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Many of you guys are good at programming and can whip up cabs in your sleep--I'm not so good at C++, etc but here's my contribution, hope it helps someone.
Analysis of Wizard ROMs
Objective: Try to determine if there is performance improvements in newer ROMs. Also to see if the 12->8 MB paging size has a measureable effect in performance.
Summary of Results:
There doesn't appear to be much of a measurable difference in performance among these ROMs, with the exception of the last two ROMs tested. For the rest of the pack, the hardware responds about the same with a little noise. Summitter's 2.17 ROM appears a little above average, but this could be just a testing glitch, and its not significantly above the others. This appears to indicate that the upgrade to decrease the paging pool has no effect (to this benchmark).
I'm concerned about the consistency of results with the last two. They were performed under slightly different test conditions (at home, vs at work for the others), and there's no reason ShogunMark's at least (if not both) shouldn't be closer to the others in performance. I plan to rerun these tomorrow and see how they compare.
Method: I flashed a decent cross-section of the ROMs out there--don't feel insulted if yours isn't included. In fact, I'd be happy to add yours to the mix--just ask! For each ROM listed, I flashed then immediately recorded stats from Settings>System> About, Device Info, and Memory. Then added PC Pro Labs Pocket PC Benchmark and embedded vb runtime (required for Benchmark), removed USB cable, soft-reset and ran benchmark software once to obtain last few columns of results.
Assumptions: The biggest assumption is that this is decent benchmarking software. While it was written for WM2003, its probably not a big stretch to assess WM2005. I konw Spb has a benchmark program, but it ran for about 1.5 hours on the first ROM. Too long for me, guess I'm just impatient! Other big assumption is that higher values are better, although this appears inversely releated for the file read/write benchmarks compared to the kb/sec measurements. This may also be true for the others, butsince they're all about the same it really doesn't matter.
Additional Observations: At the very least, this was an interesting exercise to record some comparable data regarding the different ROMs. ROMs have evolved over time, and sometimes there are questions about which ROM contains what, etc. This might lead to another idea where we keep track of the ROMs in some type of registry to track consistent information about each.
Analysis Improvements: This could be improved by using more current benchmark software. Spb Benchmark is a decent candidate, but takes a while to run. Also, the analysis could be improved with many benchmark runs per ROM instead of just one run. This would average out the "noise" betweens runs and might give a better indication of slight performance trends.
Finally, the method used above will be repeated under similar conditions for the last two ROMs to see if the provided results are valid.
Terms:
BM - Benchmark
GDI - graphics display test
CPU - central processing unit
kb/s - kilobytes per second (used for read/write tests).
wow, its like a report card for roms, lol and good work by the way...
however, is it possible to lay out the results in a better format?
nevermind.. i noticed this new damn board wont let you upload an excel file, i did it myself.. thanks again.. and i agree it is odd that the last 2 are lower than everyone else's but still close to each other.. i would vote computer as well
Good job! This pretty much confirms what I've been thinking for a long time...there's no real difference in performance. If you're going to add or alter the list, I'd like to also see the stock T-Mobile 2.26 rom thrown in there as well. Maybe if people see that "it seems faster" doesn't mean anything and they're all pretty much the same, they might think twice about risking their expensive toy for a reason they probably can't define.
zip it up and then upload it...
lvlolvlo said:
zip it up and then upload it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good idea! Zip includes the Excel file of results and run report for each of 8 runs performed so far with PC Pro benchmark.
Didn't get to updating this with my work computer today, but I will in the next few days.
Measuring units?
hi, jorge_culv, least numbers mean quicker?
Good question, and I honestly don't know the answer. There's no documentation with this benchmark, even on the hosting company's website. Other benchmarks I've used had higher numbers as better. There is one clue if you look closely at the file read and write tests for each ROM. It appears the lower benchmark scores match up with the faster read and write speeds, so for those it appears lower is better, not sure if that also applies to the CPU and graphics tests.
Also, I'm real hesitent about the last 2 runs--don't read too much into those until I can do more follow up testing (hopefully in the next few days).
markgamber said:
Good job! This pretty much confirms what I've been thinking for a long time...there's no real difference in performance. If you're going to add or alter the list, I'd like to also see the stock T-Mobile 2.26 rom thrown in there as well. Maybe if people see that "it seems faster" doesn't mean anything and they're all pretty much the same, they might think twice about risking their expensive toy for a reason they probably can't define.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mark, I'll try to throw in a T-Mo ROM as well. I'm not sure if this test really proves there's no difference in performance. I might be splitting hairs, but maybe it only proves there's no difference in CPU math, graphics or file read/write--in other words, the ROM upgrades affect performance in ways not measured by this benchmark. The factors measured by this benchmark sure seem more hardware related and maybe not influenced by the ROM at all. I was really hoping for a difference between the newer "30MB" roms, as that may affect read/write speed through the smaller page file, but the verdict is still out...
True, but it might be interesting to take a look at. I don't mean to come down on people creating these roms but personally, if there's a performance difference between any of them and stock 2.26, it's so small that I've never noticed it. When you compare a minute performance difference to the boost of overclocking the cpu, you wonder why you ever bothered risking the phone in the first place. At least I wondered why and, unable to come up with an answer other than "because I can" and not really wanting to throw away $350, I stopped putting new roms on the phone and won't do it again without a damn good reason.
Vladimyr said:
hi, jorge_culv, least numbers mean quicker?
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Click to collapse
Lower the number the better except for File read/write. I'm intrigued as to what gives the bottom two their boost in the benchmarks.
so what do you guys suggest as the best rom with both speed / batteries / stability?
More testing
I have 3 ROM version by this moment:
Qtek 2.18
T-mobile 2.26
AKU 3.2 on T-mobile 2.26
And i make test of CPU load on every ROM update by Rhino Stat.
On Qtek 2.18 and AKU 3.2 on T-mobile 2.26 CPU has constantly load 8-9% in stand-by mode.
And T-mobile 2.26 ROM has 0-1% CPU load in stand-by mode.
I currently have a Wizard 200 device with WM6. I am very pleased with the general performance of the device but it is getting old, falling apart (it has been much used and loved) and sorely lacks storage space (2GB maximum). It can be a little slow with some applications and rather unstable with others. It is a bit ugly too.
I love having a keyboard to use and the HTC Raphael 100 looks perfect. I know it is not readily available yet and the Diamond is the closest thing I can compare it with.
The thing that really worries me is battery life. My Wizard lasts 24 hours playing music with the screen off/locked. I can browse on GPRS/EDGE for a suitably long time (although waiting is a big part of GPRS experience. LOL!).
Generally the battery lasts 48 hours between charges two days of communication, music, browsing and messing about. WiFi on the Wizard is a battery killer as it eats through it in less than 4 hours on best battery life setting.
From what I've heard the battery life of the Diamond is quite poor and nobody really knows about the Raphael yet.
So, what I'd like to know is...
What is the battery life like for music playback?
How long does it last on GPRS/EDGE, 3G and WiFi?
Basically the options are keep the Wizard as my main phone and try and repair it. May even take it apart, measure it and make it a new case (it is well out of the warranty period by now)
Get the Raphael when it becomes available on contract (I'd prefer a subsidised phone). It has expandable storage, a fantastic screen, better keyboard than the Wizard and has a snazzy new interface. It can be easily changed to suit my needs and is also rather stylish but without the glossy back.
Get the iPhone 3G common as muck device which isn't really that customisable. It doesn't have applications I tend to use such as Word and Excel. Lacks some very basic things such as copy and paste! It is a very good music device, photo display device and the browser is very usable (although I actually prefer Opera 9.5).
By the way what is the actual HTC designation for the Diamond? Diamond doesn't really seem to be in keeping with their previous designations.
I guess that nobody would like to comment on the battery then...
Tyr said:
I guess that nobody would like to comment on the battery then...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just to prove you are lazy:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=411324&highlight=battery+life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=410194&highlight=battery+life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=410044&highlight=battery+life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=410751&highlight=battery+life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=404891&highlight=battery+life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=405383&highlight=battery+life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=408477&highlight=battery+life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=409292&highlight=battery+life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=408758&highlight=battery+life
one of the many reviews answering to yr question:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=408335&highlight=battery+life
and so on....
all i did was search for "battery life". did you try? nope. it took me less to search than it took you to write yr posts. now we have one more useless thread. congrats!
keep posting and answering to yrself..lol
ouch
Let me start by saying I love Android. I love Google. Not only is Android an extremely powerful OS with a wonderful interface but I love the whole open ethos behind it, led by Google, the good guys.
But I just can't for the life of my understand why GPU support is not being introduced, or at least acknowledged that it's missing and it's coming.
I'm running Froyo, and whilst it may well be 500 gazillion times faster crunching numbers and performing data intensive tasks and whatever, it doesn't feel it as I use the phone next to an iphone 3gs.
Manipulating every single screen, every single swipe, window, everything including menus and web browsing just doesn't feel as good as on the iphone. Even if it is is technically faster, what good is it when the thing just doesn't feel as good? It might as well be slower, because how something feels has the bigger impact on people's perceptions.
I understand it's not as easy to accomplish as apple did it being as they only have one phone etc, but surely there's got to be some way?
Why is this issue not bigger within the Android community? Everybody knows the iphone is more fluid to use no matter how much we might want to deny it to ourselves.
It's easy to be smoother when you can't do more than one thing at a time.
Apple moves basically a wallpaper with icons, which is just a picture.
Android moves widgets and live wallpaper. Tons of CPU used for that. Turn off your live wallpaper, disable widgets - get the same scrolling as iPhone.
GPU is there and has nothing to do with it.
Search would have helped avoiding useless complaints in capital letters with tons of "?"s.
If the visuals are so important to you - get an iPhone. System limitations - there's only so much that can be done between battery life, multitasking and graphics. iPhone uses graphics at the expense of multitasking, Android does otherwise.
shrub said:
Let me start by saying I love Android. I love Google. Not only is Android an extremely powerful OS with a wonderful interface but I love the whole open ethos behind it, led by Google, the good guys.
But I just can't for the life of my understand why GPU support is not being introduced, or at least acknowledged that it's missing and it's coming.
I'm running Froyo, and whilst it may well be 500 gazillion times faster crunching numbers and performing data intensive tasks and whatever, it doesn't feel it as I use the phone next to an iphone 3gs.
Manipulating every single screen, every single swipe, window, everything including menus and web browsing just doesn't feel as good as on the iphone. Even if it is is technically faster, what good is it when the thing just doesn't feel as good? It might as well be slower, because how something feels has the bigger impact on people's perceptions.
I understand it's not as easy to accomplish as apple did it being as they only have one phone etc, but surely there's got to be some way?
Why is this issue not bigger within the Android community? Everybody knows the iphone is more fluid to use no matter how much we might want to deny it to ourselves.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am the most unbiased person I've ever met and I will honestly tell you that the response on my phone is as fast and smooth as I have ever seen on any phone. I don't think it can get better. I do not like the grid popping in the Nexus Launcher though. I wish it would just scroll like the old versions.
You don't have a real question in all honesty. Your question is, why is it not like the iPhone and why is it not "smooth" to you personally. That's just the way one person feels. I like the way the N1 feels across the entire OS. They're two different OS's and Phones so they're never going to be the same. I think you really just prefer one over the other in your own opinion. Neither of them can be called better outside of an opinion so nothing will change.
I will sacrifice fluidity any day for functionality.
Also, do you have any idea of what Android has come from, in the sense of versioning? I am certain that this is almost identical the iPhone OS/Hardware Saga from version 1 and up.
I have a question. Why is there so much comparison to iphone. I think android Smashes them but why post topic after topic about that... where's that one mod. He should delete this.
temperbad said:
I have a question. Why is there so much comparison to iphone. I think android Smashes them but why post topic after topic about that... where's that one mod. He should delete this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is always a comparison of the top two of anything. Android and iPhone are very similar and they're they top devices so they're going to get compared. 99.999% of the comparisons are biased in some way but the fact is that neither of them are factually better than the other. They both have amazing features that the other doesn't and the word "better" and your decision come down to your personal preferences. I don't like iTunes, I think widgets are a MUST for me and I enjoy modding my phone without going through hell to do it or getting the cops called on me so I chose Android. Also I have been behind everything Google has done for many years and I will continue to love the company but biased attitudes are something I try to avoid. Not only do you not learn anything but you look foolish acting that way [I'm not talking about you personally I'm speaking in general].
Wow, I'm surprised to see that I'm one of the only people who completely agree with the original poster.
This isn't limited to the launcher. As the OP stated, literally every on screen motion is smoother on the iPhone.
This isn't because of the lack of multitasking on the iPhone because iOS 4 looks just as smooth.
It is either a consequence of the threading used in gui programs and/or better use of the GPU for animations and scrolling. It seems to me on my Nexus that in most cases scrolling and animations are slower when the CPU is processing something where as on an iPhone the scrolling seems smooth regardless of the processes involved.
One of my complaints along these lines is scrolling in the Android web browser isn't nearly as nice as even the slower iPhone 3G, much less an iPhone 3GS.
dalingrin said:
Wow, I'm surprised to see that I'm one of the only people who completely agree with the original poster.
This isn't limited to the launcher. As the OP stated, literally every on screen motion is smoother on the iPhone.
This isn't because of the lack of multitasking on the iPhone because iOS 4 looks just as smooth.
It is either a consequence of the threading used in gui programs and/or better use of the GPU for animations and scrolling. It seems to me on my Nexus that in most cases scrolling and animations are slower when the CPU is processing something where as on an iPhone the scrolling seems smooth regardless of the processes involved.
One of my complaints along these lines is scrolling in the Android web browser isn't nearly as nice as even the slower iPhone 3G, much less an iPhone 3GS.
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Click to collapse
Agreed, Ill take Android's greater capabilities over Iphone's fluidity any day but both would be sweet.
DMaverick50 said:
Agreed, Ill take Android's greater capabilities over Iphone's fluidity any day but both would be sweet.
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Click to collapse
Without a doubt. I'm just not convinced the two are mutually exclusive.
Paul22000 said:
It's easy to be smoother when you can't do more than one thing at a time.
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Click to collapse
Once I saw this post I knew I didn't have to look at the rest of the thread since this answered it all
I disable screen animations. I have no need for worthless eye-candy. Just give me whatever I tapped on as fast as possible.
Love it.
mortzz said:
I disable screen animations. I have no need for worthless eye-candy. Just give me whatever I tapped on as fast as possible.
Love it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I either turn the animations off or turn their speed up. IMO scrolling is more of an issue than animations.
Example:
Goto www.androidcentral.com or www.anandtech.com on a Nexus One and with the page zoomed all the way out try scrolling. At the top of the page my frame rate is <15.
Now do the same on a wee iPhone(even first gen) and see how smooth the scrolling is.
Is it end of the world? No, of course not. I am very satisfied with my phone compared to my previous iPhone 3GS and 3G. That said, considering my main use of my phone(beyond being a phone) is web browsing, I would still love to have the scrolling of my "crap" iPhone.
Its a genuine complaint.
The lack of smooth visuals is getting silly. I think Google bringing in the guy from Palm/Danger is an ackowledgment of this.
Its not cpu , its not ram, its not multitasking. Its Apple that has some if not the best UI guys in the business in terms of visuals. Id say WebOS guys were the tops but they were mostly old Apple guys so go figure.
Apple spends a ton of time and offort making sure everything looks fluid across the entire experience. Android does not. Its simply not something theyve taken seriously until 2.1. They are the best engineers in the world..not GUI designers. The fact the Gallery still has 16 bit depth is a tell tale sign they arent emphasizing visuals.
Anyways the GPU is underused. UI , Games , Codecs theres a alot of room for improvement. Androids UI is "better"...but lets not kid ourselves..the animations and fluidity are heavily in Apples corner. Loks are important; otherwise go date a fat hairy girl.
I thought I was quite picky but I don't notice any problems with my nexus
Maybe I haven't spent that much time playing with iPhones but when I have seen people using them they press something and have to wait for it to load, they get a grey checker pattern when they scroll too fast in the browser. Sometimes their swipes didn't register either.
xManMythLegend said:
Its a genuine complaint.
The lack of smooth visuals is getting silly. I think Google bringing in the guy from Palm/Danger is an ackowledgment of this.
Its not cpu , its not ram, its not multitasking. Its Apple that has some if not the best UI guys in the business in terms of visuals. Id say WebOS guys were the tops but they were mostly old Apple guys so go figure.
Apple spends a ton of time and offort making sure everything looks fluid across the entire experience. Android does not. Its simply not something theyve taken seriously until 2.1. They are the best engineers in the world..not GUI designers. The fact the Gallery still has 16 bit depth is a tell tale sign they arent emphasizing visuals.
Anyways the GPU is underused. UI , Games , Codecs theres a alot of room for improvement. Androids UI is "better"...but lets not kid ourselves..the animations and fluidity are heavily in Apples corner. Loks are important; otherwise go date a fat hairy girl.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Android really just isn't the most aesthetically pleasing user interface around, I've never owned an iPhone - and don't plan to, but Apple simply knows their stuff when it comes graphic design..
There's been some info on this issue on the android-platform groups and the skia rendering engine group (Skia acutally has an experimental OpenGL rendering branch).
From what I understand, hardware acceleration can't be implemented in older devices (ex: G1) because they only support one OpenGL instance at a time, meaning the launcher could be in conflit with apps. It also seems as if the stuttering we feel is actually caused by Android's garbage colletor because it blocks the UI thread when it kicks in and not because the phone's cpu cant keep up with scrolling. If you watched some of the Google I/O 2010 videos, they said they know of the issues with the garbage collector and they are working on it.
My guess is that hardware acceleration will come sooner or later (specially with the Tegra 2 chips and tablet format ) but if you want to make things move a bit you can always go to code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914 and star the issue (consider it a vote ).
New here btw, hello all
dalingrin said:
I either turn the animations off or turn their speed up. IMO scrolling is more of an issue than animations.
Example:
Goto www.androidcentral.com or www.anandtech.com on a Nexus One and with the page zoomed all the way out try scrolling. At the top of the page my frame rate is <15.
Now do the same on a wee iPhone(even first gen) and see how smooth the scrolling is.
Is it end of the world? No, of course not. I am very satisfied with my phone compared to my previous iPhone 3GS and 3G. That said, considering my main use of my phone(beyond being a phone) is web browsing, I would still love to have the scrolling of my "crap" iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tested anandtech.com on my N1 using Dolphin HD and have Froyo installed. The page was pretty much butter smooth except the top which had a flash banner ad and a flash "news reel". Of course the iPhone is going to be smoother at the top of that page since it doesn't show any flash elements. Not to say I don't want smoother scrolling when there are flash elements, but I'd rather have them showing with a little choppy frame rate than not at all.
RE: GPU Support
It's a common misconception that Android is slow changing windows and stuff- just go to Spare Parts and turn the window animations off.
my nexus next to the iphone, the nexus is just as smooth and fast to my eyes. the nexus is actually buttery smooth. using launcher pro. maybe that is what makes the difference i bet.
might be a stupid question in general but is any developing heading towards steering up the ****ty smoothness in the galaxy s in general?
feels like im running 5 fps at some points, so i was kinda wondering..
ofc iops is is crap aswell but i dont really mind ****ty accesstimes as long as the smoothness is preserved, so~
can anything be done about this or do i throw this piece of .."phone" under my 70ton excavator? ;(
//regards azure
READ THE FORUM!
There are plenty of fixes.
@Mods: Close this thread asap!
sadly none of em fixes the smoothness, they just boast higher io rate not fps >_<
im not sure if you know what the difference between "rendered frames per sec" is vs "reads/writes from an sdchip" causing i/o lag
but in short it means theres 2 types of "lags" one of them being addressed atm, and sadly its not the fps one.
or are my demands too high to request from the phone? >_<
I'm not really sure what exactly you're referring to when you say "smoothness", but try using a different launcher (I'd recommend LauncherPro). LauncherPro has always felt "smoother" to me!
yes, a good example of smoothness on 2.1. whats worse is that on the new firmwares it constantly dips when it goes beneath 22mb cache causing a frameratedrop, and due to the galaxy s being hampered with vsync w/o the fps to back the refreshrate up it stutters i.e gets halved fps for a short amount of time, might just be a sec or 2 but when its constantly there it starts to grow out as a nail in the eye ;(
and my highest wish ofc is to be able to use the tw appdrawer style which isnt possible with anything else today ;(
although thank you very mucho for the tip and im open for any other suggestions aswell, gonna try to get a hold of the driverfile in the meantime
people are trying to tell you the problem is not in the video, which is true.
you are experiencing the lag, that many are complaining about.
the system lags when you've got too many apps running or iddling in the background.
you can either install the various lag fixes people have developed
or you can simply install a good task manager + auto run killer and control which apps to allow in memory, and which should be closed when not in use.
well quite frankly i dont even need a single app installed or opened to see it, just freshly install any 2.2 fw and pinch, there you have it, open up the apppreviews in the same manner, once again, even if it opens up faster with any lagfix (ill hand you that much atleast since ive tried all availible fw's and lagfixes, kernels you name it) it still looks at the very least as its frameskipping like an old NES >_<
if that is the case, it might be a defective screen/video in your unit.
might want to consider having it exchanged..
I can count at most roughly 5 people that have mentioned something similar to what you found.
Personally i'm still on stock 2.1 and i do not see those flame skipping you have described.
do you have any App specifically where to reproduce this?
i play 3D games and run all kind of apps in my SGS and it've yet to see a skipped frame
aye i do too and i havent noticed anything quite as severe as the homescreen other when the framerate drops from vsync 1:1 to 2:1 or even 4:1 ( clearly visible in quadrant bench when its up on 56 its smooth and when it drops to 30 its choppy) ideally id just wanna rid myself of it since i doubt ill have to worry about screentearing on an sgx540 lol and the biggest hickup would be somewhat soothened since i imagine the real frame drop is less than 50%, anyways thx for the feedback, gonna have it turned in for a check and stop using the ip4 >_<
//cheerz azure
Hear me out for a few minutes guys.
Programmers now days are great...right? No... they really are not. Because programmers are making programs/games on extremely powerful machines (if you think about it) and have zero concept of "limits". A game for example, Titan Fall on PC is 50GB's. Why... for the love of all that is good, is this game 50GB's? Why? Because the programmers that made it suck. There are so many games that take up WAY too much space and take WAY too much power to run...
BUT
But this is NOT the programmers fault... They were not trained correctly. Hence my topic point.
Limitations Make you a Better Dev.
What is a limitation? It's something that limits you, like a gallon container can... only hold a gallon. Makes sense right? Well, let's move on the programming. Most programmers now days are making games/programs in what I like to refer to as "Creative Sandbox Mode". They don't really have limitations. They can almost do anything! But this is a problem... let's see an example to illustrate the reason why.
We will use the game "Kerbal Space Program" as our example for this topic. (Fantastic Game BTW) For those who have not seen/heard about it. It is a game where you build space rockets in, for the most part, a very well simulated Solar System. You start from a planet similar to earth. The only difference is the size of everything is scaled down. But just keep in your mind, "You build rockets to go to space".
Now, moving on...
When this game came out at first as early access. It was basically a sandbox, while you had no "God mode", you had access to all the rocket ship parts and they had zero costs. You could build anything, and people made all kinds of nonsense, went to the Mun (Game's name for the planet's moon) and beyond to other planets.
Sounds great right? It was... but then something changed a few years later.
Career and Science Sandbox were added. What is this? Well it's a mode with progression in mind, Career has you earning money through space missions and contracts, and Science Sandbox requires no money... but requires "science" points to acquire new parts.
You start out now...with very limited parts, and the things you are asked to do in the missions seem "impossible" at first.
"You mean I have to get to orbit with ONLY these parts? WHAT? THERE IS NO WAY!..."
Except...it was possible. Suddenly people, while under a great limitation, began to progress. They learned new and better ways and deigns to make more efficient rockets. You advance, and learn and become better. You progress, slowly unlocking more parts...but always being under this limitation wall, it forces you to grow and learn even more.
Now...end game. You've unlocked all the parts. You build the "best rocket" you can muster. Compare it to your "best rocket" while you played in Free Sandbox mode... It's a 1000x better. It can go much further on less fuel, it's less heavy, and it has far more research and science ability that ever before. Smaller rockets can now go beyond the moon and back, where as before, huge ones barely made it into orbit...
What does this mean? Now...with your super efficient skills, you can go EVEN further than ever before, you're able to truly maximize the potential of the parts given to you.
You've become efficient . You've become a better player.
But the KEY here for relation to my topic is... "truly maximized potential"
Now, let's get back to programming. Now that we have an understanding of what my point is. Back in the day, game developers had extreme limits. Hyper tiny storage sizes, extremely low amounts of ram and processing power. You couldn't just do whatever you wanted. The PC wouldn't even run.
Look at games like Super Mario Bros, a classic simple game... But, fast forward to later in the NES's lifespan, look at Megaman. The difference in total quality, and game play, it's a night and day difference. You go from a super basic, jump on enemies, beat the same boss over and over, running through basic one color levels... to a game that has a "level select" and unique and difference bosses, and... TONS of different enemies. You see levels with lots of animations and color! Holy crap! This is amazing! AND WHAT!? YOU GET WEAPONS THAT DO DIFFERENT THINGS!? *mind explodes*
See what happen? NES programmers got better over time, they learned to maximize what the NES could do despite its limits. Games that at the start of its' life that would have been thought impossible... were suddenly happening.
