I'm not necessarily a noob to android. I've flashed a few phones, dabbled with rooting and custom roms, but nothing too serious.
My first question about these Tegra 2 processors is fairly simple. I want to know if overclocking them makes them more media capable? I have a Droid Charge and had a Galaxy S before it, and both phones were perfectly capable of playing a 720p mkv with nary a stutter. It boggles my mind that I have to convert every video file before I drop it onto the Xoom. It's not a huge hassle but it's rather interesting a single core hummingbird can handle it with ease and a dual core clocked at the same speed has so much trouble.
Second question is this. Is there any development going on for the Xoom Family Edition? I haven't noticed much other than news posted regarding this version on this forum, so I'm not sure. It's obviously not the hit they were hoping it would be, there's a whole 3-4 cases made to fit it, and virtually no accessories for it like there is for the Xoom (docks and whatnot). If overclocking helps without nuking battery life, I'd be interested. I wouldn't know where to start developing, I'm definitely not a skilled programmer, but I would be happy to help any way I could (minus a potential brick, I can't afford a new tab)!
Bump. Any opinions?
Regarding the overclocking the tegra 2 , yes it will be more powerful therefore increasing media playback performance. Although battery usually drops faster you can install set CPU to set profiles for when the screen is off etc...
As for the Xoom I myself am not very knowledgeable about that device so I cannot effectivily answer your question.
Hope this helps!
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App
Remember that the Xoom screen is so much bigger, so takes a lot more juice to playback at same resolution, but overclocked cpu does make a difference for sure. Also, if on ICS, go into developers settings menu and turn off animation or set to .5. Makes a big difference.
The Xoom FE (like the Xoom2 and the Xyboard) don't have unlockable bootloaders and noone yet has found the exploit to gain root access. Hence no development...so far. If you find the way, you will be popular among the owners of those devices.
If you overclock the Xoom it will of course consume the battery faster, as with anything that requires voltage tweaking. The main thing to remember is research the governors that will adjust what clock you're running at and when you're running it. Interactive usually gives the best performance speedwise while Ondemand gives you a mix of performance and battery life.
Your media playback issue could possibly be due to several factors. Processor, RAM, SD read rate, and the media player are the main culprits that come to mind.
If it is the processor then overclocking will most likely help. There is a minor off chance that the Tegra2 does not contain certain instruction sets included on the other devices processor that allow it to decode the Matroskiva, mkv, format as readily.
If it is the RAM, your best bet is to get a task killer and use it to kill everything before you try to play the video. You can also go into settings and go to individual apps to force kill them which tends to work better than most task killers.
If it is the SD card rate, research fairly deeply into the subject because I personally have heard many mixed reviews in regards to the Xoom and higher "class" or access rate SD cards. Eventually I plan on getting a collection of them to run some testing myself for a unified chart, but until then your best bet would be to ask experienced Xoom users, and browse these forums.
If it is the app then try looking around to see what other players are out there. Some people use different decoding codecs than others, and some tend to work better on mobile devices with limited instruction sets.
Mind you, if i remember correctly, the other two devices also display at a lower resolution, which would take less power, and the app used to play the file might not support the larger resolutions as well.
And if you have not already toyed around with your Xoom and hacking it, just as a warning, like all other devices it can be easy to brick. Make sure you have read at least 2 different tutorials on how to do it beforehand as some are much more clearly stated than others.
Hope this helps you some
I hadn't thought about the memory card being the issue. I'm not sure how fast the internal memory card is, but my external is only a class 2, so that could have an effect on load times and everything. I know the RAM isn't really a problem, I don't do much on my tablet, and I've tried killing apps and fresh boots and nothing seems to work. It only seems to use about 450mb out of 1024mb for apps, and out of that only 124 was in use last time I checked.
I have tried many other media players though, including Dice Player which seems to be unanimously the best, and nothing I've tried is able to play an mkv on the Xoom. I typically try downloaded tv shows before movies, which include 500mb Big Bang Theory mkv files and 1gb Top Gear mkv files at 720p. Neither play at all in the stock player and play very badly in Dice or other players.
I can't wait until ICS on the Xoom FE, I'm betting it fixes a lot of my issues. Such as the browser constantly force closing and my wifi slowing down the longer the tablet is on.
Related
...is SLOWER than my 2 Years old Dell Axim!
I've been running my Update for CorePlayer to V1.2.2 without any problems. But - i've running the YouTube Function, connecting over WLAN 54 MBits to the YouTube Empire...
There i'll be searching for some videos, thinking that anything has chanced with this new version - tapped on a video - waiting - watching about five seconds - and? NOTHING! Its like before, laggy, struggleing and unwatchable...
why this damn devices is not optimized? why is this expensive thing hardware not able to do, what a two or three year old pocket pc is running without any problems? why we must hack this device to get a piece of performance?
This device is the best, the nicest and the fully featured piece of hardware that i've ever had. i've been a pda junkie since the beginning of this with the crappy WIN CE2.1.
Since Win CE is mutch time gone and the devices gone faster and faster. The good old casio em500 running a 150 MHz MIPS CPU was fast - the well known iPAQ3660 was faster and much better in playing videos or something. Every change of hardware was a change that was useful. After that a MDA2 with a 400 MHz x-scale cpu was mine and it was faster than everything before. MDA Compact was faster, The Dell AXIM Series was fast like a rocket - but then XDA Orbit brakes me like a train crashing in a wall of steel. I thought i've been running this device with a handbrake or something.
The Orbit 2 is a little bit faster - but if there is no video driver the videos are laggy - and that is what i don't understand. Why HTC?!
1. The youtube function is still new to the CorePlayer (I mean the direct youtube support whith available configuration)
2. The lag is mostly because of a small buffer and/or a crappy net connection
3. Unless CorePlayer doesn't suck whith normal (320x240 24~25 FPS) videos, don't complain.
Yes, we know that the drivers are missing, that's nothing new. If you wan't to know the cause check my signature. We heard enough people complaining, and most of us tried to do something instead of (in this case very detailed) whining.
If you knew what to expect, then don't complain, it you didn't... maybe next time you'll check forums/reviews/youtube for more info before buying.
http://www.computerbase.de/news/con...ikation/2008/april/quake_3_ipod_touch_iphone/
Apple iPhone running Quake 3 smooth like a piece of butter in the sun...
as far as i know iphone got a 600Mhz arm cpu
and a whole different os structure so you cant
really mix it into a compare of polaris and an older dell pda
OpenGL32 said:
The Orbit 2 is a little bit faster - but if there is no video driver the videos are laggy - and that is what i don't understand. Why HTC?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We feel your pain buddy...
Or should I say, we felt your pain. We've got past that stage already, and have kind of accepted this crappy fact of life - that we've been bent over with a smile. I personally chose this device because there is nothing else to choose from!
On the other hand, HTC makes me really want to get an iPhone, even with its lack of any modern features - it is a device that just works (well, after you've jail-broke it).
OpenGL32 said:
...is SLOWER than my 2 Years old Dell Axim!
I've been running my Update for CorePlayer to V1.2.2 without any problems. But - i've running the YouTube Function, connecting over WLAN 54 MBits to the YouTube Empire...
There i'll be searching for some videos, thinking that anything has chanced with this new version - tapped on a video - waiting - watching about five seconds - and? NOTHING! Its like before, laggy, struggleing and unwatchable...
why this damn devices is not optimized? why is this expensive thing hardware not able to do, what a two or three year old pocket pc is running without any problems? why we must hack this device to get a piece of performance?
This device is the best, the nicest and the fully featured piece of hardware that i've ever had. i've been a pda junkie since the beginning of this with the crappy WIN CE2.1.
Since Win CE is mutch time gone and the devices gone faster and faster. The good old casio em500 running a 150 MHz MIPS CPU was fast - the well known iPAQ3660 was faster and much better in playing videos or something. Every change of hardware was a change that was useful. After that a MDA2 with a 400 MHz x-scale cpu was mine and it was faster than everything before. MDA Compact was faster, The Dell AXIM Series was fast like a rocket - but then XDA Orbit brakes me like a train crashing in a wall of steel. I thought i've been running this device with a handbrake or something.
The Orbit 2 is a little bit faster - but if there is no video driver the videos are laggy - and that is what i don't understand. Why HTC?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder why your facing this problem?!?! CorePlayer 1.2.2 gives smooth flawless video, I've tested in on every video format commonly used.
Have you installed it on your Storage card or Device memory?
Just out of curiosity, will it make any difference?
I have it installed on the device itself, will it get a boost if i install it on the memory card?
Kimma said:
Just out of curiosity, will it make any difference?
I have it installed on the device itself, will it get a boost if i install it on the memory card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the app performs faster if installed on the Device memory, hence the improved video speeds.
Jibreil said:
Yes, the app performs faster if installed on the Device memory, hence the improved video speeds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was a kinda unclear response, i asked if i'll get a boost if i'll get a boost if i install on the MicroSD Memory card, and you reply with yes, you will get a boost from the Device Memory.
But i'm guessing i've done the right thing (installing it on the Built In memory)
Better to install on the device memory. As a rule of thumb install apps on device memory, especially if you have performance or incompatibility issues.
As for Coreplayer, I am using 1.2 with QTv. While it is a lot better with QTv and benchmark numbers are great, it's still not that fluid. When panning in scenes or fast motion, it's still not very smooth. When I check properties I might have 1 dropped frame out of several thousand so I know it's not dropped frames. I have encoded my movie (source is my DVD) at 320x240. It's at 24 fps. I can always try encoding at 30fps and see if that fixes it. But I don't believe fps to be the issue since playing the 24fps movie on my computer is smooth. Any ideas?
I have Core Player and love it's steaming capabilities. Doesn't skip and has plenty of feature to customize. The problem I'm running into is playing videos from my SD card. I have two TV show episodes loaded onto my microSD, 640x480. For some reason, Core Player skips a frame or two, sometimes, and freezes/lags for a solid 5-7 seconds other times.
I'm wondering if there are any fixes for this? What settings work best for the Core Player for the smoothest possible feedback?
Unfortunately...
This is not the answer that you want to hear (and I hope someone can prove me wrong) but you will probably will have to reencode those videos to a more CorePlayer friendly format if you want to use CorePlayer on your Raphael to play those files.
CorePlayer doesn't play nicely with H264 files yet on our Qualcomm chips. You can reencode to something like divx/xvid or wait until CorePlayer 2.0 to release sometime in 2009. They claim better hardware support will come with that version. Or you can reencode for WMP. Yeah, I know, kind of a bummer. =/
More info can be found on xda and fuzemobility. I think there is an xda thread started by k9tim regarding this issue if you want to read up on it.
One thing that helped for non H264 files was to increase the buffer size tenfold and decrease video quality to Medium or Low for better framerates. Didn't help me for H264 files but it did help me with some mpegs. I hope someone can prove me wrong.
Posted from my Fuze
I watch movies and tv shows in xvid and divx with 1.25, default settings, high quality, with absolutey no slow downs at all. What exactly are you trying to play?
dogyo01 said:
This is not the answer that you want to hear (and I hope someone can prove me wrong) but you will probably will have to reencode those videos to a more CorePlayer friendly format if you want to use CorePlayer on your Raphael to play those files.
CorePlayer doesn't play nicely with H264 files yet on our Qualcomm chips. You can reencode to something like divx/xvid or wait until CorePlayer 2.0 to release sometime in 2009. They claim better hardware support will come with that version. Or you can reencode for WMP. Yeah, I know, kind of a bummer. =/
More info can be found on xda and fuzemobility. I think there is an xda thread started by k9tim regarding this issue if you want to read up on it.
One thing that helped for non H264 files was to increase the buffer size tenfold and decrease video quality to Medium or Low for better framerates. Didn't help me for H264 files but it did help me with some mpegs. I hope someone can prove me wrong.
Posted from my Fuze
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, you're right - It's certainly not good news. But the bold'd part made it that much better, so it evens out
As far as the info goes, I really appreciate it. It's really no problem for me to leave my computer on overnight with a whole queue of files to re-encode. It'd suck if I was trying to get other things done too, but a fan on high and a few solid hours overnight should (hopefully) take care of these issues. Thanks again.
joeh4x said:
I watch movies and tv shows in xvid and divx with 1.25, default settings, high quality, with absolutey no slow downs at all. What exactly are you trying to play?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You, or anyone else who reads this and has zero issues with playback, wouldn't happen to have drivers from this post installed, would you?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2892184&postcount=357
I'm wondering if that's the issue - different drivers on different phones. I have a stock ROM Alltel HTC Touch Pro, with no real desire to upgrade/flash/change the PRL. I ***LOVE*** it the way it is and probably won't be getting a different phone for 3-4 years. 99.8% perfect in my book (with potential factored in, too)
I have a stock Fuze and can get good playback.
Again it all depends on the source files your trying to play. Some of my trilinear and high quality audio encoded files chop / lag every 60th frame or so but at high quality its worth it. Medium quality it does not slow down too much. Most play smoothly till high action in which case they will slow a little.
Increasing the buffer and playing with the method of drawing can increase your quality. If I was not half asleep and my phone in the other room (wife asleep) I would check my settings. If I remember I will post them in the morning. Most of them have not been changed though.
sovrce said:
You, or anyone else who reads this and has zero issues with playback, wouldn't happen to have drivers from this post installed, would you?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2892184&postcount=357
I'm wondering if that's the issue - different drivers on different phones. I have a stock ROM Alltel HTC Touch Pro, with no real desire to upgrade/flash/change the PRL. I ***LOVE*** it the way it is and probably won't be getting a different phone for 3-4 years. 99.8% perfect in my book (with potential factored in, too)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have those drivers installed AND playback issues. But you should install them anyway.
I'm working out some methods of encoding at the moment and will get back to you. I tried to fight the transcoding, but am starting to give in. The device just doesn't have a lot of headroom as far as playing videos, with currently available players.
Any other thoughts on this or are we all just waiting on the next Core Player update?
Did installing the drivers help you at all?
Ive ran a benchmark to see where it sits and it seems to sit right above the prime. this tab has been quite choppy and laggy on apps that i feel should be handled smoothly by the tegra 3. my galaxy s3 performs significantly better than this and its only got the s4 chip. im tryingto figure out if i just have a bad tab off the press and this is not what i should be experiencing.
does anyone know of any tools to do any kind of hardware tests or other tests to determine whether or not this is internally broken or im just expecting more from this tab.
examples of lags: games that should smooth with a consistent frame rate are choppy and frame rate is low, typing on office pro is terribly lagged and have to wait to make sure i spelled things out correctly. i really just hope this is a bad tab so i can just switch it out.
any input relevant to figuring this problem out is appreciated.
thank.s
vegandroid said:
Ive ran a benchmark to see where it sits and it seems to sit right above the prime. this tab has been quite choppy and laggy on apps that i feel should be handled smoothly by the tegra 3. my galaxy s3 performs significantly better than this and its only got the s4 chip. im tryingto figure out if i just have a bad tab off the press and this is not what i should be experiencing.
does anyone know of any tools to do any kind of hardware tests or other tests to determine whether or not this is internally broken or im just expecting more from this tab.
examples of lags: games that should smooth with a consistent frame rate are choppy and frame rate is low, typing on office pro is terribly lagged and have to wait to make sure i spelled things out correctly. i really just hope this is a bad tab so i can just switch it out.
