Gaming results on the new Intel Bay Trail

[kamui_kun]

Hi eveyone

I've received my new Intel Bay Trail based tablet (x86) : The Dell Venue 8 Pro. Running Windows 8.1 Pro (Desktop). 8" at 1280x800px, 2 GB RAM, 1.33 GHZ quad core, less than 395 grams, around 250 euros !

I like it very much so far, the UI works smootly, I've made a little removable system to attach it with an iControlPad and it is quite usable for gaming, very light, maybe even lighter than an Nvidia Shield

The autonomy is also quite good, can last a full day, I would say around 8 to 10 hours of real life usage.

So, I wanted to share with you guys with some gaming tests, after some optimisations :

- Saturn emulation, using SSF :
Sega Rally : Fullspeed.

- PS2 emulation, using PCSX2 :
Phantasy Star Generation 1 & 2 : Fullspeed.
Oding Sphere : 30+ FPS ingame / 60.
ICO : The demo cutscenes around 40 FPS / 60, beginning gameplay (when the boy wakes up) fullspeed !
Tales of Legendia : 30+ FPS ingame / 60.

- Dreamcast emulation, using Demul :
Shenmue : A bit slow, I don't know the exact FPS but I would say around 40.
Will try others Dreamcast emulators later, pretty sure NullDC will work better.

- Gamecube emulation, using Dolphin :
Baten Kaitos 2 : ingame at 17 FPS / 30.
Zelda Wind Waker : ingame at 10 FPS / 30.

- Arcade emulation, using MAME 151 :
Virtua Fighter, Super Hang-On, Deathsmiles : Fullspeed.

- PSP emulation, using PPSSPP :
Ridge Racers : Arround fullspeed, in HD !

- DOSBOX :
Doom Shareware Benchmark : 1297 realtics ! I suppose every DOS game should work fullspeed.
Same bench on DOSBOX Turbo, a highly optimized port for Android, the Nexus 5 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad core @ 2.28 Ghz) scores 1752 realtics (the lower the better of course).

- DS emulation, using DeSmuMe in software mode, 0 frameskip :
Final Fantasy Gaiden : ingame at the first save point : 28 FPS / 60

- N64 emulation, using Project 64 2.1 :
Conker : Arround fullspeed.

- Native PC games :
Did not try any, well apart from some japanese visual novels that obviously works perfectly...
Did see some videos on Youtube of the Asus T100, same CPU, running "HD" games like DMC (the new 2013 Devil May Cry) and Castlvania Lords of Shadows, seems playable.
 

Here's a photo of my setup, running Phantasy Star 2 Remake on PS2, constant fullspeed !

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Sigh, if iCP2 did not end up in a mess, you have got yourself an x86 PYRA right there

 

[kamui_kun]

Yep, I was really counting on the iCP2 -.-

 

[crazyhorse]

Wow, thanks for the game tests. This thing and others like it seem like a game changer to me, just checked a few youtube videos where it shows the full desktop running modern warfare and portal pretty nicely.Awesome for £250 direct from dell.

 

[Fzero]

Just needs one of those Wikipad style universal dock controllers for it... I've not used Windows 8 on touch screen yet

 

[ekianjo]

Sigh, if iCP2 did not end up in a mess, you have got yourself an x86 PYRA right there

The Pyra will run Linux. Not this tablet.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Sigh, if iCP2 did not end up in a mess, you have got yourself an x86 PYRA right there

The Pyra will run Linux. Not this tablet.

I know PYRA will be ARM.  I was just saying in the early days of Pandora 2 Spam, x86 BayTrail was some of the forum member's wish

 

[ekianjo]

Sigh, if iCP2 did not end up in a mess, you have got yourself an x86 PYRA right there

The Pyra will run Linux. Not this tablet.

I know PYRA will be ARM.  I was just saying in the early days of Pandora 2 Spam, x86 BayTrail was some of the forum member's wish

This has nothing to do with ARM. 

You could run Linux on X86 as well !

But it is very much unlikely you can install Linux on such a tablet because of the numerous hardware locks they put in it. Which is a different stance from the Pandora successor. 

 

[crazyhorse]

Its nearly there -

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1WrRngZ4giE?feature=oembed

 

[SNESFAN]

Hey that's pretty neat, they get hardware acceleration working and they'll have another buyer.

 

[elwing]

wow, finally a X86 tablet that's not too far from the ARM price range...

 

[ghostpatch]

thats a cool pice of hardware! The problem seems to be the crap 32-bit UEFI firmware but obviously its possible to hack around. Missing drivers will probably follow given time. 64-bit UEFI wouldn't pose a problem for Linux according to this article http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/26734.html

I wish things in the mobile sector will become like desktops and laptops in terms of "you got a bootmanger, install what you want". Go Intel you can do it!

Got a Nexus7 (2013) and two things badly suck - no microSD card and no mass memory with the stock rom! So I'm going to flash AOKP ; )

 

[Mr_Loon]

Wow, that's some pretty impressive performance for emulation.

Native PC games : Did not try any

Take it you don't use Steam? Would love to see how well less demanding PC games run on this thing. Must admit, at that price I'm pretty tempted to find out for myself.

Looks like there have been plenty of others trying it out with PC games.

 

[kamui_kun]

Sorry I don't use Steam, but if you're aiming for less demanding games like Limbo and such, I'm pretty sure they run flawlessly.

On a side note, I'm very impressed by Windows 8.1 native games compatibility, some games that would not run on 7 and even XP, now runs flawlessly on 8.1 (Windows 95 games using old DirectX).

 

[Klumpen]

But it is very much unlikely you can install Linux on such a tablet because of the numerous hardware locks they put in it. Which is a different stance from the Pandora successor. 

There you got my main reason against it.

I will not be forced to use Win8. Period.

 

[TrashyMG]

Windows 8...

 

[Exophase]

Pretty weird that the PS2 numbers match the numbers claimed for an old single core 1.6GHz Silverthorne way back here: http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/11110-dreamcast-emulation-on-latest-socs/page-2#entry211634

IMO the best test for emulation performance is to let something run, without frameskip (and possibly without throttling), after loading at some point or playing an intro/demo mode that runs on its own. Then measure the amount of time it take for it to get to some point. That's a lot more reliable than instantaneous FPS reports with unknown frameskip applied, or just claims that something is fullspeed.

 

[kamui_kun]

Well, not really, on the S5, for Odin Sphere, the 30 FPS was in the menu (which run fullspeed on the Dell), the 30 FPS on the Dell is about the lowest FPS it gets ingame (actually 20 FPS for the worst case), most of the time it is running fullspeed.

Also, on the S5, it was running on 100% software and with many hacks activated (frameskip and no desinterlace, and such). On the Dell, the GPU actually helps, and I did activate some hacks (but no frameskip, deinterlace set to auto), but the game looks perfect visually.

 

[Exophase]

That's pretty much my point though, the devil's in the details. If you're going to report performance measurements you really need controlled, repeatable, and thoroughly documented test setups.

 

[kamui_kun]

Well you can probably find benchmarks on the Bay Trail cpus now that it is available publicly, here's one for the CPU : http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/58070-640x492.png and the GPU : http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/58064.png

For the curious about PS2 emulation on the DV8P, here's some screenshots I just did, check the titlebar for the FPS :

http://imageshack.us/a/img801/3223/rqtl.png

http://imageshack.us/a/img268/9517/d495.png

http://imageshack.us/a/img716/4779/w3dv.png