeah I realize that dxTop is probably part of the problem. Starting some apps and returning home certainly can take longer now... not always, but sometimes. I hadn't noticed that nearly as much before installing dxTop.

Based on what you said I assume the ROM listed in the G1 spec is Flash... right? So apps are stored in Flash (256MB in G1 spec). They are copied (?) to RAM (192MB in G1 spec) to execute and use RAM for data structures? If memory runs low code and/or data is freed from RAM and reloaded from Flash later?

I'm still trying to understand exactly how installing and running apps affects these memories. When I install an app it will then increase the "Used" portion of the "Storage" as listed in "System Monitor" which refers to Flash? When apps run in foreground or as services they increase the "Memory Used"? What triggers the low memory warning? It seems the solution to this is removing apps, so I assume the warning is for low available Flash, not RAM? Is the 96MB of Memory listed as available in System Monitor simply the amount left over from 192MB after the OS needs are removed?

The memory reported in the phone settings is the Flash Rom where apps are stored and the phone can use as swap(cache) when RAM is running low ...
 
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