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I've been looking for a more technical analysis of these SOCs and I have been trying to learn how the async CPU setup on the MSM8660 affects performance.
Nvidia claims that the power saving feature of our CPU (async) will inevitably cause a decrease in performance:
http://www.intomobile.com/2011/03/2...ed&utm_campaign=Feed:+IntoMobile+(IntoMobile)
Does anyone have any comments on this? If this is the case, I am wondering if through software we can force both cores to run at the same voltage/frequency. I wonder if it would cause an increase in performance (at least in benchmarking). Many claim that the Evo 3d only gets medicore benchmark scores due to having asynchronous cores that are not being accurately benched. It would be interesting to verify this claim.
Also, does anyone know which SOC between the three I listed in the title is the highest in performance (not talking about useless benchmarks like quadrant)?
So....there is possibly a 10–15% decrease in performance.....that's fine with me. Most of the time you won't even notice until you run benchmarks and looks at the numbers.
SetCPU + Performance mode are all you should need
DarkManX4lf said:
So....there is possibly a 10–15% decrease in performance.....that's fine with me. Most of the time you won't even notice until you run benchmarks and looks at the numbers.
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Well the 10-15% slower is nVidia's claim, not sure if its true.
Does that make both cores run at the same time or running cores at the same time not possible due to the processor
xHausx said:
SetCPU + Performance mode are all you should need
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ttieder said:
Does that make both cores run at the same time or running cores at the same time not possible due to the processor
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It will keep the cpu running at full speed. Which core gets used for what depends on a lot of things but it mostly depends on how the apps and kernel are programmed.
xHausx said:
It will keep the cpu running at full speed. Which core gets used for what depends on a lot of things but it mostly depends on how the apps and kernel are programmed.
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Yes, but is it possible to keep both cores at their full frequency? Setting the exynos or tegra 2 on performance mode makes both cores stay at their maximum frequency since they are synchronous. I think setting performance mode on the Evo 3d would only guarantee that one of the core will remain at its full frequency.
Not sure about this of course. Anyone have any insight into this?
Second Core wouldnt kick in if ur not heavily multitasking or running multithreaded apps and u wouldnt need second core for minor multitasking or single threaded operations as single core is enough
i will tell you that on paper the msmx60 should beat out all, but in real world use, the exynos hammers everything. the s2 is a beast
The Exynos is the better SoC, plain and simple. If we get into GPU discussions, the Adreno 220 is the best, as in better than Mali 400.. Go to Anandtech, and watch them use a Qualcomm device for the benches.
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Is it a "for sure" thing that ICS will use the GPU acceleration in the OS? Or is that just everyone's hopes and dreams
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You could program the kernel to keep both cores at max frequency. Im not a developer but am sure something like this could be done
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bballer71418 said:
Is it a "for sure" thing that ICS will use the GPU acceleration in the OS? Or is that just everyone's hopes and dreams
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Click to collapse
ics will include all of the features that honeycomb has and honeycomb has 2d acceleration so yes
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Maybe we should make some real world benchmarks and get some SGS2 people in on it. Like how fast a particular app opens(say angry birds), How many fps a game plays at, Convert a file to another format, complete a 5 step plan to take over the world things like that. Alot of things like that are how reviewers rate and test things like new video cards and cpus plus all the benchmark programs.
I used to use a program called fraps to see how many fps my pc games were playing at so I could tweak stuff( long live unreal tournament!!!!). It would just display the fps in the top corner of the screen.
Also comparing the 3vo and SGS2 will really heat up when we get root and CM7. 400mb less roms have gatta make a huge difference on performance. I dunno about you guys but I haven't been able clog up my 3vo yet(and I've been trying!), I'm pretty impressed with the hardware so far.
Drewmungus said:
Maybe we should make some real world benchmarks and get some SGS2 people in on it. Like how fast a particular app opens(say angry birds), How many fps a game plays at, Convert a file to another format, complete a 5 step plan to take over the world things like that. Alot of things like that are how reviewers rate and test things like new video cards and cpus plus all the benchmark programs.
I used to use a program called fraps to see how many fps my pc games were playing at so I could tweak stuff( long live unreal tournament!!!!). It would just display the fps in the top corner of the screen.
Also comparing the 3vo and SGS2 will really heat up when we get root and CM7. 400mb less roms have gatta make a huge difference on performance. I dunno about you guys but I haven't been able clog up my 3vo yet(and I've been trying!), I'm pretty impressed with the hardware so far.
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Fraps tends to lie with FPS.
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GPU acceleration will be nice. Hope we see ICS soon.
Sent from my EVO 3D w/ Tapatalk
It is known that the MSM8660 can achieve higher clock frequencies than the Exynos, though clock for clock the Exynos has better IPC.
As of right now the GSII beats the 3VO in both benchmarks and real world tests, but I suspect this is because Sense is a pig that takes far too much ram and system resources. HTC also seems to have poorer unoptimized drivers. In addition to this, the async CPUs of the 3VO may not be properly tested by current benchmarking tools.
I think comparing a rooted 3VO and a rooted GSII should be much closer. Imagine the MSM8660 at 1.8-2.0 Ghz both cores running full frequency with no Sense and other bloat to slow it down. Combine that with a hardware accelerated GUI and this phone should be amazing.
The Adreno GPU will get better over time... and will develop much faster than before. Since Qualcomm purchased the branch from AMD (ATi), there has been much improvement in a reasonably small amount of time. There are various claims that the Adreno 220 outperforms the Tegra 2. I havent seen a solid comparison of the Adreno 220 vs the Exynos although I have read that the Exynos is a very capable processor.