So let's fast forward to today... what do we have? For the most part... our computers today have near limitless abilities. Most computers have over a 1000GB's of storage, over 4GB's of ram (if not over 8GB), and processors that can do millions, if not nearly billions of calculations per second... Vs computers with 32KB's of Ram, 1 MB of storage, and a 10 mhz processor.
So we should be seeing games with extremely outrageous levels of ability and graphics right...? No... we don't. Well, we have a few. And I think the reason is older devs who were used to coding efficiently. They suddenly become god like. But new programmers? They don't understand limitations like older ones do... so they code poorly without knowing it. This is why you have games like Dark Souls 2, which on PC runs at 60fps at 1440p without the SLIGHTEST hint of issues. (Seriously, it's the smoothest PC game I've ever seen). But then games like Arkham Knight, just barely run at all. (if it even starts...) Also... the version of the Dark Souls 2 that contains all the DLC and improvements to the game (SotFs), weighs in at 23 GB's. Whoa... that's so much! ... Well, it's an extremely huge game, most playthroughs will last you at least 50 to 70 hours. There is so much to see in the game, and it's intense. And...then you have Titan Fall. A multiplayer game with a few maps, no singleplayer (at least when I played it), and it's 50GB's? What? Why? Even GTA 5 is 55GB's (ish) and it's an absolutely MASSIVE map, with detail unlike any seen before. And they crammed it into 50GB's? Wow. While Rockstar and From Software have had a few bad ones *cough* GTA IV and Dark Souls 1 on PC *cough*. They still proved in the end, they knew how to properly make a PC game.
Also, for an example of "getting a ton" from very little processing power. Look at the gameboy advance. It had a 16.78 MHz processor... yet look at the outrageous abilities it had. Look at the games, compare them to mobile "games" (Mobile games are trash). Could you honestly recreate The Legend of Zelda: A link to the past run with just 16mhz of power? If someone didn't tell you it was possible, you'd most likely say, "You cannot do that...". But you can, they did. This is highly efficient coding.
Another example is Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and 2. If you've not played this game series, I advise you ALL to look it up. This game, released in 1999, was coded by one man. And in 1999 (where the average CPU was Pentium 3) this game let's you build Parks, like with roller coasters and rides. This game could have THOUSANDS of guests (People in your park, 1000 to 4000+) , all with different likes and needs (ride types, needs like food or the restroom), with dozens, if not 50 to 100+ rides going on at the same time... and it ran perfectly fine. In fact, when I played it, I never remember it ever slowing down or crashing, not once. Could you build an entire game with 100s of rides and 1000s+ of guests each with their own unique needs, and plus all the other things going on, on a Pentium 3? With ZERO lag and near instant startup?
This is just one of my issues with devs/programmers today. It's not just about games, or graphics in games mind you. It's about programs, applications, media, just everything. Devs today, learn in a near unlimited environment. They don't learn tricks, they don't learn workarounds, they don't learn how to truly maximize what they have because nothing forces them too.
Now, as a big note... I don't want to sit here and sound like I'm saying any devs are dumb, or don't work hard. I don't mean that at all, because it truly isn't their fault. Schools and such today don't teach with limitations, in computer science and in everything else (that's another topic).
They don't force you to make a massive game that fits in a CD (700MB) that runs well, they don't teach you how to truly optimize, they don't teach you how to overcome limitations because they don't challenge you with limitations.
Limitations, force you to get better. I ask that all new and aspiring devs now days, to try to limit yourself... because in the end... you'll become a far better programmer than you thought possible! You created an android app that runs fine on a snapdragon 810? Alright, how about you make that same app run just as well on a phone with a dual core processor and half a GB of ram from 2010. Start with limitations, you'll think... "This is not possible" , but image to yourself that it is the only way... you soon start finding tricks and learn how to overcome the limitations and create an app that works fantastically with very minimal power and resources. Then, with your new found efficiency skills, you'll see a whole new world of possibilities on more powerful chipsets. Just like in the space game, when you are forced to do more with less, you soon found yourself able to go much further than before when you did have more.
Limitation Forced Growth increases your efficiency. This can allow you to make night and day more powerful applications that run with far less power.
Discuss.