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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.
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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.
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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Anyone noticing the Browser on our beloved Nexus one is very choppy and laggy on some sites even though we have a 1GHz snapdragon! i know its not a humming bird but i would expect it to catch up...because when the nexus one first came out and i got it...it was BLAZING FAST! but now its all choppy and laggy.... anyone noticing that too??
there could be a couple of things involved with this, you could have more things running the background using cpu then previously, or you could just be going to some poorly coded websites. Also, if you havent been to a website in a while its cache may be different.
Blueman101 said:
there could be a couple of things involved with this, you could have more things running the background using cpu then previously, or you could just be going to some poorly coded websites. Also, if you havent been to a website in a while its cache may be different.
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hmm, ya you might be right if only Google Made GPU acceleration on the browser that would be awesome!
Mine is still blazing fast, but I don't have a lot running in the back ground & I clear it's cache often.
galaxys said:
Mine is still blazing fast, but I don't have a lot running in the back ground & I clear it's cache often.
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Hopefully Gingerbread will bring a new Web browser UI and other features.. i just decided im going to buy a Galaxy S but i will still use the N1 as a business/exchange phone but the galaxy S as my multimedia phone..
It does seem choppy compared to the stupid iPhone, but its an appropriate comparison because its the ultimate competition. And android blinks when scrolling. If you look at certain things you can see the colors blinking or something if u scroll slow u can see it more clearly regular scrolling it makes it look choppy. It seems like iPhone loads a page or a map and u are scrolling thhat one image but with android its like its trying to load each movement so browser seems jumpy and a lot of apps are the same way. Google maps is the worst. Its the coolest app on any mobile platform but its awful to scroll and zoom on android relative to the maps on iPhone. If gingerbread makes it on the same level then android wins hands down. Right now android has more features but iPhone is way easier to use its more smooth and polished. Like everything was developed and then actually used to decide what needs improvement.
forgiveness if this is wrong info, but i believe many of the first gen WP7 devices are using the same snapdragon CPU and GPU combo as the nexus one, the adreno 2.5 i believe. yet those devices are smooth as butter on all parts of the OS, including any web page you throw at the browser.
is there a reason why the same is not achieved on the nexus one and android phones? i assume its down to drivers, but seems silly that android wouldnt be similar...anyone have insight with this?
Minus the x,y axis touch screen limitation my n1 is pretty smooth all around, what sort of differences do you see ?
disgustip8ted said:
Minus the x,y axis touch screen limitation my n1 is pretty smooth all around, what sort of differences do you see ?
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Don't get me wrong, my nexus one is smooth as butter in 95% of all areas. Home screen scrolling and transitions easily must be hitting 50fps. But certain websites like engadget or this forum can skip a tad. Throw those same sites on new windows phone and It's smooth as butter.
I just wonder how this is possible with the same chip set, especially considering how our adreno is supposedly not the best.
do you have the "enable plug-ins" setting in the browser set to "on demand"?
i have mine like this and xda loads pretty quick, ondemand just lets you tap on a flash item when you want it to be rendered.
Yes on demand has been set for many months. I'm not talking about load speed, but scrolling smoothness once loaded. There are minor examples else where in the OS. But in general I'm wondering about drivers between the 2 platforms. You'd prob have to use a phone to see.
ill check out my friend's wp7 tomorrow at work. i cant get my phone to be choppy on this thread or the main thread or the gigglebread thread zoomed in or fully zoomed out :\
Probably cuz the browser on WP7 is based off the best internet browser EVER. Duh!
</sarcasm>
But seriously, it's a different OS, and the browser is different than ours. My wife had an HTC Surround for about a month (returned it cuz of lack of apps right now), and I will say, it was a pretty nice phone. Maybe after a few updates it'll be something to look into again, but right now, it's at the beginning of it's life, so there's a lot missing in my opinion.
It's all about code optimization, proper drivers, hardware accelerated graphics...
since android must run on many devices with many different cpus they can't optimize everything for the snapdragon, as they've done with WP7.
elmerendeiro said:
It's all about code optimization, proper drivers, hardware accelerated graphics...
since android must run on many devices with many different cpus they can't optimize everything for the snapdragon, as they've done with WP7.
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that's kinda the direction i was going. i wonder if this is something that qualcomm perhaps helps microsoft with providing optimized drivers, or they were paid to do so. it just shows how the snapdragon and adreno are pretty powerful but get a lot of negative talk around the community for it's graphics capability.
seeing as it was goog;e's first and initial phone, its too bad they did not attempt the similar performance optimizations. i mean each individual phone needs device specific drivers anyway, so its too bad they didnt take it to that next level.
