Galaxy S4 clearing RAM

[Chris Kurker]

I have the GS4 android 4.3 and sometimes things lag more often so I hold home and go to the task manager to see that the RAM is almost full. There is the option to clear memory but it sounds risky and I haven't found an answer to my question yet. What exactly happens when I tap clear memory? Will any apps be messed up? I want to know that it's totally find to clear memory before I do it. Thanks!

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[Golfdriver97]

I have the GS4 android 4.3 and sometimes things lag more often so I hold home and go to the task manager to see that the RAM is almost full. There is the option to clear memory but it sounds risky and I haven't found an answer to my question yet. What exactly happens when I tap clear memory? Will any apps be messed up? I want to know that it's totally find to clear memory before I do it. Thanks!

Posted via Android Central App

Android works in the exact opposite manner than Windows. Android likes to have RAM full. It opens apps faster, and thus is less strain on the battery. Clearing the RAM only forces apps to reopen at the slower rate.

 

[Chris Kurker]

I have heard that and it makes sense but my weather widget wasn't showing up until seconds after I went to its screen and I checked RAM and it was higher than usual so I was assuming the RAM is what was causing the lag

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Golfdriver97]

I have heard that and it makes sense but my weather widget wasn't showing up until seconds after I went to its screen and I checked RAM and it was higher than usual so I was assuming the RAM is what was causing the lag

Posted via Android Central App

Have you cleared the system cache in recovery? That might help with some of the lag.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[gxgs]

I have the GS4 android 4.3 and sometimes things lag more often so I hold home and go to the task manager to see that the RAM is almost full. There is the option to clear memory but it sounds risky and I haven't found an answer to my question yet. What exactly happens when I tap clear memory? Will any apps be messed up? I want to know that it's totally find to clear memory before I do it. Thanks!

Posted via Android Central App

If you clear memory, some apps may be forced closed. Say for example, you ran the browser, visited a website, went to the home screen and left it there. On a regular re-run of the browser, if its still cached, it would open just as you left it and fast, since its still in the ram (just no cpu cycles for it), and reading from ram is pretty fast. If you clear the memory, the browser will open on a clean slate and will have to load from the internal storage (emmc/internal sd/flash), which is slower.

Android works in the exact opposite manner than Windows. Android likes to have RAM full. It opens apps faster, and thus is less strain on the battery. Clearing the RAM only forces apps to reopen at the slower rate.

Not the opposite, just a different way to cache. Windows does not cache apps as aggressively as android does when you close them. However, just like android, windows likes to use RAM to its fullest, usually the entire amount of available ram. It caches a lot of parts of the OS and programs in memory since windows 7. It doesn't show up as used/occupied memory, just cached memory, like android its "re-claimable".

I have heard that and it makes sense but my weather widget wasn't showing up until seconds after I went to its screen and I checked RAM and it was higher than usual so I was assuming the RAM is what was causing the lag

Posted via Android Central App

Weather widget got bugged ;D

 

[Rinkie Van Rooyen]

Does clearing RAM delete photos and stuff?

 

[neonworm]

Does clearing RAM delete photos and stuff?

No.