Developer Options: Background Process Limit

[jmogha]

I've only seen this touched on in other threads. Under developer options, there is a menu for Background Process Limit. Has anyone played around with this? Possibly help multi tasking?

 

[kbp08tls]

From what I've read, it does not .

 

[doomstang]

Some people have said limiting it to 4 will help reduce lag but I have yet to see a dev give their opinion.

Sent from my Evo 4G LTE using Tapatalk

 

[crxssi]

I've only seen this touched on in other threads. Under developer options, there is a menu for Background Process Limit. Has anyone played around with this? Possibly help multi tasking?

It is a useless option for normal users that makes multitasking *worse* not better (that is why it is a developer option- just used for testing). Sorry.

 

[kbp08tls]

Some people have said limiting it to 4 will help reduce lag but I have yet to see a dev give their opinion.

Sent from my Evo 4G LTE using Tapatalk

It may reduce lag if there's less running in the background, but like crx said it would just make multitasking worse since it would just make Sense that much more aggressive at closing apps... I think.

Sent from my EVO using Android Central Forums

 

[Mofus]

I read over at XDA that changing it to 4 will help with Sense reloading issues. I would get about about 4-5 Sense reloads a day and since I changed the setting to 4 I haven't noticed Sense reload once.

 

[kbp08tls]

I read over at XDA that changing it to 4 will help with Sense reloading issues. I would get about about 4-5 Sense reloads a day and since I changed the setting to 4 I haven't noticed Sense reload once.

So if it's keeping Sense, I would assume it's killing just about everything else off, which would make multitasking worse.

Sent from my EVO using Android Central Forums

 

[Mofus]

it's no worse than it was before. I don't really use multitasking all that much though.

 

[Quis89]

So then my question is what is the standard limit?

 

[Mikey47]

So then my question is what is the standard limit?

No one knows and until they release the source for the phone, no one will.

 

[crxssi]

No one knows and until they release the source for the phone, no one will.

It really doesn't matter much, anyway... since this doesn't really have anything to do with the problems we are having with multitasking and memory management.

 

[Mikey47]

It really doesn't matter much, anyway... since this doesn't really have anything to do with the problems we are having with multitasking and memory management.

How do you know that? Without knowing the standard limit who knows of setting this value to 4 is good or bad?

 

[crxssi]

How do you know that? Without knowing the standard limit who knows of setting this value to 4 is good or bad?

Because further limiting is not the issue. The phone, in it's stock form, is not freeing enough memory for allowing apps to continue to run without being frozen in a snapshot state. That is, if I understand the problem (on which I am not an expert, and have already lost some of what I learned). I do remember my conclusion, however.

 

[Mikey47]

Because further limiting is not the issue. The phone, in it's stock form, is not freeing enough memory for allowing apps to continue to run without being frozen in a snapshot state. That is, if I understand the problem (on which I am not an expert, and have already lost some of what I learned). I do remember my conclusion, however.

I understand that. But what if the standard is supposed to be 16 but for some reason it is only 4 (no better than the max developer limit).

This phone has twice the memory of our beloved OG EVO, but one quarter the ability to multitask. I refuse to believe it is simply a memory issue. Sure Sense 4 takes a lot of memory, but not enough to blame completely.

 

[crxssi]

I understand that. But what if the standard is supposed to be 16 but for some reason it is only 4 (no better than the max developer limit).

This phone has twice the memory of our beloved OG EVO, but one quarter the ability to multitask. I refuse to believe it is simply a memory issue. Sure Sense 4 takes a lot of memory, but not enough to blame completely.

I don't think it is any one factor. ICS uses more memory, Sense 4 uses more memory, they made certain apps more persistent, they lowered the threshold for killing apps off (suspending them), they force a larger pool target for free memory, etc. It all combines to make a sucky experience.

 

[Quis89]

I know this much... I changed it from the default to 4 processes and I have not experienced one single Sense reload all day. I changed this setting last night. Yesterday alone it happened about 3 or 4 times. And this was my first full non stop day with this device so my usage was heavier today than yesterday. So if nothing else it helped that issue.

 

[crxssi]

I know this much... I changed it from the default to 4 processes and I have not experienced one single Sense reload all day. I changed this setting last night. Yesterday alone it happened about 3 or 4 times. And this was my first full non stop day with this device so my usage was heavier today than yesterday. So if nothing else it helped that issue.

Yes, but at the cost of probably causing even FEWER other apps to truly multitask.... they will more likely be frozen and reloaded. This option is not a cure.

By the way, there were 6 updates on Play again, I went in and clicked on update (all). The phone started the update. A minute later, the phone went to sleep because I didn't touch it. I was working on my Xoom for a while, turned the phone back "on" (it isn't off) about 16 minutes later. At least this time it didn't ABORT EVERYTHING like it did before, but that is because I didn't try to switch to some other app. Instead, it just FROZE EVERYTHING it had been doing. It had only updated two apps. Then it started over again with what it was doing.

This is just NOT proper behavior. NONE of my other devices do that- including the Nexus Xoom, which is also ICS, and has the same amount of RAM.

 

[Jackson Galaxy]

I know this much... I changed it from the default to 4 processes and I have not experienced one single Sense reload all day. I changed this setting last night. Yesterday alone it happened about 3 or 4 times. And this was my first full non stop day with this device so my usage was heavier today than yesterday. So if nothing else it helped that issue.

Interesting, when I tested the same thing, every time I would go back to the home screen sense would reload. I had to change back to the default settings

 

[calvin35]

I understand that. But what if the standard is supposed to be 16 but for some reason it is only 4 (no better than the max developer limit).

This phone has twice the memory of our beloved OG EVO, but one quarter the ability to multitask. I refuse to believe it is simply a memory issue. Sure Sense 4 takes a lot of memory, but not enough to blame completely.

I think the problem is that 1Gig of RAM is not enough to run Sense 4.0, ICS, and the gpu that comes with the S4 Krait processor. HTC didn't do this to save battery life because apps in the background use very little if any, they did this because they didn't have enough RAM for background apps to remain open and at the same time let the user open more apps. The phone would freeze up and become unusable. I had a rooted One X, changed the minfree settings to zeros, and after rebooting it when to a flash heavy website and the phone immediately froze up. If it had enough memory it would not have froze up until I had a few more apps open.

 

[Quis89]

Interesting, when I tested the same thing, every time I would go back to the home screen sense would reload. I had to change back to the default settings

I don't know... It may be unrelated. But I'm going on day two without one Sense reload. The only change I've made was to that option. I haven't noticed any other changes good or bad. Just that I haven't experienced a single Sense reload.