Someone on Slashdot linked to a very interesting article relating to this problem.
Google "The Care and Feeding of the Android GPU"
(Note: This has probably been posted on the forums before, but it seemed worth adding to the current conversation)
EDIT: Wow. Terrible grammar. Wish I could blame Swype, but I'm pretty sure I'm just a moron lol.
inconceeeivable said:
Someone on Slashdot linked to a very interested article relating to this problem.
Google "The Care and Feeding of the Android GPU"
(Note: This has probably been posted on the forums before, but it seemed worth adding to the current conversation)
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actually this totally answers my question. thanks. reading that slashdot article, there are some great comments at the bottom, one with a link to anandtech article about WP7 and GPU's etc. also a former google employee commented on the topic.
so basically yes MS very tightly controls things and wanted it that way. android has to code for common devices across many manufacturers etc.
one interesting thing the anandtech article says that WP7 is capped at 30 FPS by microsoft due to battery concerns. some dev's complained. remember the EVO had that cap, and it sucks because of it. but playing with WP7 devices i didnt notice it a bit. strange.
and the real answer as others have said in the past is lack of UI hardward acceleration. interesting topci on google bug tracker explains it all. but 3.0 seems to fix it!
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914
Simple, there is no hardware acceleration in the UI. Only apps that are programmed to use the GPU will use it.
Android needs a virtual machine, W7 doesn't, it runs native on the hardware. Full native support.
holy crap, i just watched a video of android which DOES have full graphics hardware acceleration thru the enture UI, and nearly crapped my pants. talk about iphone-like smoothness...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpH3oX9RhIE
If you google android gpu acceleration, you'll see numerous threads on other sites of people asking for it and others saying there hardware is smooth enough.
I don't want to discuss the merit of gpu acceleration as I think it's a given. What I'd like to know is a list of apps that do. But also, if these apps can, why isn't it utilized system-wide? Other threads mentioned older hardware could only have one opengl layer, so if your launcher was gpu accelerated, then a game wouldn't launch. I doubt this is the issue now with more recent hardware.
Is there any side project trying to add this to say cyanogen?
Anyway, I know launcher pro is accelerated. The scrolling through applications is like night and day with other launchers. Also the latest Opera is accelerated. It seems like the built-in gallery app is accelerated. I'm not sure about any of the pdf viewers. ezpdf seems the smoothest, but again, it might be just more optimized over other pdf readers.
So is there a list of apps that utilize the gpu? (besides games obviously)
I'm not sure if it's a video driver issue from device to device, but if that's so, how can a small app like launcher pro work accelerated on numerous devices?
sark666 said:
But also, if these apps can, why isn't it utilized system-wide?
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Because a lot of Android phones can't take it.
Other threads mentioned older hardware could only have one opengl layer, so if your launcher was gpu accelerated, then a game wouldn't launch. I doubt this is the issue now with more recent hardware.
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Yeah, but Android's target is a huge range of hardware- some very crappy. Read up on Android's "fragmentation problem."
Is there any side project trying to add this to say cyanogen?
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A composite based GUI is a HUGE project. It is WAY beyond the scope of this community. It is what delayed Windows Vista for so long, and was a huge reason why many people didn't like Vista (as hardware around its launch couldn't handle the interface).
It took the Linux desktop over three years to add a decent composite GUI, and that was with MANY large companies working on it.
Composite based GUIs are VERY VERY difficult to get right. The only reason Apple has it right is from the get go that was the best part of OSX. Apple's engineers somehow got its composite GUI (called Quartz) on old low-MHz PowerPC machines, and that miracle of technology has not been duplicated anywhere else. In fact, that was the competitive advantage that Apple took with it to the phone market once phones were as powerful as old PowerPC machines.
Other OS's that use a GPU accelerated GUI just have to have very strict minimums for hardware. For example, look at the minimums for Window's phones. Any one of those would be high-end in the Android market.
I'm not sure if it's a video driver issue from device to device, but if that's so, how can a small app like launcher pro work accelerated on numerous devices?
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Run Launcher Pro on an older Android device like a Droid 1 and you would be singing a different tune as to how smooth it is. The fact of the matter is that the Android eco-system isn't ready yet....
Hmm, compiz made huge improvements quite rapidly so I don't know about 3 years to get it right. The benefits were immediate; maybe refinements as it went along.