As they both stand in stock offering, the Samsung GS2 will be faster; it has tremendous less resources to move. I agree with what has been said about root & rom options: CM7 on the EVO 3D will likely result in unprecedented (real world) benchmarks .Also note that the current Android releases are not yet optimized for dual/quad core management. But rest assured, it is well under development and the Sprint EVO 4G4D (hypothetical name) will behold a treasure trove of menacing capabilities.
HTC + Qualcomm + Android = Future
I think we should just wait until we can do a head-to-head AOSP CM 7 benchmark/real world test to see what happens. I'm confident the SGSII will get shredded by the E3D.
It seems unfair to compare anything within the phone itself now, because of what each phone has to run. Sense is pretty tasking on our phones and I can't say as much for the opposition.
It's funny to see NVIDIA make snide comments about Qualcomm when their phones are getting bested. Although I must say it is impressive to see that Tegra 2 phones are over a year old and keeping up with the E3D's dual-core deliciousness.
Just my thoughts.
Personally I don't believe Nvidia, plenty of benchmarks contradict their statement. That and whoever said "Additionally, the operating systems like Android and many apps aren’t set up for an asynchronous architecture." is an idiot because 99% of apps in the market don't support dual core lmfao.
X10 is garbage! this is outrageous!
Yes really, they got it working, you want it so bad try porting it yourself
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cry about it?
if you want it so bad for your phone, learn to port it yourself. until then, since you rely solely on other peoples' hard work and sweat, shut up and be patient.
dLo GSR said:
cry about it?
if you want it so bad for your phone, learn to port it yourself. until then, since you rely solely on other peoples' hard work and sweat, shut up and be patient.
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Oh snap. That was awesome.
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I might start to look into trying to port it this weekend
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firefox3 said:
I might start to look into trying to port it this weekend
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Good news man
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Being that there are currently no EGL libs for anything except PowerVR SGX devices under ICS yet, and they're closed source and tightly dependent on the kernel there doesn't seem to be a huge point until the official updates start to hit for a range of devices.
Sure, Desire, HD, X10, N1 have ports of a sort at the moment, in fact there shouldn't be too many problems getting them working aside from the graphics drivers but they're just for fun with the framebuffer driver given how much of ICS' UI rendering is done with GPU acceleration in mind. You wouldn't want to use it day-to-day. The browser is surprisingly responsive on the Desire though (I'd say moreso than GB, despite the software rendering), as is the Market (the new one always lagged really badly for me on the Desire before) - glimmers of hope for ICS' eventual performance on older devices. The keyboard lags like you wouldn't believe though!
The Atrix should fly under 4.0.1 though, if it ever happens - bearing in mind the fact that the SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is pretty much in a dead heat with Tegra 2's GPU, we've got a lower resolution screen, and can overclock past the its stock speeds.
Javi97100 said:
Good news man
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Its turning out to be harder then i though... I think no one will get it until offical updates come out for other phones
Azurael said:
Being that there are currently no EGL libs for anything except PowerVR SGX devices under ICS yet, and they're closed source and tightly dependent on the kernel there doesn't seem to be a huge point until the official updates start to hit for a range of devices.
Sure, Desire, HD, X10, N1 have ports of a sort at the moment, in fact there shouldn't be too many problems getting them working aside from the graphics drivers but they're just for fun with the framebuffer driver given how much of ICS' UI rendering is done with GPU acceleration in mind. You wouldn't want to use it day-to-day. The browser is surprisingly responsive on the Desire though (I'd say moreso than GB, despite the software rendering), as is the Market (the new one always lagged really badly for me on the Desire before) - glimmers of hope for ICS' eventual performance on older devices. The keyboard lags like you wouldn't believe though!
The Atrix should fly under 4.0.1 though, if it ever happens - bearing in mind the fact that the SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is pretty much in a dead heat with Tegra 2's GPU, we've got a lower resolution screen, and can overclock past the its stock speeds.
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So EGL = gpu driver? If thats the only setback, would it be possible to get an ICS rom with software rendering as a proof of concept, or are there other pieces missing?
GB/CM7 is pretty good on the Atrix, if we dont see ICS for a few months it doesn't hurt us in any way. I'd like to think most of us can be patient if we lack the skills to help.
I noticed the Captivate got a port of it too since i9000 ROMs and Cap ROMs are interchangeable. I thought its funny that it's running on the HD a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone lol. Let's all try to be patient and we will eventually see it.
Edit: not to mention I'm sure if it's not already it will soon be on iPhone too. It seems like iPhones always get the new Android versions kinda early. I'm not sweating it I love my Atrix in its current state.
According to anandtech, Tegra 2 support is essentially ready, so I think as long as nvidia releases the source for ics (libs?), someone will try to port it. Hell, I have a good 5 weeks during break, I might as well try then.
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Azurael said:
Being that there are currently no EGL libs for anything except PowerVR SGX devices under ICS yet, and they're closed source and tightly dependent on the kernel there doesn't seem to be a huge point until the official updates start to hit for a range of devices.
Sure, Desire, HD, X10, N1 have ports of a sort at the moment, in fact there shouldn't be too many problems getting them working aside from the graphics drivers but they're just for fun with the framebuffer driver given how much of ICS' UI rendering is done with GPU acceleration in mind. You wouldn't want to use it day-to-day. The browser is surprisingly responsive on the Desire though (I'd say moreso than GB, despite the software rendering), as is the Market (the new one always lagged really badly for me on the Desire before) - glimmers of hope for ICS' eventual performance on older devices. The keyboard lags like you wouldn't believe though!
