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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!
Not Android related by any means, but just perusing the net I stumbled upon an article about a phone called the xpPhone 2 running Win 7 & 8.
The thing that caught my eye though was its combined storage capacity of 112gb. & 18.5 hours of talk time and the ability to upgrade the ram, all within a 4.3" screen.
Currently it's only available in China.
http://en.xpphone.com/news/kuaibao/114.html
I spoke to them
I already spoke to them and it seems like a very interesting toy/weapon. Being a road warrior this would really lighten the load. Will follow how it develops closely!
1 inch thick Phone with extra battery and packing a Netbook processor.
Sounds severely underpowered for Windows but an Intel Atom would smoke any mobile processor lol.
I doubt it. At 1.6 single core. Thing blows. My phone is faster than my netbook.
CBowley said:
I doubt it. At 1.6 single core. Thing blows. My phone is faster than my netbook.
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Cores & GHz don't mean anything. x86 is a very fast, and faster than ARM. Arm just is better performance for power use. Plus you could install Androidx86.
Intel displayed something at ces that had a atom proc. If you watch mwc I bet they will have something about it too ...supposed to be bad ass
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Please dont believe that you will get a smartphone with this device.
Using xpphone1 showed me that it is a UMPC with a small phone-function. There is no automatic sync with outlook and no calendar with a reminder-function. The phone-software is very unstable and so you are not always reachable like using a "normal" handy. The camera for skype and photos is not in place, under the lens there is simply nothing. These are only examples out of the long list of problems. Questions to ITG (even if these problems are solved with xpphone2) are not answered. So if you need more than a technical gimmick any other smartphone will do a better job.
have you guys seen the new samsung chromebook?
its got that Exynos 5 5250 A15 chip, an above 720 screen, SSD, no moving parts so no need for a fan (wont suffocate sitting on your bed), 2GB ram, bluetooth, USB 3.0, HDMI, 6.5 hour battery life @4080MAh battery, only 11.6 inches, 2.5 pounds, and .8in thick. things stylish too. its like a netbook on crack.. its only 249, i cant see any reason you wouldnt buy it.. oh wait.. it only runs chrome OS..
well i dont think you can put windows on this thing. maybe linux, but id rather talk about actually keeping the chrome OS.
i have a few questions, if anyone who actually owns one could fill me in.
can you use torrents on a chromebook?
can you locally store pictures/movies/music on here?
if so, is there an offline video player? can it play all kinds of video formats?
if i plug in a flashdrive, can i move files around? is there a file manager in this thing?
can chrome os play minecraft?
can anyone who owns one tell me a little more about these little guys? thanks fellas
soraxd said:
have you guys seen the new samsung chromebook?
its got that Exynos 5 5250 A15 chip, an above 720 screen, SSD, no moving parts so no need for a fan (wont suffocate sitting on your bed), 2GB ram, bluetooth, USB 3.0, HDMI, 6.5 hour battery life @4080MAh battery, only 11.6 inches, 2.5 pounds, and .8in thick. things stylish too. its like a netbook on crack.. its only 249, i cant see any reason you wouldnt buy it.. oh wait.. it only runs chrome OS..
well i dont think you can put windows on this thing. maybe linux, but id rather talk about actually keeping the chrome OS.
i have a few questions, if anyone who actually owns one could fill me in.
can you use torrents on a chromebook?
can you locally store pictures/movies/music on here?
if so, is there an offline video player? can it play all kinds of video formats?
if i plug in a flashdrive, can i move files around? is there a file manager in this thing?
can chrome os play minecraft?
can anyone who owns one tell me a little more about these little guys? thanks fellas
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Click to collapse
I own a cr-48.
You can locally store pictures and music (idk about movies, never tried). It does have some (limited) offline capabilities, like offline gmail, calendar, drive (read only IIRC). There is a file manager.
As for the rest of your questions...I have no idea, I have a real PC for all that crap.
Snowflake approved this message....
Two Linux distributions: openSUSE and Ubuntu have been already ported to the new Chromebook. You can't run Windows because it doesn't support ARM chips. Well Windows 8 RT supports but you need to be Microsoft's hardware partner for that.
Sent from my MB526 using xda premium
soraxd said:
have you guys seen the new samsung chromebook?
its got that Exynos 5 5250 A15 chip, an above 720 screen, SSD, no moving parts so no need for a fan (wont suffocate sitting on your bed), 2GB ram, bluetooth, USB 3.0, HDMI, 6.5 hour battery life @4080MAh battery, only 11.6 inches, 2.5 pounds, and .8in thick. things stylish too. its like a netbook on crack.. its only 249, i cant see any reason you wouldnt buy it.. oh wait.. it only runs chrome OS..
well i dont think you can put windows on this thing. maybe linux, but id rather talk about actually keeping the chrome OS.
i have a few questions, if anyone who actually owns one could fill me in.
can you use torrents on a chromebook?
can you locally store pictures/movies/music on here?
if so, is there an offline video player? can it play all kinds of video formats?
if i plug in a flashdrive, can i move files around? is there a file manager in this thing?
can chrome os play minecraft?
can anyone who owns one tell me a little more about these little guys? thanks fellas
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just purchased a Chromebook last night, have used it for probably 10 hours since and here's my rundown of it.
