SoC: Back and forth!

[God Ginrai]

If this friend of a friend was able to get a board then maybe ED just needs to be more persistent.

I agree. I believe we should exhaust all possible options for this.

Side note: This was mentioned in IRC by dreamer, but I haven't seen it pointed out here, so I wanted to point out that Allwinner joined Linaro: http://liliputing.com/2014/03/allwinner-joins-linaro-digital-home-group-commits-open-source-chip-support.html

-God Ginrai

 

[SNESFAN]

I can say the end point of contact is a manufacturer in that region. I imagine that gives them more pull than most.

 

[God Ginrai]

I can say the end point of contact is a manufacturer in that region. I imagine that gives them more pull than most.

So maybe EvilDragon should see if Fatih can get one using his contacts?

-God Ginrai

 

[Natsu]

Hopes for Allwinner are actually growing.

 

[_jr_]

And it seems like they are at least slightly serious about linux support.

 

[Natsu]

I can say the end point of contact is a manufacturer in that region. I imagine that gives them more pull than most.

You really do know a guy, right? Not just messing with us?

 

[SNESFAN]

Yes sir, I just hope it happens as planned and not just lip service like dealing with people from that region sometimes is. I believe their culture favors not disappointing customers up front, but rather making promises they can't keep and disappointing them later. These guys and my friend have delivered on similar promises in the past though so hopes are high. Fingers are still crossed though, you guys will be the first to know if I get it. (Well second people I suppose)

 

[SNESFAN]

I'm in possession of a mediatek MT8125 tablet and I remembered the topic of how a quad a7 @ 1200ghz device will perform. It was suggested it would not be good for anything at all but the lightest of applications. Where in fact it is acceptable speed for basically everything, performs roughly the same level as a tegra 3 in both side by side comparisons and in benchmarks. It does run android stock, but it is capable of running drastic at full speed w/ frameskip(mario kart), and about 80-100% without, plays PSP at a decent level (ff7 cc only dips to 80-90%) I feel much much better than my overclocked pandora, and from what I've seen the 1ghz pandora, but obviously not as good as say the shield. All systems below that are full speed no frame skip. Just compare it to a 2012 nexus 7 for performance comparison. I can do a video if anyone is more interested.

What is amazing though... is the battery consumption. 6000mah battery w/ a 8 inch screen is producing 14 hours of active use on a charge, similar usage pattern that gets me 7 hours out of the shield(cortex a-15) with it's 7350mah battery and 5 inch screen. The manufacturer's quote on this was 18 hours but they included some low intensive tasks like reading etc. I'm saying 14 hours would be normal active use. If you had a 4200mah battery you very easily could maintain 10 hours of active use and still see quite the jump in performance over the current gen pandora.

Just something to put in your hat.

 

[Exophase]

1GHz Pandoras can run DraStic full speed with frameskip for several games too (and many without frameskip, or at least a lot of the time). Then there are some games where this this isn't close to true. I don't think it's very valuable to form a conclusion after testing DS and PSP emulators with one game.

 

[SNESFAN]

I've tested more than just two games.... please give me more credit than that. I just didn't want to fill the page with other games I've tested. But I wanted to give a reference that I wasn't just trying some homebrew game and saying "oh look full speed"  I'll admit mario kart is the game I tested the most on all the different devices I own and my eye is mostly trained on that game where it dips down and when on different devices. I feel it's roughly the same power as the tegra 3 for basically everything.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, the A7 is basically a crippled A8, so one A7 core with 1200 MHz is about as fast as a 1GHz Pandora.

No idea how the usage of the multicore is here, but if DraStic uses one core, it's about as fast as on the 1GHz Pandora.

The OMAP5 is A LOT faster.

 

[SNESFAN]

is there a common software that would be a good benchmark that exists on android and a 1ghz pandora? I'd be more than happy to post the result for a comparison.

OMAP 5 is also A LOT more power hungry.

My argument is that it's not going to beat the OMAP 5, but it will provide much better performance than the DM3730 is capable of, and consumes much less power while doing so.

My question is what mark of performance are you trying to hit?

