Performance of Android apps/games with different versions of Pandora

[Mr_Loon]

I'm wondering if when recommending Apps/Games for Android if it would be useful to state what version of the Pandora hardware people are using. Also stating what processor speed your Pandora is running at might be a good idea.


We have 3 basic 'flavours' of Pandora :


256MB With Omap 3530


512MB With Omap 3530


512MB With DM3730


If someone could compare and contrast the performance of a selection of apps with the different 'flavours' of Pandora then that would be much appreciated.


Most things I've tried worked fine with my 256MB unit when clocked to 1Ghz, but I've a suspicion that the extra memory could be useful in some of the cases where things did not run correctly. For instance, World of Goo starts (with stuttering intro animation) but after just a couple of minutes of play things slow down and eventually grind to a halt requiring a hard reset.

 

[mcobit]

One small suggestion:


I use a 512mb swapfile, that I activate in angstrom after deactivating zram before starting android.


I downloaded advanced taskkiller from the playstore and before I start a game, I clean all previously running tasks with it.


Makes world of goo and plants vs zombies play stutter free at 600mhz on the 256mb unit for me


Edit: In general I think performanceissues are more due to ramlimitation than cpuspeed with the old units.

 

[Foxgod]

Are there more lightweight versions of android that could be used on the non 1ghz units?


The 1ghz unit might even be able to smoothly run cyanogenmod 9 (ICS) when its out, while the other models might not.


Maybe its a good idea to have multiple android versions packed in PND's, and recommend the older more lightweight versions for the non 1ghz model, while cyanogen7 and up might be recommended for the 1ghz model.


In the end there might be several PND's containing different builds of cyanogenmod that are optimised for different versions of the Panda.

 

[mcobit]

1.6 might run, too but would most likely require a lot of work again. And who knows if it runs better or not.

 

[Foxgod]

1.6 might run, too but would most likely require a lot of work again. And who knows if it runs better or not.

Older OS versions tend to be less RAM hungry, so it might give better performance on the 256mb model.


The early pandora adopters need to be supported too in the coming years.

 

[mcobit]

I read, that the taskmanagement for example just became useable in 2.2, so maybe 1.6 is not as stable and featurecomplete as the newer versions.

 

[mindlord]

Oh, most likely you will not want to look backward to 1.6. The newer versions are far superior in the resource management department.


Ideally you will want to set up your environment to only allow one or two tasks to be running at a time, and avoid applications that run in the background. In the developer options in Cyanogen there should be an option to control how many tasks are being held in memory. Basically strip your Android down to just being an app-launcher and let it run your game give it almost 100% of its attention.

 

[EvilDragon]

Most games seem to work from 2.2 on, so we want to keep that on old units as well

 

[renegadechic]

One small suggestion:


I use a 512mb swapfile, that I activate in angstrom after deactivating zram before starting android.


I downloaded advanced taskkiller from the playstore and before I start a game, I clean all previously running tasks with it.


Makes world of goo and plants vs zombies play stutter free at 600mhz on the 256mb unit for me


Edit: In general I think performanceissues are more due to ramlimitation than cpuspeed with the old units.

Oh, most likely you will not want to look backward to 1.6. The newer versions are far superior in the resource management department.


Ideally you will want to set up your environment to only allow one or two tasks to be running at a time, and avoid applications that run in the background. In the developer options in Cyanogen there should be an option to control how many tasks are being held in memory. Basically strip your Android down to just being an app-launcher and let it run your game give it almost 100% of its attention.

Would it be at all possible for you guys to put together some potentially "idiot proof" guides to getting things this way? I struggle a bit with my 256 pandora to get some stuff running

 

[coverilla]

One small suggestion:


I use a 512mb swapfile, that I activate in angstrom after deactivating zram before starting android.


I downloaded advanced taskkiller from the playstore and before I start a game, I clean all previously running tasks with it.


Makes world of goo and plants vs zombies play stutter free at 600mhz on the 256mb unit for me


Edit: In general I think performanceissues are more due to ramlimitation than cpuspeed with the old units.

Could you explain how did you deactivate zram? I tried swapoff /dev/zram0 but such device doesn't exist in /dev. However I see /dev/zram0 in /proc/swaps. swapoff -a cannot be invoked as /etc/fstab doesn't exist as well

 

[coverilla]

Ah, I understand now, I tried it from Android Terminal Now it works. thanks

 

[Farox]

Will be good to integrate, what mcobit have discovered, on the next PND of Android for Pandora....

 

[notaz]

Will be good to integrate, what mcobit have discovered, on the next PND of Android for Pandora....

I don't think so, swap is needed for other things like Firefox and Battle For Wesnoth too, so it should be handled separately, perhaps set up by another .pnd

 

[CAZMIESTER]

Yeah some guides would be nice struggling to get google play on the pandora keeps saying my device hasnt got a good enough connection even though its excellent wtf

 

[EvilDragon]

Yeah some guides would be nice struggling to get google play on the pandora keeps saying my device hasnt got a good enough connection even though its excellent wtf

Date is set properly?

 

[CAZMIESTER]

Yeah some guides would be nice struggling to get google play on the pandora keeps saying my device hasnt got a good enough connection even though its excellent wtf

Date is set properly?

Yeah got it working unfortunately wifi keeps dropping off BUT!! it is working ps how does mame4droid reloaded work on the jxd s7100 and g18 there both single core systems but wont install on pandora? does it work on the 512mb systems tried a swap file but no joy.

 

[CAZMIESTER]

maybe because of this:


"MAME4droid Reloaded emulates arcade games supported by original MAME 0.139.


This MAME4droid version is targeted to Dual-Core devices (1GHz and 512MB RAM minimum), because it is based on a high specs 2010 PC MAME build. Anyway don't expect arcade games of the 90 to work at full speed. With some games that are really bad optimized (like outrun or mk series) you will need at least a 1.5 ghz dual-core device (Cortex A15). This is related to MAME build used, since it is targeted to high specs PC's as i said before."

Yes but my point is i have it running on the yinlips g18 and the jxd s7100 both single core handhelds which run it pretty well i also have it on the asus transformer prime for comparison and they both hold up pretty well so dont understand how the pandora can't handle(even load it)