[Q] Lag issues with Nova Launcher - Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4

After reading many different topics on here about lag with the Galaxy S4, most people made it seem that TouchWiz is causing a lot of lag. So a lot of users have recommended using Nova Launcher, saying that it runs smoother than TouchWiz. Well I went ahead and installed Nova launcher and made a few tweaks to my home screen and now my device is running extremely laggy compared to using TouchWiz. Is there something I'm missing? Are there some functions in Nova that cause lag that I should disable? I really would prefer to use Nova because the customization options and functions are much better, so if there is something I can do to get it to run smoothly, I would prefer to do that rather than converting back to TouchWiz.

Nova is running great on my phone. No lag

Touchwiz is still running under Nova launcher right? It's not like installing and using Nova turns Touchwiz off.

im running nova. no lag at all.

Nova smooth here. Did you have a bunch of home screens and widgets loaded up on TW?
Sent from your mom's house with my rooted S4.

Related

LauncherPro vs ADW.Launcher

Does anyone have some insight on which one would be better an why? I started out with ADW.Launcher when I got the phone and am now trying out LauncherPro and have noticed a few differences as far as settings and features.
Other than features, is there anything that makes one better than the other? Like maybe performance or memory usage? I'm not really having trouble with either I just wondered.
LP seemed to run smoother on my old mt3g, but ADW seems to have more features and is more user-influenced IMO. I'll play with LP here and there but I always go back to ADW. On a higher-powered device like a Vibrant, ADW is gorgeous.
I much prefer LauncherPro. Not sure why but always disliked ADW.
Im using LP, but I havent tried ADW to compare.
They both have things that each other lacks in my opinion. I love adw and never tried LP but i have LP installed now and loving it also, mainly because it supports the 3D app drawer like the nexus 1 which runs incredibly smooth on the galaxy!! LP is smooth, but adw has got it on lock when it comes to launcher scrolling, speed, and desktop overshoot. adw has settings to make swiping the homescreen a hell of alot more fluid
After briefly trying both, I prefer adw. However, I'd still recommend trying both. As for battery drain, I haven't noticed any significant difference.
Launcher Pro is very snappy, I love it and the 3D drawer. Not sure of which to pick. TW or LP
I prefer adw, I like how customizable it is. I also hate the 3d drawer it gives me a headache.
I don't know why but the TW launcher seems sharper, I'm sticking with it for now
I used lp for a while, but once I started to use adw and got familiar with the different options,i have never gone back to lp,i even tried lp plus and still prefer adw. I think you just need to learn how to fully utilize it's options to truly appreciate it.
Feeling Vibrant on xda-app
never really had a problem with ADW Launcher and it always gets better and better when a new version is released.. never bothered with LauncherPro, so ill stick with adw launcher
I've been using ADW Launcher on my G1 since version 0.3 back when it was just a project to bring a Nexus One-style launcher to Donut-based roms on the G1 and myTouch, long before it was available in the market. I used the standard TouchWIZ for the first few days on my Vibrant, but once the newness wore off I went back to using ADW Launcher as my home replacement of choice. I've tried out Launcher Pro from time to time, but I always come back to ADW. Also, ADW is opensource and is the default launcher in the latest CyanogenMod versions.
I prefer ADW, simply because I can run only one screen, and place my most used apps in the dock. I don't run ANY widgets, or have any icons. As a result, I have no need for 2 or more screens. I asked, and a couple of revisions later, there it was: the option for only one screen.
LP is nice, but one screen with a dock ftw!
My phone is just so...VIBRANT
Launcher Pro Plus gets my vote .
which on is the default Launcher installed in the phone by default?
TouchWiz 3.0.
BigWorldJust said:
TouchWiz 3.0.
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how is that one compared with the 2 (LauncherPro and ADW.Launcher) you guys are comparing??
SuperMiguel said:
how is that one compared with the 2 (LauncherPro and ADW.Launcher) you guys are comparing??
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I tried both launchers out and i liked ADW a little better. but honestly i kept touchwiz. I didnt see any speed difference and like the layout. Probably because im so use to iOS.
I like TouchWiz 3.0, but it is pretty laggy compared to LauncherPro .
I agree that ADW has more options, but I prefer Launcher Pro because it feels so good and didn't require a ton of options to make it perfect if that makes sense.

Is Touchwiz poorly coded? Why is it not smooth?

Tried every rom and kernel since KG2 came out...
...On 2 different Galaxy s2's.
Tried stock touchwiz, touchwiz 4.5. It's just not butter smooth while scrolling between homescreens. It IS smooth, but it still twitches every now and then.
Go Launcher is extremely smooth and it wasn't even coded for this particular phone, but the lack of hardware acceleration makes custom launchers undesirable.
Which ROM/kernel combination would attain perfect butter smooth homescreen scrolling?
I'm currently on KI4 highly optimized and I still get the occasional twitch when scrolling through homescreens.
I haven't seen TW be anything but perfectly smooth, it's even one of the repeated advantages that reviewers have given it.
I'm in doubt though.. is your device running on stock 2.3.4 or 2.3.3? I just upgraded my SG2 to 2.3.4 and noticed that the homescreen shows a bit of stuttering when trying to perform the following:
1) "Menu button > Add"
2) also pinch to zoom out the homescreen.
Funny though when I downgraded back to 2.3.3 the delay is not there.
NotMad said:
I'm in doubt though.. is your device running on stock 2.3.4 or 2.3.3? I just upgraded my SG2 to 2.3.4 and noticed that the homescreen shows a bit of stuttering when trying to perform the following:
1) "Menu button > Add"
2) also pinch to zoom out the homescreen.
Funny though when I downgraded back to 2.3.3 the delay is lesser than the update. What about you?
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I'm on 2.3.5, tried 2.3.3 as well as 2.3.4.
Wow really? Cuz i stopped using go launcher cuz it wasn't smooth like tw.
Only launcher that comes close to TouchWIZ 4 launcher for performance and smoothness is Nemus Launcher and it's the only reason I've removed TouchWIZ Launcher from my personal ROM. OP is doing something wrong.
GO Launcher is smooth? Really? The last time I tried it it was very choppy and so I ended up back with TouchWiz.
Intratech said:
Only launcher that comes close to TouchWIZ 4 launcher for performance and smoothness is Nemus Launcher and it's the only reason I've removed TouchWIZ Launcher from my personal ROM. OP is doing something wrong.
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Wow. Nemus is smoooooth. I think I might finally make the switch to CyanogenMod as the only thing that was stopping me was the slowness of ADW and GO Launchers
I'm back on TW 4.5. I've tried every Launcher known to man. I wouldn't run a stock TW, but Fr0gger's version has just enough of what I want, only lacking in a couple of areas.
I found Go Launcher smooth outside of the app drawer. TW is by far the smoothest for me out of the 8+ Launchers I've tried. As mentioned Nemus is nice, and I like Zeam as well, they're both smooth and lightweight. You trade off customization however. If you took the best from both Zeam and Nemus and combined them, while still retaining the light weight, you'd have the ultimate launcher.
Will likely switch back/forth between TW and Go Launcher for the most part.

