[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note I717] thair7391:
**DISCLAIMERS**

This thread has no intention of attempting to complain, diminish, degrade, or criticize any developers on this forum or any of their work, as all of us are nothing but grateful for the amount of free, altruistic, and superior quality code that they provide us with. :good:

This thread has no intention of trying to reiterate the content of the "Butery Smoothness" thread found at http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1814010 nor to define what "Buttery Smoothness" is, as the previous thread defines it well enough already through the posts and insight of multiple users.

This thread has been created with full knowledge and consideration of the alpha development stage that Android 4.1.1 is currently in and all content discussed in this thread is stated with regard to said knowledge and should only be perceived as an attempt to contribute to at least one of multiple bug fixes to further improve the state of Android 4.1.1 on the SGH-i717 for the good of all users

Purpose

The purpose of this thread is to solve the perceived lack of graphical smoothness and fluidity inside of Android 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean) on the SGH-i717 which has been noticed and reported by many users in multiple ROM's through the collaboration of information, ideas, and solutions between all users and developers.

Background

Many users have reported a significant lack of graphical performance in multiple Jelly Bean ROM's for the SGH-i717 in various scenarios such as home screen navigation, UI animations, and in-app scrolling where there is not only a user-noticeable drop in performance but a quantifiable drop in frame-rate. With Google's Project Butter being a highlight of Jelly Bean, the lack of smoothness in its current state for our device brings not only dismay but logical confusion as other, older devices with lower specifications (such as the Galaxy Nexus for example) perform better graphically than the SGH-i717 with higher specifications. The higher graphical performance in the older Ice Cream Sandwich indicates that the highlighted performance issue in Jelly Bean is not related to hardware incapability but to software utilization of the hardware.

I want to leave as little of my insight in this thread as possible because I want to hear from other users but I'll post some initial information and questions to provoke some response.

Ever since Jelly Bean development began, I've noticed this issue on my device and have even had a replacement device with the same experience so hardware isn't a likely culprit in my opinion. h0tw1r3 was one of the first developers to bring a Jelly Bean ROM to SGH-i717 users and other ROM's were formed briefly after his using it as a base. Until about the third or fourth build ( 8-21 I believe), the performance was sluggishly the same. After this build though, there was a noticeable increase in graphical performance, although still significantly behind ICS. That new standard hasn't changed much since until the latest CM10 nightly builds where I've noticed quite an increase in graphical performance putting it a little closer to ICS performance but still painfully behind such that Dolphin is the only browser that feels smooth enough to use efficiently.

I have also noticed an odd phenomenon where the performance varies from build to build without a noticeably significant change. For example, I remember using DaGr8's AOKP port for a while and finding it smoother than other ROM's at the time but once installing his next build (that only mentioned minor unrelated changes, although some could have been unlisted) the performance was back down again. I have experienced this with multiple different ROM's though which is what is most peculiar that there is so much inconsistency.

Helpful Questions

Have you noticed any of these issues before? If so, which ones?

Do you think the issue is hardware or software/driver related?

How would you compare your best JB experience to stable ICS builds?

Which processes/applications perform the best and the worst for you graphically?

Which ROM's run smooth for you and which ones don't?

Which browsers have you tried in Jelly Bean and which ones do you prefer the most?

Have you noticed graphical performance issues in Chrome consistently at all? If so, in which ROM's or instances have you experienced such?

Do you have any ideas/suggestions as to what is causing or what could fix this issue?

And regardless of the inevitable bugs we are experiencing in alpha software, are you extremely grateful for the developers who have provided us with them? (SAY YES!!)

If any of you would like to add more content or questions to this list (and PLEASE do), just ask them and I'll add them to this OP.

Suggestions and Modifications for Improvement

(list will grow over time as new information is presented)

1) Verify that the "debug.mdpcomp.maxlayer" parameter in build.prop is set to the value of 3 and not 2 when you first install a ROM (thanks to NYConex for the tip!). Some developers/ROM chefs (lol) will customize this setting based on their preference. This setting disables (value 2) and enables (value 3) GPU acceleration taking the load off of the CPU. Disabling has fixed the flicker issue that has developed in Jelly Bean for many people but will severely impact performance and graphical smoothness as well as battery life potentially. For flickering, I instead recommend using a live wallpaper which will force the GPU to refresh the screen much more often disabling flicker (in the homescreen at least).

2)

**ESSENTIAL FIX FOR SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT**

Change the debug.composition.type in /system/build.prop from "dyn" to "gpu" and reboot. This makes a MAJOR difference in ALL areas of performance. The existing string that is entered by default is a "dynamic" setting which alternates putting the graphical load on either the GPU or CPU depending upon resource allocation. Changing the setting to "gpu" will force Android to constantly use the GPU for graphics so you won't notice stutter and lag as Android switches the load from the CPU and GPU. Using this setting also increases overall system speed IMMENSELY as it allows the CPU to do more central tasks like launching applications and communicating with hardware instead of handling the graphics. This "constant GPU setting" plays very nicely with Project Butter in the sense that it uses a constant component of hardware to render graphics along with the constant frame rate that VSync provides. I may try to learn how to make my first ROM sometime soon and when I do, I'll be sure and integrate this into the ROM. Either thank the post or let everyone know if this has helped you!