yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[EVO 4G General] ViViDboarder:
Because the fact that HTC motorola come out with so many devices is why we have a competitive cell phone market. If every company did what apple did this would be our cell phone market:

You can chose At&t and use the Apple Phone

Or Sprint and use the HTC Phone

Or Verizon and use the Motorola Phone

Maybe T-Mobile will have the LG Phone.

Other carriers? Good luck getting an exclusive contract!

Apple is in a good position. They can sit back and do what they want because the market doesn't really rely on them. Also, the fact that these other companies release so many new phones with new features and improving features is why the iPhone exists as it does. Every iteration of phones improves technology. If companies had one phone a year we'd all still be using flip phones and Apple would have no fancy smart phone patents to license and there'd be no iPhone. So not only was this necessary to get where we are now, but it's even important now. Last year around this time, nothing really was released to challenge the iPhone 3G... what did Apple do? They released the sorry excuse for "innovation", the iPhone 3G. Now that the Nexus One, Incredible, Droid, Hero, and EVO came out in '09, Apple was forced to step up the game for the iPhone 4 to stay relevant.

As said though, because of their position they can focus all development on their single platform to produce a beautiful OS and Phone.

I'm glad Apple is there doing what they do, but I'm also glad we have companies like HTC and Motorola pumping out competitive devices.

And... Off topic rant over. :p
[EVO 4G General] AssassinsLament:
I'll have to look it over and see if I can find a way to do that. I did read on sprint's developer resource on the EVO that we can disable the HDMI on the application level inside the AndroidManifest.xml. So I was planning to use the source from the test app on the first page, and change the manifest to see if by disabling it application level, if it "frees" up some framerate.

Cicatrize, that's capping me at 15fps. I tried a few of those already, from the incredible, from the hero also.
[EVO 4G General] redct:
I wonder what would happen if you set it to 0... :P Anyways, it seems established enough that this isn't the only place that it's being capped. Time to go browsing...
[EVO 4G General] AssassinsLament:
Tried that too, that caps it at 15. I definitely agree with you, there's something else we're missing. I hope.
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
This is actually a good idea. Set it to 0 and see what happens.
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
This could be a longshot, but did you try 737280000?

Or maybe 768000000
[EVO 4G General] :
I sent an email off to them, hopefully something gets done.
[EVO 4G General] Mast3rpyr0:
The second that the source is released, everyone open up the files in notepad++ and search for "30" in all open documents, we'll get this fixed in no time :P
[EVO 4G General] netarchy:
I believe you'll find `grep 30 *` to be a bit quicker
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
Or 0x1E may be more likely. :)
[EVO 4G General] Mast3rpyr0:
That too :P
[EVO 4G General] EliWay:
We need more people to email or call HTC , and politely ask for the source. The GPL license DEMANDS very clearly that the source needs to be made available the moment a product is shipped. As of right now, they are in violation of the GPL.
[EVO 4G General] netarchy:
I wonder if a certain R. Stallman knows about this.... :cool:
[EVO 4G General] AssassinsLament:
Both defaults to 15fps cap.

Any number that is lower than the stock "384000000" just caps it lower. If I go beyond the stock number, it just defaults to 15fps. Most numbers just default to 15fps. So I'm starting to think 384000000 is the max setting, but somewhere in the code, it's cutting it in half... I was thinking maybe because the gpu is splitting half the processing power to the hdmi? Just speculating.
[EVO 4G General] EliWay:
Exactly. It seems like the phone assumes HDMI is always on. No cable detection with on the fly fps adjustment. I wonder what would happen if we just yanked the driver for hdmi.