any input relevant to figuring this problem out is appreciated.
thank.s
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Something you might want to try is in Developer Options, eith turn off animation or reset all animation settings to .5 (default is 1.0). This seems to help with lag. There are some other tweaks you can do, especially if you root. Rooting is reversable. Just unlocking bootloader isn't so make sure you really want to keep your TF700 before you unlock. Read up on what's possible...there are quite a few stickied threads relating to your question.
i have it rooted and ive already changed the transitioning to .5 and ive even toggled 2d rendering from the gpu. im very familiar with android so if you have any other tips that involve a rooted device would help.
thanks
vegandroid said:
i have it rooted and ive already changed the transitioning to .5 and ive even toggled 2d rendering from the gpu. im very familiar with android so if you have any other tips that involve a rooted device would help.
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may not want to force gpu rendering all the time, just for some things--like it does help with scrolling through Netflicks--but I think it's a drag on performance in other ways. Just experiment and see what works. If you go into the Development section, there are quite a few tweaks to try out. I really think that our best bet is either through custom roms and the tweaks they contain, or with updated (read Jelly Bean) firmware. I also scrupulously clear out my recent apps, unless I need to go back and forth between apps (multitasking, android style). That frees up a lot of ram.
Undoubtedly this is the hottest topic on this forum (so it seems). Based on what I have seen, there has been no convincing proof on either way. The benchmarks score comparison are great, but my belief is it may not reflect day to day experience as most of time you never push the system to its max.
So my hypothesis is Transformer Infintiy's I/O issue related user experience can be fixed by software even if the underlying issue had been hardware related.
Since some people believes the opposite, and this is infinity forum. I wanted to make myself right for the sake of infinity owners. But given no previous good convincing test, I have decided to test one thing.
First video
This is one example video that Anandtech showed back in July that Infinity is indeed experiencing I/O issue. This video simply proved that while I/O is in use, the whole system slowed down. Based on the date of this post, which is 7/26/2012, I am assuming the firmware used was V9.4.5.22.
Second video
The credit of this video goes to BarryH. The reason why I included this is Galaxy note 10.1, which I owned for 3 weeks should be used as gold standard in this comparison as it is perhaps the only worth mentioning competition of TF700T and it is really great tablet of its own. You can clearly see that the downloading file in background really had no effect at all on the Galaxy Note 10.1.
Third video
The above is my very first Youtube video ever. But that's not a point. This is running stock ROM, rooted. No build prop tweaks. The only special thing I have installed here is Browser2Ram. So for this basically, I used AirDroid (WIFI file transfer application) and transferred 1G+ file over my network. While doing so, I basically opened browser, and went to the same site as Galaxy note 10.1 did in above. The little delay after opening browser is not hang in browser, but simply I forgot to set to landscape mode.
Conclusion: Based on these I believe I can conclude followings:
Compare first to third. Infinity had already significantly improved its I/O performance. How did it do? Clearly not by changing hardware, but rather software. So this proves my hypothesis of software can indeed fix I/O issue that user actually see.
*Please note that since I have browser2ram installed, this may be different for pure stock user experience. And Zeus users may even have better experience than me.
Special thanks goes to BarryH_GEG. Without him posting first two youtube clips I wouldn't have actually realized that Infinity's I/O issue had already been nearly completely fixed on my unit.
.
For clarification, basically all I am doing here is that there is indeed a way that what we call IO issue that can be alleviated by software modification. So if anyone state its all hardware and can never be fixed/improved, that is incorrect statement. However, this does not prove stock Infinity in the future will receive such update. So you can have a hope, but hope has no guarantee.
Different people use device differently so I say try the device and update to the latest firmware and see if you still face the IO issue that is significant enough for you. I can say that it is definitely not as bad as first video show. Whether you can tolerate the IO lag or not is simply your personal preference. In the end, all devices have lag to certain degree when stressed. Even PS3, Xbox 360, or high end PC games gets frame drops when you stress them. The question is whether you care, and whether you push to the limit.
If I ever get chance, I will try to turn off Browser2Ram and try do the same test again and see what the true stock experience is, though I am certain it is not as bad as Anandtech video.
Update 9/24/2012
Since some people are pointing to the issue resolution is purely due to Browser2Ram, I did same test with this time while AirDroid transferring 1.1 GB file over the WIFI, I launched Final Fantasy 3. No lag even while launching. Everything is smooth. However, if I launch Horn instead of FF3, I did notice significantly longer time to load. So this is simply proving what I have said. We can fix issue to certain degree but whether the certain degree is enough for a specific user is really dependent. I am ok not being able to play Horn while I am transferring 1GB data, but some may not.
Of course Browser2RAM will help on this, you're caching to just RAM instead of the stupidly slow NAND memory Asus decided to put in their flagship device. Try the same "test" on complete stock and you'll see that it's a vastly different experience.
Zeus ROM works around the I/O issue by reducing or even eliminating SQLite fsyncs. Risky business for your data, good for performance. I like my data without corruption, so I'll pass, but others may not see it that way. They simply want the performance this tablet should have had in the first place.
Asus did reduce the overall sluggishness slightly with the .26 update that changed from NOOP scheduler to CFQ in the kernel, but the tablet still stutters. Browsing is far from smooth, even with alternative browsers like Dolphin HD. Performance is decent right after a reboot, but once memory fills up and Android starts its memory management and closing down processes (doing a lot of fsyncs in the process) it grinds to a halt. This wouldn't be a problem if flash I/O performance was higher.
The CM-based ROMs starting to pop up for the TF700 seems to help on the performance as well, and that's still with the 2.6.39.4-based kernel. CM's always been smoother than pretty much any stock device in my experience though, so no surprise there. They can never completely get rid of it though, since it's a hardware issue. Asus were stupid and chose cheap, slow NAND that gets totally crippled if you're doing random writes. There's no magic software to just fix it.
I'm sorry, but I don't really see anything new here, and your "evidence" isn't really that, simply because you're not running stock. You're using Browser2RAM which greatly increases browsing performance by using RAM, which is several magnitudes faster than NAND flash. It's not even comparable. The TF700 (and TF201 and TF300 and TF101) I/O issue can never be completely fixed in software, only (slightly) improved, often at the cost of data safety (disable SQLite fsyncs or available RAM (Browser2RAM).
It's all well-known by now that Asus ****ed up (again!). If it weren't for the oh-so-sweet high resolution display and keyboard dock I'd get a different tablet.
Einride said:
I'm sorry, but I don't really see anything new here, and your "evidence" isn't really that, simply because you're not running stock. You're using Browser2RAM which greatly increases browsing performance by using RAM, which is several magnitudes faster than NAND flash. It's not even comparable. The TF700 (and TF201 and TF300 and TF101) I/O issue can never be completely fixed in software, only (slightly) improved, often at the cost of data safety (disable SQLite fsyncs or available RAM (Browser2RAM).
It's all well-known by now that Asus ****ed up (again!). If it weren't for the oh-so-sweet high resolution display and keyboard dock I'd get a different tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Einride,
Sorry if I directed you wrong way. But my point here is not to prove stock has already fixed issue or not even to say IO issue can be completely fixed. The latter is simply unknown. But I am just proving here that there are ways software can make difference in user front, which some people questions.
To be honest, how do you even know RAM is not bottle neck? What about GPU, which is far inferior to the new Ipad in fact its even worth than iPad 2 by far margin? We see a number, and see its less than others so concluded its the conundrum, which could be true by good chance but not a proof.
Here I am basically proved whatever the method is, there is a way to improve what people call IO issue can be alleviated by software approach.
Because Anandtech showed IO issue originally on infinity stating background 2MBps download resulted in marked degradation in browser performance. I basically had 1GB file transfer over WIFI using Airdroid.
So I basically proved here that my infinity, which clearly has not touched anything on hardwarewise, but have improved performance since Anandtech review.
As for Zeus fsync, I don't use Zeus so cannot speak for it. But if they turn off fsync and still keep the system stable without data loss, why would you care?
Having said all this, I don't know if ASUS will ever put effort in fixing issue because if they would why won't they simply install browser2ram as part of their firmware? But they are doing something as I noticed they took out pixit from background with latest firmware, which kept running in background for no reason..
Einride is on target. This is a hardware issue, so any "fix" is going to be a kludge and come with a bunch of compromise. I can't believe ASUS specced the same crazy slow flash on the 700 that they did the 201/300.
FWIW, The best/cleverest hack I have seen is the TF201 dev who has been playing with remounting the internal SD card to point at the removable microSD card. If this can be made to work smoothly, it means that if you have an external card that is specced much higher than the stock internal flash you could eliminate the issue completely.
But of course that is really hacky. It's one of those you could brick if you don't install it right kind of deals so I don't ever see it being a mainstream options for these tabs unless ASUS productized it which would be a big expense in support for them, so, again, it'll never happen.
I've got to push back a bit. I think this is firmware related, but not of the device of individual components. I think this can be fixed with "software"
tf201 said:
I've got to push back a bit. I think this is firmware related, but not of the device of individual components. I think this can be fixed with "software"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can continue thinking that if it makes you feel better. I like and enjoy my Infinity but as a digital design engineer, to me this seems to clearly be a design issue @ the hardware level and will always limit the overall system to some degree. There are hard limits in any hardware software system. <Shrug>
My best advice to an end user is what I would give for any device issue: to decide whether it is a deal breaker for you *as it stands right now* and not sit around and wait for or bank on some kludgy cure that may be worse than the disease.
It's not too bad for me, I don't do tons of random I/O or web browsing. In fact, I'd say it would have taken me a long time to notice this on my own without the benchmarking and threads here... If it was unacceptable I would cut my losses and sell the tab and get a different device. Life is short, guys.
zenaxe said:
Einride is on target. This is a hardware issue, so any "fix" is going to be a kludge and come with a bunch of compromise. I can't believe ASUS specced the same crazy slow flash on the 700 that they did the 201/300.
FWIW, The best/cleverest hack I have seen is the TF201 dev who has been playing with remounting the internal SD card to point at the removable microSD card. If this can be made to work smoothly, it means that if you have an external card that is specced much higher than the stock internal flash you could eliminate the issue completely.
But of course that is really hacky. It's one of those you could brick if you don't install it right kind of deals so I don't ever see it being a mainstream options for these tabs unless ASUS productized it which would be a big expense in support for them, so, again, it'll never happen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, again (and I now added to opening post) my point is not denying IO hardware issue existence. I am just simply providing proof here that it can be improved by software (to certain degree). Whether it is to the extent of users complete satisfaction would be different issue. However, to be honest, if you see my video and it was original retail packaged Infinity fully on stock and from the day 1 performance, don't you think less people would raise a voice? It's because software workaround can change what you see as user, and that's all I am proving here. So yes. this should give a hope to someone who thought, it's hardware related so never can be fixed. However, this does not confirm or deny ASUS to take a step and fix this because I am sure it will take some effort on their part, which clearly they have not spent so far if this had been a problem existed since TF201.
To put into extreme, they can modify OS such that all front end basic programs such as stock browser, movie player or whatever to actually run on RAM if that is what makes the difference. But would they do it? Absolute not, because they won't spend money on such big project for device that had already sold well and gained essentially best Android tablet metacritic reviews (I did not take actual poll but just following Infinity news daily, it seems like pretty much most site gives the highest score for android tablet).
So yup. I don't disagree with you guys that IO issue there. But my point here was to help people clarify that there are indeed ways to make better by software. Whether happens or not is out of my control and would simply be guess for anyone.
I'm not just a noob either. Here's why I think this is software related:
1) The performance is so bad that it precludes just the hardware. Maybe the hardware sucks but there is alot of performance lost somewhere cheap NAND from 2 years ago outperforms SQLite operations by >10x.
2) Performance seems to degrade with time. This is indictive of a wear leveling and writing algorithm which may or may not be able to be adjusted with firmware.
3) SQLite fsync performance appears to be tied to T3 frequency, that suggest there is something with the T3 drivers that could be tweaked vs NAND hardware limitations.
4)...
I'll also mention the OP is right. ASUS could do things with caching data before writing, and writing in chunks the NAND is best with limiting Virtual Ram etc.
HoushaSen said:
Hi Einride,
Sorry if I directed you wrong way. But my point here is not to prove stock has already fixed issue or not even to say IO issue can be completely fixed. The latter is simply unknown. But I am just proving here that there are ways software can make difference in user front, which some people questions.
To be honest, how do you even know RAM is not bottle neck? What about GPU, which is far inferior to the new Ipad in fact its even worth than iPad 2 by far margin? We see a number, and see its less than others so concluded its the conundrum, which could be true by good chance but not a proof.
Here I am basically proved whatever the method is, there is a way to improve what people call IO issue can be alleviated by software approach.
Because Anandtech showed IO issue originally on infinity stating background 2MBps download resulted in marked degradation in browser performance. I basically had 1GB file transfer over WIFI using Airdroid.
So I basically proved here that my infinity, which clearly has not touched anything on hardwarewise, but have improved performance since Anandtech review.
As for Zeus fsync, I don't use Zeus so cannot speak for it. But if they turn off fsync and still keep the system stable without data loss, why would you care?
Having said all this, I don't know if ASUS will ever put effort in fixing issue because if they would why won't they simply install browser2ram as part of their firmware? But they are doing something as I noticed they took out pixit from background with latest firmware, which kept running in background for no reason..
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No misleading here, don't worry
You are just describing software workarounds, though. None of which can permanently fix it entirely since it's a hardware limitation.
A proper "fix" would greatly increase I/O performance with no downsides. Browser2ram helps browsing, nothing else. Disabling SQLite fsyncs increases risk of data corruption or data loss at the cost of better overall performance.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
tf201 said:
I'm not just a noob either. Here's why I think this is software related:
1) The performance is so bad that it precludes just the hardware. Maybe the hardware sucks but there is alot of performance lost somewhere cheap NAND from 2 years ago outperforms SQLite operations by >10x.
2) Performance seems to degrade with time. This is indictive of a wear leveling and writing algorithm which may or may not be able to be adjusted with firmware.
3) SQLite fsync performance appears to be tied to T3 frequency, that suggest there is something with the T3 drivers that could be tweaked vs NAND hardware limitations.
4)...
I'll also mention the OP is right. ASUS could do things with caching data before writing, and writing in chunks the NAND is best with limiting Virtual Ram etc.
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Click to collapse
I agree that they can probably make improvements with these kind of tweaks. The extent of the fix will always be limited by the low spec hardware in the end, though. So, I wouldn't encourage people to expect ginormous strides. For the most part, I expect more of the same with some evolutionary improvements but I doubt they will ever make a quantum leap. I would be angry if they made it worse but I'm an optimist at heart so I at least expect some slow improvement over time.
IMHO, as it stands it is usable and I'm hoping they can take it to "decent" (say the level pepole are seeing in Zeus). But to folks who are banging their heads against this constantly and unsatisfied as a result, I would still say there will be no true fix and you should bail on this device. It's a personal choice.
If you are willing to forgo your warrantly, I guess you could demo one of the custom ROMs. That probably shows you the extent of a software fix. But beware some of those fixes (cached writes) do put data integrity at risk. There is always a trade off.
Einride said:
Disabling SQLite fsyncs increases risk of data corruption or data loss at the cost of better overall performance.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
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If I understand the fsync thing correctly it can only cause issues if the device suddenly powers off, correct? While that may be a risk, it's a *very* small risk and well worth the performance improvement, in my opinion... I've used ROMs that disable fsync for quite some time and have never had a single issue...
I tend to go by real-world results instead of "theory"...
Same thing with "browser2ram" - it can only cause an issue if the device suddenly powers off and even then - so you lose some web cache data - so what?? Who cares if you lose your browser cache - it's just a browser cache!
Besides, if your device is powering off suddenly, you have much bigger problems than worrying about your cached web data!
I truly agree with the OP. People get so caught up on benchmarks and "what could happen" (even though in practice, it really doesn't)... Truth is, we all just want a better end-user experience - if they can "work around" hardware limitations via software then it makes sense to do that.
Obviously, the hardware isn't going to change, so complaining about that will never help whereas implementing software tweaks to work-around these hardware limitations *does* actually help...
Just my two cents!
By the way, I've been *very* happy with the performance of my TF700 since installing the Zeus ROM - another perfect of example of someone using software to get around the hardware limitations - and it works very well! Another example of "real world" results - that's all of the evidence that I need!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
Unfortunately random reboots are not simply theory in case of the Infinity, especially if you're doing some memory-aggravating stuff on yours. I'm getting one every few days.
d14b0ll0s said:
Unfortunately random reboots are not simply theory in case of the Infinity, especially if you're doing some memory-aggravating stuff on yours. I'm getting one every few days.
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While I agree that random reboots are not simply theory, what does that have to do with what we are talking about here?
However, since you brought it up, I've personally never had a single random reboot on my TF700, which may be yet another example that most of this stuff can be fixed by software (since that does not occur on Zeus ROM)... So that just goes further to illustrate my point. I'm assuming that you are not running Zeus?
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
jtrosky said:
another example that most of this stuff can be fixed by software (since that does not occur on Zeus ROM.
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This is from the Quadrant thread. The rest of the conversation describing what SQLite is and the role it plays in overall IO performance is in that thread. All Zeus' ROM does is tweak the SQLite settings and if you read more in the other thread you'll understand why that plays a relatively minor role in overall IO performance. Bottom line is whether or not someone has memory and/or IO issues is more determined by what they do with their device than the s/w running on it. Which is why some people running stock are perfectly content while others are pulling their hair out.
P.S. - Sorry HoushaSen, the lack of information on what SQLite is and the obsession with Quadrant brought me back in to the discussion.
BarryH_GEG said:
To show you what Zeus' impact is, here's a comparison to a Note and TF300 on JB. Red is perecent slower than the Note, green faster. After tweaking SQLite, the remainder of the TF700's IO scores remain significantly below that of the Note (or SGS3 or One X) and some are worse than stock. If you use the TF300 on JB as a proxy for how the TF700 would perform after the update the column on the far right shows the difference between the two.
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Wait until you see Zeus on Jelly Been. It's going to be so smooth and snappy and you will never think about I/O issue again!!!!
BarryH_GEG said:
This is from the Quadrant thread. The rest of the conversation describing what SQLite is and the role it plays in overall IO performance is in that thread. All Zeus' ROM does is tweak the SQLite settings and if you read more in the other thread you'll understand why that plays a relatively minor role in overall IO performance. Bottom line is whether or not someone has memory and/or IO issues is more determined by what they do with their device than the s/w running on it. Which is why some people running stock are perfectly content while others are pulling their hair out.
P.S. - Sorry HoushaSen, the lack of information on what SQLite is and the obsession with Quadrant brought me back in to the discussion.
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No problem. In the end this is still gray zone that (at least in my opinion) nobody knows what the end result is, and I think you stated well. It's really depends on user experience.
For those missed my last couple line update on opening thread. I actually had 1.1GB file download going on my infinity, and launched FF3 game, which was a breeze. No lag. So IO issue had been fixed partly from original already (assuming IO was really poor from get go, but I cannot confirm this because I do not have original firmware, and did not play FF3 when I had one). But I definitely noticed significantly far less ANR, which was one major reason I originally returned my infinity and hesitant to come back from Galaxy Note 10.1. However, if I launch Horn instead of FF3, it takes forever and even got ANR, which I hadn't seen for a while on my Infinity. Whether this is related IO or memory cap of 1GB or some other internal limitation is unknown, but since all I had was AirDroid transferring file and Horn is only other thing running, I am assuming 1GB is sufficient; hence, most likely related to IO issue. But having said this, how many would really complain about this? Not sure. Because even on my PC (which is not that high end) but I can basically get same issue. If I encode video and try to run high graphic PC game, the machine stalls, and even gives freeze. Would everyone complain about this? Some would and say that's why you get better PC. The other accepts it is what is, and simply don't encode, and play high end game at same time.
I am pretty satisfied with Infinity as all the concern I had before coming back to Infinity from Note seemed to be solved (at least for me) and got back to Full HD screen; however, there are clearly still people out there concerned of IO performance thus the topic continues to arise. Once everyone gets satisfactory IO result, I believe we will see significantly less discussion about this (if ever happens).
The fact we know are:
1. IO hardware on Infinity is last generation and not as fast as main stream current generation expensive tablets.
2. Software can change what user see (whole point my this particular thread)
Fact nobody knows
1. Degree of how much software can change user experience. Whether enough to completely hide relatively poor performance of underlying IO hardware. Or opposite extreme is basically just soften up a little without true effect on most users.
2. Whether ASUS will even try fixing it.
Benchmark number is great to assess, but I really don't think that's what users are really interested unless someone who just want to say "hey my benchmark score is high!" If this is the case, nobody probably would ever get Apple because they are usually not after benchmark of individual component but rather they use decent hardware, minimize bottleneck by deciding all the hardware on their own, and write optimized OS. But individual pieces are not cutting edge for its price.
And in all honest, I am a bit lost at this point after writing this thread, what is it exactly that we are calling IO issue? Browser2Ram improved my browser speed but even Final Fantasy 3 runs fine from launch while I download a big file at its maximum speed. So I don't think it's browser2ram that did trick here, but rather ASUS already fixed IO issue for downloading file completely hogs the system. If the issue is slow stock browser, that may not be IO related. It may simply be ASUS did not optimize the stock browser. Maybe my system runs so well because I have turned all the bloatware off and many stock user aren't?
I don't see Browser2ram in the store. Got a link?
Sent from my Rooted TF700T
i wish i saw this thread before i bought my Infinity + screen protector + case.
hope that JB will help with some of this, but i didn't realize it was just cheap-ass NAND.
ugh.
xPSYCHOTRONx said:
I don't see Browser2ram in the store. Got a link?
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http://mark-tech.blogspot.com/2012/06/browser2ram-fixes-transformer-prime.html
Hello,
I would like to ask you, the experienced modders and users of xda, what CFW would you recommend me to install in case I'm looking for a long lasting battery and a smooth experience (rather a minimalistic system than a sleek, but laggy one)? I basically only use my PhQ for reading and writing SMS messages and e-mails, for web browsing, for chatting and internet (video)telephony. Occasionally I watch a YT video or use the GPS navigator.
Given the fact, that the phone has only 1 GB RAM and a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, would you recommend me flashing it with the up-to-date LineageOS 14.1, or shall I stay with the older, but (supposedly more) stable build of CM 11? Or is there a different (slim) CFW, that would provide me high stability, fast response and good battery life?
Thanks.
I'd use newer than CM11 for sure. Lollipop (CM12) uses ART which makes stuff faster, and improved battery usage, so that's the minimum I'd consider.
I dunno exactly which version off the top of my head, but somewhere later than CM11 ZRAM was added, which keeps stuff from swapping to disk as often, so faster. F2FS support was also added, so if you reformat data/cache as f2fs before you install, that'll speed up disk access too.
I personally see no reason not to use the latest since it has all that, and is officially supported, so if you find something wrong there's people to talk to...
Well, maybe it was just my wrong assumption, but I thought I might want to keep using CM11, because I had read and heard, that Android 5.0 and above had higher HW requirements compared to Android 4.4.4, possibly making the phone with such specifications slower. On the other hand, I've read, that the RAM management and power management are both better with newer versions of Android, therefore I decided to post this question here and ask you xda guys (and girls) for your opinions.
You might be right, I'm no expert, and it's been quite a while since I ran kitkat. But lollipop (on our device) seemed faster to me, and battery definitely better. ZRAM also helps our low memory situation run modern apps, my understanding is it basically compresses what's in memory. Kinda like stacker did for hard drives back in the day if you remember the early 90s. So yeah, it slows down memory access all the time. However, the OS has to swap apps you're not actively using to disk when it needs memory for your current app, and in worst case scenario even will swap background apps out of memory that you expect to remain active. So by using zram, you get effectively more ram even tho its slower to access it, but overall makes things faster. And people who've done actual tests can confirm f2fs speeds things up on any device. I only just started using nougat myself so dunno how it affects performance, probably not any better than CM12/CM13 with zram implemented and f2fs format...
I belive KitKat even supports zram, but as far as I know wasn't implemented in CM11 for our device.
Also, dunno if it was in L or M, but you can now utilize external_sd cards easier. Don't have to keep setting paths for camera/etc to use external_sd, it blends it with your internal storage somehow, haven't paid attention to how it works, but haven't had a need to mess with paths ever since, and since we have only 8GB internal, that's also another nice feature; one completely easily fill that up without any photos or even going crazy with apps. Apparently our device will even work with 128G SDcards, although I only have the same 32G I've used forever. So for me on this device, it's CM12 or newer.
Alright, thanks for your advice. I will appreciate any other input and experience, though.
I'm interested what others might say too actually, I wanna know if other people agree or disagree with me! But being this is an older device, not very active community anymore. Only reason I'm on here every day lately is cuz I just updated myself, which had me checking into things, and am now looking for help getting the keyboard working right (in another thread).
I was running CM11 cm-11-20150626-SNAPSHOT-XNG3CAO1L8-moto_msm8960_jbbl.zip
finally decided to try CM12.1 cm-12.1-20151007-SNAPSHOT-YOG4PAO339-xt897.zip
Its smooth so far, but I'd love to try the lastnightyly/snapshot you have from March 2016 @enigma9o7