TitanUranus
Active Member
I'm not entirely sure if I'm putting this in the right place, so if any mod wants to move it please feel free.
Well, for the first time since Hotfix 5 I decided to do some extensive overclocking testing and I've gotten some surprising results. I'd like to know if anyone else experiences similar changes in their clocking abilities on their pandoras, or if they'd like to report anything related to this (either the emulator I used to test or the actual opp voltages). I'm not really asking for support, but some explanation would be very welcome. I used hotfix 7a3 running from SDHC in these tests. First off, even with reduced overclocking there seems to be a big improvement in the speed and functionality of a lot of software, especially the XFCE interface so this isn't a complaint or worrying me, it's just curious.
First off, I'll tell you what I was testing. I tested the maximum stable MHz for OPP1 through OPP5, and for a fair test I used PSXreARMed r13, playing 007-Racing through level 1 and loading and starting level 2. It invariably crashed when the helicopter in level appears or between loading levels if the clock rate is too high. Most often it'd just exit the emulator, but a few times I got a proper machine freeze crash and had to reboot. I chose the PSX emulator since it uses NEON and is unstable at previously acceptable OC values. Or so I thought.
OPP1 was a big surprise. On hotfix 5 and 6 I used the same settings I'd created under hotfix 5. The OS used to crash around 480 MHz on opp1, certainly if you loaded up any CPU intensive software. Now it (the OS) runs flawlessly and is stable (and remarkably playable) with the PSX emu right up to 525 MHz (but crashing at 530)! OC'ing with opp2 was similar, but less dramatic, with the OS and PSX running flawlessly at 660 MHz and crashing at 665 MHz. So there I was, thinking OC'ing would probably be better and more stable for other opp values too. Not so. I used to have everything running great on opp3 right up to 850 MHz, now the PSX emulator flakes out at a mere 830 MHz. At one point I had the OS running well at 875 MHz on opp3, but took it down to 850 on hotfix 6 when PSX started using NEON. So why the drop in stability at 850 MHz on opp3 between hotfix 6 and 7? It gets worse though, opp4 flakes out at 895 MHz and it used to be stable right up to 950+. What shocked me most is that opp5 became unstable at a mere 985 MHz when I regularly tested stuff at 1024 MHz in the past without any problems.
Perhaps the PSX emu just becomes unstable when overclocked beyond a certain point, I had the frame rate limiter off and the car was flying along at about double the normal speed, so could it be that this just causes the emu to freak out even without overtaxing the CPU? This may make sense as the OS seems stable enough at higher MHz when running lots of CPU intensive stuff like firefox 9 with flash sites. Or has the clockspeed come down because the voltages to the CPU were affected by the increase in voltage to the SD cards - in which case running from SD might be less stable than from NAND??? Does running from SD cause more heat that affects the max CPU MHz (and could this explain why OC'ing higher at opp1 was better as the CPU just doesnt get heat problems at low voltage?). Does anyone know any of these answers, and more to the point does anyone care?
I'm now astoundingly good at level 1 of 007-racing, and astoundingly bored of it too. Someone else might like to test their pandora using some other game/emu (N64 uses NEON too) with the same OCD style dedication with which I tested mine. Let me and the world know your results please.
Well, for the first time since Hotfix 5 I decided to do some extensive overclocking testing and I've gotten some surprising results. I'd like to know if anyone else experiences similar changes in their clocking abilities on their pandoras, or if they'd like to report anything related to this (either the emulator I used to test or the actual opp voltages). I'm not really asking for support, but some explanation would be very welcome. I used hotfix 7a3 running from SDHC in these tests. First off, even with reduced overclocking there seems to be a big improvement in the speed and functionality of a lot of software, especially the XFCE interface so this isn't a complaint or worrying me, it's just curious.
First off, I'll tell you what I was testing. I tested the maximum stable MHz for OPP1 through OPP5, and for a fair test I used PSXreARMed r13, playing 007-Racing through level 1 and loading and starting level 2. It invariably crashed when the helicopter in level appears or between loading levels if the clock rate is too high. Most often it'd just exit the emulator, but a few times I got a proper machine freeze crash and had to reboot. I chose the PSX emulator since it uses NEON and is unstable at previously acceptable OC values. Or so I thought.
OPP1 was a big surprise. On hotfix 5 and 6 I used the same settings I'd created under hotfix 5. The OS used to crash around 480 MHz on opp1, certainly if you loaded up any CPU intensive software. Now it (the OS) runs flawlessly and is stable (and remarkably playable) with the PSX emu right up to 525 MHz (but crashing at 530)! OC'ing with opp2 was similar, but less dramatic, with the OS and PSX running flawlessly at 660 MHz and crashing at 665 MHz. So there I was, thinking OC'ing would probably be better and more stable for other opp values too. Not so. I used to have everything running great on opp3 right up to 850 MHz, now the PSX emulator flakes out at a mere 830 MHz. At one point I had the OS running well at 875 MHz on opp3, but took it down to 850 on hotfix 6 when PSX started using NEON. So why the drop in stability at 850 MHz on opp3 between hotfix 6 and 7? It gets worse though, opp4 flakes out at 895 MHz and it used to be stable right up to 950+. What shocked me most is that opp5 became unstable at a mere 985 MHz when I regularly tested stuff at 1024 MHz in the past without any problems.
Perhaps the PSX emu just becomes unstable when overclocked beyond a certain point, I had the frame rate limiter off and the car was flying along at about double the normal speed, so could it be that this just causes the emu to freak out even without overtaxing the CPU? This may make sense as the OS seems stable enough at higher MHz when running lots of CPU intensive stuff like firefox 9 with flash sites. Or has the clockspeed come down because the voltages to the CPU were affected by the increase in voltage to the SD cards - in which case running from SD might be less stable than from NAND??? Does running from SD cause more heat that affects the max CPU MHz (and could this explain why OC'ing higher at opp1 was better as the CPU just doesnt get heat problems at low voltage?). Does anyone know any of these answers, and more to the point does anyone care?
I'm now astoundingly good at level 1 of 007-racing, and astoundingly bored of it too. Someone else might like to test their pandora using some other game/emu (N64 uses NEON too) with the same OCD style dedication with which I tested mine. Let me and the world know your results please.
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