[LG Optimus 2x] Ximo F. Verde:
@Spica

Some thoughts on 2D performance

Ive been on MoDaCo´s ROMs since early november, with Gr5 and now Gr6 and enjoying HP´s great performance since rc8. Never installed PPs. All this time on the same stock-based ROM has given me the chance to compare ´micro´ differences in performance between different HP versions as well as between Gr5 n Gr6. Ive been testing scrolling with a set of software as well as standard android menus. Opera Mobile (HW accelarated), facebook for android, quadrant and a few more. As HPs advance, ive noticed that scrolling on Opera has gradually becoming more fluid (great difference from stock kernel). Same goes for scrolling android menus, root explorer (except the lags on the last t.built, but im sure this will be corrected in the final release). Nevertheless, none of the above never got absolutely perfect, in the sense that there´s always been a slight ´periodic´ stutter as u scroll fast or slow and a ´slowmo´ slowdown when scrolling is about to finish (talking about menus here). As you know, there are many singlecore devices that perform much better than this, naming sgs´s, galaxy aces, htc´s and even many SEs (really frustrating btw!). Scrolling on facebook (as well as other similar UI programs like android market) has on the other hand never been very fluid. Together with this, I have quadrant´s 2D bench which has always (on stock roms) topped at 21fps, never ever reaching higher than this.

As I was waiting for Gr6 prebakes, i decided to give temasek´s CM7 Kang a try. CM7s have always felt less smooth than stockbased ROMs and as far as menus are concerned, they still are. Even opera is definetely less smoother than Gr6-HP. BUT... When i decided to give good old quadrant a try i saw somthing id never seen b4 on the o2x. 2D bench hit an easy 33fps which compared to stock´s 21fps is a big leap forward. Then checked facebook where to my astonishment i saw a superfluid, ios-like scrolling, obviously much much better than stock.

So my point is:

Why has it not been possible to get rid of these stutters on the o2x till now? What is this ´element´ on temsek´s Kang that provide much better performance on (SOME) 2D applications? Is there a possibillity of combining some of the features of one rom-kernel with the other to achieve better performance?

I once mentioned on another forum that the stutters on the o2x reminded me a lot the type of stutter u get on a HDTV projecting movies when the display´s refresh rate is not well synced with the video´s fps. Could this be the case on the o2x as well (meaning that android´s fps output is not synced w the display´s 72Hz refresh rate)?

After all these months and tons of work from you and many other great programmers, we still have a dual-core 1Ghz device that underperforms (on this specific field) compared to 800MHz single core phones, and frankly, it does really annoy me (and also does my incompetence in being able to do something about it). Maybe this sounds a little `too much´ for some, but there´s no placebo effect here, im absolutely possitive that my eyes are not fooling me. I as well as many others are grateful for all your work and effort and i dont want to sound critical by any way. Its just some things that have been bothering me with this phone (almost the ONLY thing) and from everything youve showed us until now I thought you were the person to refer to with the above. Keep up the good work.

Peace

PS. Battery life in t.built 3 looks very very promising, great work! :-)