The Atrix should fly under 4.0.1 though, if it ever happens - bearing in mind the fact that the SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is pretty much in a dead heat with Tegra 2's GPU, we've got a lower resolution screen, and can overclock past the its stock speeds.
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Actually, no, despite being a much older GPU, the SGX 540 found in the GNexus outpaces the Tegra 2 due to its higher clock rate by 7% or 45% depending on the GLBenchmark being run. Both GPU tests were done at 720p resolution. Also, you can't overclock the GPU, only the CPU.
edgeicator said:
Actually, no, despite being a much older GPU, the SGX 540 found in the GNexus outpaces the Tegra 2 due to its higher clock rate by 7% or 45% depending on the GLBenchmark being run. Both GPU tests were done at 720p resolution. Also, you can't overclock the GPU, only the CPU.
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Buddy, check out any of the kernels available in the dev thread and you'll see that the GPUs are overclocked.
WiredPirate said:
I noticed the Captivate got a port of it too since i9000 ROMs and Cap ROMs are interchangeable. I thought its funny that it's running on the HD a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone lol. Let's all try to be patient and we will eventually see it.
Edit: not to mention I'm sure if it's not already it will soon be on iPhone too. It seems like iPhones always get the new Android versions kinda early. I'm not sweating it I love my Atrix in its current state.
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Doubt the iPhone will see ICS, the newest model that can run android as far as I know is the iPhone 3G, which was incredibly slow under Gingerbread.
mac208x said:
X10 is garbage! this is outrageous!
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222 posts and zero thanks? Is this what you do, go around XDA and post useless threads like the guy complaining about returning home early despite nobody asking him to "to get MIUI ported on his grandma's phone"?
Are you guys related by any chance?
edgeicator said:
Actually, no, despite being a much older GPU, the SGX 540 found in the GNexus outpaces the Tegra 2 due to its higher clock rate by 7% or 45% depending on the GLBenchmark being run. Both GPU tests were done at 720p resolution. Also, you can't overclock the GPU, only the CPU.
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Depends on the benchmark, yes - texture-heavy rendering tends to perform better on the 540 in the OMAP4460 thanks to it's dual channel memory controller and high clock (and that's probably the directly relevant part to UI rendering to be honest, though as I said - lower resolution screen ) but the Tegra 2 is quite substantially ahead in geometry-heavy rendering (and games on mobiles are starting to move that way now, following the desktop landscape over the past 5 years or so.) Averaged out, the performance of the two is very close.
Plus, as I said, the GPU in my phone is running at 400MHz which ought to even things out in the GLMark 720p tests somewhat even if they are biassed to one architecture or the other. While the GPU in OMAP4460 may overclock just as well from its stock 400MHz, I'm only really concerned that the phone can run as fast as a stock GNexus to maybe skip the next generation of mobile hardware and tide it over until Cortex A15-based SoCs on 28nm process start to emerge with stronger GPUs. I don't really think I'm CPU performance bound with a 1.4GHz dual-core A9 - and increasing the number of equivalent cores without a really substantial boost in GPU horesepower seems worthless right now, even if ICS takes better advantage of SMP (re: Disappointing early Tegra 3 benchmarks - although it does seem GLMark stacks the odds against NVidia GPUs more than other benchmarks?)
Azurael said:
Depends on the benchmark, yes - texture-heavy rendering tends to perform better on the 540 in the OMAP4460 thanks to it's dual channel memory controller and high clock (and that's probably the directly relevant part to UI rendering to be honest, though as I said - lower resolution screen ) but the Tegra 2 is quite substantially ahead in geometry-heavy rendering (and games on mobiles are starting to move that way now, following the desktop landscape over the past 5 years or so.) Averaged out, the performance of the two is very close.
Plus, as I said, the GPU in my phone is running at 400MHz which ought to even things out in the GLMark 720p tests somewhat even if they are biassed to one architecture or the other. While the GPU in OMAP4460 may overclock just as well from its stock 400MHz, I'm only really concerned that the phone can run as fast as a stock GNexus to maybe skip the next generation of mobile hardware and tide it over until Cortex A15-based SoCs on 28nm process start to emerge with stronger GPUs. I don't really think I'm CPU performance bound with a 1.4GHz dual-core A9 - and increasing the number of equivalent cores without a really substantial boost in GPU horesepower seems worthless right now, even if ICS takes better advantage of SMP (re: Disappointing early Tegra 3 benchmarks - although it does seem GLMark stacks the odds against NVidia GPUs more than other benchmarks?)
