[Nexus 4 Original Android Development] Hanny:
r82 has improvements, but is not smooth as the excellent heavy-gaming experience in r70 (r70 test)

AOKP Feb 15 Android 4.2.2

r82 384/1512 interactive default gov control

deadline default

hotplugging settings default

fsync on

r82 heavy-gaming test comparing to r80

r80 gaming test for reference - http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=38073710#post38073710

Only GTA VC Max Graphics

Note: No swiping is required while driving.

Throtting Test - threshold 35

The frequencies are not locked at only 2 cores anymore. However the core-onlining management is not as perfect as r70 where 4 cores are constantly online in heavy gaming.

At the beginning there are 2 cores 1026

While driving around, there are generally two kinds of behaviours about the 3rd and 4th cores

1. They go from offline to 0mhz, and there IS some % of cpu utilization.

2. They go from offline to certain frequencies higher than 0mhz, but there is 0% cpu utilization.

In both cases, the 3rd and 4th cores go back to offline after 5-10 seconds. They come back "technically online" much more frequently (as compared with r80) but I dont think the "zero behaviours" is giving a helping hand on increasing FPS.

Nevertheless the experience is not as lag as in r80. r80 has frequent moments lower than 16fps therefore it is disturbing the gaming experience. on r82 the fps goes back up a bit to around 20fps but still stutters can be felt. on r70 (throttling) it was >20 and getting closer to 30 where it is smoother because the 3rd and 4th cores do not go offline while heavy gaming.

Non throtting Test - threshold 70

2 cores playing around initially. Smooth experience. Generally fps is higher than 30.

But the two behaviours mentioned above, still exists even with >1026mhz slots available.

Another heavy gamer PMed me saying his gaming experience on GTA is even laggier than my reported experience. He monitored FPS too. Maybe its due to other factors but for me I am careful and always keep my CPUs away from being hogged by any other app.

Conclusion is that, swiping boost should be aimed at increased UI performance and as franco has just replied to another gamer, when you game just dont care about the battery and live with the cpu behaviours that benefit most of the others because system UI is used by everyone but not everyone is a gamer.

While I am focusing on throtting performance on heavy games, the new change in interactive governor (go hispeed load 99) is also not affecting my test purposes, as for "frequency", 1026 is always used. Only the "online 3rd and 4th cores" behaviours are affecting heavy games (while throttling) at the moment. Obviously 375-275-125 settings are not the only ones that are taking control of the rest two cores, as franco has mentioned the timer, mpdecision stuffs etc. Is there a way to maintain the two rest cores active during heavy load? stutters are observable by our eyes so the CPUs should have detected them. On light games like temple run its fine to have only 2 cores active.

I don't think by making the cores change to suit heavy games, battery will take a hit for normal users that don't play game. It's simply because in normal UI there are no human-eye-observable stutters so the CPU should not detect similar level of load coming from heavy games and online the 3rd and 4th cores at the wrong time during normal daily usage.

Thanks franco :laugh: