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Does the new hardware call for a graphics processor?
I know that Steve Jobs never sells a piece of hardware without a dedicated graphics processor, such as in the iPhone (PowerVR MBX-Lite graphics processor), or the Macbook (NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT).
In windows machines, it is always an after-thought.
Snapdragon includes a perfectly reasonable graphics chip.
It just needs to be utilized with good drivers.
Shasarak said:
Snapdragon includes a perfectly reasonable graphics chip.
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so no dedicated graphics processor?
Looks like iphone will still rule.
chiks19018 said:
so no dedicated graphics processor?
Looks like iphone will still rule.
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Like everything else, we'll have to wait for MIX. But with their massive push into gaming and focus on XNA, I have no doubt that the graphics capability will be at least as good as if not light years ahead of iPhone.
RustyGrom said:
Like everything else, we'll have to wait for MIX. But with their massive push into gaming and focus on XNA, I have no doubt that the graphics capability will be at least as good as if not light years ahead of iPhone.
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I sure do hope. But history says otherwise. MS never pushed for a graphics card with any of it's products as a "required" item. If the same happens here and Apple develops a new iphone 4gs with an even more powerful processor and as usual combine a dedicated graphics processor, then WP7 will be in the same boat as now.
chiks19018 said:
I sure do hope. But history says otherwise. MS never pushed for a graphics card with any of it's products as a "required" item. If the same happens here and Apple develops a new iphone 4gs with an even more powerful processor and as usual combine a dedicated graphics processor, then WP7 will be in the same boat as now.
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What part of WP7 is like WM6? It's entirely different. Microsoft had practically no hardware requirements before, now they're being super strict. Gaming is a huge portion of their focus. We should know more next week at GDC. Besides, Snapdragon includes full 3d acceleration. There's no need for a discrete graphics chip as far as I'm aware.
Shasarak said:
Snapdragon includes a perfectly reasonable graphics chip.
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chiks19018 said:
so no dedicated graphics processor?
Looks like iphone will still rule.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What?! No, I said Snapdragon includes a perfectly reasonable graphics chip. How on Earth did you interpret that as meaning the exact opposite of what I said???
Snapdragon is not just a CPU. Snapdragon is a chipset, an entire mobile phone platform that consists of several separate chips. One of them is the CPU. Another of them is a graphics chip (or, if you prefer to phrase it that way, a "dedicated graphics processor") made by ATI/AMD. Honestly, have you never seen the Electopia demo running on a Snapdragon phone? The graphics are really quite impressive.
Yes, the Snapdragon GPU is somewhat less powerful than the one in the iPhone 3GS, but it's not an order of magnitude difference, and the faster CPU in Snapdragon (coupled with improved NEON instructions) somewhat compensates. Certainly the Snapdragon GPU is way more powerful than the one included with MSM72xx, and even that can run Xtrakt quite happily; it's miles ahead of the one in the iPhone 3G, too.
Shasarak said:
What?! No, I said Snapdragon includes a perfectly reasonable graphics chip. How on Earth did you interpret that as meaning the exact opposite of what I said???
Snapdragon is not just a CPU. Snapdragon is a chipset, an entire mobile phone platform that consists of several separate chips. One of them is the CPU. Another of them is a graphics chip (or, if you prefer to phrase it that way, a "dedicated graphics processor") made by ATI/AMD. Honestly, have you never seen the Electopia demo running on a Snapdragon phone? The graphics are really quite impressive.
Yes, the Snapdragon GPU is somewhat less powerful than the one in the iPhone 3GS, but it's not an order of magnitude difference, and the faster CPU in Snapdragon (coupled with improved NEON instructions) somewhat compensates. Certainly the Snapdragon GPU is way more powerful than the one included with MSM72xx, and even that can run Xtrakt quite happily; it's miles ahead of the one in the iPhone 3G, too.
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And thats for qsd8250.
Newer generation of snapdragon(msm8xxx and dual core QSD8672) has 4x greater performance than the snapdragon1. Don't know how's msm7x30 graphics performance. Besides we don't know which snapdragon chip will be used in windows phones.
It could either be qsd8650a which is 30% faster than the one used in HD2 or it could be the new msm7x30 or it could even be the high end msm8xxx which supports 1,3Ghz CPU, 1080p video and 4x faster GPU - hopefully it won't be qsd8250 which is manufactured at 65nm but something newer at 45nm. Power efficiency is very important, besides those newer chips just like tegra should be able to shutdown unused parts to minimize power consumption.