Regardless if it is huge undertaking, google has to address this. I've read articles where they say it's more garbage collecting vs an accelerated gui. Here's a brief but good article on it: http://www.satine.org/archives/2011/01/01/the-care-and-feeding-of-the-android-gpu/
And linux is a good example, the initial beginnings of compiz were a very small group of developers and features were being added very rapidly.
It turns a lot of people off android when they see a sluggish OS, or the appearance of a sluggish OS.
At any rate, my question still stands. you mention older devices needed to being supported. Then how does an app like launcher pro do it? I'm sure it doesn't have custom drivers for all the various gpu's out there? Same with Opera.
And I'd still like a list of (if there is one) of gpu accelerated apps. If the OS doesn't have it, then it would be nice to have it at the app level. Although I see that causing more headaches down the road instead of the OS doing it.
Anyway, google doesn't sound like they are taking this issue seriously. Or dismissing it as not necessary, but I think that's a mistake. On a traditional desktop OS, it's a nice to have but not really necessary, as most things are static. But given the size of the these devices, menus/icons etc are usually moved about cascade and expand etc. Items are dragged and moved etc. All this calls for an interface that maintains a high fps or otherwise it gives the perception of feeling laggy.
Trust me...rewriting Android to do automatic compositing is a huge undertaking. This would be very difficult to do while maintaining compatibility which existing applications. Honeycomb has compositing but it isn't enabled in applications by default because it can break applications with custom drawing. I don't see any reason for us to attempt to implement composting when its already done about as well as anyone can do it in Honeycomb.
sark666 said:
Hmm, compiz made huge improvements quite rapidly so I don't know about 3 years to get it right. The benefits were immediate; maybe refinements as it went along.
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GPU GUI acceleration on the Linux desktop didn't start with Compiz. GPU GUI acceleration started in 2004 when Keith Packard added the composite patch to Xorg. David Reveman began working on XGL and Compiz around that time, and didn't release a workable beta version until 2006.
Yet that beta version relied on XGL, which was basically running the Linux desktop like you would a video game. It wasn't until AIGLX became stabilized in open source and closed source drivers in 2007 that GPU GUI acceleration on the Linux desktop was finished (I am huge Xorg junkie, that is why I know these random facts).
Regardless if it is huge undertaking, google has to address this. I've read articles where they say it's more garbage collecting vs an accelerated gui.
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From what I have heard, Honeycomb supposedly has a GPU accelerated GUI. But we don't know till we can see the code.
It turns a lot of people off android when they see a sluggish OS, or the appearance of a sluggish OS.
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I would say that the sluggishness is only obvious next to iOS- other mobile OSes also lack such abilities. Compared to iOS Android has mostly targeted the lower-end user segment where quality of experience is less important than raw price (hence the many underpowered Android phones).
Eventually due to attrition the baseline will increase in power and old phones will be cut off for new features such as this. I have already heard that Gingerbread runs terrible on a Droid 1, which is barely a two year old phone.
Then how does an app like launcher pro do it?
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Same way games do it- they just run like crap on older phones. Google can't afford to take that approach with the entire OS.
And I'd still like a list of (if there is one) of gpu accelerated apps. If the OS doesn't have it, then it would be nice to have it at the app level.
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Me too.
Anyway, google doesn't sound like they are taking this issue seriously.
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I think that is an accurate assessment. I think Google believes that in time the hardware itself wil cover this inadequacy- it matters less on dual core phones. Its all those poor people that bought early Android phones that have had to suffer the most...
I'm sure it's not trivial, but again standalone apps seemed to have done it. I know OS wide is another issue. But really, honeycomb is really late when it comes to this. It really should have been a 2.x feature. I"m the exact opposite of an apple fan boy, but the first iphone in 2007 had this. That set the bar right there. What 4 years later and google is almost on it? And yes iphone is a fixed device, but still. An abstraction layer should have been worked on so if a device has a gpu it's used, otherwise fallback to software.
And on a side note, It would still be nice to know apps that do implement this now.
sark666 said:
An abstraction layer should have been worked on so if a device has a gpu it's used, otherwise fallback to software.
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I am a huge fan of this stuff (I actually had a blog about composite back in the day) and I can tell you after hacking on many devices and OSes, only ONCE have I seen a decent software-based compositor. OSX. That is it, in the whole world.
In fact, Apple's entire "magic" empire of devices is built on that unique competitive advantage. Part of what has made it work is that composite was there from day one- unlike a Linux, Windows or Android, OSX/iOS has ALWAYS had composite so applications had to work with it.