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I would expect the Tegra to beat a nearly 5 year old GPU, but it only does so in triangle throughput. Tegra just uses a very poor architecture in general. Look at how little actual horsepower it can pull. The Tegra 3 gpu pulls 7.2GFLOPs @300mhz. The iPad GPU and the upcoming Adreno 225 both pull 19.2 GFLOPS at that same clockspeed. I honestly have no idea what the engineers are thinking over atNnvidia. It's almost as bad as AMD's latest bulldozer offerings. It's really more of Tegra's shortcomings than GLMark stacking the odds. PowerVR's offerings from 2007 are keeping up with a chip that debuted in 2010/2011. The Geforce just doesn't seem to scale very well at all on mobile platforms. But yea, all Nvidia did with Tegra 3 was slap in 2 extra cores, clocked them higher, threw in the sorely missed NEON instruction set, increased the SIMDs on the GPU by 50% (8 to 12), and then tacked on a 5th hidden core to help save power. Tegra 3 stayed with the 40nm process whereas every other SoC is dropping down to 28nm with some bringing in a brand new architecture as well.
edgeicator said:
I would expect the Tegra to beat a nearly 5 year old GPU, but it only does so in triangle throughput. Tegra just uses a very poor architecture in general. Look at how little actual horsepower it can pull. The Tegra 3 gpu pulls 7.2GFLOPs @300mhz. The iPad GPU and the upcoming Adreno 225 both pull 19.2 GFLOPS at that same clockspeed. I honestly have no idea what the engineers are thinking over atNnvidia. It's almost as bad as AMD's latest bulldozer offerings. It's really more of Tegra's shortcomings than GLMark stacking the odds. PowerVR's offerings from 2007 are keeping up with a chip that debuted in 2010/2011. The Geforce just doesn't seem to scale very well at all on mobile platforms. But yea, all Nvidia did with Tegra 3 was slap in 2 extra cores, clocked them higher, threw in the sorely missed NEON instruction set, increased the SIMDs on the GPU by 50% (8 to 12), and then tacked on a 5th hidden core to help save power. Tegra 3 stayed with the 40nm process whereas every other SoC is dropping down to 28nm with some bringing in a brand new architecture as well.
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Don't you get tired if writing those long rants? We understand you know something about CPU architecture, and that Tegra isn't the best one out there, but damn man, it's the same thing in every thread. Just chill out and try to stay on topic for once
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edgeicator said:
I would expect the Tegra to beat a nearly 5 year old GPU, but it only does so in triangle throughput. Tegra just uses a very poor architecture in general. Look at how little actual horsepower it can pull. The Tegra 3 gpu pulls 7.2GFLOPs @300mhz. The iPad GPU and the upcoming Adreno 225 both pull 19.2 GFLOPS at that same clockspeed. I honestly have no idea what the engineers are thinking over atNnvidia. It's almost as bad as AMD's latest bulldozer offerings. It's really more of Tegra's shortcomings than GLMark stacking the odds. PowerVR's offerings from 2007 are keeping up with a chip that debuted in 2010/2011. The Geforce just doesn't seem to scale very well at all on mobile platforms. But yea, all Nvidia did with Tegra 3 was slap in 2 extra cores, clocked them higher, threw in the sorely missed NEON instruction set, increased the SIMDs on the GPU by 50% (8 to 12), and then tacked on a 5th hidden core to help save power. Tegra 3 stayed with the 40nm process whereas every other SoC is dropping down to 28nm with some bringing in a brand new architecture as well.
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I think you are not seeing the whole picture...
The Tegra 3 (Et-Al) is not just about its quad core implementation, remember that the GPU will offer 12 cores that will translate in performance not seeing as of yet on any other platform.
Benchmarks don't tell the whole story! Specially those benchmarking tools which are not Tegra 3 optimized yet.
Cheers!
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WiredPirate said:
I noticed the Captivate got a port of it too since i9000 ROMs and Cap ROMs are interchangeable. I thought its funny that it's running on the HD a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone lol. Let's all try to be patient and we will eventually see it.
Edit: not to mention I'm sure if it's not already it will soon be on iPhone too. It seems like iPhones always get the new Android versions kinda early. I'm not sweating it I love my Atrix in its current state.
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LOL I ran all the iDroid ports on my iphone. Not one was even in alpha stage, I would not even count iDroid as a port since you cant use anything on it.
OK I've got mine on normal mode, and this kind of confirms my original thought that the 500mhz 5th core is clocked to low. I find the pad actually speeds up when I have multiple items in my recently run tab! If my understanding of the way it works these programs are still running in the background right? Then it starts kicking in the other 4 and not just running on the 5th at 500mhz! I really think we'd see a speed boost if we can get that 5th core over 500. Yes its supposed to save battery life but I really don't think 500 is fast enough to run on its own. You're thoughts and observations?
markimar said:
OK I've got mine on normal mode, and this kind of confirms my original thought that the 500mhz 5th core is clocked to low. I find the pad actually speeds up when I have multiple items in my recently run tab! If my understanding of the way it works these programs are still running in the background right? Then it starts kicking in the other 4 and not just running on the 5th at 500mhz! I really think we'd see a speed boost if we can get that 5th core over 500. Yes its supposed to save battery life but I really don't think 500 is fast enough to run on its own. You're thoughts and observations?
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ill check on this when i get home. this issue im assuming is with honeycomb itself. we would assume that ICS would properly use those cores
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II t989
i don't have it yet (mine gets delivered on wed), but what you observed makes perfect sense. Can they change it to run on say an 800 MHZ constant "down" to 500MHZ when doing the most simple tasks? obviously i to do not believe that 500MHZ will be sufficient at all times to do screen scrolling and such on it's own.
I'm really hoping that the few performance issues people are seeing is resolved in firmware updates and a tegra 3 optimized version of ICS. Maybe asus/nvidia needs to do more tweaking to HC before the ICS build is pushed if it will take a while for ICS to arrive to the prime (past january).