Out of curiosity - What's stopping WP7s manufacturers from using Tegra chips? I know Microsoft is working closely with Qualcomm, but does that automatically disqualify Nvidia as a supplier?
Regards
Silverdragondk said:
Out of curiosity - What's stopping WP7s manufacturers from using Tegra chips? I know Microsoft is working closely with Qualcomm, but does that automatically disqualify Nvidia as a supplier?
Regards
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Well MS clearly stated that qualcomm is first chip supplier for Windows Phones. Probably in the future they will allow tegra, omap and probably samsung chips too.
For now we are stuck with snapdragon which isn't that bad IMO.
Silverdragondk said:
Out of curiosity - What's stopping WP7s manufacturers from using Tegra chips? I know Microsoft is working closely with Qualcomm, but does that automatically disqualify Nvidia as a supplier?
Regards
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Drivers. MS isn't giving the OEMs as much control over the lower level OS and is developing all of the drivers themselves. No more will we have the problem of HTC deciding that 3d drivers aren't needed.
Wishmaster89 said:
And thats for qsd8250.
Newer generation of snapdragon(msm8xxx and dual core QSD8672) has 4x greater performance than the snapdragon1. Don't know how's msm7x30 graphics performance. Besides we don't know which snapdragon chip will be used in windows phones.
It could either be qsd8650a which is 30% faster than the one used in HD2 or it could be the new msm7x30 or it could even be the high end msm8xxx which supports 1,3Ghz CPU, 1080p video and 4x faster GPU - hopefully it won't be qsd8250 which is manufactured at 65nm but something newer at 45nm. Power efficiency is very important, besides those newer chips just like tegra should be able to shutdown unused parts to minimize power consumption.
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It will be sick if they annouce the msm8xxx being required and that's why HD2 isn't supported. I'd take that trade off.
Wishmaster89 said:
And thats for qsd8250.
Newer generation of snapdragon(msm8xxx and dual core QSD8672) has 4x greater performance than the snapdragon1. Don't know how's msm7x30 graphics performance. Besides we don't know which snapdragon chip will be used in windows phones.
It could either be qsd8650a which is 30% faster than the one used in HD2 or it could be the new msm7x30 or it could even be the high end msm8xxx which supports 1,3Ghz CPU, 1080p video and 4x faster GPU - hopefully it won't be qsd8250 which is manufactured at 65nm but something newer at 45nm. Power efficiency is very important, besides those newer chips just like tegra should be able to shutdown unused parts to minimize power consumption.
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Not all Snapdragon variants are actually intended to be used in phones. Most of the more powerful ones will only ever end up in netbooks and devices like that.
Wishmaster89 said:
Well MS clearly stated that qualcomm is first chip supplier for Windows Phones. Probably in the future they will allow tegra, omap and probably samsung chips too.
For now we are stuck with snapdragon which isn't that bad IMO.
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The decision to exclude Samsung processors surprised me a bit. Samsung's "Hummingbird" CPU is easily the equal of the current generation Snapdragon, and Samsung has been a major supporter of Windows Mobile in the past. I guess MS wanted to limit itself to writing drivers for just one platform - allowing Samsung or OMAP processors would mean also allowing other GPUs, other GPS and Bluetooth hardware, etc.
Shasarak said:
The decision to exclude Samsung processors surprised me a bit. Samsung's "Hummingbird" CPU is easily the equal of the current generation Snapdragon, and Samsung has been a major supporter of Windows Mobile in the past. I guess MS wanted to limit itself to writing drivers for just one platform - allowing Samsung or OMAP processors would mean also allowing other GPUs, other GPS and Bluetooth hardware, etc.
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It's always sounded to me like they just picked one to launch with and will support others going forward. Writing drivers and testing other platforms at this point doesn't really give a good bang for the buck.
We should know on the 10th (the first GDC windows phone sessions). I would think the graphics capability would be something they would share there. But then again, they've shown an astounding ability to just say "wait for MIX" so far so they very well could keep that up.
Developing Games for Windows Phone 7 Series
Speaker: Michael Klucher
Time: 1:15-2:15pm
The future of Windows Phone has never looked better. With the release of Windows Phone 7 Series, game developers will be able to create amazing content rapidly. This talk outlines the basic framework for games, presents Windows Phone 7 Series device characteristics, and provides and overview of game development on the phone.