And it wasn't a painless process. Early OSX versions (until Tiger I think) all had major composite bugs (to the point I am good at spotting them). Part of Apple's advantage is that initially the OSX base was so small that it didn't matter what broke and what didn't.
So essentially it is not a 4 year gap, but is more like a 10 year advantage. All those old PowerPC Mac users paid out the nose to make modern Apple phones the pleasant experience they are.
To me the saving grace of Android is that Google allows developers to replace major parts. So maybe the entire OS will never have real GPU acceleration, but Google doesn't stop the Operas and Launcher Pros of the world to replace essential functions with apps that CAN leverage that ability. That way different parts of the OS get fixed up by those who are best at that part, and those with weaker hardware can do without.
So yeah, a list would be nice.
Well even Windows XP seems to dust Android's best. For example, browsing these very forums on my pathetic netbook is smooth but on NC it is extremely slow unless Opera Mobile is used. Even Honeycomb's browser is slow scrolling these forums. It is pretty mind blowing that in 2011 there would be 2D GUI inadequacies like this.
But the reason is as has been said: there are phones with really poor GPUs running Android. So Google basically set the bar too low in order to probably lower the cost to develop an Android device and now they don't want to break compatibility. Although I don't see why 3.0 couldn't have been more ambitious.
Not Quite A List of Android GPU Apps
GPU Acceleration will be system wide when Ice Cream Sandwich is released. I stumbled upon this thread hoping to find specific apps. I am of the Nvidia Bootcamp, so that influenced me to get a Droid X2. There are some killer apps that work perfect with GPU acceleration. I am rather surprised to find that this thread became a history lesson, much which I knew and Wikipedia could tell me.
I am using a Movie Player on Android called MX Video Player (FREE and Free Codec Download Required). It works extremely well. This app is an excellent example of quality software taking advantage of GPU acceleration, before a system wide implementation. I doubt "MX" will get better when ICS is here.
As for CyanogenMod none that I know of other than the ICS port they are cooking up. Has to do with ICS SDK API 14, that is the framework for it?
When I find more I will add to the list here, that is if I dont forget.
Oh and that snyde XP comment.... Let me know how the android gui and os is when it has had ten years in the limelight, with patches and bug fixes!
Just bought it yesterday, posting from it now in fact. Absolutely love the screen and form factor, its perfect in that sense...however with touchwiz 3.2 it was just unusable. Went to overcome, didn't help still too slow.
I'm now on cm9 and its still just so damn slow. The browser isn't smooth at all, playing games like anomaly hd and shadow gun just aren't smooth and seem like they're running at 15 fps, and trying to play HD content just depresses me because it doesn't work.
So I feel like I'm stuck with an amazing tablet which is just useless.
Is the situation ever going to get better? Am I doing something wrong? Should I just sell the thing even though I only got it yesterday? I watched a million videos before I bought it so I knew what to expect but using it constantly is just a different story...
Thats tegra2.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I957 using xda premium
I would indeed seem that Tegra 2 is a broken CPU. Never seen a fully smooth tegra device, even a WVGA phone running ICS, its not a lack of power, its just poorly designed and isn't able to deliver its power. I wonder if it's a memory controller issue. The PS3 also has a broken GPU (also nVidia!), but because its a single closed system its been worked around.
You CAN improve things somewhat though. Games arent slow for me, or the browser, but the homescreen is bad. Overclocking helps (running at 1.4ghz here with no issues), change the CPU scaling threshold to 65% increase the sampling rate.
Different launchers improve things to, but none are 100% perfect. ADW EX has a silky smooth homescreen and app draw, but scrolling widgets are slow. Go launcher HD is slightly slower in the homescreen, but widgets are much better.
Part of the problem is Honeycomb which is slow, the ICS builds we have now arent perfect, but they aren't built from Samsung sources. Once we have real Sammy ROMs and Sources to work from things should improve.
rovex said:
I would indeed seem that Tegra 2 is a broken CPU. Never seen a fully smooth tegra device, even a WVGA phone running ICS, its not a lack of power, its just poorly designed and isn't able to deliver its power. I wonder if it's a memory controller issue. The PS3 also has a broken GPU (also nVidia!), but because its a single closed system its been worked around.
You CAN improve things somewhat though. Games arent slow for me, or the browser, but the homescreen is bad. Overclocking helps (running at 1.4ghz here with no issues), change the CPU scaling threshold to 65% increase the sampling rate.
