[Tilt, TyTN II, MDA Vario III Windows Mobile ROM De] ASCIIker:
kudos, suggestions, requests, and more kudos!

first of all, you rock TPC! the ONLY custom ROMs i've ever tried or used have been from SJ with his excellent winmo6.1 hyperdragon series...

(note to self: need to update my signature now...)

but i was itching to use a good winmo6.5 ROM so i could get a good idea of what its all about and i trolled around the ROM development section for about a month before i decided to take the plunge with TPC's Elite ROM

so i splashed on the 5.1 ROM five days ago and i am blown away! winmo6.5 is pretty damn good and does away with the ONLY gripe i had with windows mobile, i.e. no native thumb/kinetic scrolling. touchflo scrolling had a good run but it was far from perfect.

once again, great ROM and keep them coming. i'd love to donate but i'm in pakistan and last i checked, paypal doesn't operate here...

anyway, on to some observations about the 5.1 (and i'm having to nitpick because the ROM is so damn good any way)

1. had to turn on the legacy GPRS icon because "G" wasn't showing in the system tray when in GPRS areas

2. looked around for the TouchFlo settings icon in Settings->System but couldn't find one...i wanted to try out winmo6.5 without touchflo scrolling getting in the way. so i searched around and found a registry key to that effect and the experience got a whole lot better! there were some caveats though, for example thumb scrolling no longer works in audio manager (and i suspect in other htc applications as well). i'd love to see the Settings->System icon back so toggling the touchflo scroll becomes a breeze.

3. first couple of hours of use right after i crossed over to "the dark side", the device seemed sluggish and irresponsive. this was before i even restored my pimbackup archive because i know the device can be slow when it starts to build text message threads from scratch after you enable threaded messaging. this seemed odd but the sluggishness mysteriously went away after a few soft resets (cuz i was installing my applications and performing the usual customizations). i pledge to use the suggested sequence (stock ROM, SPL 3.34, Suggested Radio, TPC 6.1) when i flash the upcoming 6.1 from TPC just to be on the safe side

4. i was using gfxboost on the hyperdragon series so i slapped it on TPC 5.1 just to see what would happen. the 2d performance seemed noticably improved so i've kept it on!

5. ROM is LOUD!!! :)

6. builtin Google Maps got stuck on "Loading..." everytime i tried (i only tried 3 times in a row though). i resolved this by reinstalling Google Maps from the cab

7. i always had to install quite a few applications to the hyperdragon series but it seems TPC includes most of the applications i love and then some...great to see GPSTest, YouTube, M2DC, AEWifiTrigger, SpeedTest, Advanced Task Manager, SPB Screenshot, Remote Desktop Mobile, PIMBackup, and so many games ALL PREINSTALLED!!! :D i could request a lot more but the ONLY one i am going to suggest is Schap's rip of the HTC Network Plugin (the one that allows mapping network drives) cuz i feel it is something that any variant of Windows (even Windows Mobile) should be able to do right out of the box.

and now on to some more pressing problems that i haven't been able to resolve yet (and couldn't find answers in the FAQ to):

1. my manila2d just doesn't work. i am TOTALLY familar with the skin+manila2d.exe version problems and i'm an avid user of M2DC. but i NEVER changed the skin after installing TPC 5.1. i just toggled it on after i finished exploring CHome and it tried to launch...but all i get everytime i try is a black screen (titlebar and menubar are visible and device is totally responsive and soft buttons show "All Messages" and "Menu").

2. after installing TPC 5.1, i forgot i was supposed to apply the Tytn2 Keyboard Fix (cuz i have a Tytn2 and NOT a Tilt). instead, i rushed to try out EZInput 2 from TPC's online shared folder...GREAT keyboard but it totally messed up my hardware keyboard. and now it won't uninstall itself, not even with SKTools. it still appears in my list of sips but i managed to get it out of the way by using "sip changer" and i managed to install FingerKeyboard (which is also pretty good) but my hardware keyboard is still messed up. i then installed the Tytn2 Keyboard Fix but its still messed up. the Fn key acts drunk and i can't get any numbers typed :)

3. am i doing the right thing by using gfxboost (i know how it works technically, i.e. it hacks on the doublebuffering mode and/or the v-sync or something)? i only ask because i've glanced over the openvg project and got confused. TPC says neo's openvg work well on the Elite ROMs but the openvg thread says that the kaiser is so far unsupported. can someone please clarify the steps to successfully try out openvg on the Elite ROMs? for those who have tried the combination, what kind of gains have you observed? 2d? 3d? i guess the question boils down to what is the best way to get more frames from CHome, the native thumb scrolling, and general 2d stuff? on the hyperdragon series, gfxboost did well and i was not aware of openvg at the time so i never got to try that combination.

4. battery consumption is subpar but i gather that should be resolved with the newly suggested spl 3.34 and radio combination...gonna try it with TPC 6.1

to the dude maintaining the FAQ, maybe you could extract some useful tidbits from my post for your FAQ? and maybe you can also guide me (and update the FAQ) with suggestions for my as yet unresolved issues cuz there may be others facing the same issues.

once again, fantastic job TPC! keep it up! am eagerly awaiting the 6.1 (and maybe it might include some of the fixes i applied myself on 5.1)!!!

(crosses fingers and setting page refresh to 1 minute so i can download 6.1 and have it all customized and set up by the middle of this weekend :D)