[Motorola Droid 4] Septfox:
Unfortunately, using it the last couple days I've found that wakeups are really quite slow and my phone has been bogging down like crazy for a bit after being woken up with system_server, loop98 and swapd beating on the CPU. I'm not sure what's going on, but it almost seems like everything gets swapped out during deep sleep and has to be swapped back in on wake.

Doesn't seem to happen with low (<96mb) amounts of extra_free_kbytes, but then, lower values seem to not completely utilize zram when trying to load large apps. Using 400mb zram instead of 800mb has at least made it so it won't time out and go back to sleep before the screen comes up, but it's still incredibly slow sometimes, and that of course limits multitasking accordingly.

It's a pity, because for the most part it runs pretty well with such high amounts of zram usage and the multitasking is great. I have a couple things in mind yet to try and "fix" it.

I do use Cooltool for CPU load and to find out what process is hitting hardest. It's a pretty...er...cool tool.

Hm, yes. But strangely, it doesn't seem to always coincide with actual I/O. With a wait percentage of ~50%, I would expect a large amount of block I/O to go with it, but that doesn't always seem to be the case. For example sitting at the launcher after switching out of an app:

procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa
2 1 662468 303576 284 49148 176 364 572 388 0 1678 14 4 39 42
1 1 662752 304080 284 48652 116 400 116 400 0 1827 9 6 42 43
0 1 662952 305148 284 48048 20 220 20 220 0 1266 6 5 43 45
0 1 663296 305456 284 47736 12 356 12 356 0 1802 7 5 45 43
0 1 663560 305944 284 47464 0 264 0 264 0 1319 8 3 44 44
1 1 663604 308776 284 46556 0 44 0 45 0 1637 4 7 44 46
0 1 663792 309756 284 45784 20 208 20 208 0 1397 6 5 45 46
0 1 664072 310604 284 45192 0 280 0 308 0 1722 6 6 43 45
0 1 664376 311332 292 44560 92 396 92 448 0 1547 7 7 43 44
0 1 664608 311752 292 44016 16 248 16 248 0 1722 5 6 45 44
0 1 664880 312484 292 43504 0 272 0 272 0 1317 4 7 46 44
0 1 665200 313156 292 43068 0 320 0 320 0 1728 6 5 46 44
3 1 665448 313704 292 42592 8 256 8 256 0 1337 7 6 43 44
0 1 665756 314436 292 42036 0 308 0 312 0 1739 6 6 43 44
0 1 666120 315184 292 41468 0 364 0 364 0 1306 6 5 45 45
0 1 665768 315444 292 41120 804 452 804 452 0 1786 4 10 43 42
0 1 666436 315936 292 41124 0 668 0 668 0 1296 4 7 45 45
0 1 666600 316360 292 40860 192 360 192 360 0 1895 14 7 38 42
1 3 666860 311404 320 46348 340 580 6336 584 0 2041 10 10 35 45
0 1 666960 302640 340 54628 284 464 8904 464 0 1936 7 20 30 43
0 1 667552 302776 340 54612 60 652 60 652 0 1322 5 9 44 44
2 1 667812 301996 332 55760 200 456 1432 456 0 2047 9 5 42 44

On the other hand, later on:

procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa
5 1 739088 14324 2288 311960 35312 32524 37576 32524 0 14444 10 70 9 11
10 1 736820 14744 2288 313888 33448 31120 37044 31194 0 12683 13 76 5 5
5 0 726804 14292 2296 313824 43008 31816 44072 31888 0 16104 12 76 7 5
16 1 731396 15384 2304 314412 26140 29620 29024 29765 0 13962 15 78 3 4
12 0 731356 14340 2304 314708 29148 28072 30508 28072 0 14310 22 73 3 2
15 0 731472 14476 2304 314432 25240 25656 25248 25729 0 14641 25 67 4 4
14 3 734356 15236 2308 316684 19520 21668 25800 21910 0 12633 32 62 2 3
4 1 734580 14828 2316 316456 30356 29508 33528 29692 0 16520 23 66 8 2
14 1 734448 14420 2316 316504 33068 32620 34996 32621 0 18381 14 78 3 4
6 1 730788 14988 2316 312652 35160 30536 36364 30553 1 20367 12 81 6 3
6 1 731988 14884 2316 314352 28508 29136 32120 29401 0 14912 17 72 7 3
13 1 733868 15432 2316 314348 26096 27172 26096 27172 0 14627 33 62 3 2
13 1 735796 15000 2324 315952 26452 27680 28912 27985 0 16818 23 70 3 3
12 3 736092 14820 2324 316532 25452 25024 25944 25024 0 12541 29 65 2 4
16 1 738132 14920 2324 317104 23784 24784 24752 24977 0 12282 26 70 3 1
12 0 737332 14444 2324 317052 23984 22820 23984 22901 0 13143 33 61 4 1
6 1 737616 14424 2324 317844 27040 26708 28428 26901 0 12561 26 65 5 4
5 1 738548 14392 2324 317424 23968 24268 24096 24276 0 11373 32 61 4 3
6 2 711136 14324 2300 303756 29204 10040 31932 10277 0 8589 40 57 2 2
13 1 713832 14608 2300 305608 14708 16956 16600 17048 0 8630 45 54 1 1
6 1 715372 15676 2308 305192 12168 13064 12168 13185 0 7971 48 45 4 2
14 1 719860 14928 2308 310668 18184 22028 24800 22028 0 12896 29 63 3 5

Furthermore, with the screen off and the phone idling:

0 1 680892 323808 272 31776 8 0 8 0 0 1088 6 6 44 44
0 1 680884 324468 272 30952 8 0 8 0 0 1299 5 4 46 45
0 1 680876 325248 272 30116 8 0 8 0 0 1053 5 1 46 47
0 1 680868 325908 272 29412 8 0 8 0 0 1308 3 5 46 46
1 1 680864 326688 272 28648 4 0 4 0 0 1030 6 3 46 47
2 1 680856 326988 272 28104 8 0 184 0 0 1325 8 6 46 41
0 1 680856 327772 272 27492 0 0 0 0 0 1034 5 4 46 46
0 1 680852 328312 272 26896 4 0 4 0 0 1305 2 4 47 46
0 1 680852 328972 272 26240 0 0 0 0 0 1038 3 4 47 47
0 1 680852 329512 272 25572 0 0 0 0 0 1318 4 5 46 46
0 1 680852 330052 272 25140 0 0 0 0 0 1035 7 5 42 46
0 1 680852 330592 272 24568 0 0 0 0 0 1302 5 4 46 46
0 1 680852 331012 272 24072 0 0 0 0 0 1038 5 3 47 46
0 1 680852 331432 272 23616 0 0 0 0 0 1291 5 4 49 43
0 1 680852 332156 272 22924 0 0 0 0 0 1008 4 3 46 47
0 1 680864 332700 272 22364 0 12 132 12 0 1036 10 3 42 46
0 1 680876 333360 272 21600 0 12 0 12 0 1024 3 4 46 47
0 1 680884 333900 272 21040 0 8 0 8 0 1306 5 4 46 45
3 1 680896 334440 272 20500 0 12 0 12 0 1016 1 7 46 47
1 1 680908 334980 272 19924 0 12 0 12 0 1293 3 5 45 46
1 1 680912 335156 272 19440 0 4 0 4 0 1048 8 5 45 42
0 1 680932 335700 272 18888 0 20 0 20 0 1300 6 2 44 47
0 1 680948 336180 272 18412 0 16 0 16 0 1028 6 2 46 46
0 1 680960 336480 272 18096 0 12 0 12 0 1362 5 4 46 45
0 1 681068 337084 272 17584 0 108 0 108 0 1050 5 2 46 46
0 1 681168 337684 272 17240 0 100 4 100 0 1316 5 5 43 47
0 1 681284 337984 272 16968 0 116 0 116 0 1036 3 3 47 46
2 1 681428 338464 272 16608 0 144 0 144 0 1294 5 4 45 46
0 1 681540 338824 272 16296 0 112 0 112 0 1032 5 3 47 46
0 1 681584 339304 272 15816 0 44 0 44 0 1301 4 6 46 46
0 1 681692 339604 272 15488 0 108 0 108 0 1027 7 2 48 43
0 1 681736 340024 272 15084 0 44 0 44 0 1298 4 3 46 47

I would guess it's primarily 4k accesses in the first example and sequential in the second. No idea what's going on with the third.

And to be clear, I'm not arguing with you, our storage is definitely on the slow side of things for eMMC. Just making conversation, pointing out oddities, etc.

The same, but different.

The 4460 is the better part of a year newer. It's on a then-matured process, raising yields to the point where instead of an exceptional chip every now and then, enough of them are exceptional to give a model number and sell separately.

Keep in mind that many 4430s can't reliably do 1.4ghz without whatever voltage-regulating witchcraft that the JBX kernel uses - both of the chips I've purchased have been like so. Some are poor enough that they can't even do 1.3ghz without falling on their face every once in a while, and it's probably these outliers that caused it to never be rated above 1.2ghz despite most samples being capable of more. But the 4460 is from-the-factory capable of doing at least 1.5ghz reliably, and a quick search finds posts indicating people have had success with 1.6/1.7ghz, suggesting that its 1.5ghz is at a similar voltage to the 4430's 1.2/1.3ghz. You would have to overvolt a 4430 to the point of frying eggs on it to even think about 1.6ghz, and even then I doubt it would go very long before electromigration rendered one or both cores unstable...

200mhz doesn't sound like a whole lot, but the benchmarks I did back in CM12 found that, at least in synthetics, the OMAP4 actually has pretty decent IPC and benefits well from 100mhz jumps. It certainly felt snappier for the short time I could run 1.4ghz in Lollipop, and it was a definite improvement in KK.

Meh. All a moot point, anyway. We got what we got. Maybe someone with a hot-air rework station will pop a 4460 into a Droid 4 sometime, see what happens (assuming it's 100% pin-compatible).

Neat. More breathing room at the very least would definitely be good, to help keep things like parts of systemUI and Phone from popping out of memory, and/or make a bigger zram device viable.

Two other alternatives to what Bobcus said above:

1: Make the change yourself. Get a terminal emulator, and do as such

su
echo number > proc/sys/vm/extra_free_bytes

Replace "number" with what you want to record, e.g. I always go with multiples of 16mb which would be 16384, multiply that for ezmode.

2: Use SCol Free, which can change other sysctl settings (all of them, not only the ones that other app authors have decided are important) as well.

The interface is a bit weird, but it's not bad once you get used to it; drop down the bottom menu ("Select sysctl type") to select the category you want (in this case, vm), hit the "Load sysctl list" button which will then populate the topmost drop-down menu. From there you can select the setting you want and either write directly to it or tap "Refresh" first to see what it's currently set to.

The only problem with SCol is that it won't restore on reboot...but this can also be seen as a feature, since if you set something the phone won't like, undoing it is just a reboot away.

edit: tooslow