It is wonderfully fast, but what more can you expect from a linux system running an operating system based solely around the internet browser Chrome along with some perfectly functional "web apps". Now, by web apps I literally mean if you open an app on your taskbar at the bottom, it opens Chrome and goes to a website and performs as such. Think of it as a super fast epic computing system that works exactly as one would expect when Google presents an operating system.
IMO after 10 hours of use
Pros - Lightning fast, beautifully functional GUI; incredible and intuitive trackpad, takes 30 seconds to learn the strokes of it. there are no left and right buttons and it is a large pad (one finger click or tap selects, two finger click is a right click, click and hold with your forefinger and drag with your middle for selection and graphic movement, two finger drag to scroll down, up, left, or right. Its pretty awesome). Keyboard with separated keys so the lack of size is still spacious and not cluttered, because it isn't a windows keyboard there are no F1-F12 keys, windows keys, caps-lock, scroll-lock, delete, insert, pg up, pg dwn, so in short there is tons of saved space. MASSIVE selection of apps in general, like woah huge, and that's just the free ones. Once you link your google account to the pc you have over 160 gigs of storage on your google drive, as well as a 16 gb SSD that makes the performance kind of ridiculous, it boots in mere seconds, comes back from sleeping in the time it takes the monitor to come to life *which isn't long* and opens web pages faster than my PC. The wireless is a dual band (2.5 ghz and 5.0 ghz) b\g\n after a speed test it registered the peak speed of my connection through my Netgear N Dual band router. (30 meg down and 3.2 meg up, I have a screen shot, but I am a newb here so I cannot post it *which I understand not complaining just explaining* <3 ) The design is clean sleek, and odd. All the ports are in the back, which threw me back to old 2 inch think laptops, but it keeps the design very clean and easy to keep clean. lots of clean if you didn't notice the pattern. HDMI port, usb 3.0, usb 2.0. No fans, unless their silent, but I cannot hear ANYTHING its very quiet and manages to stay cool with no other visible ports other than the speakers. That's the odd part. It's really, wonderful. Oh, and I almost forgot (sorry I know this is going on forever I just wanted to make sure to be detailed) Chrome has a wonderful multi-device streamlined epic google machine. The Chrome that I use on my chromebook is the exact same browser that I'm using on my PC, other laptop, and HTC Evo3D. By that I mean same history *which isn't much because I'm usually incognito* same bookmarks, same apps.
The Perk about this is that it is a 100% fully functional and mobile device. It is ideal for businesses and students because it contains everything one needs to be productive and have fun in a VERY mobile device. It's the best new toy I've had for a while =)
Cons - Small, feels fragile. Some webpages have to be zoomed through the menu because the pages seem to be shrunk in some cases. Some apps available through the Chrome Web Store are not supported on the device yet, and without knowing until you install it, its a minor inconvenience. The customization is limited, its pretty much a what you see is what you get device. You can change the desktop background and the theme of Chrome but that's about it. There is no, like none at all, working and functional Spotify app for this, which is evil to me.
Overall 8 of 10, money well spent for sure.
Graphics - everything is low intensity for the most part so 8 of 10 cause its still crisp and beautiful, videos also look wonderful
Functionality - 10 out of 10. Period. Because Google.
Gaming - 2 of 10, that is not what this was built for, unless you like games on smartphone or flash than go for it.
Video - So far I've been able to play .mkv .avi and .mpeg4 videos fine. as for any other format I do not know. But with those three covered thats pretty much all of the digital movie formats. (I do not condone or endorse torrenting, and as far as I know it's not an option because you cannot INSTALL software, they are web based apps.)
Basically, as if I wasn't enough of one already Google has officially made me their fanboy, True story...
Yea, hope that helps. I know its lengthy but to me 249, is still 249. and therefore, well informed is better than going off of the very limited results on an actual review of this thing, I went and used it for about 20 minutes at best buy before I was too giddy to not own it. So yeah, my recommendation is get it, but only if you're not expecting a PC, cause that's NOT what this is.
:good::good::good::good:
Edit : Battery is epic. 8 hours of battery life if you don't need your screen bright as the sun. 6 and a half on full brightness. (the eight hour estimate is based on the fact that I have had it unplugged and powered on for the better part of 5 hours and the estimated time on the battery right now is 3 hours 43 minutes. So yeah, epic.
Please use the existing computer thread for this type of discussion, thanks. Thread closed.
I am happy to announce the project I have been working on. I do not know what direction it will take from here but I thought it was a good time to show it.
A MID, UMPC, tablet, smartphone - anything you want it to be. This is a kind of hybrid between phonebloks/project ara and the nokia n900 series
The wiki should guide you through step by step and answer most questions you may have. I have always thought one of the most important parts of this project is being able to teach others to do this and make it as accessible as possible.