The cores are optimized just fine. They kick in when rendering a web page or a game, but go idle and use the 5th core when done. Games always render.
ryan562 said:
ill check on this when i get home. this issue im assuming is with honeycomb itself. we would assume that ICS would properly use those cores
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II t989
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Nothing's changed over HC in the way ICS uses h/w acceleration. And I'd assume apps using h/w acceleration do so via calls to the OS, not to the chip directly. So it appears what you've got is what you're going to get.
---------- Post added at 06:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:55 PM ----------
markimar said:
OK I've got mine on normal mode, and this kind of confirms my original thought that the 500mhz 5th core is clocked to low. I find the pad actually speeds up when I have multiple items in my recently run tab! If my understanding of the way it works these programs are still running in the background right? Then it starts kicking in the other 4 and not just running on the 5th at 500mhz! I really think we'd see a speed boost if we can get that 5th core over 500. Yes its supposed to save battery life but I really don't think 500 is fast enough to run on its own. You're thoughts and observations?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have Pulse installed? A bunch of people using it were reporting stuttering where their lower powered devices aren't. If you run it at full speed, does it stutter? One of the hypothesis is that it's the core's stepping up and down that's causing the stuttering.
BarryH_GEG said:
Nothing's changed over HC in the way ICS uses h/w acceleration. And I'd assume apps using h/w acceleration do so via calls to the OS, not to the chip directly. So it appears what you've got is what you're going to get.
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Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that the OS knows about the fifth core? I believe the chip's own scheduler manages the transition between the quad-core and the companion core, not the Android scheduler.
Mithent said:
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that the OS knows about the fifth core? I believe the chip's own scheduler manages the transition between the quad-core and the companion core, not the Android scheduler.
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That's the way I'd guess it would work. I don't think Android addresses different chips differently. I'd assume it's up to the SoC to manage the incoming instructions and react accordingly. If Android was modified for dual-core, I don't think it diffentiates between the different implementations of dual-core chips. Someone with more h/w experience correct me if I'm wrong. Also, does anyone know if the chip manufacturer can add additional API's that developers can write to directly either instead of or in parallel with the OS? I ask because how can a game be optimized for Tegra if to the OS all chips are treated the same?
I tried out the power savings mode for a while.it seemed to perform just fine. Immediate difference is that it lowers the contrast ratio on display. This happens as soon as you press the power savings tab. Screen will look like brightness dropped a bit but if you look closely, you'll see it lowered the contrast ratio. Screen still looks good but not as sharp as in other 2 modes. UI still seems to preform just fine. Plus I think the modes doesn't affect gaming or video playback performance. I read that somewhere, either anandtech or Engadget. When watching vids or playing games, it goes into normal mode. So those things won't be affected no matter what power mode you in, I think..lol
I was thinking of starting a performance mode thread. To see different peoples results and thoughts on different power modes. I read some people post that they just use it in power/battery savings mode. Some keep it in normal all the time. Others in balanced mode. Would be good to see how these different modes perform in real life usage. From user perspective. I've noticed, so far, that In balanced mode, battery drains about 10% an hour. This is with nonstop use including gaming, watching vids, web surfing, etc. now in battery savings mode, it drains even less per hour. I haven't ran normal mode long enough to see how it drains compared to others. One thing though, web surfing drains battery just as fast as gaming.
BarryH_GEG said:
I ask because how can a game be optimized for Tegra if to the OS all chips are treated the same?
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I hate quoting myself but I found the answer on Nvidia's website. Any otimizations are handled through OpenGL. So games written to handle additional calls that Teg2 can support are making those calls through OpenGL with the OS (I'm guessing) used as a pass-through. It would also explain why Tegra optimized games fail on non-Teg devices because they wouldn't be able process the additional requests. So it would appear that Teg optimization isn't being done through the OS. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.
BarryH_GEG said:
That's the way I'd guess it would work. I don't think Android addresses different chips differently. I'd assume it's up to the SoC to manage the incoming instructions and react accordingly. If Android was modified for dual-core, I don't think it diffentiates between the different implementations of dual-core chips.
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I did some research on it; here's what Nvidia say:
The Android 3.x (Honeycomb) operating system has built-in support for multi-processing and is
capable of leveraging the performance of multiple CPU cores. However, the operating system
assumes that all available CPU cores are of equal performance capability and schedules tasks
to available cores based on this assumption. Therefore, in order to make the management of
the Companion core and main cores totally transparent to the operating system, Kal-El
implements both hardware-based and low level software-based management of the Companion
core and the main quad CPU cores.
Patented hardware and software CPU management logic continuously monitors CPU workload
to automatically and dynamically enable and disable the Companion core and the main CPU
cores. The decision to turn on and off the Companion and main cores is purely based on current
CPU workload levels and the resulting CPU operating frequency recommendations made by the
CPU frequency control subsystem embedded in the operating system kernel. The technology
does not require any application or OS modifications.
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http://www.nvidia.com/content/PDF/t...e-for-Low-Power-and-High-Performance-v1.1.pdf
So it uses the existing architecture for CPU power states, but intercepts that at a low level and uses it to control the companion core/quad-core switch?
Edit: I wonder if that means that tinkering with the scheduler/frequency control would allow the point at which the companion core/quad-core switch happens to be altered? If the OP is correct, this might allow the companion core to be utilised less if an increase in "smoothness" was desired, at the cost of some battery life?
Mithent said:
I wonder if that means that tinkering with the scheduler/frequency control would allow the point at which the companion core/quad-core switch happens to be altered? If the OP is correct, this might allow the companion core to be utilised less if an increase in "smoothness" was desired, at the cost of some battery life?
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So what we guessed was right. The OS treats all multi-cores the same and it's up to the chip maker to optimize requests and return them. To your point, what happens between the three processors (1+1x2+1x2) is black-box and controlled by Nvidia. To any SetCPU type program it's just going to show up as a single chip. People have tried in vain to figure how to make the Qualcomm dual-core's act independently so I'd guess Teg3 will end up the same way. And Nvidia won't even publish their drivers so I highly doubt they'll provide any outside hooks to control something as sensitive as the performance of each individual core in what they're marketing as a single chip.
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Do you have Pulse installed? A bunch of people using it were reporting stuttering where their lower powered devices aren't. If you run it at full speed, does it stutter? One of the hypothesis is that it's the core's stepping up and down that's causing the stuttering.[/QUOTE]
I have been running mine in balanced mode, have had pulse installed since day one, no lag or stuttering in anything. games, other apps work fine.
Well my phones when clocked at 500 so I wouldn't be surprised
Sent from my VS910 4G using xda premium
So I've been lurking on the prime's forums for a while now and noticed the debate of whether the new qualcomm dual core will be better or the current tegra 3 that the prime has. Obviously if both were clocked the same then the tegra 3 would be better. Also I understand that the gpu of the tegra 3 is better. However, for normal user (surf web, play a movie, songs etc) isn't dual core at 1.5 ghz better in that an average user will rarely use more 2 cores? The way I understand it each core is able to handle 1 task so in order to activate the 3rd core you would have to have 3 things going on at the same time? Could someone please explain this to me?
First of all, the tegra 3 can go up to 1.6 ghz. Secondly, all 4 cores can be utilized by a multi threading app. Lastly, battery is great on tegra III due to teh companion core.
jdeoxys said:
First of all, the tegra 3 can go up to 1.6 ghz. Secondly, all 4 cores can be utilized by a multi threading app. Lastly, battery is great on tegra III due to teh companion core.
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But the native clock for that qualcomm would be 1.5 meaning o/c can take it higher. Also doesn't being dual core compared to quad core give it an edge in battery? You do bring up a good point with the multi threading app. Also to clarify I am not standing up for the qualcomm chip or putting down the tegra 3 just trying to get things straight.
Thanks
Hey I'm the ....idiot aboard here....lol
But the tegra 3 has a companion core, being a fifth core, to take over when the tablet is not stressed. Thus saving the battery.
I am just repeating what I have read, I have no knowledge of how it all works. I guess that is how we can get better battery life.
Just trying to help the OP, maybe some one way smarter can chime in. Shouldn't be hard....lol
Quad core is better by far. On low level tasks, simple things, and screen off/deep sleep the companion core takes over. Meaning its running on a low powered single core. This companion core only has a Max of 500Mhz speed. So when in deep sleep or low level tasks, companion core alone is running everything at only 102mhz -500Mhz. Most of the time on the lower end. Therefore tegra3 has the better battery life since all it's low power level tasks are ran by a single low powered companion core. That's 1 low powered core compared to 2 high powered cores trying to save battery. Quad core better all around. We hsvent even begun real overclocking yet. The 1.6Ghz speed was already in the kernel. So if you rooted n using vipercontrol or ATP tweaks or virtuous rom, we can access those speeds at any time. Once we really start overclocking higher than 1.6Ghz we will have an even more superior advantage. Anyone knows 4 strong men are stronger than 2..lol. tegra3 and nvidia is the future. Tegra3 is just the chip that kicked down the door on an evolution of mobile chip SoC.
---------- Post added at 10:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 PM ----------
If you really want to learn the in and outs of tegra3, all the details, and how its better than any dual core, check out this thread I made. I have a whitepaper attachment in that thread you can download and read. Its made by nvidia themselves and goes into great detail on tegra3 by the people who created it, Nvidia. Check it out.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1512936
aamir123 said:
But the native clock for that qualcomm would be 1.5 meaning o/c can take it higher. Also doesn't being dual core compared to quad core give it an edge in battery? You do bring up a good point with the multi threading app. Also to clarify I am not standing up for the qualcomm chip or putting down the tegra 3 just trying to get things straight.
Thanks
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The maximum clock speed isn't all that important, since during tasks like web browsing, watching videos & movies and listening to music you will never push the processor to its highest available clock speed anyway. All mobile devices will underclock their processors so that you rarely have unused clock cycles eating up battery life. So all things being relatively equal performance would be about the same between both tablets during these types of lightweight tasks.
If you have a lot of background processes running, then the quad-core system might have an edge in performance since theoretically different tasks can be pushed off to different processors. However this use case is rarely found in Android. You might have an app checking weather or syncing photos in the background, or you might have music playing while you web surf, but those are generally fairly lightweight tasks that usually won't test the processor performance of your device.
In tasks that will stress you processor, such as 3D gaming, then quad cores have a very large advantage over dual core systems, despite the slight difference in maximum clock speeds. In addition the Tegra 3 has a more powerful GPU than the new Qualcomm chip, which will definitely make a noticeable difference in gaming performance.
Now when it comes to ultra-low power tasks or when the tablet is on Standby, the Tegra 3 uses its "companion core" which has incredibly low power requirements, so it can continue to sync your email, twitter and weather updates for days (or weeks) while having very little impact on the Transformer Prime's battery.
So in short, the Tegra 3 is more likely to outperform the Qualcomm in situations where you actually need extra performance. In light tasks performance between the two should be about the same. Battery life is yet to be definitively determined, however the Tegra's 3 ultra-low power companion core should give it an edge when only doing light tasks or on standb.