High Performance 3D Games on Windows Phone 7 Series
Speaker: Tomas Vykruta & Shawn Hargreaves
Time: 2:30-3:30pm
Windows Phone 7 Series is a highly capable platform for game development. This talk covers 3D game development on Windows Phone 7 Series with an emphasis on the unique characteristics of the platform. The talk also focuses on optimizing high-performance games for the platform, to help developers squeeze out every last drop of performance.
Development and Debugging Tools for Windows Phone 7 Series
Speaker: Cullen Waters
Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm
This talk discusses the basic tools available to game developers on Windows Phone 7 Series, including debugging, emulation, and performance tools. The talk places special emphasis on best practices for performance and profiling tools that can be used to optimize games for Windows Phone 7 Series.
Bringing the Best of Xbox LIVE to Windows Phone 7 Series
Speaker: Adam Schaeffer
Time: 5:00-6:00pm
The Xbox LIVE service is going mobile! With Windows Phone 7 Series, core features such as Achievements, Leaderboards, and game invites will be available to games on Windows Phone 7 Series devices. This talk covers the basics of the services available and how they can be used to enable core Xbox LIVE functionality in games. In addition, this talk will present best practices for connecting Windows Phone 7 Series games to back-end servers.
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I imagine that they want WP7 to be as smooth and hitch-free as possible to start out with. That means not allowing for any unknown variables such as different hardware, drivers, software.
It's the same for Iphone or any of the console game machines. It's one piece of hardware that is always the same making it easier to plan things for and develop things for. Which ends up meaning a higher perception of quality from the consumers due to lack of glitches and crashes.
Hence Apple's commercials saying how often PCs crash and stuff. They crash because PCs have way more variables as far as hardware and drivers than Macs have making many more incompatibilities.
Microsoft will probably allow other hardware once WP7 has a good name going in the consumers eyes.
Shasarak said:
Not all Snapdragon variants are actually intended to be used in phones. Most of the more powerful ones will only ever end up in netbooks and devices like that.
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You're right. QSD8672 is targeted at smartbooks but msm8xxx is designed to power both smarphones and smartbooks. Besides OMAP4 and tegra2 are powerful but still we can expect smartphones based on those platforms next year.
The decision to exclude Samsung processors surprised me a bit. Samsung's "Hummingbird" CPU is easily the equal of the current generation Snapdragon, and Samsung has been a major supporter of Windows Mobile in the past. I guess MS wanted to limit itself to writing drivers for just one platform - allowing Samsung or OMAP processors would mean also allowing other GPUs, other GPS and Bluetooth hardware, etc.
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I think so too. More hardware platforms mean more work to do. So I think that support for other hardware platforms will come after they'll finish V1 of WP7 - this way they will just have to port complete full OS from snapdragon to other platform.
Shasarak said:
What?! No, I said Snapdragon includes a perfectly reasonable graphics chip. How on Earth did you interpret that as meaning the exact opposite of what I said???
Snapdragon is not just a CPU. Snapdragon is a chipset, an entire mobile phone platform that consists of several separate chips. One of them is the CPU. Another of them is a graphics chip (or, if you prefer to phrase it that way, a "dedicated graphics processor") made by ATI/AMD. Honestly, have you never seen the Electopia demo running on a Snapdragon phone? The graphics are really quite impressive.
Yes, the Snapdragon GPU is somewhat less powerful than the one in the iPhone 3GS, but it's not an order of magnitude difference, and the faster CPU in Snapdragon (coupled with improved NEON instructions) somewhat compensates. Certainly the Snapdragon GPU is way more powerful than the one included with MSM72xx, and even that can run Xtrakt quite happily; it's miles ahead of the one in the iPhone 3G, too.
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my bad. I thought snapdragon is a processor.
Watch this amazing video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQv_3fwopo8
The guy plays from PC to WP7S then continues to Xbox360. Codes on different platform is almost the same!
Wow, that's cool. Not much of a game of course, and I don't know if real game developers use Visual Studio, but that's the kind of synergy that's really a theoretical killer feature for the WP7 as a platform.
vangrieg said:
Wow, that's cool. Not much of a game of course, and I don't know if real game developers use Visual Studio, but that's the kind of synergy that's really a theoretical killer feature for the WP7 as a platform.
