Upgrading RAM in TV -- Slow AndroidTV Performance

[Michael_017]

Hey All,

I've read through the forum and noticed that many people have performance issues with AndroidTV.  Has anyone attempted adding more RAM/removing and replacing the RAM?

I called Sony to ask them about it and they said it would void my warranty.  I then said, "I'm okay with that, please tell me where it is and if it can be removed/upgraded."  The unbelievable response I received was "we cannot give you that information and you aren't permitted to open the TV." 

Regardless of their ridiculousness, I'm wondering if anyone has tried this.  I have to assume for the sake of cost, it's desktop or laptop memory.  I would also assume that Sony wouldn't make it easy to do.

Thanks All,

Michael

[Jecht_Sin]

I doubt it is possible. I believe the RAM is soldered in the mother board. As I am not sure either if the CPU is able to address more than 2GB of RAM. It may (probably), but it also may not. Far too many Android TV and boxes with Mediatek SoCs have only 2GB of RAM, so that might be the cause as well. I am afraid there is little if nothing you can do.

[Kuschelmonschter]

RAM might also be piggybacked on the SoC. At least this is true for mobile SoCs. And a TV SoC isn't so much different.

It won't help much anyway. If something needs RAM, some app gets wiped anyway, freeing up some. The CPU is just darn slow and several Sony and MediaTek drivers/service constantly hogging the system. When playing with my sister's first generation Fire TV Stick with only a dual ARM Cortex A9 and Android Lollipop, I wonder anyway what Sony/MediaTek are doing. The experience is so much smoother on the Fire TV Stick..

[Jecht_Sin]

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@Kuschelmonschter wrote:

RAM might also be piggybacked on the SoC. At least this is true for mobile SoCs. And a TV SoC isn't so much different.

Are you sure about that? 

I know the SoCs may include the RAM controllers, but to put the central memory in the SoC seems a bit over complicated. I believe it would make the design and the whole cost in general more expensive. Although I understand the need of keeping things small in the phones.

It won't help much anyway. If something needs RAM, some app gets wiped anyway, freeing up some. The CPU is just darn slow and several Sony and MediaTek drivers/service constantly hogging the system. When playing with my sister's first generation Fire TV Stick with only a dual ARM Cortex A9 and Android Lollipop, I wonder anyway what Sony/MediaTek are doing. The experience is so much smoother on the Fire TV Stick..

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Well, more RAM always helps anyway. One may raise the disk buffer size, for example. Which helps a bit. And if the RAM is too low Android may find itself in a sort of loop closing and re-opening apps, a sort of trashing. 

It's also worth nothing that Sony's Android devices (Xperia phones and Bravias) implement the Z-RAM (virtual memory - "swap" - in compressed RAM Disks). What I do not understand is why the TV uses this value:

vm.swappiness = 60

while my Xperia raises it to 100:

vm.swappiness = 100

effectively filling the Z-RAM.

Then I am in the same boat of yours. What I really do not understand is why the Full HD Bravia with Android 6.0.1 (i think it should have an MT5890 as well, like the first 4K Bravia) of my brother in law is noticeably faster than my TV. There is no lag browsing the Home, for example. Or going into the settings. The only reason I can give myself is that since it's 1080p it has to reserve less video RAM from the system memory.

Same for my Xperia M2 (with 1GB of RAM!!) running on Android 5.1.1. It has less than half the Antutu performances but it feels quite faster.

[Kuschelmonschter]

Then I am in the same boat of yours. What I really do not understand is why the Full HD Bravia with Android 6.0.1 (i think it should have an MT5890 as well, like the first 4K Bravia) of my brother in law is noticeably faster than my TV. There is no lag browsing the Home, for example. Or going into the settings. The only reason I can give myself is that since it's 1080p it has to reserve less video RAM from the system memory.

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Should be the same speed-wise. UIs are all rendered in 1080p. On 4K displays they just get upscaled in a dedicated hardware.

[Jecht_Sin]

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@Kuschelmonschter wrote:

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Should be the same speed-wise. UIs are all rendered in 1080p. On 4K displays they just get upscaled in a dedicated hardware.

No, I understand that. But still it has to reserve some more "video" RAM for the upscaling. Since there is not dedicated video RAM it uses the system RAM, theoretically (I believe) reducing the RAM available for the OS and applications. For example this is the RAM shown as available in the system:

BRAVIA_ATV2:/ $ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       1613712    1452840     160872          0       6696     187100
-/+ buffers/cache:    1259044     354668
Swap:      1196348     694692     501656

It shows a total of about 1.6GB of RAM. 0.4GB are missing and (I believe) that's the RAM reserved for the graphics. The RAM used for the Z-RAM/swap (which changes dynamically in Linux) should be part of the 1.6GB. At least I always see 1.6GB max no matter how busy the Z-RAM is (like after a reboot, for instance). 

As a matter of comparison, my Xperia X Compact (with a 720p screen) has 3GB of RAM. And this is the report for the memory available:

F5321:/ $ free
		total        used        free      shared     buffers
Mem:       2988208128  2816425984   171782144           0    12541952
-/+ buffers/cache:     2803884032   184324096
Swap:       805302272   462479360   342822912

nearly 3GB (well, considering 1GB = 10^9 bytes. I hate this mess with kilobytes and kibibytes. It will never end). Also the used swap can get much higher than that. I have seen it used at 90% or more.

[Kuschelmonschter]

No, I understand that. But still it has to reserve some more "video" RAM for the upscaling. Since there is not dedicated video RAM it uses the system RAM, theoretically (I believe) reducing the RAM available for the OS and applications.

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Not sure where this is done. Could very well be done in the X1 image processor (FPGA?) further downstream. Don't think that this little RAM can hold a stream of uncompressed 4K images.

[MarcWalli]

You can boost your TV performance by activating Android Developer Options and deactivating the animations and limiting the number of 'background processes' to 4 (EDIT: This parameter will *probably* reset after shutting down your TV, so this is not a guaranteed fix, but you should try it at least). This will skyrocket the performance of your TV.

TIP: To Enable Developer Options go to Settings -> System Information and click repeatedly the Build Number. When activated you'll find the option near the bottom of the Settings Menu.

WARNING: Modifying Developer values can yield to an unusable TV, if you want to stay safe you should only modify Animations and Background Processes parameters, left all other values untouched.

[Kuschelmonschter]

You should probably add that a full reboot resets the background process limit back to "unlimited". For me the TV still often reboots at night in standby, see bug #9 in my bug tracker. I also often have to manually reboot because something is not working properly anymore.

You should probably check whether your process limit is still properly set. For me this placebo didn't change a lot. But if it works for you that's fine.

[MarcWalli]

You're right, I've edited my response. What worked for me was to disable animations and deactivate some default applications. Its working better right now, but it isn't blazing fast either. Maybe Android Oreo will fix that? If it ever comes of course lol