Different launchers improve things to, but none are 100% perfect. ADW EX has a silky smooth homescreen and app draw, but scrolling widgets are slow. Go launcher HD is slightly slower in the homescreen, but widgets are much better.
Part of the problem is Honeycomb which is slow, the ICS builds we have now arent perfect, but they aren't built from Samsung sources. Once we have real Sammy ROMs and Sources to work from things should improve.
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Not sure what you mean by the scaling thing but I am overclocked to 1.4 atm using NoFrills...as for browsing depends on the browser and the website, with the stock some websites are okay, I'm using chrome at the moment to post this and its just so sluggish...
As for games, they literally look like they're running at 15fps, its ridiculous.
Very disappointed, really don't want to have to buy an iPad but I just don't see the point of having a product like this that's so brilliant in theory but so poorly executed with absolutely no polish...how can they even sell a product that's this slow...
All hd games and content run fine for me. I'm on stock, not rooted. Using GO Launcher HD. Maybe I got lucky?
dairymasta said:
Not sure what you mean by the scaling thing but I am overclocked to 1.4 atm using NoFrills...as for browsing depends on the browser and the website, with the stock some websites are okay, I'm using chrome at the moment to post this and its just so sluggish...
As for games, they literally look like they're running at 15fps, its ridiculous.
Very disappointed, really don't want to have to buy an iPad but I just don't see the point of having a product like this that's so brilliant in theory but so poorly executed with absolutely no polish...how can they even sell a product that's this slow...
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You are judging Alpha software (CM9) as if it were final as in Stable status. Things will improve even more when Samsung releases source. In my experience, this tablet has been smooth with ADW EX. Perfectly usable, no stuttering, almost no lag, speedy and long lasting battery. Hey and this is with unfinished software (ICS) due to lack of source! I even had a good experience with firmware LA3. Just ditch the TouchWiz launcher. It helps a lot. If you still want to leave the tablet, be my guest, your choice.
Sent from my SGH-T959.
You can use SetCPU to adjust the CPU thresholds. It basically changes load at which the CPU scales up its clock rate, makes it more responsive, but wont make it faster at its peak.
Also, remember to make sure the CPU Governor is set to Interactive and not On Demand.
Sent from my SGH-T959.
nirogu325 said:
You are judging Alpha software (CM9) as if it were final as in Stable status. Things will improve even more when Samsung releases source. In my experience, this tablet has been smooth with ADW EX. Perfectly usable, no stuttering, almost no lag, speedy and long lasting battery. Hey and this is with unfinished software (ICS) due to lack of source! I even had a good experience with firmware LA3. Just ditch the TouchWiz launcher. It helps a lot. If you still want to leave the tablet, be my guest, your choice.
Sent from my SGH-T959.
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Tbh I don't think this is a fair argument, the thing shipped with honeycomb finalized and even had an update, neither of which was alpha software and they both sucked and were completely unusable. The fact that I had to root and am currently using cm9 just so that I can use the thing reasonably is ridiculous...
I'm using cm9 and it is a lot better but I still find that games don't run smoothly, scrolling isn't smooth and there's a lot of lag
I do have it over locked to 1.4 and have governor set to interactive as well as I/O set to snoop. Its at least usable now but its so disappointing seeing such an amazing piece of hardware gone to waste. It kills the iPad on every level but the software just lets it down so badly....
We just need to wait, and hope for the best with ICS kernel. Tegra 2 ain't that bad, it's like every other Tegra 2 out there, it has its limitations, HD videos are one of them. Considering what my job is, i get a lot of Android tablets, but none of them were completely smooth, it's Android fault mostly.
The best i got so far was Transformer Prime, but that's Tegra 3, but the smoothest one of Tegra 2 ones was definitely Motorola Xoom. If Xoom can be that smooth with Honeycomb when i tested it, there is hope for this model yet. Software is the thing that needs fixing, so this model gets what it deserves. Even then, it won't be as smooth as iPad, and with every new Android version i am more and more sceptical that level of smoothness will ever be achieved.
Gizmo123 said:
We just need to wait, and hope for the best with ICS kernel. Tegra 2 ain't that bad, it's like every other Tegra 2 out there, it has its limitations, HD videos are one of them. Considering what my job is, i get a lot of Android tablets, but none of them were completely smooth, it's Android fault mostly.
The best i got so far was Transformer Prime, but that's Tegra 3, but the smoothest one of Tegra 2 ones was definitely Motorola Xoom. If Xoom can be that smooth with Honeycomb when i tested it, there is hope for this model yet. Software is the thing that needs fixing, so this model gets what it deserves. Even then, it won't be as smooth as iPad, and with every new Android version i am more and more sceptical that level of smoothness will ever be achieved.
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I don't think iOS smoothness will ever be achieved, its definitely an android limitation.
As for HD movies I've tried dice player, mobo player vplayer and mx video player...only dice seems to give a decent framerate but still has a lot of slowdown. Some of the other players don't even play audio which is a bit weird, but that's probably my fault not messing about with the settings.
Any tips for sorting out the video? Or will tegra2 never be able to handle it? Because if that's the case this is definitely a waste of a very good screen and while it'll break my heart, will have to sell it...
EDIT: also is there any fix to get 3d gaming to run a bit faster? Will doing a system wipe, dalvik cache and cache partition wipe and reflash help you reckon?
Tegra can play HD, but its limited in what encoding methods it likes. Its certainly no match for Exynos, which will play pretty much anything. Samsung really messed up by not using their own brilliant processor in the Tab. Frankly the Exynos is better than the Tegra 3!
iOS is smooth, but slightly slow. It doesnt react as fast as Android, its animations are just more 'sedate', but as a result, buttery smooth. The problem with android is that in the rush to animate it can microstutter unless it has the CPUs total attention. My SGS2 with a custom ICS ROM and a few further tweaks is like lightening, totally smooth and faster to animate than iOS. I doubt a Tegra device will ever be able to do that, but it should do a lot better than it is now.
dairymasta said:
Not sure what you mean by the scaling thing but I am overclocked to 1.4 atm using NoFrills...as for browsing depends on the browser and the website, with the stock some websites are okay, I'm using chrome at the moment to post this and its just so sluggish...
As for games, they literally look like they're running at 15fps, its ridiculous.
Very disappointed, really don't want to have to buy an iPad but I just don't see the point of having a product like this that's so brilliant in theory but so poorly executed with absolutely no polish...how can they even sell a product that's this slow...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't use chrome it's slow.
dairymasta said:
I don't think iOS smoothness will ever be achieved, its definitely an android limitation.
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Click to collapse
You mean iOS is limited, that's why is smooth.
rovex said:
Tegra can play HD, but its limited in what encoding methods it likes. Its certainly no match for Exynos, which will play pretty much anything. Samsung really messed up by not using their own brilliant processor in the Tab. Frankly the Exynos is better than the Tegra 3!
iOS is smooth, but slightly slow. It doesnt react as fast as Android, its animations are just more 'sedate', but as a result, buttery smooth. The problem with android is that in the rush to animate it can microstutter unless it has the CPUs total attention. My SGS2 with a custom ICS ROM and a few further tweaks is like lightening, totally smooth and faster to animate than iOS. I doubt a Tegra device will ever be able to do that, but it should do a lot better than it is now.
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Yeah I'm running westcrips resurrection ICS on my sgs2 and its incredible. Might have to hold out for a 7.7 instead, watching videos of it playing 1080p perfectly and its just upsetting me lol
If I can somehow tweak things so I can at least was 720p videos and play games smoothly I'll be happy. Its just that games aren't running smoothly at all, tried blood and glory, anomaly HD, shadow gun, fruit ninja thd, all very laggy as if they're running between 10-15fps, especially blood and glory.
Considering a wipe and reflash but doubt it will make a difference and really can't be bothered if it won't make a difference....
I guess I'm luck. I can play samurai vengeance no problem
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium
Doesn't seem particularly slow to me... I mean it's no iPad but it isn't as slow as most of the HTC devices I've used.
knipp21 said:
I guess I'm luck. I can play samurai vengeance no problem
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium
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Yeah that runs okay, but then go try something like shadowgun or anomaly HD, its rubbish.
Once I cleared all Samsung's live widgets from the home screens, I found the home screen transitions to be generally pretty smooth on mine.
Most HD video chugs in SloMo though. Its depressing and sad. Not sure if ICS will do much, if anything to improve that.
Hopefully, Samsung will refresh the ~9in form factor in the summer with some version of Exynos.
dairymasta said:
Yeah that runs okay, but then go try something like shadowgun or anomaly HD, its rubbish.
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Shadowgun runs perfectly smooth for me... Better than on my iPhone even...
sbeddoesdesign said:
Shadowgun runs perfectly smooth for me... Better than on my iPhone even...
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Yeah and my movies play well too. Idk I guess I got a super tab...
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