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Real devs of all types (besides *nix I suppose) use Visual Studio. There's plenty of "real" games already using XNA as well as community games. It's rapid (ie cheap) and yet still rather powerful. Yea, you lose a bit in performance since it's managed but it's not too far off.
The guy mentioned that this is the entertainment scenario and he also said that he has shown the productivity scenario. Could this mean that you can seamlessly work from your PC to your Phone and vice versa?
Just curious, How fast the Zune HD Tegra processor compared to 1 GHz Snapdragon chip (for example: HD2) ?
Anyone know any good benchmark result?
I don't have any hard numbers and I doubt they exist. Mobile platforms vary so much it would be hard to get a fair comparison.
But judging from what I've read, th Tegra would be pretty close when it comes to 3d rendering and video however the Snapdragon would eat it's lunch when it comes to general purpose stuff. It's running the newer ARM architecture and is clocked much higher. The Tegra seems at home in media stuff (Zune HD, portable game consoles, etc) but Snapdragon wins on phones which make more use of the general purpose ARM CPU core instead of the graphics hardware.
Thanks Rusty,
I read more now and I think the main reason would be that Snapdragon has cellular communication and GPS built-in, proven and being used already. While Tegra does not have that, but more powerful on media.
RustyGrom said:
I don't have any hard numbers and I doubt they exist. Mobile platforms vary so much it would be hard to get a fair comparison.
But judging from what I've read, th Tegra would be pretty close when it comes to 3d rendering and video however the Snapdragon would eat it's lunch when it comes to general purpose stuff. It's running the newer ARM architecture and is clocked much higher. The Tegra seems at home in media stuff (Zune HD, portable game consoles, etc) but Snapdragon wins on phones which make more use of the general purpose ARM CPU core instead of the graphics hardware.
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Ok so what is the go with tegra 3 support, does htc manage the firmware or does nvidia have control over the updates that will be coming to these devices over the future ??.
Also do any games outside of tegra games actually support gpu acceleration or are they all cpu coded only for a wider support of devices ??.
I don't believe there are any CPU-rendered games out there that you should be worried about. If there are any at all, the quad-core can power through it. Saying that though, there are some games that are not optimized for T3 yet. One noticeable game is Small Street. Oh gosh that game lags so badly my eyes hurt... HTC does manage the firmware, but nVidia is still in charge of any driver updates for the SoC itself.
I'm loving my yoga 11, however at times I just feel that Windows 8 RT slows down especially when multi-tasking. Since our Tegra's are clocked at 1.3Ghz and the same Chip in android devices runs at 1.5, with overclocked kernels available to run at 1.8-2.0Ghz, what are the chances we see this type of hack/development come to windows 8 RT? Im not sure the security obstacles that would present, but haven't seen much on this to even know if someone has looked into this or actively working on method to do so.
Thanks!
I have been thinking about this as well. Im sure it can be done, but by who? thats the question. Im sure we can easily squeeze some more power out of our device. Good luck to whoever spearheads this
ej_424 said:
I'm loving my yoga 11, however at times I just feel that Windows 8 RT slows down especially when multi-tasking. Since our Tegra's are clocked at 1.3Ghz and the same Chip in android devices runs at 1.5, with overclocked kernels available to run at 1.8-2.0Ghz, what are the chances we see this type of hack/development come to windows 8 RT? Im not sure the security obstacles that would present, but haven't seen much on this to even know if someone has looked into this or actively working on method to do so.
Thanks!
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The tegra isnt overclocked to 1.5 in android devices. There are actually 3 models of the Tegra 3 at different clock speeds. The one used in the RT is the lowest model (1.2GHz) overclocked to 1.3GHz already. I believe the other models are 1.4 and 1.6 with a few ROMs adding about 100MHz overclock as needed. 2ghz seems extreme though.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
The tegra isnt overclocked to 1.5 in android devices. There are actually 3 models of the Tegra 3 at different clock speeds. The one used in the RT is the lowest model (1.2GHz) overclocked to 1.3GHz already. I believe the other models are 1.4 and 1.6 with a few ROMs adding about 100MHz overclock as needed. 2ghz seems extreme though.
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I've thought about this as well but have always been too scared to ask. Windows is obviously not foreign to processor scaling and power management, perhaps there's a way to make a custom power plan or something. Maybe the way to approach overlooking is not 'like' Android, but 'like' regular old windows. I have no idea and am a noob, but I thought I'd just toss that out there.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
The tegra isnt overclocked to 1.5 in android devices. There are actually 3 models of the Tegra 3 at different clock speeds. The one used in the RT is the lowest model (1.2GHz) overclocked to 1.3GHz already. I believe the other models are 1.4 and 1.6 with a few ROMs adding about 100MHz overclock as needed. 2ghz seems extreme though.
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http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html
Its support for Windows RT is still under development. It isn't overclocked on the Surface RT/Vivo Tab but underclocked to compensate for the missing support for the fifth battery saver core.
We should expect the performance and battery to get better as they iron this out :laugh:
Actually, for those who have gotten Surface RT since launch... I bet most of you have already experience better performance after each monthly firmware update
LastBattle said:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html
Its support for Windows RT is still under development. It isn't overclocked on the Surface RT/Vivo Tab but underclocked to compensate for the missing support for the fifth battery saver core.
We should expect the performance and battery to get better as they iron this out :laugh:
Actually, for those who have gotten Surface RT since launch... I bet most of you have already experience better performance after each monthly firmware update
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That's a very good news indeed and we should then probably be able to run the Tablet at 1.6Ghz Quad core instead of the actual 1.3Ghz quad core :good:
LastBattle said:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html
Its support for Windows RT is still under development. It isn't overclocked on the Surface RT/Vivo Tab but underclocked to compensate for the missing support for the fifth battery saver core.
We should expect the performance and battery to get better as they iron this out :laugh:
Actually, for those who have gotten Surface RT since launch... I bet most of you have already experience better performance after each monthly firmware update
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Click to collapse
No where in that link does it mention it being underclocked. The 1.4ghz single core/1.3 quad core is a feature of the entire tegra product line, not jsut the surface RT.
It does mention that the 5th battery saver core doesnt work on windows RT though, that will help.
Interesting: There is a "~MHz" key in regedit under local machine -> Hardware -> Description -> System -> Central processor -> 0, 1, 2, or 3. It is set to 1300, but changing it doesn't do anything and it reverts upon reboot.
Even if we can't overclock this thing, is there a way to resurrect the "High Performance" power plan that disappeared in RT? One that would set the CPU to 100% by default, all the time?
Any update or more info on this?
bigsnack said:
Any update or more info on this?
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+1
hope to see a 'high performance' feature on the pwr mgnment as well, especially when we are hooking up RT onto the power line and battery life is not so much of an issue in this case.
Rogerngks said:
hope to see a 'high performance' feature on the pwr mgnment as well, especially when we are hooking up RT onto the power line and battery life is not so much of an issue in this case.
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iirc, you can still set your cpu states through powercfg in the command line. I might be wrong though.
Is the 5th power saving core just disabled or not present on our hardware?
bigsnack said:
Is the 5th power saving core just disabled or not present on our hardware?
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According to NVidia's website, Tegra 3 for RT is "still under development." (http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html) It also lists it as only being quad-core on Windows 8 devices.
I had personally reeealy hoped that one of the highlights for RT 8.1 was going to be reworked support for the 5th core, bringing performance and battery life improvements. Alas, it was not to be.
jtg007 said:
According to NVidia's website, Tegra 3 for RT is "still under development." (http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html) It also lists it as only being quad-core on Windows 8 devices.
I had personally reeealy hoped that one of the highlights for RT 8.1 was going to be reworked support for the 5th core, bringing performance and battery life improvements. Alas, it was not to be.
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I cant see how the 5th core would bring a performance improvement. The system cannot use the 5th core as an actual 5th core, it shuts most of the other cores down to sleep when it needs the 5th which is also an incredibly low performance core, its just for power saving really, or simply hopping around the UI and checking your email, NVidia claim that android can also play video while running purely on the 5th core although this never happened on my Nexus 7 without any other apps running, it carried on running using 1 of the main cores for that.
