Device feels sluggish?

[buttonstc]

I'm pretty new to android but I do a lot of reading

One of the comments on an app I recently got mentioned that he uses it immediately prior to playing his favorite games to free up ram. The app is Fast Reboot and it got tons of favorable comments with some people stating that it works better than several of the task killers combined.

Its not a total reboot to factory presets but limits itself to running processes. Hope that helps. I'm not a heavy duty game player (sudoku is more my speed) so I can't speak from experience on that issue. But I did remember that one comment from someone else
E comments

 

[Cruiserdude]

The explanations given here about thread prioritization are pretty accurate. As mentioned, user interactions do not have real-time interrupt priority, so when a lot of processing threads are running in the background, the UI tends to feel sluggish for awhile. I've found that even on my single-core Droid Charge, the UI will in fact be quite snappy if you either kill most of the background processes, or if you simply keep using your UI for more than a few seconds. If you keep scrolling through your launcher, opening the app drawer, etc, it seems to devote more resources to the UI and it gets quite smooth. But rarely is there any point to using the core UI for more than a few seconds at a time, and of course then an app seems to take a bit longer to open.

The real issue, imho, is background processes. We need a number of background processes to be running, and its great to be able to have things auto-sync, widgets stay updated, etc. However, each of this relies on a background process, and too many of these will definitely slow the phone down. Many apps spawn processes that seem unnecessary when you're not using it, which explains why having a lot of apps seems to make your phone slower. While some apps will let you set them to manually refresh, many others do not have this option, and even the ones that do still tend to spawn processes, they just don't use data and sync. Android needs to be better at prioritizing background processes of user downloaded apps, or Google could provide an easy way to see any background processes spawned by apps when you're not using them, and an option to block this behavior in the future, either through each app itself, or natively built into the OS. For instance, Facebook and Amazon App Store are apps I use frequently, but I don't care to know how many unread messages I have or new apps I can download until I actually want to open the application and see what they are. Yet I have not found a way to prevent these background processes from running (other than Force Stop all the applications threads, but then it starts all over again when I re-open the app). It would be great to be able to tell most of your apps that you don't want them spawning ANY background process until you open them, and sync its data manually. I would imagine that the other OS's have similar issues as well, but again you don't notice them because of the real-time interrupt priority given to UI interactions, and the fact that you're not likely to notice if background processing threads are a bit sluggish as long as the UI works.

Anyway, that post on Google+ is a good one, I remember it from a few weeks back, but I also remember that Dianne Hackborn's reply is a more accurate explanation. Its easily found in the post, but for those that haven't read it, I suggest you read this post instead.

 

[drwatz0n]

It comes from the way that android is designed. Without going into a ton of detail, that slight choppiness/sluggishness/whatever you always see just a tad of in android, compared to iOS or even windows phone, is because of the fact that android handles multi-tasking and background tasks better than those other OS's do.

When you touch the screen on the iPhone, for example, all (or most) resources are diverted to responding to that (there's a word for this that is escaping me at the moment) touch. Some background processes pause entirely while others just slow down a lot.. all so that you get that "instant" sensation. I believe Windows Phone handles it similarly.

In Android, that doesn't happen. That's why your web pages load while you scrolling around in other stuff and flipping through other applications even. That's why your widgets keep updating at the same inherent rate while your doing other stuff too. Android has true multitasking which it handles better than the other mobile OS's, but the sacrifice you pay for it is a touch of lag, which can be more noticeable the more processes you have going on in your phone. Same as how your computer multitasks very well, but you know if you have a ton of crap open on it you might see some stutter here or there.

Hope this explanation helps... I'm no expert, and I'm sure someone could jump in and explain the whole thing better than me, and probably correct something I said that's wrongish, but I'm just trying to give you the gist of it

You're looking for the term preemptive multitasking!

 

[FrankXS]

I just recently moved from an iphone 4s to the nexus, and the phone feels somewhat choppy. I can typically feel it in the games (same ones I played on the iphone), pinch to zooms, browsers, music, and transitions, its just doesn't feel as crisp as my previous phone. Maybe because I'm used to the crisp iphone?

This is the only problem I really have with the phone, everything else has been amazing. Is there a way to get this phone on par with my previous phone, possibly flashing with a custom rom?

I'd be willing to bet it's just "perception", not real. The iPhone likes to use what is called "elasticized" screen displays where, when the icons or app first appear, they sort of bounce into place. This gives the appearance of quickness which isn't actually there. Some apps on Android do this and some allow this type of transition within the app to be configurable off/on. Just a perception, IMHO.

