yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Fire TV General] harlekinrains:
Also - here are some real world benchmarks you should look at:

Amazon Fire TV 2

Open GL 3.1:

GFXBench Test for OpenGL 3.1 fails on the Fire TV. Thats a real problem, because the Vulkan API neads at least Open GL 3.1. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API) and http://www.libretro.com/index.php/vulkan-progress-report-and-initial-impressions/

Open GL 3.0:

https://gfxbench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&test=545&text-filter=Amazon+Fire+TV

Open GL 2.0:

https://gfxbench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&test=547&text-filter=Amazon+Fire+TV

now lets compare that to the list of devices Xiaomi put out over the years - in terms of pricepoint they follow a similar strategy to Amazons own. (Allthough they use Qualcomm Chips, while Amazon loves MediaTek (cheaper))

Open GL 3.0:

https://gfxbench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&test=545&text-filter=Xiaomi

Open GL 2.0:

https://gfxbench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&test=547&text-filter=Xiaomi

If you go by "years" alone - the AFTV 2 is around the level of the Xiaomi Mi 3 (Adreno 330) which is a cell phone Xiaomi went into the market with in January of 2014.

Amazons "generational step" from the Amazon Fire TV 1 to the Amazon Fire TV 2 - GPU wise was literally the equivalent of switching from an Adreno 320 to an Adreno 330 - both of witch were available to the market in January of 2014. edit: Actually the Adreno 330 was released in mid 2013 - see; http://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-Adreno-330.110714.0.html

Price wise (the Amazon Fire TV 2 just costs 100 USD) Amazon is roughly in the right spot - although remember that die size in the Fire TVs can be larger and Amazon is still only putting 8GB of storage in the devices.

When the MI3 (Adreno 330) was released in 2014 its price point (thats including a screen and a retail margin) quickly (by April 2014) droped to 270 USD for the 16GB model.

TLDR: Amazon is still selling 2013 level GPUs in 2016. That arent even close to futureproof (Vulkan) from an API standpoint.

No one cares. Its Android Gaming. :)

(If you want to look at power per watt - compare this: http://hothardware.com/reviews/nvid...reviewed-the-ultimate-streaming-device?page=4 with this: https://gfxbench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&test=547&text-filter=Shield )

edit: Also - when the first phones with Qualcomms Snapdragon 820 (with the Adreno 530 GPU) release in Q2 of this year - their real wold performence (in Open GL 3.0 and (from comparing slightly different chipsets) Open GL 3.1) is around 400% faster than the AFTV 2 - for the first time reaching 30fps on 1080p - with a few shaders and effects active in OpenGL 3. This could be considered a usable standard from a visual quality/API compatibility standard - but then no one will develop with it in mind for quite a few years - so maybe in 3-4 years we reach a point where - for the mass market - we could say that most compatibility problems of "basic gaming" have been swallowed by "decent standard complience" and performance increase.

On the other hand - Amazon could be sticking to what they currently are doing and buy increasingly cheaper chips. Then it might even take 5 years. ;)
[Fire TV General] lightykd:
Heads up. If you have the play store installed, Walking Dead Season 1 is in the "Sports" section and oddly season 2 is nowhere to be found. I plan to make a video of my progress so far, later this week.
[Fire TV General] harlekinrains:
Good news on a different front - Moonlight (Nvidia Gamestreaming Receiver App for Android) works on the Amazon Fire TV 2 in 1080p 60 frames [MENTION=4943416]20m[/MENTION]bps (recommended value and it looks gorgeous) mode using the h265 codec (!).

Now what does this mean for game streaming? Take the Witcher 3 for example. I have a GTX 970 and the game doesnt always run with 60fps on maxed settings - streaming (encoding the video) adds an overhead that is "too much" to let it run uncapped (significant stutter every few seconds). Setting the framecap to 30fps in the games settings - does the trick though - and leaves enough free resources so the encoding overhead isnt noticeable in the game any more (For it to become "perfectly smooth" I had to lower crowds, shadows and water to the "high" setting additionally - but thats on a 970 that I downclocked by 10% to get it a bit more silent).

Best settings for Moonlight are 1080p 60fps [MENTION=4943416]20m[/MENTION]bps with the h265 decoder. All of those work on the Amazon Fire TV 2. Forcing h264 interestingly didnt reduce the overhead on the GTX 970 by much (edit: actually it increased lag) - so I left it on h265. Decreasing Mbps didnt increase performance (noticeably) either - so keep it at 20Mbps (which again - looks gorgeous).

