[GUIDE] How to make your Droid Snappier ! ( UPDATE :- THE GUIDE IS COMPLETE ! )

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

I'm a proud owner of a...... Let's face it .... A Nexus 4 !! ( * troll face * )

Its an amazing phone with an outdated processor , outdated screen and outdated what not !!

But it runs aosp 5.0.2 , so I've got that going for me , which is nice .

I've been using this ( ex ) Beast for 2 years now ..

It was all fine until recently , ( after playing around with my friends n6 ) That I found out that its soo much slower that other stuff ...

So I did an years worth of research in like 5 minutes and volia !

The results were disappointing.. ..

All I did was to over clock it to 1.944 GHz and overvolt it by a few mili volts ..

Turns out that my phone became very hot ( CPU temp about 74 °c ).

Droids in our pockets need a lot of ram ... That's a common mis conception.

I don't think our phones need to have more than 2 gigs of juice .

So here are some points you can do to make that thing snappier !!

1. Factory reset the phone

2. Don't install any software that cleans cache and other stuff.. Usually it does more bad than it does good ..

3. Flash an aosp ROM that isn't heavily modded ( you can find the tips and FAQ's here :- http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/127469-general-guide-to-custom-roms-and-rooting-w-faq/

4. Decrease the animation speeds . This can be done in developer options which can be unlocked by tapping the build number a few times ( maybe 8 .. I don't remember )

5. Use light weight launchers.

6. Now this is the part where some of you may argue with me ..

Our phones have plenty of ram . mine has 2 gigs of it . although it doesn't even use 50% of it !!

Here is what you do .

After you are done with an app .. You either press the back button or swipe away the cards in recents menu in order to close it .

Instead of doing that .. You press the home button . This will pause the app and cache it in your ram !

So when you again access your app it will open instantly .

This method uses a lil bit of more ram , but it increases the so called snappyness by ten times ![ THIS CACHES THE APP DATA IN THE RAM SO THAT THE CPU CAN INSTANTLY REACH FOR ITS FILES TO COMPILE . IN ART THE FILES ARE ALREADY COMPILED MAKING IT FASTER . NOTE THAT THIS DOES NOT COMSUME MORE BATTERY INSTEAD , TECHNICALLY IT SHOULD SAVE SOME BATTERY ! ]

Personally , I set the animation scales to 0.4 x.. But this option is available on lollipop only .. Other versions only have the option to set it to 0.5x etc etc ... I lollipop you have a slider which allows you to choose any value you like ..

In other versions you can only set some presets .

For those of you using dalvik on KitKat ... I would highly recommend using ART ..

7. zRam tweak !!..

[ This option is only available in some advanced ROMs like cynogenmod ]

Once you’ve unlocked developer mode, you’ll have “Developer options” and “Performance” in the System category.

From there, go to Memory Management and select zRAM. This option compresses your memory which essentially increases your available RAM. Doing so basically compresses information as it goes into your RAM and decompresses it as it’s retrieved. Since you’ve got a powerful enough processor, the compression/decompression is pretty fast, so you just get the benefit of increasing the amount of RAM available. I set my Nexus 4 to 18% (default).

8.Allow Purging of Assets

[ This option is available only in some advanced ROMs like cynogenmod ]

Follow the same pre-requisites outlined above, then check “Allow purging of assets” to allow bitmap memory assets to be purged. Think of it as allowing stale items in RAM to be tossed out when you need more RAM. Keep in mind that both of the settings above won’t be applied until after you reboot.

9. Seeder app !!

The issue Seeder addresses is that Android draws from a predefined entropy pool—or set of random data—for almost all of its operations. When that limited pool of random data dries up, it has to rebuild itself, which results in delays while apps and services wait for the data they need.

Seeder takes the process that generates this data and runs it every second (it's extremely light on resources—this usually happens behind the scenes anyway, so you don't notice it), then feeds that information to a new random data pool that's constantly kept refreshed. Then, the app uses that fresh data to "top off" the system pool so it never runs out. That means you never have to wait for the generation service to start up and fill the pool with random data. The result? Almost everything about your Android phone is several times faster.

So . I tried this app on my phone .

At first I didn't notice any change , whatsoever.

Then I came up with an idea of doing a speed test !

I chose 6 apps that we most commonly use.

* WhatsApp

*dialer

*messenger

*chrome

*play store

*camera

What I did was start the stopwatch and then switch through all these apps as fast as possible and stop the counter.

Frankly ... There was no difference.

I completed the speed run in 12 seconds without turning on seeder and it took the exact same amount of time to complete the speedrun after turning on seeder !

So I did another speedrun . but this time I under clocked my CPU to 384 MHz from 1.7 GHz ... [ Boy ! That's a lot ]

This time I was easily able to notice the difference .

I completed the speedrun in 27 seconds without turning on seeder , and it took only 25 seconds to complete the speedrun after turning on seeder .

Now .. I know that doesn't seem a lot ! But the results show 8% increase in the speed !!

Now that's a lot !!

Believe me .. 8% increase in speed is a lot !

There are some issues however .

The app consumes a lil bit if more battery ..

But that's nothing to be afraid of ..

I ran some tests using geekbench and found out that seeder consumes about 4% of more battery per 24 hours than it should .

That's negligible compared to the increase in the speed you are gonna get .

Now , it won't affect the people who have good phones with good processors , because the increase in snappiness is insignificant for perfectly good phones .