See this:
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
Delete all the HDMI drivers and see what happens. lol!
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
Remove arch/arm/mach-msm/include/mach/msm_hdmi.h and intel_hdmi.c

Not sure if that will keep it off though
[EVO 4G General] ffolkes:
i've been working on this all day. literally. about 9 hours straight.

this is what i've found. changing the mddi clk_rate to anything but 384000000 results in it getting set to 117965000 according to dmesg. now 384/20 = 19.2 which is precisely the frequency of TCXO. seems a bit odd. it's also exactly half of the other clock defined, GLOBAL_PLL at 768mhz. PLL1 (core) is also 768. another clock is defined, AXI at 128mhz, that acronym is mentioned in the video/gpu drivers. not sure if that's related to that clock, or just some video thing i'm not familiar with and completely unrelated.

changing PMDH_CLK (in devices.c) to OFF | MINMAX or just MINMAX *AND* changing the mddi freq to anything higher than 384000000 results in dmesg saying mddi was set to 235930000 (instead of 117965000) but i still get the same 30fps id get if it was at 384000000. so when you think about it, this means mddi can't be capping it, otherwise i'd see a difference between 235930000 and 384000000. but they're exactly the same fps. it HAS to be happening elsewhere.

i've also found removing the adreno200 drivers from /system/lib/egl results in a silky smooth sprint boot animation, the gui flickers crazily, but fps2d still shows 29. perhaps this is what people were seeing with the froyo boot animation looking smooth.

you know, this 29fps thing is very specific...ntsc is 29.97fps. coincidence? i really don't think so. fps2d always averages out to 29, not 30.

i also tried removing all the hdmi code in the board files, that didn't change anything.

i find it very unlikely this is hardware limited though. the gpu is on die with the cpu, so unless htc had qualcomm make them a custom chip, it's all software controlled. there's nothing to suggest the gpu has its own crystal on the pcb. i mean, if we can completely control the cpu frequency via software, the same stands to reason with the gpu.

if it was something hdmi hardware related, it should be able to be disabled in the kernel and the evo wouldn't even know it was there, just like with the sensors that don't work.

it appears the evo uses a SIL9022A for hdmi, which makes no mention of requiring any change to the lcd frame rate. (http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?pid=150)
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
Cool thanks for the info. Yeah, I think Assassin is on to something with the HDMI "borrowing" half the framerate available. But like you said, this would not be a hardware issue. It'd be happening in the kernel.
[EVO 4G General] redct:
I think you guys are spot on with the divided by 2 thing—60 is half of 30, 15 is half of 30... anyways.

A better way to do it would be a systematic removal of references to HDMI and files that include msm_hdmi and intel_hdmi. Would take longer, though.

Also, what source tree are you guys looking at? I seem to have the wrong one, so could you link to the one you guys are all going off of?

EDIT: Godmode-EVO, right?
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
Right, but ffolkes said he tried that stuff already.
[EVO 4G General] AssassinsLament:
Thanks for the info! Glad to see I wasn't the only one pulling my hair out. lol.
[EVO 4G General] AssassinsLament:
Yes that's the right one, but you have to have hardware revision 0002. It's been reported that 0003 doesn't boot.
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
Also, ffolkes, dude you're totally right about the 29 thing. It's ALWAYS 29. It's like it's trying to put out an NTSC signal to the display at all times. I've read that HDMI commonly limits output to NTSC framerate.

EDIT: This would also probably explain the UI lag we experience. It may not be a DIRECT correlation by having the 30fps actually affect it, but it may be lagging trying to output to two things at once.
[EVO 4G General] drbadass:
Awesome work man. Thoughts on this post? www.xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=6853078&postcount=32
[EVO 4G General] jayv1717:
actually not true..i always average 30 i have never averaged 29..i actually had it average 31 which was a little weird
[EVO 4G General] vinscuzzy:
If anyone has helix launcher beta 1.4, it has a fps counter, and if you move the screens super fast, it measured 33 fps. Not everytime, but it definitely went as high as 33. I imagine it could be measuring it wrong, just wanted to throw this out there....
[EVO 4G General] Minjin:
HDMI always being active is just poor engineering. And even then, if it was, you'd expect that the UI would show up on your TV ala Zune. But it doesn't. In fact, people seem to be having problems getting much of anything to show up on their TV.
[EVO 4G General] AssassinsLament:
I made a little app from a source code online that just displays fps, but the real purpose was so that I could "disable" the hdmi port at the application level. I was able to do that, but the 30fps was still there.

