Android allocates RAM effectively, but only if you have enough. I recently brought out my previous OnePlus X, a beautiful, compact phone that most people probably had forgotten about. It comes from OnePlus's glory days, when the company experimented with form factors that also provided a software experience that was light and quick. The OnePlus X cost just $249 when it first came out in 2015, and it only had 3GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 801 CPU. Android can't effectively balance standby apps and cached system files because of its low RAM. However, there is a hidden Developer Options setting that can resolve this issue by mandating more aggressive RAM management. This straightforward modification can significantly improve performance while maintaining phone usability on older devices with less than 4GB of RAM. Recognizing the limit of the background process On my OnePlus X, when there isn't much RAM left, the phone has to choose which app to close to make room for the next one you want to open. On modern phone likes this OnePlus 13, which we reviewed, this is less of a concern.
Your phone will only be able to run one to four processes at a time if you set a background process limit.chipsets, like the Snapdragon 801 on my OnePlus X, are less efficient than newer processors. This indicates that even if you aren't using the app, they might be carrying out minor operations in the background, such as refreshing advertisements or syncing data. This can cause the phone to become unnecessarily sluggish and waste precious CPU cycles. Lastly, just like a PC, your phone will start using swap space when it runs out of RAM. When this occurs, the system temporarily makes use of a portion of your storage space as simulated RAM. This is bad because storage is significantly slower than RAM, particularly in older phones. By limiting background processes on older phones, we want to keep apps' RAM free for other applications. How to set the limit for the background process The Developer Options menu, which is by default hidden, contains the setting for the Background process limit. To get to it, just follow these steps: Navigate to Settings > About to enable Developer Options. Tap Build Number a number of times until "You are now a developer" appears. Tap Background process limit in the Apps section of the new Developer Options menu (usually in the System section).
What you should pick here depends on your device (if you're not sure how much RAM your phone has, you can easily find out): Choose two or three processes for phones with 2GB of RAM. Four processes should be selected for phones with 3GB of RAM. Don't change any settings on phones with 4GB or more of RAM. The disadvantages of this choice If you frequently use more apps than the process limit allows, this change has some drawbacks. For instance, if you set the limit at three processes but have been using five apps recently, two of them will be deleted from the RAM. When they are reopened, they will have to load from scratch, which is much slower than relaunching the app from RAM and uses a lot of CPU power. As a result, force-closing applications on a regular basis after use is a bad idea. In addition, you might miss notifications from apps that have been killed. Again, use this setting with care and experimentation to find the right balance. By going to the Memory section of Developer Options, you can precisely track the amount of free RAM that is available to you. Using the "Lite" version of some apps is another good way to save RAM on older devices. Facebook Lite, Instagram Lite, and TikTok Lite, for instance, are all available. Even for web browsing with limited RAM, there are options like Opera Mini. Because they are less graphically demanding, these Lite applications not only use less data but also less RAM. Although not all apps do, it's worth looking for your favorites. Other advantages include less data and battery consumption, Chipsets and modems on older devices are also less effective and have less RAM.
When compared to a modern phone performing the same tasks, this typically results in shorter battery life across the board. On an older phone, limiting background processes prevents apps from going into hibernation and using data and battery even when you're not using them; instead, they are completely shut down. On an old device like my OnePlus X, you really can't afford to let apps run while you're not using them, which results in lower performance and shorter battery life. Last thing, I'd like to point out that you should play around with different values for the background process limit to find the right one for your usage. It's possible that you're only using three apps when you think you're using four. The system will be much more aggressive when it comes to closing processes if you limit it to three rather than four, allowing you to use RAM for what you need.
