[Galaxy S III Original Android Development] Yank555:
Wow, quite a bit to read ;)

Correct, I'd just put it like this : "is slow

er

" ;) I have only very seldomly a slight lag in my setup.

Correct. System would not run even with so little RAM, or rather zram would probably not get initialized due to lag of so much available RAM, never tested ;)

That is a clear difference, true.

In what you call true multitasking, you do have truely more active processes running at the same time (doing different stuff). These processes will need the needed memory pages for doing the tasks in real RAM at the same time.

In what you call pseudo multitasking, that's where swap can help. The app that stays in standby in the background is not really "acive" anymore. So it's memory pages can be swapped out as RAM is needed for other tasks. When you come back to the app, those pages will be swapped back in and you can go on from where you left off.

Apps can also "simulate" this, when requested to shut down, they can save their state, and when you open them again, they would reload this state.

Putting them in swap should be more efficient.

Can't comment on that, never had a close look at an iPhone/iPad/iPod, kind of allergic to their business model ;)

You can put it this way, yes.

Well, in essence yes, but you are being a bit harsh with our device, let's say it's limited, but I'd not say it's close to 0 ;)

Correct, if RAM is needed some app needs to go, if the app won't "save its state", you'll end up on a fresh app start when getting back to it. That will be dependant on the app design. This kind of "save its state" will also be the only one to survive a reboot (like my card game does).

I agree, you can say that, mostly that is where swap will help.

Never experimented on that border, as I'm really no friend of zram at all :o

Are you certain the zram device actually was giving you that much space ? Did you check or just set it and assume it was applied ?

May be so, but then you'd have to put it otherwise : system would actually dynamically reduce the amount of RAM allocated to zram (make it smaller dynamically).

Hence why I asked you if you actually checked the amount allocated.

I never spent time thinking about pushing this that far, as I don't quite get the point of it, except for theoretical purposes :eek:

I can't off hand, would require spending time to dig into the code to find it out, but I don't quite see the point in spending that much enegry into this :rolleyes:

To use your conclusion, if you think of it, you should use hardswap :

because that is the only kind of swap that will actually allow for more pseudo multitasking while not reducing true multitasking

at all

!!

But then again, as I said, options are there for you to test and play with, and you should keep using whatever you find works best for you. Everyone is unique in his/her way of using the device, so every config may be just as unique, and what may sound insane for one may work well for another.

I don't play games (except maybe for card game, or angry birds), so I have no problem using hardswap, and I'm not experiencing slowdowns using it. Also I keep it at a reasonable size (256Mb) to not keep too much in the background.

JP.