yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
I saw your posting, thanks for trying man and confirming that it works, I am not convinced that the problem is available memory related. Once the Prime dips below 400mb of free memory, the games have issues. Hopefully with this info, Asus can pinpoint the issue and patch it.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] jaycustom:
Yea yea I actually have used Apex...I used to not be able to make up my mind which to use, so I would just constantly switch back and forth.;) But I've been running Nova ( Prime paid version) faithfully for the last few weeks. I actually still have a TiTanBU of it. I'm at work now, but since you said it has the lock in memory option and doesn't redraw, I'm definitely gonna try it out later. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the redraws....that's a small price to pay for all the performance I get. Besides I feel confident I can smooth it out, or at the very least switch launchers.

So, Demandarin says this tweak works on the new beta update he's testing?

That's obviously not a good thing if it works on the update, because that would indicate something was wrong there too.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Yeah I used nova, but after switching between the two, I really prefer Apex. But like you said, redrawing is a small price to pay for a speedy tablet, now I can show off my Prime's speed without fear of nasty lag of force closes :)

I know, hopefully this will help Asus realize that it is indeed a memory issue causing the problems. Keeping the available memory above 400mb seems to keep the Prime running at it's best. For some reason, the new firmwares seem to not be handling memory management correctly even after quitting an app. So when you try to play a graphic-intensive game, the system "chokes" and terminates the game, probably to fee up memory...again, this is a guess by me, but it seems to make sense.

Enjoy man!
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] clenz:
My biggest issue after applying this is the extreme lag switching back to the home screen and scrolling between home screens. I think we sacrifice switching performance for individual app performance. We'll see if this is worth it in the long run.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] seeknom:
Well, this is just a temporary measure, it's not supposed to be "long run".
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
I don't have that issue at all, in fact, its the complete opposite..my screen switching is MUCH faster than before. I would suggest that you try the soft reset and settings again. I have no issues at all since applying this.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
yes, just to help those having issues until the firmware addresses the problem.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] banderos101:
I think that might be a launcher issue, as my one (go launcher) always has to reload everything back when i go to home screen.

Since it obviously works for some, its likely that their launchers work differently somehow

Might be worth mentioning our launchers to see which ones work and which ones dont?Assuming thats the issue
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
I used both Apex and the default launcher and had no issues. Apex doesn't have the redraw issue if you select the keep in memory option in it's settings.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] clenz:
I'm using the stock launcher. I have gone back and forth with the settings and the lag is consistent when set to a single process. It might be something else I'm running, so I will continue to look into it.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Yes that's odd..are you sure that you don't have any task managers or task-manager widgets running? That's the only thing that i can think of that wold interfere with the applied settings, the system task manager plus any other task manager would conflict with each other. Hopefully you can figure it out.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] banderos101:
Try Apex launcher since its confirmed working, again assuming its a laucher issue, use deskmigrate from the store to copy over your homescreen apps and widgets to the new laucher(should be one click), and see if you still have the problem.

For testing purposes, if your willing :)

Edit : oh, ok, i see that the stock is also confirmed working, so yeah its probably as MRCANNADY says, its something else most likely, gd luck with that
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] yvrAndroidNut:
I am using the Go Launcher which is very nice, allowing you to create folders and have more screens. Every time I go to the home screen it asks me to turn off the kill app switch in the developer settings.:mad:

Have gone back to the ASUS launcher to try out and see if I get the annoying pause/wait in the browsers.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] banderos101:
Yeah, thats what i get too(Go Launcher), happens when you enable the "Dont keep activities" option, which defeats the purpose, if i remember rightly you can change the "background proces Limit" without any obvious issues

Looking forward to your results
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] jaycustom:
So I was screwing around with the TabletCpuUsageMonitor app, ( quad core support:) ) and I noticed it displays basic system info...so I compared the memory usage and number of processes/apps running with these dev settings vs the default settings.

The numbers weren't really surprising, but I just thought I'd post them here for the hell of it.

Default settings said I had about 19 user/ 29 system processes running.

Dev settings gave me 14 user/ 11 system processes running.