As the wiki mentions, please raise a ticket on the issue tracker if you have a problem. But if you just want to talk about it this thread would be fine and I will try to get back to it from time to time.
Special thanks to people on this forum specifically who made all those Windows Mobile editing toolkits way back and helped me realize what was possible with pocketable devices and move on from there.
Link to SFS MID wiki
I thought I would provide an update here. The project is still ongoing with a mainboard transition from the Raspberry Pi to the Odroid C0 SBC.
The hardware and software has come a long way making for a pleasant experience to use but yet enough flexibility for most situations and users.
As always, you can post here or on the issue tracker if you have any questions or just want to talk about MID development. Thanks and good luck.
This is a 6 month update. The project continues with a switch to the Lattepanda x86 SBC.
More positives than negatives come with the new ecosystem and the future is bright. It is hoped that with the x86 technology the project will become relatable to more people and the architectural reliability will prove to be an advantage.
You can always post here or on the issue tracker if you have any problems, questions or speculation on the future of MID development. Thanks and good luck.
This is one more 6 month update. I am using the Lattepanda x86 SBC exclusively now.
The layout of the devices has been redesigned to be more like a smartphone and there is a new shell available for 3d printing. In addition, the software has undergone an update and there are new development notes including testing with some Raspberry Pi 4 prototypes which ended up being too hot and using too much power. Finally, there are 5 new scripts uploaded and one included with the MID software which deals with multitouch gaming.
It works well but I am hesitant to call the project finished so if you have suggestions let me know.
Hello and welcome to another update on this longrunning project.
The launch of the Raspberry Pi 4 came and went without offering any power savings so the project continued on without it using some alternative platforms. On the dual goal of being able to play PC games, it is only until recently that the 8GB Pi 4 had that potential. Unfortunately there is not enough overhead for Linux gaming even on most low end x86 PC platforms so there is little hope current Pi versions will make for a good PC gaming experience.
If you read the development notes you will see some experiments with portable PC stick hardware running games such as Kerbal Space Program on Linux but those devices were a dead end as far as power savings go. Both in terms of lack of power saving features and in idle and load power draw.
Currently there does not seem to be a small x86 device that has working suspend/sleep/standby mode in Linux which renders the dual goal of a Linux smartphone device that can play modern PC games unattainable.
The VIM3 SBC does have a working suspend mode as well as a wide 5-20v input. This allows for much more battery power and energy without the corresponding
wiring complexity and loss of efficiency that you would have in a device that required "stepping down" the voltage to 5V. "Stepping up" from traditional smartphone and tablet batteries comes with it's own challenges as well. Namely, the effective current limit, maximum available power and conversion inefficiency from such low voltage batteries.
On the gaming front all hope for portable gaming is not lost. I have uploaded a bonus version of Retroarch with VIM3 support to the releases area as well. This release is intended for and works well for the older console systems.
Maybe one day we can get a device with 8GB+ RAM that can play PC games and go to sleep. Until then keep building!
I thought I would slip in and give an update just short of a year. A few patches may be still to come anyway.
The goal of a PC gaming phone-like portable has been largely attained. The Lattepanda Alpha SBC specifically has 8GB RAM and can suspend to save power. With a MID based on it you can do the kinds of things you would do on a smartphone as well as play PC games with a gamepad on the go, keyboard/mouse while docked or perhaps even with the touchscreen. The Lattepanda Delta can suspend and has 4GB RAM and is a cheaper alternative. Recent PC games can be played successfully but I would recommend something like a Steam Deck for cutting edge games. If using Android apps is something you would require in a personal mobile device then the large RAM of the Alpha is something that should make emulation possible. When finished you can put the device to sleep and put it in your rather large pocket.
There is something to be said for a smaller more manageable mobile device that is more the size of a smartphone. Even if that means gaming capability is compromised. The VIM 3 is smaller than the Lattepanda Alpha/Delta and has different USB functionality making for a smaller and simpler overall MID. This is more of a device that you can put in your pocket and hopefully not have it break. You can put a plastic shell around it like a commercial device but you will find that one large enough to give good protection makes the MID too large. I do not consider this a big deal since one of the goals of the project is to put more control into the hands of the user and this includes the realm of repairability. In other words if it breaks you can fix it.
Thus 2 parallel ARM and x86 codebases are being maintained for now. Extensive troubleshooting has been undertaken to fix some long standing hardware
stability problems on both MID platforms as well. Addditionally, all main wiki pages have received an update. Finally, another bonus compiled version of the latest Retroarch source has been added that focuses on PS1 emulation.
A special message for XDA Developers users. Don't throw away your Android phones just yet. As inexpensive as cellular plans are you can keep your phone and tinker with something like this too. But remember that when the automobile was first developed it was considered worse than the horse. Over time it was refined and eventually surpassed the horse as a means of transportation. I think as computer parts become more commoditized ever time something similar will happen and nothing will be able to stop us from putting together a phone ourselves.
I am not sure where it is going to go from here but I look forward to using the devices now that the dream has come true.