But then again .. 80% of the people reading this should have a slower phone , orelse they won't be reading this in the first place !

The app is completely stable ( at least on my phone )

Please try out the app and post your results, because not all phones are made alike

I will attach the apk to this post and please note that I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING BAD THAT HAPPENS TO YOUR PHONE.

Here is the link to download the app ! :- http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1666675&d=1358857894

10. Over clock !!

Now this is a term that almost everyone on this forum is acquainted with .

So I won't tell what it is , and what it does , what are its pros n cons ?

You all know about what over clocking does to your PC. Oc'ing your phone is basically the something !

Just flash a custom kernel ( I prefer franko kernel ) that supports oc'ing and download any CPU manager ( I prefer fk updater . its the best app to manage your phone !! ) and you are good to go !!

Note:- not all phones are made the same .

Some phones can be oc'ed more than others .

Many nexus 4's can achieve a stable oc of up to 1.944 GHz , while mine only achieves

A stable oc of up to 1.75 GHz

STEPS 6,7&8 PERFORMED TOGETHER SHOULD GREATLY IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE !!!

Perform these steps and post your results below ..

I will modify the post if anyone of you gets slightly different results .

Note that these are the exact steps I performed to improve my phone's performance ...

And so far .. Its working great !

Nexus 4 , Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 pro, 2 GB ram ,Android 5.0.2_r1 Rom :- Simple Aosp ,

Kernel :- latest Franco kernel

[werto165]

"Personally , I set the animation scales to 0.4 x.. But this option is available on lollipop only .. Other versions only have the option to set it to 0.5x etc etc ... I lollipop you have a slider which allows you to choose any value you like .. "

 

Sorry that's just wrong, on my OnePlus One(running 4.4.4) :

 

[jayctech]

Here is what you do .

After you are done with an app .. You either press the back button or swipe away the cards in recents menu in order to close it .

Instead of doing that .. You press the home button . This will pause the app and cache it in your ram !

So when you again access your app it will open instantly .

Used to do this. For some reason I just stopped when my devices updated to lollipop... Now I only do that if I want to kill the app (e.g. it bugs or something).

Ironic that android makes it so easy to do this yet that's not the best thing to do for your experience.

[Worth]

"Personally , I set the animation scales to 0.4 x.. But this option is available on lollipop only .. Other versions only have the option to set it to 0.5x etc etc ... I lollipop you have a slider which allows you to choose any value you like .. "

 

Sorry that's just wrong, on my OnePlus One(running 4.4.4) :

 

-snip-

Any idea when lollipop will be out for the OPO?

[DigitalHermit]

I disagree (JellyBean on Alcatel One Touch 5021E)...

 

Clearing out RAM makes some of my apps respond better... especially the heavier ones that need larger amounts of RAM like Chrome and Firefox for android...

 

My fix for it was setting the background app limit to none and forcing all the rendering to use the GPU... I sacrificed the time to open the app for a better in-app experience...

 

I switched over recently to a Lenovo A536 using KitKat... I immediately noticed the better memory management since I wasn't experiencing the same 'choking' that happens when I run out of RAM...

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

"Personally , I set the animation scales to 0.4 x.. But this option is available on lollipop only .. Other versions only have the option to set it to 0.5x etc etc ... I lollipop you have a slider which allows you to choose any value you like .. "

 

Sorry that's just wrong, on my OnePlus One(running 4.4.4) :

 

That's because opo runs cynogenmod .. Aosp KitKat doesn't have that option

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

Any idea when lollipop will be out for the OPO?

Flash a ROM !! There are plenty of stable lollipops out there for opo

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

Added steps 7 & 8 !! Steps 6 , 7 & 8 performed together should greatly improve the performance !!

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

I'm Doing some research on seeder apps that can potentially reduce lag significantly...

I will be testing the app before updating the main post .

I have downloaded the app and I'm currently running some stability tests on antutu ..

I will post a link if the method works and is stable

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

Added the seeder app !!

Check out point 9

[Speedbird]

Awesome guide you have here! Great job! I usually don't agree with most of these kind of guides, but with yours I fully agree!

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

Awesome guide you have here! Great job! I usually don't agree with most of these kind of guides, but with yours I fully agree!

Thanx !

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

Please post any other ways that you guyz use to make your droids churnout blazing speeds !!

[GeneralTheoryOfBadassery]

I completed the guide !!

Just added over clocking

[Tim Drake]

Can you explain how I go from stock lollipop to overclocking my Moto G 2014?

[_ASSASSIN_]

Can you explain how I go from stock lollipop to overclocking my Moto G 2014?

 

It requires a custom kernel.

Look here for custom kernels.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-g/

[_ASSASSIN_]

Can you explain how I go from stock lollipop to overclocking my Moto G 2014?

 

It requires a custom kernel.

Here's one that does both GPU and CPU overclocking. Features on it look great to use in my opinion.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2786336

 

[Tim Drake]

It requires a custom kernel.

Here's one that does both GPU and CPU overclocking. Features on it look great to use in my opinion.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2786336

Wtf are kernels?

 

My info is very minimal

[_ASSASSIN_]

Wtf are kernels?

 

My info is very minimal

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/127469-general-guide-to-custom-roms-and-rooting-w-faq/#entry1695185

[Tim Drake]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/127469-general-guide-to-custom-roms-and-rooting-w-faq/#entry1695185

Even hovering over that, my brain exploded..