Go Launcher performance with ICS ROM's

I've seen a few comments here and there about poor performance with Go Launcher EX on various ICS ROM's.
The symptom for me was very slow performance opening the app drawer (over 100 apps), as well as screen transition slow downs when I had lots of widgets on my seven home screens (I use several Android Pro widgets). Go Launcher appeared to reach a point where it needed to ask for more memory and I would see an su request (granted successfully) and then transitions between home screens would be painfully slow. Eventually, Go Launcher would typically crash and restart and things would be fast again temporarily.
What appears to have worked for me was to increase the dalvik.vm.heapgrowthlimit setting in build.prop from 48m to a larger value (I'm at 96m now, but I think 64m worked fine). I made the change using Rom Toolbox, rebooted and things have been silky smooth with Go Launcher since then.
No promises that it will work for anyone else, but thought I would share in case it does. FYI I'm using BAMF Rezound 0.6, but tried this on at least one other ROM as well with success.
I noticed this myself. Switched back to CleanROM GBE. Runs like butter.
I never really had a problem with it, but then again I had mine OC'd to 1.7 GHz and always on performance. I've recently switched to Nova Launcher since it's essentially the ICS launcher which is pretty damn smooth.
brando56894 said:
I never really had a problem with it, but then again I had mine OC'd to 1.7 GHz and always on performance. I've recently switched to Nova Launcher since it's essentially the ICS launcher which is pretty damn smooth.
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+1 for nova launcher, silky smooth on any ICS rom!
same problems here with go launcher so i uninstalled it. launcher pro works good but the icon resolution is far too small. i also think nova is a bit on the buggy side yet.
Another +1 for nova launcher. It is smooth as silk and the aosp look is just awesome! Had it on my Inc, transformer, and now my rezound
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
Another +1 for nova not one problem and everything is ridiculously smooth i love it
go launcher is super slow on gingerbread too. it's alot of lag when opening and closing the app drawer. any solutions for this?
If you're on ICS, why not take advantage of that and run NOVA launcher?
if you're into the widgets that come with golauncher then a better alternative for gb or ics is using adw ex with APW.the widgets with APW are far better than go widgets. this setup is so exquisite on Scott's newest 3.6 release.

Stock launcher or Custom?

Just wondering what you guys use for the launcher that comes with a phone or Nova etc, Please share! Does custom launchers can save you battery?
Sent from my D6503 using XDA Free mobile app
I use Nova Launcher, just because I like it [emoji4]. Stock launcher is excellent too I think but I don't see any negative effect on my battery with Nova. If there is it's soon little that I don't care.
The stock launcher is ok but I have always preferred Nova launcher so much that I bought the prime version, I also have Apex launcher Pro as well but find Nova smoother & quicker.
Using Nova now. Runs a bit smoother then stock
Stock
Google Now launcher. It's been available in the play store since earlier this week and Z2 is supported.
Nova on everything.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent BlueTapatalk 2
I will use nova if stock widgets qorking on nova
Nova launcher
Wysłane z mojego D6503 przy użyciu Tapatalka
smart launcher just because its easy to organize apps
Nova launcher. The default one is fine too and better in some ways, but nova works the best for me.
Smart launcher, few shortcut on the desktop and a clock. Do you really need something else?
Sicksky for me, running CM. Minimal, fast, light.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2404089
I like the app drawer on stock, but have been using themer. I haven't looked into Nova too much, recent switch after having 4 iphones. It's odd since you'd think I'd want everything on my homescreen after years with iOS but suddenly I'm all weird about how my app drawer looks.
Google Now launcher. Not interested in bloat and unnecessary, performance-and-battery-sapping gloss.
What is the actual advantage in running a custom launcher? I keep hearing the term banded about but I've never changed my launcher, not even when I was running CM on my old Galaxy S3, I just left it with whatever happened to be there.
Lagamorph said:
What is the actual advantage in running a custom launcher? I keep hearing the term banded about but I've never changed my launcher, not even when I was running CM on my old Galaxy S3, I just left it with whatever happened to be there.
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More customisation and snappier experience are usually the main reasons. Some launcher have additional functions like organising your apps for you and etc.
I used to be a huge Sony stock launcher fan but then I tried nova and never looked back
Might have to give a custom launcher a try now I'm rooted then and see what all the fuss is about.
Lagamorph said:
What is the actual advantage in running a custom launcher? I keep hearing the term banded about but I've never changed my launcher, not even when I was running CM on my old Galaxy S3, I just left it with whatever happened to be there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The biggest advantage for me is the possibility to add more rows/columns in the homescreen and app drawer, having only 4 columns look ugly and outdated. Being able to download custom icon packs is a huge deal too.

Tip about launcher performance

In playing with the G4 over the past few weeks, I've discovered some interesting things about launcher performance, so I thought I would share.
After using Google Now Launcher for several days, I began to notice that it was sometimes dropping frames and stuttering a bit much for my liking when swiping between screens. I switched back to the stock LG Home launcher and amazingly, scrolling was almost perfectly smooth with hardly any dropped frames.
Curious as to why this was, I began testing various launchers... Nova, Action Launcher, Apex Launcher, L Launcher, an AOSP launcher3 build from KitKat, etc. Finally, I noticed a pattern. Launchers based on the KitKat AOSP launcher source all ran very smoothly, while launchers based on the Lollipop AOSP launcher source all dropped frames too often when scrolling around the home screens and app drawers.
So from this, we can deduce two things:
1) The stock LG Home launcher is based on KitKat or earlier AOSP launcher source code. No surprise there.... just look at the page indicator dots, the app drawer background, and the three dot menu style in the app drawer. They all have KitKat styling.
2) LG optimized the G4 to run KitKat based launchers more smoothly since that's what their own launcher is.
So what can we do about it? Well, use an old version of your favorite launcher, of course. Action Launcher 2 is still available in the Play Store and has its own listing. I went with an old version of Nova (Classic v3.3 from http://novalauncher.com) and find it performs more smoothly than the newly released Nova v4. And not to fear, Nova v3.3 can still be configured to look and act like a Lollipop based launcher by changing a few settings. See my screenshots of Nova v3.3 below to see for yourself.
Hope all of you who are driven crazy by the slightest stutters find this information helpful. Let me know about your experiences.
Thanks for this. Will give it a try.
I was surviving with the stock launcher but went crazy after installing the tempered glass protector. After removing the glass all of my swipes or scrolls were being registered as taps.
Sent from my LG-H815
I too have been trying out the top 10 most know launchers in the playstore and have seen that issue as well compared to the stock launcher. What makes me go back to the stock launcher is two things. Health widget for step counter, and the smart notice widget.
wadamean said:
I too have been trying out the top 10 most know launchers in the playstore and have seen that issue as well compared to the stock launcher. What makes me go back to the stock launcher is two things. Health widget for step counter, and the smart notice widget.
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Click to collapse
I know me too. How nice will be to add those into nova.
I'll be honest, I am running the latest Nova launcher and I haven't noticed any dropped frames or hiccups whatsoever. Everything seems buttery smooth.
Ken4G said:
I'll be honest, I am running the latest Nova launcher and I haven't noticed any dropped frames or hiccups whatsoever. Everything seems buttery smooth.
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Click to collapse
apex is the smoothest launcher at the moment. nova ( i have the paid version ) is not that smooth like action launcher 3,
i'm only running apex for now
The app drawer and everything runs better , try and see yourself , you'll be impressed.
Great discovery. Nova and Google Now was always my go-to launcher but I have noticed frame drops. Very minimal, but I guess some of us are cursed to notice these things.
I always end up reverting to the stock launcher after awhile. I'll try the suggestion above and give Apex a run for a few days.
Also, anyone find it weird that some widgets like the default clock widget can't be used with other launchers?
Sent from my LG-H818
JustinDulay said:
Also, anyone find it weird that some widgets like the default clock widget can't be used with other launchers?
Sent from my LG-H818
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Click to collapse
Not weird at all, LG based widgets are baked into the LG launcher. Same thing happens with Samsung based widgets, can only use them on the TW launcher.
I'm using stock LG's launcher and it works very nice for me. I disabled Smart Bulletin option from settings and the launcher flies. With this feature enabled the launcher was getting laggy after a few hours of use ,now it's just perfect.
The only thing that drives me crazy about the Stock launcher is the lack of backgrounds for the icons. I like all my icons to feel somewhat uniform. I know the LG Launcher supports themes (basically icon packs)... but the Verizon model has this ripped out. I know it is accessible through some song and dance but the icon packs were pretty bare, only like 20 icons to cover the basics. Some custom packs have more but still barely cover the grand scheme of play store apps.
Overall good find though. I actually really like Action launcher 2 and run it on my tablets but I am unsure about on a smaller device I intend to use with 1 hand. I know you can setup swipes to pull open the drawer. At least we have options. I wonder if this happens on other devices, or just LG?
Very interesting to see that Lollipop based launchers stagger. Although KitKat was the best Android experience I ever had. Lollipop is fun but on the LG (or other skinned devices) the change is miniscule. KitKat ran like a beast on the G2 but started having problems when it upgraded to Lollipop.
I use KISS Launcher. No framerate loss there.

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