ART vs. DALVIK (4.4.2 KitKat)

2hipso · Jan 9, 2014

Hi guys, because I can't sleep, I dedicated to perform battery tests of Dalvik runtime and ART runtime to see which one is eating battery more.
I tried to do both tests the same to get the most relevant result:

TEST 1: Playing video while on airplane mode.

Results after TEST 1:
Battery on DALVIK (tested first) went from 100% to 97%, on ART (tested second) went from 100% to 97%.

TEST 1 standings:
DALVIK (100 + 97) = 197 points
ART (100 + 97) = 197 points

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TEST 2: (Now on full-brightness) Started the game for 10 minutes and then playing video while on airplane mode.

Results after TEST 2:
Battery on ART (tested first) went from 100% to 92%, on DALVIK (tested second) battery also went from 100% to 92%.

TEST 2 standings:
DALVIK (100 + 92) = 192 points
ART (100 + 92) = 192 points

TOTAL:
DALVIK = 389 points
ART = 389 points

More points = less battery usage, so it's tied !

also it seems like, with Dalvik, the screen uses more battery. Check screenshots

NOTE: Each test ran for exactly the same conditions (same battery status, same light conditions etc.)
NOTE 2: Results on your device and with your battery may vary.

Cimi86 · Jan 9, 2014

I think you should run tests at minimum brightness... otherwise all the battery drain will come from the LCD on

MrKra · Jan 9, 2014

The Improvement from Dalvik to Art mostly affects the starting process.
Instead of a compilation on every start, its only done once.

While Running I do not expect any battery improvements

debaj · Jan 9, 2014

The battery consumption of the screen comes mainly from the backlight. Changing the runtime will not affect this in any way.

scott_doyland · Jan 9, 2014

MrKra said:
The Improvement from Dalvik to Art mostly affects the starting process.
Instead of a compilation on every start, its only done once.

While Running I do not expect any battery improvements

Exactly right.

ART v Dalvik makes zero difference when playing a video or once an app has started.

No offence to OP but its worth gaining an understanding of ART before running tests as can be seen from your results

Also I would assume any app running or cached is therefore already in memory so its only apps NOT running/cached that benefit from ART when they first start.

I have heard people say ART means less lag when scrolling - how on earth would it do that!!

MrKra · Jan 9, 2014

Art is interesting for Low mem devices, which do not hold Apps in the RAM.

scott_doyland · Jan 9, 2014

MrKra said:
Art is interesting for Low mem devices, which do not hold Apps in the RAM.

Yes, true. I guess a lot of people have just a handful of apps they use a lot though, and its more than likely, especially with RAM increasing on devices, that these few often used apps will always be in RAM already. Depends how the app is coded as well I guess.

I can see it may help for large apps, ie games, where a portion of the game is in RAM and as you progress in the game the next portion has to be loaded. It will make loading times quicker.

With the current speed of devices and the large RAM now available (and look to one or two years ahead and 1GB will be considered low) I wonder how much difference ART will really make especially to just the average user - I bet they wouldnt even notice. We may be able to see statistics telling us an app loads a few milliseconds quicker but in the real world how much difference will this make.

However Im in no way saying ART is not worth having, if it does save just a tiny bit of battery its maybe worth it as we all want our phone to last longer. Its just not as big a deal as some people seem to make out - in my opinion.

2hipso · Jan 9, 2014

That test was because lot of people saying that battery has improved with ART.

I noticed that ART was little faster while loading the game (~0,5 sec) also when video comes in the end, Dalvik has little delay to show me the software buttons.

Sent from my XT1032 using xda app-developers app

eemgee · Jan 11, 2014

I just tried it, couldn't feel much difference in speed, did see I chuck off my valuable 8gb of memory vanish. So I changed back!

hoschi-air · Jan 11, 2014

switched nearly immediately to ART after updating to KitKat, but what I really noticed to speed up was the recent apps drawer. Scrolling through windows was definitely faster. Only real downside for me is the ~10% greater storage demand... For my understanding using precompiled binaries kinda makes sense, but there are lots of really proficient threads here on the matter and most of them conclude that ART is the future.

Medvosteri · Jan 14, 2014

ART isn't an option for me yet, still like using xposed framework to much. Hopefully they will update that to ART sometime.

ksuuk · Jan 16, 2014

hoschi-air said:
Only real downside for me is the ~10% greater storage demand...

When switch back from ART to Dalvik, do I get this storage space back?

hoschi-air · Jan 17, 2014

ksuuk said:
When switch back from ART to Dalvik, do I get this storage space back?

Sure, Dalvik will use your RAM again instead... But why would you want to switch back?

flibblesan · Jan 17, 2014

hoschi-air said:
Sure, Dalvik will use your RAM again instead... But why would you want to switch back?

Because on this phone there is no benefit in using ART over the Qualcomm optimized Dalvik runtime we have. And storage space is far more important to those with an 8GB device.

hoschi-air · Jan 17, 2014

flibblesan said:
Because on this phone there is no benefit in using ART over the Qualcomm optimized Dalvik runtime we have. And storage space is far more important to those with an 8GB device.

Hmm, besides missing any evidence on the real performance of these libraries on the Moto G, I doubt they will be more than a short-term solution. >> Google pushing ART development

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...

debaj · Jan 17, 2014

hoschi-air said:
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...

One thing against ART: it is in early developer preview state, so it is not recommended to use it on a daily use phone. It is not in the development menu by mistake. I know, I know, you did not encounter any issues yet.

mike21pr · Jan 17, 2014

Im switching to ART as soon as I get mine. Did wonders on my old Nexus 4

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

eddvys · Jan 17, 2014

Mvs1989 said:
ART isn't an option for me yet, still like using xposed framework to much. Hopefully they will update that to ART sometime.

For xposed to work with ART some serious coding must be done. And personally me I don't think its possible at all, but its just me so lets sit back and wait for devs to show up

) :angel:

BarnOwl · Jan 17, 2014

debaj said:
One thing against ART: it is in early developer preview state, so it is not recommended to use it on a daily use phone. It is not in the development menu by mistake. I know, I know, you did not encounter any issues yet.

Well, for sure I have been using ART for a while now. Since I changed my Samsung Galaxy SIII to unofficial Kitkat, which is about a month ago.....
Now, with my Moto G the first thing I did was changing it to ART because it worked like a charm.

ksuuk · Jan 17, 2014

flibblesan said:
Because on this phone there is no benefit in using ART over the Qualcomm optimized Dalvik runtime we have. And storage space is far more important to those with an 8GB device.

Yep, exactly. I didn't notice any improvement in the phone behavior, but I lost about 600 MB storage space.

ART vs. DALVIK (4.4.2 KitKat)

Which runtime do you using?

Dalvik

ART

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Similar threads

Top Liked Posts