Would definitely boost the battery life though and thats not something to be ignored. But there are few times where that 5th core really comes into its own, perhaps it just wasn't worth the time for MS to add companion core support to windows RT 8.1 when not all RT tablets use the tegra.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
I cant see how the 5th core would bring a performance improvement. The system cannot use the 5th core as an actual 5th core, it shuts most of the other cores down to sleep when it needs the 5th which is also an incredibly low performance core, its just for power saving really, or simply hopping around the UI and checking your email, NVidia claim that android can also play video while running purely on the 5th core although this never happened on my Nexus 7 without any other apps running, it carried on running using 1 of the main cores for that.
Would definitely boost the battery life though and thats not something to be ignored. But there are few times where that 5th core really comes into its own, perhaps it just wasn't worth the time for MS to add companion core support to windows RT 8.1 when not all RT tablets use the tegra.
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I always thought that the 5th core could run simultaneously with the other 4 to manage background tasks, etc, thus leaving less side work for the others. I could be wrong though. Also, I know of only one RT tab to NOT use Tegra (Dell), and it was the first to drop price and flop.
Anyways, the exciting thing about kexec/Linux prospects is that if we were to get in, there are a lot of Android and Linux versions that run on Tegra 3, which hopefully means we wouldn't have too tough of a time getting at that 5th core working then.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Well the Samsung Ativ Tab RT is also using the S4 cpu, but that device had a limited release from what it seems like in North America. I too was under the assumption that th3 5th core could be used at the same time with the other cores, which could free up power for other things. Like the 5th core would be used for the low power task, while at the same the the other 4 cores are being used for a more process heavy task.
It would be interesting to have Android or Linux running in a dual boot situation on our RT devices, or if even possible do what Samsung is doing, and have it emulated in Windows so you can run apps side by side.
No, the 5th core is not an actual 5th core. The idea is you have 4 full blown cores at 1.2, 1.4 or 1.6ghz depending on the tegra model (and then the tegra can overclock automatically to 1.3, 1.5 or 1.7), thats quite power hungry really. But as CPU usage falls the tegra shuts a few cores off, if the system cant benefit from all 4 cores being active it will drop to 3, then 2 and then 1. Sometimes even that 1 core running at 1.2ghz is compartively power hungry, so the tegra shuts the final core down and fires up the companion core which I think runs around the 700MHz range, its slow at any rate, its also built optimised purely for power consumption over performance. Idea is you can go from a full quad core chip when you need the performance but then when the device is idling you can switch over to the companion core and shut the main 4 all off and save alot of power.
NVidia claim that the companion core combined with the hardware video acceleration of the tegra should be able to play HD videos on its own. That doesnt really seem to happen outside of the lab. But when you lock the screen on your android device it often jumps into companion core mode, you can browse around the android home screen and use a few lightweight apps on the companion core no problem, and when it does begin to struggle the tegra just has to skip over to its main core and gradually bring the other 3 main cores online as it needs them.
It never has the companion and main cores on in a state able to be used by the operating system simultaneously though.
Samsungs so called octa-core chips also do the same. They arent really octa core chips, in reality they are a quad core cortex A15 chip and a quad core lower clock speed cortex A9 chip (possibly even A7) on the same piece of silicon, when CPU load is high it runs as a quad core A15, when it doesnt need so much performance it shuts down the A15 and swaps for the A9, the 2 CPU's are near separate and at any one time the chip is only running as a single quad core processor not an octacore. Similar to the companion core design this can lead to a massive boost in battery life. In both A15 and A9 modes the processor is capable of shutting down individual cores as need be.
Tegra may well be the chip in all main tablets, but when microsoft first started working on windows RT there were meant to be qualcomm snapdragon, NVidia tegra and texas instruments OMAP devices all coming to market so of course microsoft at the time needed RT to run on all 3. The original plan was that there would be56 3rd party manufacturers manufacturing RT tablets, 2 per chip vendor except TI. Originally qualcomm partnered with HP and Samsung, NVidia with Lenovo and Asus and Toshiba with TI In the end TI dropped out and shortly after downscaled OMAP production (I think it has completely stopped with the exception of existing contracts now, or at least chips intended for tablet usage have been, they had a few industrial chips under the OMAP branding that might still be available, their ARM based microcontroller and DSP lines are still going fine), TI took Toshiba with them. Of course by the time TI dropped out there were already running builds of RT. HP dropped out and were replaced by dell. Acer were slated to be joining the program but didn't, when MS unveiled the surface that killed it for acer.