Also - dont lower it to the 1080p 30 fps setting (even though you run the game @ 30fps capped) - because this quite interestingly increases perceived lag.

But there are even better news. :) Moonlight comes prepackaged with Xbox 360 and Xbox One pad drivers - that actually work with a wireless Xbox 360 pad attached. The pad itself has its LEDs always circling around - but it does work.

This is important, because the moment you enable Nvidias Gamestream - Pad Input on the PC is not recognized anymore - so you have to couple your Pad with the Moonlight Box instead.

Does it work on WLAN? Yes, yes and yes. I used a wireless N router @ 5Ghz with a channel width of 40 Mhz (= "double speed") with a measured throughput of about 50Mbps - in an uncongested 5Ghz space - and there was no stutter introduced by the encoding, decoding or the transfer itself.

How is lag on WLAN? With a wireless Xbox 360 Pad: Very, very workable. More than workable actually. Bordering on actually not bad at all. :) Moonlight itself shows numbers of about 30 and 30 ms in the toast popup (have to look up if those are to be added up or not.. ;) ) - but lets just say Witcher 3 - an Action RPG is very playable. Now - if you try the same thing with an Amazon Game Controller (first generation, bluetooth) it immediately adds at least 30ms of input lag. Its outright disturbing. You feel the difference.

Overall - Gamestreaming with the Amazon Fire TV 2 is actually a pleasant experience. I can recommend buying it for that purpose (and Kodi. :) ). If you get at least 20+ Mbps throughput on your WLAN.
[Fire TV General] harlekinrains:
Disabling AMPDU and WMM Power Save on the Router shaved another 10-15ms off the "lagcounter" in moonlight. :)
[Fire TV General] harlekinrains:
Turns out much of the remaining perceived lag was input lag - that can be entirely eliminated - by leaving the wireless receiver for the Xbox 360 Controller connected to the PC and renaming two .dlls (see: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2505510 ) which allows for the controller to still be used there - while the game is being streamed.

This of course only works - if the PC streaming the feed is "in the other room" or at least some where near by.

The current lag I get displayed in the Moonlight notification for 1080p 60fps h265 streaming is 19ms btw.
[Fire TV General] xm41907:
I don't have an Nvidia graphics card, so no luck with Moonlight. I'm looking for a good alternative.
[Fire TV General] harlekinrains:
The whole concept works because current Nvidia cards have a hardware h265 encoder on them. Remember when I said, that the lag actually increased, when I switched to h264 rendering?

At that point you could have googled and found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/3mdytt/why_is_there_no_amd_alternatives_to_nvidias/

TLDR: Capturing and streaming a 1080p video at 60fps in real time isnt trivial. Latency will kill you.
[Fire TV General] lightykd:
Remotr is pretty good. Just make sure to have a Bluetooth controller connected directly to your PC and use an Ethernet connection to reduce overall lag.
[Fire TV General] xm41907:
I tried Remotr and can't get it to work with the Fire TV. I can using my phone, but when I try to connect using the Fire TV, it just sticks on trying to connect to my PC. The funny thing is my Fire TV is a wired connection, but my phone is wireless.
[Fire TV General] deanr1977:
Works fine with my AFTV2, Sideloaded the apk from my phone then downloaded the pc program & logged in on both & shows up & works great!
[Fire TV General] xm41907:
I tried the one for the Fire TV. I guess I should try sideloading the one from my phone and see if it works.

I'm also thinking of subscribing to Gamefly streaming. I toyed with it last night and seems to stream quite well. I don't like that you have different packages though. $20 a month to get them all seems high.
[Fire TV General] lightykd:
I'm using Remotr from the Fire TV store. It does pretty well. Instead of selecting a game from the screen after you login to your server, I just click "desktop" and go right into the Steam menu.
[Fire TV General] harlekinrains:
Again - there is no magic, and trading App names doesnt get you very far. But since I didnt know about AMD cards being able to do low latency real time encoding as well (AMD isnt advertising it, which seem strange if they could and their competitor certainly does) - I looked into it.

They have named their tech VCE (see: http://developer.amd.com/community/blog/2014/02/19/introducing-video-coding-engine-vce/ ) and its a h264 encoder.

