the open pandora 2 must use an amd apu!

[monstercameron]

amd just released the z-60, so the P2 must use this chip even though exophase would beg to differ in terms of performance and power consumption. The chips is quit capable, runs linux,windows,andrroid and bsd. It has much more software packages in every os and compatible with legacy software.


here is a video I made of 6th and 5th gen emulators and there are more videos of pc games on the channel

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1y0BCIirDhc?feature=oembed

the uses more power than arm but from what I have seen, the chip itself uses about ~2 Watts and the display on this models uses 20Watts the chip is relatively frugal but it does run hot.

 

[craigix]

X86 is dying. Watching it flailing about as it goes down is sad.

 

[Binky]

Not dead, but severely ill.


x86 might stay on in a small select market for high-powered stuff


but for personal computing, facebook, itunes and normal computer use-cases, the clock is definitely ticking...

 

[McLovin]

I recently read a review about a x86-powered smartphone that has a better batterylife then most amd-powered. Was quite irritated.

 

[monstercameron]

yeah but the intel atoms are crap that use crappy powervr gfx

 

[ferrule]

X86 is dying. Watching it flailing about as it goes down is sad.

Do you really think so? In what way?


A computer is only as useful as the software running on it. IMO it's a race between x86 which has FANTASTIC software availability and compatibility vs ARM with it's improving speed and inbuilt low-power usage but struggling software ecosystem.


Nice to see Java out there on ARM now, but my perception is you're stuck in binary driver/NDA hell when trying to get stuff to work.


My rule of thumb these days is all my devices need to be able to run mythfrontend.


If the P2 can be x86 and still have reasonable battery life it would be a no-brainer IMO.


Ian

 

[ferrule]

yeah but the intel atoms are crap that use crappy powervr gfx

What do you think the GPU in most (all?) ARM CPUs is?

 

[craigix]

I recently read a review about a x86-powered smartphone that has a better batterylife then most amd-powered. Was quite irritated.

Then they shoved a massive battery in it. If the same battery was in an ARM phone it would win.

 

[monstercameron]

ti omap, apple ax, some sony novathor and mediatek are the main socs that use powervr. The samsung exynos, rockchip 3xxx, allwinner ax, some sony novathor and amlogic use mali and qualcom snapdragon uses adreno. Powervr is crap for open projects(although most of the other are still closed).

 

[ferrule]

I haven't had any chance to play with building kernels/modules with matching firmware etc yet, but from what I've read and from discussions with those that have, it seems to be a huge hassle. Add in trying to offload to a DSP or NEON and it just seems to be a huge pain. Gstreamer seems to be an easy way to get around some of those problems as manufacturers add in support, but most desktop apps use libavcodec...


But a lot of times these problems seem insurmountable until you start hacking on them..


That said, things generally just work on x86.

 

[Exophase]

You mean they released a chip that's identical to the one they announced a year ago but it has USB3 instead of USB2? Shocking.

 

[Exophase]

I recently read a review about a x86-powered smartphone that has a better batterylife then most amd-powered. Was quite irritated.

Yeah, because the only battery life tests they do on phones is (usually pretty light) web browsing, talking, idling, and maybe video. Once in a blue moon they'll run a game and it won't last more than 3 hours.


In other words, they don't test power consumption while actually using the CPU. If that sounds like what you want to use your Pandora for - a bunch of stuff that benefits zero from x86 compatibility, btw - then by all means, this setup would work for you. Sadly most Pandora users want to run games, emulators, and productivity stuff like compilers, that actually benefit from using the CPU.


By the way, the only performance tests they do on phones are synthetic tests, mostly Javascript which is a turd polishing contest if I've ever seen one. Now you'd think they could at least run battery life tests while looping their worthless performance tests, but they can't even do that much.


Moral of the story, you only need the CPU for the 5 minutes a day you spend running SunSpider.

 

[monstercameron]

- a bunch of stuff that benefits zero from x86 compatibility...

benefits from having optimized software...something that is lacking with the current pandora. why start everything over when you can get all the emulators that have been working and optimized for x86. The z-60 I think is rebadged from last year but it has a new controller hub which I think is whats handling usb3.

 

[Exophase]

You telling me we don't optimize our software for ARM? I optimize my software for ARM more than I do for x86. You really know nothing about the history of emulators on ARM, or even what's available on the Pandora for that matter. I don't know of a single PS1 GPU plugin for x86 that uses SSE in any real capacity. And while Ari64 may have also vastly improve Mupen64plus's x86 compiler he released the ARM one first, and I don't even know of anyone who is using his builds on x86.

 

[monstercameron]

no dude I didn't say that you stellar arm devs don't, all I am saying is that you have to optimize for arm after porting from x86, why duplicate the work?

 

[craigix]

I agree there ARM has been optimised superbly thanks to underpowered phones/consoles/handhelds from the past.


X86 suffered from the 'just put in a faster CPU' mentality for way too long...

 

[Exophase]

no dude I didn't say that you stellar arm devs don't, all I am saying is that you have to optimize for arm after porting from x86, why duplicate the work?

You think I'm porting emulators off of x86? I don't port emulators. You know where most of the Pandora emulators are ported from? Versions that have been on ARM for years, that have ARM CPU emulation and often ARM video emulation. This ain't Google Play, we're not just a PC port shop.


You run an x86 SoC and it's my emulators that will need optimizing for it. Not the other way around.

 

[monstercameron]

an another topic is the amount of software available...you must agree that x86 has more available.

 

[Exophase]

This isn't even worth talking about, a 4.5W SoC that doesn't even include the I/O part is untenable for something of Pandora's form factor. Do you want to burn people?


But let's say that's no problem and instead you just have to put up with 40 minutes of battery life while using it. Yeah okay, you have years worth of software available to it - now what of it is such a must play on Pandora? The only somewhat interesting thing you get maybe a few years PC games that are too powerful for qemu + wine (assuming that finally happens). Many of which have controls that are a poor fit on Pandora. Yay. If that's everything for you then great, but it comes at a pretty hefty price AND you make compatibility with all the ARM software (big chunk of Android catalog, which WAS optimized to work on Pandora 2 specs and interfaces) worse in return.


So uh yeah, I guess.

 

[monstercameron]

Android does work on x86 and native arm software can be emulated (which is what intel does with their atom z-series). From what I see, most arm software started on x86. As for batteries and battery life...before tablets there were devices called umpcs, there was a device called viliv n5 and it had 4 hours battery life with a 4300 MAh battery check it out here. So battery life is less but there is more performance, more software and more compatibility especially with legacy code.