-Frank

 

[MBSMD]

I have both an iPhone 4S and a Galaxy Nexus. I'm enjoying the customization ability of the Nexus (not my first Android, by the way), but if anyone has spent time with an iPhone 4 or 4S, the smoothness in some of the UI is superior to ICS. Not everything mind you, but some things.

For example, the scrolling in an app such as the ABC News app for Android is horribly stiff and jerky. On the iPhone, it's butter smooth.

My understanding is that since Apple controls the hardware, they've built GPU acceleration specific to the GPUs they use in to every part of the OS. Android handsets, on the other hand, all have different specs, so building in GPU acceleration isn't as easy or complete with Android. Supposedly ICS will help this along (i.e., the developer setting for force GPU acceleration, though this screws up a couple of my apps like Good), but it's not there yet.

I'm not at all suggesting iOS is any better than Android - in fact it's clearly in many ways inferior. But, iOS does have superior GPU-accelerated IU rendering for many IU-related effects. I disagree it's perception. I can put the two phones next to each other and demonstrate.

That being said, the GNex is still my current primary device. Ffix the GNex's rotation delay bug, the horribly laggy landscape keyboard and tweak the background awake times to improve battery life, and I may sell my iPhone outright. Hoping 4.0.3 works some magic!!

 

[richardyarrell]

I just recently moved from an iphone 4s to the nexus, and the phone feels somewhat choppy. I can typically feel it in the games (same ones I played on the iphone), pinch to zooms, browsers, music, and transitions, its just doesn't feel as crisp as my previous phone. Maybe because I'm used to the crisp iphone?

This is the only problem I really have with the phone, everything else has been amazing. Is there a way to get this phone on par with my previous phone, possibly flashing with a custom rom?

Bottomline here the Galaxy Nexus IS THE BEST SMARTPHONE ON THE MARKET. Keep in mind that many of the applications ARE NOT OPTIMIZED for ice cream sandwich and how those application act determine the smoothness of your Galaxy Nexus. I would bet that 90% of all the current application are not optimized so based on that I just be careful what I download and the minute I see they are not operating properly I uninstall them and will wait till later. Ice cream is great and the experience as well as the browser on the galaxy nexus is the best in the industry especially without flash.

 

[palmless]

This for the most part. Going to add a few more things:

<< MAJOR SNIP >>>

In essence, Android is actually a resource-intensive modern-day desktop OS squeezed onto computer hardware specs from eight years ago (except in handheld format). Once the latest desktops are entirely replaced by smartphone hardware (ETA 2020, see Mozilla's Seabird concept video) Android will be damned amazing. All we need to do is keep our sanity in check and deal with a handful of annoyances during this transformation.

This is all technically accurate, but it doesn't matter. "Mine doesn't lag at all, it's just as smooth as anything else" is the response that rules the day. You won't beat that with a technical explanation.

 

[dieswaytoofast]

You're looking for the term preemptive multitasking!

Which, as CruiserDude points out, is actually not the problem at all - in the end it boils down to thread prioritization, background procs, and hardware acceleration (not necessarily in that order).
Details are wonderfully explained here ( https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/XAZ4CeVP6DC) (and please do ignore the article by the intern. It is remarkably inaccurate.
Actually, on second thoughts, do *not* ignore the article, but read it, and then read the comments to see *why* it is wrong...

 

[jerrod6]

Try going into settings-developer options and turning on the Force GPU Rendering option. I think that offloads some work the CPU does for apps to GPU. There are much more experienced people than me that can explain what that does or correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to help.

I've had my GN since Dec 15 and haven't experienced any lag but I just turned on Force GPU Rendering and now notice faster display times and scrolling. I also know some apps won't work with this but so far only one of mine doesn't display correctly

So when this option is turned off does this mean the phone is not using the GPU at all?

 

[jerrod6]

What do the window and transition scale settings do? Mine phone came set with these at 1x.

 

[JeffDenver]

I am not noticing any lag at all on my rooted/debloated Rezound with Launcherpro. It is very fast. My experience with the GN I used at the store was similar.

I have used iPhones many many times, and I get what the OP is saying. But the new phones have almost closed the gap IMO...they are very fast.

 

[DreamSTi]

Why is the "force gpu rendering" disabled by default?

 

[jerrod6]

Have noticed that with force GPU on thumbnail pics in tapatalk don't display. What's that about?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk