Nulldce On The Beagleboard

[Phawx]

I would donate some cash if I saw "something" working on the Pandora. Like if I saw 5-7 FPS and Zezu or Drk2 said we may get something playable and more support, I'd drop cash quick.

 

[Eso Rimmer]

God Ginrai:
I meant my post link for post #33 (the one you quoted) but forum is messed up and I didn't noticed these links don't work correctly. It should link directly to post #33 but linked to the top of tha page only...

Anyway I vote for erase of all off topic posts in this thread. It will decrease the number of post to somwhere around two or three pages.

 

[(naw)mcx]

I would donate some cash if I saw "something" working on the Pandora. Like if I saw 5-7 FPS and Zezu or Drk2 said we may get something playable and more support, I'd drop cash quick.

Pay up

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

@God Ginrai but what if ti was Gogeta's post that propmted his post... XD

but enough of the OT please we'll eventually find out if it overclocks soon enough

lol my bad all of this just because I mistyped something

anyway, my main concern right now is about the actual clock the omap can achieve on the pandora. pickle got as high as 750mhz, but I didn't really see anyone try it over that... (and beagleboard overclock proofs doesn't count here)
I know there's still a lot of room for getting the nulldc port better, but higher-clocking will most probably be used anyway

 

[Exophase]

@God Ginrai but what if ti was Gogeta's post that propmted his post... XD

but enough of the OT please we'll eventually find out if it overclocks soon enough

lol my bad all of this just because I mistyped something

anyway, my main concern right now is about the actual clock the omap can achieve on the pandora. pickle got as high as 750mhz, but I didn't really see anyone try it over that... (and beagleboard overclock proofs doesn't count here)
I know there's still a lot of room for getting the nulldc port better, but higher-clocking will most probably be used anyway


Everyone I know of who has overvolted to the "proper" voltage (TI "approved" amount, as in, they say it reduces overall lifetime but doesn't put the CPU in immediate necessary danger) has gotten 900+MHz. Pickle was running at normal volts - the clocks at that voltage have ranged from like 625MHz to 800MHz or so.

 

[Yod4z]

Exophase, it seem if the OMAP is overclocked the NEON FPU has some problems, is that right?

 

[Cpasjuste]

I can say that i use my pandora dev board clocked at 800Mhz every days, i never noticed a problem.

Exophase, i would be happy to see how we can set the voltage to the "proper" one.

 

[God Ginrai]

@God Ginrai but what if ti was Gogeta's post that propmted his post... XD

but enough of the OT please we'll eventually find out if it overclocks soon enough

lol my bad all of this just because I mistyped something

anyway, my main concern right now is about the actual clock the omap can achieve on the pandora. pickle got as high as 750mhz, but I didn't really see anyone try it over that... (and beagleboard overclock proofs doesn't count here)
I know there's still a lot of room for getting the nulldc port better, but higher-clocking will most probably be used anyway


Not your fault. Eso rimmer's link linked to the wrong post.

God Ginrai:
I meant my post link for post #33 (the one you quoted) but forum is messed up and I didn't noticed these links don't work correctly. It should link directly to post #33 but linked to the top of tha page only...

I see. That makes sense then.

-God Ginrai

 

[x68000]

Great work by the devs so far on this!

Wonder if they have progressed since the last video was posted?

 

[giovanni]

I'M INORANT, I'M NOT A PROGRAMMER

They made an incredible jump from the really first video to the second one....
I think that will be difficult to see more progresses right now...
I mean: in the original boot video they had something like (I'm spculating) 9 FPS, now we have 14 FPS, I don't think they will continue to add 5 FPS every opimization.
It will be good enough if we will get 20 FPS in a year.

Good work tho

 

[WizardStan]

As it is, it's too slow to be fun and playable.
If the bottleneck is the graphics rendering, then 15ish frames per second is enough to play a lot of games. Just introduce frame skip. It's not smooth, but you don't always need it to be smooth. At least you get a playable speed.
On the other hand, if the graphics are not holding it up at all, it's the actual CPU emulation that takes up the most time, then it looks like a lot more work is still needed. I wish the team the best of luck and give my full support!

I'm hoping it's the former: if they reach the pinnacle of optimization and it's still not enough, certain graphical sacrifices can be made to get the speed up a little more.
If it's the latter, and they've reached a point that simply cannot be optimized anymore, if it's not playable speed then that's it.
On the other-other hand, they might be able to optimize everything perfectly and get it running at 100% without any sacrifice anywhere, because they're just that danged good!

 

[DasFool]

I sent you guys $15. Keep up the great work.

 

[x68000]

I'm sure these guys can squeeze quite a bit more out of the Pandora/Beagleboard yet, since the port is so far pretty much unoptimized for our device.

I certainly wouldn't underestimate what these guys could achieve next!

Expect another donation from me too.

 

[Exophase]

As it is, it's too slow to be fun and playable.
If the bottleneck is the graphics rendering, then 15ish frames per second is enough to play a lot of games. Just introduce frame skip. It's not smooth, but you don't always need it to be smooth. At least you get a playable speed.
On the other hand, if the graphics are not holding it up at all, it's the actual CPU emulation that takes up the most time, then it looks like a lot more work is still needed. I wish the team the best of luck and give my full support!

I'm hoping it's the former: if they reach the pinnacle of optimization and it's still not enough, certain graphical sacrifices can be made to get the speed up a little more.
If it's the latter, and they've reached a point that simply cannot be optimized anymore, if it's not playable speed then that's it.
On the other-other hand, they might be able to optimize everything perfectly and get it running at 100% without any sacrifice anywhere, because they're just that danged good!

Sorry to disappoint you, but there's no way that graphics are "the" bottleneck. I'm sure that the SGX is waiting for more work while the CPU is busy getting a frame's worth of emulation done. I doubt frameskip will ever do an awful lot on this emulator, but even if the SGX isn't fast enough the CPU emulation will still probably be slower.

 

[Cpasjuste]

Maybe openCL will come here a day

 

[jscinoz]

Does anyone happen to know how ZeZu is planning to license this if it ever gets to a playable speed, I know that the Windows version of NullDC is non-free. I'm seeing a scary tendency on these forums towards non-free crap for a FOSS oriented system.

 

[DavidBowman]

nullDC is freeware, my friend. If you paid for it, you got taken.

Aside from that, I'm OK with some commercial applications on the pandora. Not everything has to be free. There are some really high-quality games available through services like Steam and Apple's App Store that aren't more than a few dollars.

 

[Exophase]

nullDC is freeware, my friend. If you paid for it, you got taken.

He means that it isn't open source. Proponents of FSF (free software foundation) insist that "free" software is software that you can freely modify, or if the distinction must be made, the more virtuous "free as in speech", rather than the more vulgar "free as in beer."

(yeah, I don't really like them that much)

Actually, I would say he's been had if he thinks that Pandora is an "FOSS oriented system."

 

[conso]

I'm an open-source enthusiast, but even I don't blame anyone for not making his software open source. That's a decision a developer must do himself. Still, I prefer in many cases open source software for it's closed alternatives and everyone must admit that the pandora wouldn't get as usefull as it will be without open-source software. Therefor, we should be thankfull for all the people asking developers to opensource their projects, as long as they are friendly and don't annoy the developers with rant.

IIRC, drkIIraziel once said that nullDCe might get open-source at some stage of development. Might.

 

[Exophase]

I'm an open-source enthusiast, but even I don't blame anyone for not making his software open source. That's a decision a developer must do himself. Still, I prefer in many cases open source software for it's closed alternatives and everyone must admit that the pandora wouldn't get as usefull as it will be without open-source software. Therefor, we should be thankfull for all the people asking developers to opensource their projects, as long as they are friendly and don't annoy the developers with rant.

IIRC, drkIIraziel once said that nullDCe might get open-source at some stage of development. Might.

The world has vastly benefited from various open source projects, but you can't prove that being open source is going to be necessarily beneficial for every possible project. In fact, there are even cases where going open can be harmful (at least by my reckoning). I'm not up to thanking anyone for asking someone to make their project open (and bear in mind that to many people "open" means GPL and nothing else) - developers are not completely ignorant, most of them are fully aware of open source as an option and have deliberately chosen for one reason or another not to make their stuff open. Sure, there are probably some cases where asking is worthwhile, like if the thing has been sitting without development for a long time and the author has no interest in working on it anymore - I'm not saying it's impolite to ask, but like you implied a lot of people are pretty rude about it.

For some software it really isn't going to matter if it's open or not. Some people should ease their lofty ideals and spend more time actually enjoying things for what they are.