Keep in mind, the Tegra 3 in the TF Prime has a maximum clock speed of 1300Mhz. One core has a maximum clock speed of 1400Mhz. If all things were equal, a difference of 100-200 Mhz n a 1Ghz+ processor is practically unnoticeable in daily usage.
almightywhacko said:
The maximum clock speed isn't all that important, since during tasks like web browsing, watching videos & movies and listening to music you will never push the processor to its highest available clock speed anyway. All mobile devices will underclock their processors so that you rarely have unused clock cycles eating up battery life. So all things being relatively equal performance would be about the same between both tablets during these types of lightweight tasks.
If you have a lot of background processes running, then the quad-core system might have an edge in performance since theoretically different tasks can be pushed off to different processors. However this use case is rarely found in Android. You might have an app checking weather or syncing photos in the background, or you might have music playing while you web surf, but those are generally fairly lightweight tasks that usually won't test the processor performance of your device.
In tasks that will stress you processor, such as 3D gaming, then quad cores have a very large advantage over dual core systems, despite the slight difference in maximum clock speeds. In addition the Tegra 3 has a more powerful GPU than the new Qualcomm chip, which will definitely make a noticeable difference in gaming performance.
Now when it comes to ultra-low power tasks or when the tablet is on Standby, the Tegra 3 uses its "companion core" which has incredibly low power requirements, so it can continue to sync your email, twitter and weather updates for days (or weeks) while having very little impact on the Transformer Prime's battery.
So in short, the Tegra 3 is more likely to outperform the Qualcomm in situations where you actually need extra performance. In light tasks performance between the two should be about the same. Battery life is yet to be definitively determined, however the Tegra's 3 ultra-low power companion core should give it an edge when only doing light tasks or on standb.
Keep in mind, the Tegra 3 in the TF Prime has a maximum clock speed of 1300Mhz. One core has a maximum clock speed of 1400Mhz. If all things were equal, a difference of 100-200 Mhz n a 1Ghz+ processor is practically unnoticeable in daily usage.
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Wow! Thanks for taking the time for breaking it down for me like that! I understand exactly where your coming from and now have to agree.
demandarin said:
Quad core is better by far.
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At least that is what Nvidia would like you to think.
The Tegra 3 uses an older ARM core for it's quad core design while Qualcomm uses their own ARM instruction set compatible core for their Krait S4 design. For most current benchmarks the Qualcomm Krait S4 dual core seems to outpace the Tegra 3 by quite a large margin. And of course Krait will be expanded to quad core later this year.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5563/qualcomms-snapdragon-s4-krait-vs-nvidias-tegra-3
Dave_S said:
At least that is what Nvidia would like you to think.
The Tegra 3 uses an older ARM core for it's quad core design while Qualcomm uses their own ARM instruction set compatible core for their Krait S4 design. For most current benchmarks the Qualcomm Krait S4 dual core seems to outpace the Tegra 3 by quite a large margin. And of course Krait will be expanded to quad core later this year.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5563/qualcomms-snapdragon-s4-krait-vs-nvidias-tegra-3
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There's already another thread on what you just mentioned and the Krait claims were easily shot down. Tegra3 still a better chip overall. Plus krait gpu was subpar to tegra3. We have more links and stuff in other thread showing Prime still right up there
demandarin said:
There's already another thread on what you just mentioned and the Krait claims were easily shot down. Tegra3 still a better chip overall. Plus krait gpu was subpar to tegra3. We have more links and stuff in other thread showing Prime still right up there
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As unlikely as that seems considering the slower cores that Nvidia uses, links to real benchmarks ( not self serving white papers ) would be appreciated. I have glanced at your Tegra3 thread but have not read it all the way through after I saw that it seemed to depend a lot on a white paper and not real comparison tests. It is true that the current GPU the Krait uses is not as fast as the one in the Tegra 3, but graphics is only one element of overall performance. The only benchmarks that I have seen Tegra beat out Krait on were benchmarks that emphasized more than two threads, and then not by much.
Dave_S said:
As unlikely as that seems considering the slower cores that Nvidia uses, links to real benchmarks ( not self serving white papers ) would be appreciated. I have glanced at your Tegra3 thread but have not read it all the way through after I saw that it seemed to depend a lot on a white paper and not real comparison tests. It is true that the current GPU the Krait uses is not as fast as the one in the Tegra 3, but graphics is only one element of overall performance. The only benchmarks that I have seen Tegra beat out Krait on were benchmarks that emphasized more than two threads, and then not by much.
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Its not my tegra3 thread I'm talking about. I think its the Prime alternatives thread created by shinzz. We had a huge debate over it. More benchmarks n supporting arguments in that thread. Check it out if you get the chance.
demandarin said:
Its not my tegra3 thread I'm talking about. I think its the Prime alternatives thread created by shinzz. We had a huge debate over it. More benchmarks n supporting arguments in that thread. Check it out if you get the chance.
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Thanks, Will do. Gotta run for a doctor appointment right now though.
I frankly think the power savings with the fifth core is mostly hype. According to many battery tests I've read online and my own experiences with my Prime, it doesn't get much different battery life from dual core tablets.
Quad core is better for future but problem for backwards compatibility... it's definitely good for tablet.
jedi5diah said:
Quad core is better for future but problem for backwards compatibility... it's definitely good for tablet.