Remotr does support it - although this reddit thread from two day's ago is talking about their specific implementation being broken. https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterra...a_alternative_to_nvidias_gamestream_will_let/

Also - this thread on the Nvidia Forums is noting that using remotr compared to other solutions (f.e. Moonlight) adds significant amounts of input lag. https://forums.geforce.com/default/.../best-steam-streaming-solution-on-the-satv/1/

Aside from that its UI and featureset seem to be well received.

Now as I said before - just switching to the h264 encoder on the Nvidia Card - in Moonlight adds 20-30ms of lag. That doesnt mean that AMDs implementation is the same, but the FIre TVs decoding performance might be.

Additionally, everyone is currently selling this feature regardless of the expected outcome, even on systems with videocards that arent supporting either VCE (AMD) or NvENC (Nvidia), which means that the CPU will have to encode the stream in realtime - which means - significant overheard.

So again - the "let me mention the name of an App" approach, alongside a "this works for me" statement isnt everything there is to it (Which GPU do you use, did you compare it to Moonlight, if you are using it on AMD, how much is the overhead, hows latency, ....).

---------- Post added at 06:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:19 PM ----------

Much the same as recommending an App you "couldnt test for yourself". http://www.aftvnews.com/remotr-streams-games-from-a-windows-pc-to-your-amazon-fire-tv/

Learning from the best... *rhhm*

Also - Remotr doesnt seem to have Gamepad support on the Fire TV (Xbox 360 Wired doesnt work, Ouya (Bluetooth) doesnt work - see: comments).
[Fire TV General] xm41907:
The computer I was looking to stream from was my laptop, which is running integrated Intel graphics. It's from 2010 and quite slow with even older games. I decided to take the plunge and purchased an Alienware Alpha Desktop, which should be here on Tuesday. Finally I won't be struggling to get games to run halfway decent. What this will do for my Fire TV usage, I'm not quite sure yet. It will be placed in my living room, so I won't have a need to stream it to the Fire TV now. I might look into streaming it to my older laptop in the bedroom. I'm thinking the Fire TV might be replacing my Fire TV Stick as my business trip entertainment.
[Fire TV General] lightykd:
The FireTV version of Remotr will allow you to translate your gamepad into keyboard inputs but as for gamepad to xinput...yeah it needs a bit of help. For now I'm using a bluetooh pad connected directly to my streaming PC

Another note: Speaking of the OUYA controller, has anyone figured out a fix for Fire OS-5 The buttons are completely off :/ Damn Amazon. Either they're trying to force everyone to use their controllers or they are just damn incompetent when it comes to gamepad. Hell, even the OUYA wasn't this crummy. -still waiting on support fr multiple wired gamepads.
[Fire TV General] lightykd:
It's been a long time since any of us has talked about gaming on the AFTV2 so I'm bumping this thread up! Also a few things...

1) I have yet to see Lego Batman 3 and Lego Jurassic World make it to the Fire TV platform but for those of us with Google Play access, you can download or side load a GP copy of those games and they WILL work. I've been having a blast with Lego Batman 3 on my Fire TV. I don't believe that there is ant local multiplayer support so that becomes a bummer

2) MOGA controllers work on Fire TV, you have to side load the MOGA Pivot app first. I played a nice session of "The Dark Knight Rises" on my AFTV 2 with my MOGA controller. The Fire TV home menu and most games will require "Mode-B" but some games like TDKR require "Mode-A"

3) I know this is not game related but I'm putting it out there. For Xfinity customers with X1 boxes, you can use your FireTV as an additional cable box with the Xfinity TV app. Last time I checked, the current version wasn't working well but I have a older, working version on my Fire TV if anyone needs a copy. Remember, you MUST have at least one X1 box in your house for the "Xfinity TV" app to work. Comcast has been giving away free upgrades to the X1 platform so call them up if you don't have one.

4) I purchased this controller...

[IMG="controller"]http://des.gearbest.com/uploads/2015/image/20150919/sms_20150919163318_32085.jpg[/IMG]

I'll have a review once it comes in. It does have bumpers and triggers but I don't know about L3 and R3. I do like it's generic look mostly because it would be so easy to stick a Fire TV or OUYA logo on it. Lastly It's a weird mix of PS3 and 360 which is also good for giving my Android games a different feel from my PC and Wii U games.
[Fire TV General] geoyou:
Anyone tested emulators on this?