Default settings for system memory 600+mb used/300+ free

Dev settings for system memory 300+ used/600+ free

The memory usage was pretty much exactly reversed! So I assume this is where most, but not all, of the performance boost comes from. CPU usage was also lower, not by much though.

Cool stuff man... just thought I'd share. I'm still loving this tweak. I call it a tweak, not a workaround, because I am using it strictly for the performance boost, not to fix anything.:)
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Thanks for the info, I will add your findings as part of my OP (giving you credit of course) ;)

I am glad that I was able to help some of you with this. I hope Demandarin passed this find to Asus, and that it will help them pinpoint the memory problem. Looks like the new os in testing is also not handling the background processes well enough, the CPU is under too much stress and this is why the Prime just lags generally, and heavy games crash.

This setting shows just how good tegra 3 is, everything really flies now.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
I will have an update on gaming later. new build does improve gaming issues. Not 100% though.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Great, thank you Demandarin. Luckily for now I no longer have any gaming issues to speak of lol. I've actually using the default browser for a few days now and it's been working generally well now. No noticeable lag to speak of.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] tf201:
This is a good post. I've been playing around with a lot of your same ideas.

I disabled "asus quick settings" as well although they are super useful the tabby actually runs a bit better with them off. I also utilize at most 4 background processes. I have to say the recent SQL tweak has done a lot in terms of smoothing things out too. The Asus widgets I think are ok, but I believe there are still some issues with processes scheduling with .21 (hopefully fixed in .21+x) so I've disabled live wallpaper.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] whycali:
If you disabled quick settings where do you toggle performance mode?

---------- Post added at 08:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:35 AM ----------

funny playing words with friends with adaway running always causes words to quit (be forced closed because it becomes one too many background processes when adaway blocks the ad that comes up when you play a word) maybe I should enable 2 processes at most.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Allowing 4 processes seems to bring back some of the prior issues...allowing 2 is ok, but for me the best setting that seems to continue to work well is to only allow one process. The only issue that you pointed out are that some games dont work because they need some processes to run in order to work. Overall, I am enjoying my lag free and issue free Prime now. Not to mention how much this has improved battery life, I can leave th Prime in performance mode and still get longer battery life prior to this fix!
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Thanks. Yes, it's a good work-around and hopefully this thread will help Asus narrow down the issue we are currently having. I have no issues running widgets but I was never a big fan of them anyway as they can be cpu/battery hogs (especially live wallpapers) I'm thinking about posting a vid to show how the Prime should truly work, I really feel as though I am using a different tablet. I havent had a single game crash, default browser issue in about 6 days now!
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] whycali:
One item I did have some doubts about when others mentioned it earlier in this thread was this having an effect on wifi connectivity. In the location where I work there is 10 year old .11b wifi running very inconsistently. Everybody I work with has a hard time even keeping their Ipads consistently connected to the network. I use this location as a testing ground to see if I can increase signal strength to my prime using various (tinfoil) antenna techniques. Without antenna help my prime usually sees the local wifi at -80 to -90 db. With foil it can go up to -70. Either way I am constantly seeing my prime drop and reconnect to the network. Today using the Mrcannady minimalist approach and no antennae help my Prime has a death grip on a -80 db signal and has not dropped once. This is one interesting tablet.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Wow!! I think wifi quality was also degraded due to all those apps accessing the cpu and internet, while these settings limit that background usage. It's like having 4 devices at home using the same wifi network, you will notice a degrade in quality when all these devices are running,playing games online etc...but if only ONE device is using the wifi network, you do notice a speed increase. Funny how this small workaround seems to solve so many issues. My wife cant stop laughing at how well this actually WORKS! lol

If Asus can tinker with these findings and use it to identify and fix the issue, it would really help with performance issues.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Hey, have any of you noticed that flash video playback seems to be improved also? I'm using the default browser and Dolphin, and I dont seem to get the playback lag or constant buffering when watching flash vids anymore. Also, test out your battery life using performance mode, my battery life is really improved and I dont need to keep in in balanced mode anymore to conserve battery life. Being able to use the Prime at its best performance mode, 40% screen brightness and I can easily get through a whole day without recharging (two days easily with the dock attached)
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] whycali:
Wifi analyzer shows my signal at -80 db, a look at settings shows signal strength fair, link speed 11mbps (maximum for this network). Actual speed here is pretty crappy, 626kbps down 1213 up on my prime and my Ipad (which lost connection the first 2x I hit start test) eventually came in with 2707 down and 1135 up. Go figure

---------- Post added at 09:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 AM ----------

could also be a by product of better wifi (more stable) connection.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
I also noticed that even when my wifi signal is weak, I haven't dropped a connection and the browser still loads pages fine. If only this temporary fix would solve the bluetooth/Wifi combo issue, then Asus would owe me a check!! :p
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] whycali:
One thing I noticed prior to this is that even though I have not moved my link speed is constantly changing, mostly for the worse. I have been looking at this every few minutes this morning and its a solid 11mbps link speed.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Hmm, maybe I should update my OP to show that the wifi signal is more stable also? I would like to see if others experience this also before updating though. Good find, but I am really not surprised. With so many apps downloaded on these tabs, it's bound to be a few that can cause issues, trying to constantly download info, hogging the cpu etc.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] GolfOX:
I have noted less fluctuation in WiFi also. Not stronger but more steady. Also noticed about 150-200 higher on quadrant standard runs. Very interesting
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MirQoo:
"select the kill all activities option" where i can find this option? there is nothing like this in developer options. And to delete all widgets you mean uninstall them?? :)

because i just killed apps in Apps options. and did everything else. but browser is still laggy as hell...
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
Its in developer opgions. as for the widgets, just remove them off of homescreen.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] yvrAndroidNut:
I checked off in the bottom part of the developers options under "Apps"

"Don't keep activities"

"Background Activity" - set to 1 process

Is this correct MrCannady?
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
thats correct
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Thanks Demandarin :cool:
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Bulgarien:
What a great High End Android tablet Asus has made to prove that they are in top! Now (olso) without widget and multitasking!

This farce remind me about Notion Ink and their "fantastic" tablet Adam. They was olso trying to be first with the newest, but it was only words...

Mr. DiamondBack and Gary must in is this case be our great spirit leader Rohan Shravan from NI.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Guy, this has nothing to do with the tablet itself, it's just an OS issue which can be fixed once the issue in pinpointed. It's a quad core tablet with a gig of ram, of course it can handle multitasking, it's just a memory-related issue that needs fixing. Please dont tell me that you never owned an android device that needed updating to fix a issue lol. This is just a work-around until Asus can find and fix the flaw which causes the problem. I feel your anger, but let's not make statements that dont make sense my friend. ;)
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] whycali:
This post is as useless and off point as your original that inspired me to make it, thanks for that.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] bklm1234:
is the soft reset button the hole on the left side next to the the microSD card slot? Sorry for the ignorance. I don't want to be poking the microphone. I know the hole on the top edge is a microphone. I'm not sure this one on the left edge is a reset hole or a microphone. I saw a Youtube "unboxing" saying it's another microphone. Thx for your help
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Yes, that's the soft reset button.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] 131313:
So hit my thanks button, dude. It's free and I am the one who posted this finding!! See my thread about the laggy sense for HTC1X http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1599214

Sorry guys I didn't realize your solution earlier. Because I have a habit of testing settings right from the start with a new device like Prime or HTC1X. So I never had any of your issues with loading and crashing on my prime. But there were tons of others and family & work need some attention too. So I only got aware of this hybrid setting in the developers section when I started working on my new HTC phone. And I knew it would come around someday to this forum.

I sure was right on this one.:D

@OP

My experience is that I just need to enable and disable again this setting. Then it will behave the way one would expect it from the start. I have never limited my background activities but I find it interesting that this should also improve wifi performance. Though to me it matters more that wifi sucks battery empty way to fast.

The finding of running arm5 code slowing down our Teg3 device is just one more piece in this obnoxious ICS rollout. Google is the one to blame for this crappy setup, the manufacturers like Asus are only guilty of bad quality control. Don't think they code a single line inhouse. Maybe some versions copy/paste, the rest is presumably outbound.