Another limitation is that Windows RT is essentially just an ARM port of windows 8, windows 8 and the NT kernel in general didnt already have support for the companion core or similar tech, it would be pointless adding it to the base NT kernel as hardly any devices use it and it would probably lead to issues introducing it only for tegra.
Surely Microsoft can see that getting the maximum out of the CPUs in their own devices is a good thing? I get that they have to support a few ARM architectures, but there's no reason why Windows RT can't be optimised with a specific update for the Surface?
bydandie said:
Surely Microsoft can see that getting the maximum out of the CPUs in their own devices is a good thing? I get that they have to support a few ARM architectures, but there's no reason why Windows RT can't be optimised with a specific update for the Surface?
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It would be a maintenance nightmare. You know the way everyone *****es and moans about the non existent android fragmentation (or at the very least hugely over exaggerated)? Now apply that to windows RT, its already a struggling platform. You don't want more ammo for the opposition, the extra effort probably isn't worth it. Under sleep mode or single core mode (non companion, RT will scale back to single core non companion happily) the battery life is good enough, companion would be nice, but non essential. Companion core would need to be supported at a kernel level. It would be a nightmare to keep one version of the kernel (if you don't know what a kernel is, consider it the chassis of a car or the foundations of a house, its the very core of the operating system) for each tablet.
Hey guys, many of you will know that most games you play lack in FPS, most commonly in NFS most wanted or real racing 3, heck ive even see people say Temple run lags.
Some people say, Developers need to make the games work with the 16 core GPU as its not that common.
I looked it up, and it turns out that even though its a 16 core GPU it isnt even nearly as good as the Adreno 320 found in the nexus 4, Xperia Z etc and that the CPU Isnt as good as last years processors ( SD S4 Pro, Nvidia Quad core Tegra 3 )
to be fair I already knew that the Processor wasnt that good, but for anyone who says that their games arent running well its because of that.
I have to give a hand to Huawei though, in there recent firmware updates the benchmark scores have been getting higher, which is great meaning the processor, RAM and GPU are all working a little bit better then they were before.
Im just curious as to how long they can keep updating it to be better, it wont take long until mainstream games require a minimum of the equivalent of the Adreno 330.
Ive also read that the Huawei Ascend P6 + is it? The phablet version will have a better processor clocked at 1.6ghz and maybe a better GPU?
Anyone got any more info? or do games run well enough for you not to care?
Let me know
- Jack
The gaming performance is mixed. See this video: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HH8LskTQQWA
As you can see, some high graphics demanding games work well while others not. I don't game on mobile so didn't try any gaming except two days ago with Shadowgun: deadzone. I use B118. While on the video above, it only complains about glitches on panning, but for me oddly the whole graphics was corrupted and unplayable. Maybe someone with B117 or B116 Roms could check if shadowgun works better.
But I still doubt its a problem with the processor. Because the benchmarks are close to the Nexus 4 and S3. I doubt also there are any games made that would not be compatible with those devices and hence if it can work on that, it should work on the P6. It would take another year atleast before game developers plan to ignore Nexus 4 and Samsung S3.** Hence problem seems to come down to optimization.* (Also, with the shadowgun updating itself a week ago, they have officially said that the new update has problem with all Samsungs devices cause of its GPU and they would come with a fix. This could be the same issue with P6 that these games haven't been made to optimize for Vivante GC 4000.)
Furthermore, I also think that the unique abilities of the Huawei like the 64bit memory etc are not being taken advantage off because of other processors lacking it.
As for news on K3V3 and K3V2 Pro processor and the new P6S, see:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2487791
It's not a good gpu, never has been, it is not optimized for almost anything, because there are only 2 phones that use this gpu. The cpu isnt that fast either. A Nexus 4 (Which costs as much as P6) is way better in performance, support, user customisations, stock rom etc.
tauio111 said:
It's not a good gpu, never has been, it is not optimized for almost anything, because there are only 2 phones that use this gpu. The cpu isnt that fast either. A Nexus 4 (Which costs as much as P6) is way better in performance, support, user customisations, stock rom etc.
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The nexus 4 is almost half the price at £159 for the 8gb and the huawei ascend P6 retails at £329 ( although its gone down from £329 too £309 to £279 )
The nexus 4 seems like the better option, ive had one, they're quick, good looking but the battery sucks and so does the camera.
Honestly, the only reason i want a P6 is the amazing build, i want a metal phone so badly ! and apparently the camera isnt half bad
Optimization seems to be the problem. Agreed. But can it be solved by firmware updates ? Or is it totally dependent on game developers ? Android 4.4 brings better optimizations including for games supposedly. So that would be one option im looking forward too. So if android is better optimized maybe soon the super power processors would get tough to differentiate on usage performance and would become less important.
If the GPU is inherently bad, then how can the likes of real racing 3, asphalt 8, modern warfare 4 work perfectly fine on it ?
warea said:
If the GPU is inherently bad, then how can the likes of real racing 3, asphalt 8, modern warfare 4 work perfectly fine on it ?
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I just played Asphalt 7 on the P6...lagging in menu's and in gameplay...
Engineers at HUAWEI screwed up a bit when chosing the GPU for otherwise pretty nice chip. While the GPU has an ok performance, since its olny present on very few devices, devs aren't showing much love. This is understandable, because I can see why devs wouldn't want to spend resources on optimizing their app for a GPU noone really has.
Since I don't use my device for gaming, I'm quite satisfied with my purchase.
Performance comparison of the GPU: http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2671145379?lp=5027&is_bakan=0&mo_device=1
(Use chrome browser to translate)
Shadowgun: Deadzone works like this on my B118.
Any idea why the green man walking in screen happens ? I get in black too. And odd part is that i have seen users getting this problem when they play temple run even though there are other users including online reviews that find temple run working very smooth and fluid.
warea said:
Shadowgun: Deadzone works like this on my B118.
Any idea why the green man walking in screen happens ? I get in black too. And odd part is that i have seen users getting this problem when they play temple run even though there are other users including online reviews that find temple run working very smooth and fluid.
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i have the solution delete cache of the game this is because the game try to save textures in sd card or something like that
Hi, lags in games are because Huawei runs a QEMU'd "Android Emulator" called Goldfish. Its same emulator as used by Android SDK on our computers
They also patched the Kernel for avoid flickering. Witch is needed if using real GPU in Goldfish.
Both in that mix are Horrorful for whole system Performance.
U can see this really bad on Benchmarks and heavy 3D Games.
GPU is faster as Tegra 3 (May about 30%) belive it or not
Traace said:
Hi, lags in games are because Huawei runs a QEMU'd "Android Emulator" called Goldfish. Its same emulator as used by Android SDK on our computers
They also patched the Kernel for avoid flickering. Witch is needed if using real GPU in Goldfish.
Both in that mix are Horrorful for whole system Performance.
U can see this really bad on Benchmarks and heavy 3D Games.
GPU is faster as Tegra 3 (May about 30%) belive it or not
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea must say im disappointed with GPU power on my P6 :/. My old SII is better in games :/
Is it really? I have no problem with graphics on it. If I want to play a game I generally use my PC. The P6 plays the little games perfectly.
Even Qualcomms new mid range 1.4ghz quad core processor is getting better antutu scores
http://androidcommunity.com/qualcom...rocessor-aimed-at-mid-range-devices-20131101/
I hope trace is right in that the kernal and so on are messed up by Huawei and hence the Huawei processors underperforming than what it really can. But more than games im actually looking out for the processor doing something special using up its unique capabilities like 64bit memory, more cores, and so on. Thereby allowing features like touchless control and advanced programming capabilities, better user interface performance and better battery management. Phones like Moto x and iPhones seem to perform much advanced even though they don't carry the highest end specs. And I would like such smart performance.
4 part series in-depth look into Vivante GPU:
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/09/11/vivante-gpu-tech-2d-uis/
Another review:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Vivante-Challenging-the-Status-Quo-In-Mobile-GPUs/
warea said:
4 part series in-depth look into Vivante GPU:
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/09/11/vivante-gpu-tech-2d-uis/
Another review:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Vivante-Challenging-the-Status-Quo-In-Mobile-GPUs/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice.
P6 has 64bit Memory Hardware, but its scaled down to 32bits while processing cause Java cant use
Phone Hardware is a beast even if GPU based on Adreno200. This is 16Core, orginal Adreno200 is 1-2Core.
Dual sim version
Is huawei ascend P6 dual sim version released???
This GPU is really good in physics, better then my wifes optimus g with adreno 320. And if u run YouiLabs Shader Test, adreno wont even start the BALL test. Looks like adreno cant handle it. So this gpu seems be great in shaders and physics.