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Here is another benchmark that shows that there is a least one current dual core that can soundly beat the Nvida quad core at benchmarks that are not heavily multithreaded.
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...ragon-s4-has-the-competition-on-the-defensive
Buddy Revell said:
I frankly think the power savings with the fifth core is mostly hype. According to many battery tests I've read online and my own experiences with my Prime, it doesn't get much different battery life from dual core tablets.
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No dual core android tablet battery last longer than an ipad1. My prime easily outlasts my Ipad in battery life. The battery hype is real. Tons of people here seeing 9-11hrs+ on a single charge with moderate to semi heavy use on balanced mode. Even longer on power savings mode.
demandarin said:
No dual core android tablet battery last longer than an ipad1. My prime easily outlasts my Ipad in battery life. The battery hype is real. Tons of people here seeing 9-11hrs+ on a single charge with moderate to semi heavy use on balanced mode. Even longer on power savings mode.
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Really? I get 9-12 hours constant use on balanced. Plus 6 more with the dock.
Sent from my PG8610000 using xda premium
I think if Krait were to come out with quad core then it would beat out tegra 3 otherwise no. Also they are supposed to improve the chip with updated gpu to 3.xx in future releases. Also benchmarks have been proven to be wrong in the past so who knows? Not like benchmarks can determine real life performance, nor does the average user need that much power.
Companion core really does work
jdeoxys said:
Really? I get 9-12 hours constant use on balanced. Plus 6 more with the dock.
Sent from my PG8610000 using xda premium
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Strange, we just started uni here (Australia) and I've been using my prime all day, showing it off to friends (to their absolute amazement!) showing off glowball, camera effects with eyes, mouth etc. 2 hours of lecture typing, gaming on the train, watched a few videos and an episode of community played music on speaker for about 40 mins, webbrowsed etc etc started using at lightly at 9 am (only properly at say 1:30 pm) and it's 10:00pm now and GET THIS!!:
72% battery on tablet and 41% on the dock. It's just crazy man. No joke, it just keeps going, I can't help but admit the power saving must be real :/
Edit: Whoops, I quoted the wrong guy, but you get the idea.
That's what I'm saying. Battery life on prime is great. Add a dock n battery life is sick!
I do agree a quad core variant of krait or S4 will give tegra3 a really good battle. Regardless I'm more than satisfied with power of tegra3. I'm not the type as soon as i see a newer or higher spec tab, ill feel like mines is useless or outdated. With have developement going hard now for this device. Just wait till the 1.8-2ghz+ overclock roms n kernels drop. Then we would even give new quad core higher speed chips a good run.
Above all of that, Android needs to developement more apps to take advantage of the more powerful chips like tegra3 and those that's upcoming. Software is still trying to catch up to hardware spec. Android apps haven't even all been made yet to take advantage of tegra2 power..yet lol. With nvidia/tegra3 we have advantage because developers are encouraged to make apps n games to take advantage of tegra3 power.
Regardless we all Android. Need to focus more on the bigger enemy, apple n IOS
Hi all Ive seen a few people mention game boosting apps and have found a number of paid and free options but am wondering what people here are using (if any) ?
Many thanks
Matt
flipside101 said:
Hi all Ive seen a few people mention game boosting apps and have found a number of paid and free options but am wondering what people here are using (if any) ?
Many thanks
Matt
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Hi there,
I (probablu) ran into the same problem as you did: whilst playing demanding games (like GTA 3/Vicy City) the device stutters and is having difficulty producing a smooth framerate. On an HTC Sense rom whilst playing GTA:VC I had like 13 FPS @ low settings (18% draw distance, 70% screen resolution, medium GFX settings and dynamic shadows OFF) and it was just awful. Then I decided to put CM10 on my device. In the settings menu there is an option called 'Performance' and you can change the profile there. The default profile is 'ondemand' but I changed it to 'performance' to let the quad-cores work at full capacity. Now, all of a sudden, I can run GTA:VC on the highest settings possible at a steady 30+ FPS.
If tl;dr: don't bother with 'game boosters', they will just terminate proccesses running in the background. Instead flash your device with a nice ROM: CM10. It has A) better battery life because there are no unnecessary processes running in the background and B) overall better performance due to the fact there is no SENSE interfering.
Just my two cents.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1783260
Actually this app is no joke and was made specifically for the one x, with this app you will achieve greater performance than with cm10 or forcing the performance governor which will just overheat your phone, the tegra 3 processor couples the gpu to the cpu, for example when the game uses only two cpus the gpu is limited to half speed which is why gameloft games lag, gaming boost decouples the gpu, optimizes the cpu governor and sets the minfrees to aggressive so that the game receives enough ram to maintain a stable framerate.
ryanjsoo said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1783260
Actually this app is no joke and was made specifically for the one x, with this app you will achieve greater performance than with cm10 or forcing the performance governor which will just overheat your phone, the tegra 3 processor couples the gpu to the cpu, for example when the game uses only two cpus the gpu is limited to half speed which is why gameloft games lag, gaming boost decouples the gpu, optimizes the cpu governor and sets the minfrees to aggressive so that the game receives enough ram to maintain a stable framerate.
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But is it suitable for our HOX+ ? since the HOX+ is based on another version of the Tegra 3 will it still work stabily ???
djsynth said:
But is it suitable for our HOX+ ? since the HOX+ is based on another version of the Tegra 3 will it still work stabily ???
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The HOX+ is not based on another version of tegra. It's just a newer revision of the same chip in the HOX.
Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk 2