Does Running Emulators At 266mhz Severly Change Battery Life?


In gngeo, is it possible to run it with sound, but without setting clock speed to 266? It doesn't seem to let me only turn on sound.
 
fringus posted on Jun 6 2006 said:
In gngeo, is it possible to run it with sound, but without setting clock speed to 266? It doesn't seem to let me only turn on sound.
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You can change that yourself editing the GnGeo config text document that comes with the emu. However, a MUCH easier way is to use the frontend Rage2x that you can download here. Not only can you change the cpu speed and turn the sound on and off, but also change region settings and change from "home" to "console" mode. I personally think it's a MUST to have, H.G.
 
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It all depends on the battery capability and capacity. Going from 200mhz to 266mhz will likely draw approx ~70mA extra from the batteries.

So, a 2500mAh battery that can last for about 5 hours @ 200Mhz, will probably last 3.2 hours @ 266Mhz.

Some other batteries will last for 6.2 hours @ 200Mhz, and will drop to 5.4 hours when run @ 266Mhz.
 
Squidge posted on Jun 6 2006 said:
It all depends on the battery capability and capacity. Going from 200mhz to 266mhz will likely draw approx ~70mA extra from the batteries.

So, a 2500mAh battery that can last for about 5 hours @ 200Mhz, will probably last 3.2 hours @ 266Mhz.

Some other batteries will last for 6.2 hours @ 200Mhz, and will drop to 5.4 hours when run @ 266Mhz.
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I am no master techy but 70mA does not sound enough to kock over an hour off your battery. Doesn't the gp2x need about 800mA to run? Or is it much less?
 
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70mA sounds like a bit much-- ARM states 920T power consumption as 0.25mW per MHz with cache utilization; 200 MHz would then be 50mW consumption and 266 would be 66.5mW. So, 16.5mW extra. I personally have trouble seeing a major battery life difference even at 310 MHz+.
 
Epicenter posted on Jun 7 2006 said:
70mA sounds like a bit much-- ARM states 920T power consumption as 0.25mW per MHz with cache utilization; 200 MHz would then be 50mW consumption and 266 would be 66.5mW. So, 16.5mW extra. I personally have trouble seeing a major battery life difference even at 310 MHz+.
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I agree with this. I have been testing battery life at 260 over the past few days, I haven't noticed any major difference at all. On my crap set of batteries (3 hour life) I am loosing 5 minutes, if that.
 
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When I measured the current draw with a bench psu, it seems to be that each mhz increment equaled approximately 1mA extra. Enabling the 940 increased the consumption by an additional 30ma.

Therefore my assumption that 266Mhz would mean a 66mA additional current draw.

Maybe it's not quite so linear?
 
When it comes to clock increase resultant changes to current draw, they really should be. It's possible something else is working a bit harder to compensate. Isn't an LCD timing tied to CPU clockrate from the same PLL? Perhaps more current is being drawn by that. Also RAM might have to be considered too, although its current draw should be fairly negligable to my knowledge.

I really have to say though, running programs at 200 or 300 MHz, I can't see a major difference, if any.
 
Same here. My MK2 is only overclockable to a max of 255mhz, and I certianly see no difference between it and 200mhz. I do not thin o/c'ing is the answer to anything anyway. Once the hardware is better learned by programmers I am sure there will not be a need to overclock.
 
This isn't true in the case of emulators which are a huge hog of CPU resources, always have been and always will be in all likelihood-- on every platform- Not just the GP2X. Take a look at MAME, slowest emulator of the bunch, but a prime example-- emulating say, Cruisin' USA which had a 50 MHz TMS32031 and a 10 MHz DSP, then some video and audio hardware-- is a challenge even on a modern PC with a high-end Athlon 64 or comparable Intel processor.

For original games though this is true, although a lot of it is not about understanding the hardware and just writing code that runs fast. I've only tested Stargazer's engine at 200 MHz and have seen excellent performance; keep forgetting to TRY overclocking!
 
Squidge posted on Jun 7 2006 said:
When I measured the current draw with a bench psu, it seems to be that each mhz increment equaled approximately 1mA extra. Enabling the 940 increased the consumption by an additional 30ma.

Therefore my assumption that 266Mhz would mean a 66mA additional current draw.

Maybe it's not quite so linear?
Click to expand...

It should be linear as for cmos chips. But it isn't for my unit. Going to 266MHz will eat battery in 1hour where at 200MHz they can run over 3 hours.

I don't know why.

Perhaps it's just my batteries what aren't capable to sustain higher current without losing efficiency?
 
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Not to rain on Zektor's parade, but the whole reason I bought a GP2X from (a dealer across the Atlantic) instead of the guys at www.GP32z.com in the US is because I was able to custom order from him and know that the GP2X Mk2 I am getting is highly overclockable.

Why? Because emulation is important to me. As excited as I am over custom content for the GP2X, it will never eclipse the number of games emulators have to offer (mind you, there's the quality versus quantity aspect).

Granted, I paid him extra for his time, so I wouldn't run to him thinking you should pay the man the same amount as you would for "just whatever GP2X gets tossed in the shipping box", nor that he can do that if he suddenly gets inundated with requests ;)

He was nice enough to do it for me, that's all I can say.

Edit: Hmm, not sure I should advertise who. The l33t among you already know ;)
 
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