Bumping this because I'm interested in getting one of these as an old school emulation device that can run Kodi. Has anyone tried Reicast or PPSSPP with the 2015 version of the Fire TV? If so how do they run?
[Fire TV General] geoyou:
Thanks for testing! IMHO, your results are not bad at all. If this thing can run Dreamcast and PSP games at a respectable speed, it means Fire TV 2015 users have hundreds of console quality games at their fingertips. Now add in the fact that it runs Kodi beautifully, is $99, and has a microSD slot and you got the perfect little Android TV box.
[Fire TV General] Racer_X_:
I have retroarch and reicast on the FTV2. Retroarch works, about as well as it does. Which means it does, but it's very quirky and hard to navigate the UI, some cores work better than others, etc. But it works. Reicast will boot, but it doesn't work very well. But I assume that's reicast, not the FTV

I'm using an xbox 360 wireless controller with the microsoft wireless usb adapter. That works very well. (But for some reason Retroarch has no defaulted to having the usual go button go back and the usual go back button go (forward). There's a settings change for that, but I haven't figured out how to actually save the change.)

Actually, I haven't really used either one in a while, I should refresh my perceptions and double check what I've posted here, lol... .

Rx
[Fire TV General] TV33:
RetroArch is working Fine. I had to recompile Neogeo and Mame Games i found at archive.org to make it work with a specific core. SNES & Genessis works flaweless.

As Reicast is not supported on 32bit Machines within RetroArch, i installed Raicaset r6 and some debug build.

The Problem i hve with FTV2 which i hadnt have with Fire TV is, that i can set date & time and overcome the initial boot sequence for teh Reicast Emulator/Bios!

Any ideas?

edit: ok you have ro manually map the contoller prior starting the game.
[Fire TV General] Racer_X_:
> As Reicast is not supported on 32bit Machines within RetroArch, i installed Raicaset r6 and some debug build.

FTVgen2 is 64bit..... no?
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] lucaboox:
When ever I try and flash TWRP for JB it shows up with this error

[IMG="ERROR"]https://i.gyazo.com/8d28800519dce8c810547ea29c3c7e9d.png[/IMG]

It happens every time even with the different flash method thingy it just does the same error every time and I have no idea why
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Accessories] nicholasendean:
:(

Please put this in the correct place if I am posting in the wrong are etc as I am in a hurry and simply want others to be aware.

Its about time we had a list via thread of dodgy sellers on eBay. So to start off....

NAME / COMPANY: M99 aka M99-Shop

PRODUCT BOUGHT: 2800Ahm Battery for Hermes

PROBLEM: Received completely the wrong battery. Item I recieved was an 1500Ahm and was /is in a dangerous condition. The white plastic sticker type back cover is half gone and the battery insides are bulging outward! The item I got is also completely DEAD and nonchargeable

: Two emails sent to seller. No response. Have notified eBay.

[Have also received numerous emails from other buyers who have had the same or similar problems.So all are now taking action to get this account closed]

DETAILS

======

I have received numerous emails from others like myself who have been ripped off by an eBay company / eBayer called "M99" or M99-Shop.

Several of us are in the process of awaiting replies from eBay as to what they are going to do about this seller as we want their account closed down. So far from what we have worked out there have been near on 1000 bad results in the last 30 or so days. The seller does not reply to messages and does not do anything when there is a problem.

The Hermes battery I bought had half the cover missing on the back which made it dangerous as there is exposed parts along with a bulging along part of one of the sides. I will en devour to upload some photos when time allows. The battery I received is dead and will also NOT charge at all. It is the same battery which I bought from another dodgy company called ipods99.com

I ordered the 2800 and received a 1500.

Anyway, I very much hope others see this and if it saves one person the hastles and problems I am now having to go through then brilliant.

Lesson today is:: NO MORE BATTERY BUYING FROM EBAY!!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Accessories] icecube57:
I bought what was thought to be a 2800 mah battery on ebay. The battery looks good and is has a pretty stout runtime but its actually two 1100mah packs wired in parallel when i disassembled it. equaling 2200mah labeled wrong to 2800. I spent 15 bucks i got what i paid for but im satisfied
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Accessories] nicholasendean:
Have you any details you can share. Thanks
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Accessories] ranksters:
Avoid ebay shop: M99 - M99 sales

Avoid buying from an e-bay shop M99 sales. I bought a charger for an MP3 player, which was not compatible. I e-mailed twice and this guy just ignores any communications.