 

[_jr_]

Well, the A7 is basically a crippled A8, so one A7 core with 1200 MHz is about as fast as a 1GHz Pandora.


No idea how the usage of the multicore is here, but if DraStic uses one core, it's about as fast as on the 1GHz Pandora.


The OMAP5 is A LOT faster.

But when an Emulator doesn't need the additional performance it will possibly use less power on an A7 based system (at least that is what ARM is advertising). But I think there are two unknowns here: what performance increase does an A7 based system offer over the Pandora, and how much more power does an A15 based system use for these tasks. I suspect an A7 based system would be slightly faster than a Pandora while using less power than a Pyra (but not much less, because the SoC is not the only factor in the power budget, especially at lower frequencies), but probably not significantly enough to make an A7 based CPU module attractive.

 

[Exophase]

I've tested more than just two games.... please give me more credit than that. I just didn't want to fill the page with other games I've tested. But I wanted to give a reference that I wasn't just trying some homebrew game and saying "oh look full speed"  I'll admit mario kart is the game I tested the most on all the different devices I own and my eye is mostly trained on that game where it dips down and when on different devices. I feel it's roughly the same power as the tegra 3 for basically everything.

Nonetheless, I know for sure that a 1.2GHz quad A7 isn't fast enough to run everything full speed with frameskip in DraStic, which is what you were implying. And then there are some games that don't like frameskip.

If you were eyeballing it does that mean your number wasn't based on the frame counter?

Well, the A7 is basically a crippled A8, so one A7 core with 1200 MHz is about as fast as a 1GHz Pandora.

No idea how the usage of the multicore is here, but if DraStic uses one core, it's about as fast as on the 1GHz Pandora.

The OMAP5 is A LOT faster.

DraStic is one of few ARM emulators that uses multiple threads (in this case, strictly for rendering). If it weren't for that I think it'd in some ways be disadvantaged vs a 1GHz Pandora because NEON is slower (per clock) on A7, although it's hard to say how that compares against the advantages the A7 has and the higher clock speed.

 

[SNESFAN]

yes it was based off frame counter. My eyes were trained on the areas it normally struggles at so I was making sure not to just get a best case reading.

Other than the setting the frameskip to none and enabling fps counter, it's default settings.

What's a good all around intensive game? I'll get some readings on it without frameskip.

 

[God Ginrai]

What's a good all around intensive game? I'll get some readings on it without frameskip.

Okamiden.

-God Ginrai

 

[SNESFAN]

What's a good all around intensive game? I'll get some readings on it without frameskip.

Okamiden.

-God Ginrai

played it for about 10 min, never did it once drop below 98%, it just hovers between 98-100% no frameskip

EDIT: golden sun floats around 60-80% without frameskip, that was previously only partially playable on even the sheild, think exo must have fixed that one.

EDIT2: looks like he did fix golden sun, it now runs 95-100% on shield

 

[God Ginrai]

What's a good all around intensive game? I'll get some readings on it without frameskip.

Okamiden.

-God Ginrai

played it for about 10 min, never did it once drop below 98%, it just hovers between 98-100% no frameskip
EDIT: golden sun floats around 60-80% without frameskip, that was previously only partially playable on even the sheild, think exo must have fixed that one.

Weird. The area with the Thunder Tribe was supposed to suffer framerate issues even on real hardware.

-God Ginrai

 

[Natsu]

Should Qualcomm be recontacted?

Yes sir, I just hope it happens as planned and not just lip service like dealing with people from that region sometimes is. I believe their culture favors not disappointing customers up front, but rather making promises they can't keep and disappointing them later. These guys and my friend have delivered on similar promises in the past though so hopes are high. Fingers are still crossed though, you guys will be the first to know if I get it. (Well second people I suppose)

Any updates at all? lol

 

[SNESFAN]

Talked to my friend yesterday, he was given an offer for a joint venture with a company that used to be pretty influential in the gaming space. I was giving him some recommendations on how to handle digital distribution and sales of content. Suggested he use amazon as the middleman because of its proven model with ouya and their low overhead cost and built in payment system and uptime. As far I'm aware everything is still going to plan, next month would be April by the way no word on the exact date, I'll ask him again in April when he thinks it will come.