After all, the bugs couldn't have been worse, so the future is bright, things can only get better.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Hey, just read your posting, I also used the developer option before, but it never sticks for more than a few hours without having to reboot to play certain games. Doing it the way I posted, it seems to hold for days without issue. Using the soft reset option cleans up all the used ram on the Prime, then following my instructions, it keeps them from loading in the background. I have been running this method for a few days now an I can confirm that it works great. The Primes issue is different than your HTC, so using the development setting as you suggested doesn't stick for us. I will hit the Thank you button though :)

;

Thanks
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Hey man. Yeah someone else had suggested that a few weeks ago, but it didnt seem to solve the game crashing issues at all, but did increase the Prime's speed for me for a few hours. My biggest issue were for Tegra games like Demolition Inc, and Sonic, they would not play for me at all, soft resetting and following my original posting allows these games to play, remove browser lag and increase battery life. ICS is still pretty knew, and I am sure that Tegra is working on making their kernal play nice with it lol, but it will take time to work out all the Kinks. But as long as it works for me now, I'm happy until the next update fixes things without having to resort to using this method.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] 131313:
I just updated my post, so maybe you missed it. As I said. I did exactly the same thing on my prime that I did later on my H1X and I never experienced on any of my various primes any lag or freezing.

So that's why I can't even say that there is any speedimprovement when I follow your instructions. But surely this whole **** is related to each other very closely.

Mrcannady I see we are on the same boat.:)
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
Cannandy, just noticed if you reboot or reset after applying this, the number of processes goes back to default standard limit. the kill all processes when you leave stays in tact though.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
It all comes down to some of the apps that we are running, some are just not behaving correctly, and the recent OS is not managing the background processes correctly.

You are lucky though, nothing at all was working for me, and I got tired of having to constantly reboot my tab to play my games. It's always the case though, some fixes work for some, but not all.

Good find though, hopefully your method will help others so that they wont have to resort to soft resetting and limiting the background processes. ;)
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] 131313:
Do we actually know how many the standard limit is?

@OP: I think this softreset pinhole is really nice, helps you clean your device easily. And this the HTC1X doesn't have, makes the process of messing around with the phone more time consuming.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Yep, I saw that also..you have to select the number or processes to 1 again. It helps to also soft reset twice if you have to restart and then apply my settings again.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
I think the standard limit is based on how much ram is being accessed/left available, so it all depends on how much ram/cpu is being accessed at a given time before the Prime is supposed to kill other apps to limit ram usage.

Yeah, the soft reset button cleans up all the ram usage, but if you dont apply the settings directly after, these apps are allowed to run again, causing the same issues after some time.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] banderos101:
@ 131313

"Do we actually know how many the standard limit is?"

Thats been bugging me aswell, if it turns out to be somthing like 8, then 4 processes, would be "half the load", but since we dont know the standard limit, we cant measure by what factor of an improvement we're more or less dealing with, would have made it easier to get a balance between performance and stability.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] bklm1234:
absolutely works

thx so much MRCANNADY. The improvement is the most drastic of all the things I have tried. I tried overclocking, and many different ROMs, kernels like Virtuous, AOKP, WSG, Primalicious (my current ROM), motley, SnB, etc. None gave me this obvious performance gain. Hats off to you.

I just want to get the max benefits by doing everything according to you. I run Primalicious ROM. It doesn't have kill all activities option in developer options. There is "Don't Keep Activities". Is it the same thing or "kill all activities" is somewhere else? Thx

I want to add: now the browser progress status bar just shoots to the right a lot more quickly and smoothly when loading a new page, always. Before it's stop and go, stop and go. That's just sweat.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] MRCANNADY:
Hey there...I am so glad that these settings also worked for you! Yes, the don't keep activities is the same option. Honestly, with these settings, there is no need to overclock the Prime, it is just MUCH faster and smoother if done correctly. The default browser especially, I never thought that I would use it as it was really laggy, now, it is as smooth as the other browsers! Thank you again for the positive feedback though. I really hope Asus would look into these settings and confirm that they do work, and based their next update on it so that we can all have our Primes perform the way they should. :)

Also, the browser load times DOES seem to be improved by a bit, some have also reported to me that their wifi can now hold a steadier signal. I am no expert on this, but it seems to be the general feedback from people here and people that I know outside of XDA. I wish there was a way to confirm this...