Most of the negative is for sending the wrong or faulty goods and not providing refunds. This guy is cheap, but there is a good chance you will get the wrong stuff or even something which is unsafe - please AVOID.

If you look at his feedback, he has a 96% positive, but this hides the fact he has over 1000 pieces of negative in the last 12 months. Yes, over 1000 people have complained and E-bay still let him trade - can that be right (well it appears so, provided you keep above the level of 95% positive, which is the magic % set by e-bay). Could you imagine a shop on the high street continuing business if it provided such poor customer service that one in 20 trades was dodgy!
[Nexus 6P Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] syntrix:
So those with bluetooth issues and skipping, I fixed mine and it was actually really simple, but YMMV.

My main device is a separate car BT to FM device that's been solid over the android years. My first pairing was skip skip skip. For days of removing the profile and rebooting, had skip skip skip. The device comes on with my ignition, so my phone is always on and it pairs, as it has with other androids over the years... just the skip skip skip blank blank blank was not going to cut it.

Was about to send this 6P back but spent an evening trying to troubleshoot it all... All I had to do was make sure BOTH devices were on and previously paired, then initiate a new pairing from the BT device again. After that, one skip after say 5 seconds, and it's been solid for about 4 days, and probably 20 trips of automatic bluetooth :)

Anyway, just wanted to share, BT has been solid after the skipping issues so far... keeping this phone now :) Again, YMMV, but wanted to share this tip.
[Android General] augmentedchikken:
im looking for a good service that i could use that would allow me to send and receive sms from my laptop. ive tried airdroid but unfortunately messages dont sync as they seem to disappear after i send them. if someone could post a suggestion id really appreciate it. thanks in advance!

edit: in case this helps, as i forgot to mention this earlier, my phone is a virgin kyocera c6725 running android 4.4.2
[Android General] augmentedchikken:
hello?? can someone pls answer my question? im trying to be able to text from my laptop while its connected to my phone, but unfortunately airdroid is not working. any recommendations?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] toloumpas:
Hi guys!

I face a problem with my n5 i m on stock android 6 so yesterday suddenly my phone switch off. It took me over 3 h to understand that.when i press the power button to unlock or lock to sleep mode my phone (2 to 3 times ) switching off. I dont consider that a factory reset will help because i m running this software over a month without problems.!!!anyone can help me?? I m desperate!!! Thanks..
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] audit13:
The same thing is happening to a phone I have on my desk. I can be using it and it will suddenly power off if I touch the power button. I thought it might be a battery problem but that's not it because I swapped in a working battery. I also tested the power button contacts with a multimeter and the contacts seem fine which leads me to believe the problem is inside the power button and the button needs to be replaced.
[Nexus 5X Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mirko9344:
Hello guys!!

I was just wondering if there is a way to disable the haptic feedback of the fingerprint scanner. Is kinda annoying that every time I unlock the phone I have to hear the vibration.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] tomerFire:
The story starts when my power button was broken. He had phantom presses. The devices was is boot loops because of it

I got to a phone repair shop and they replace my button power button. The button was fixed.

I had on my devices CM 12.1 after they replaced the button the device does boot but after the boot animation the screen was stuck on the wallpaper image with a very dim light. I tried to re flash the ROM few times with total wipes. Each time the process was stuck in "Finishing boot". Trying to reboot the device caused the screen to be stuck on the wallpaper image.

I download another zip of the ROM with newer version, its the same problem.

I tried to download Unofficial Dirty Unicorn 5.1.1, the exact same problem.

When the screen is stuck the PC does recognize the device. I can access the SD card and the charge LED is on.

The only ROM that does flash successfully is from S3Rx_UCUFNE4_AROMA_11-9-14 (The stock one).

I dont understand why switching power button caused this issue? Maybe there is some firmware lock on the button? What can cause this problem?

Thanks for helping.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] audit13:
Are you performing a complete wipe before changing ROMs? Have you tried installing a stock recovery and performing a full wipe from stock recovery?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Native7i:
same problem occurred sometimes when I repaired old nokia phones days. Disassemble the phone, check around power button for any missing caps or lost paths.