So yeah, I don't think HDMI is always on... I think HTC was just too lazy to implement an on and off feature. Like... when HDMI is on, cap framerate at 29 for NTSC, when HDMI is off, go back to no cap. They just said screw it and ALWAYS stay at 29/30.
[EVO 4G General] ffolkes:
i'm still up lol. i had another idea. well, theory rather. i've always noticed the fps do often exceed 30fps. someone just mentioned it again a few posts ago. and when you think about it, any kind of hard limit (not literally hardware, but a hard coded, single value limit) would mean it would NEVER, EVER exceed that limit. or if, for example, it was precisely clocked to 29.97 somewhere, that crystal would never change - it would remain constant regardless of cpu load, etc.

the perfect comparison: your cpu has a max frequency defined, and that value is NEVER exceeded (unless you hack the values in the kernel). so if the same thing was happening with the gpu, you'd NEVER see it go beyond 30fps, just like you never see a stock rom's cpu go past 998400.

but that clearly isn't the case, since the very thing we're basing the 29.97 (or 30 if you'd rather) also tells us it sometimes can be as high as 40something. watch fps2d, and you'll see a 4 or higher routinely flicker by. or even more so, watch when you first start it - it spikes high, then averages down to 30 within a second or two. (i think that's what the green bars mean in fps2d).

so whatever is going on, i think the gpu, or the drivers, are being scaled dependent on gpu (or possibly cpu) load.
[EVO 4G General] :
But isn't the kernel from an Incredible which doesn't have this problem? So I am confused how there can be a 30fps limit if there is no crystal doing this.
[EVO 4G General] ffolkes:
and one more update.

i just realized when i run fps2d, then immediately turn the screen off, wait a minute or so, then turn it back on...i get an avg fps of about 53. not sure what this means, but i'm thinking maybe something related to the lcd is the problem after all. if the gpu was going super fast because it wasn't doing work (aka outputting blank screens in the test cause the display was off), then i'd think the fps would be crazy high. but it's not...it's right where it should be. which makes me think how i mentioned in my other post the way fps2d shows a burst initially, then slows down in a second or two. it almost seems like a cache or buffer is getting filled with a few frames, then it's dragged down by something else...lcd perhaps...that keeps it stifled indefinitely.

can someone with an incredible or n1 run fps2d with the display off and see if your fps avg is the same as with it on?
[EVO 4G General] jayv1717:
How can it be hardware capped then..i averaged 60fps with screen off..so it s not impossible to reach
[EVO 4G General] themyst:
Weird indeed. I know nothing about Android programming, but is it possible to get a list or log of processes running and files accessed while the fps test is running with the screen on, off, or turning the screen on while the the fps test was running with it off? Perhaps that would allow us to see what the difference is in terms of why the fps is within spec with the screen off vs the artificial cap with the screen on.

Only thing that might be unfortunate is perhaps HTC being extremely cruel and creating a "custom 30hz" LCD display just to upset us :)
[EVO 4G General] eduardmc:
can anyone test this with a HD2 from verizon since they have the same screen. see if it has a cap. because my knowledge even with the screen on or off in a pc, you will still get the same frame per second. Also if you lock vsync and the game runs above 60fps, with will be cap to 60fps max on a lcd monitor. I really doub is lcd, but now that we know the device is able to pull more than 60fps we can maybe see what the power button turn on and off which seems to turn other things other than the screen.
[EVO 4G General] eduardmc:
i just did another test

run the application and while fps2d is running constantly turn the screen on and off. The frame rate jumps up and down, but at the end still was able to average 50fps. So the power switch does turn on something withing the OS to make it cap at 30fps.
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
It's definitely possible for the drivers to give specific instructions for only when the screen is on.
[EVO 4G General] d.cooper:
I registered just to say i finally like where this thread is going! This will surely get figured out soon. :)
[EVO 4G General] nestersan:
Same thing happens to me, LCD off and on, FPS averages 50.
[EVO 4G General] abiezer:
Yep, I turn off the LCD and get 60 FPS. Damn! If only they release that source already!
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
I sent a PM to Toast asking if all he changed in the Inc kernel was the Evo board files. If he did, at least we know that the problem is either in the board files or in the hardware.
[EVO 4G General] Young_e:
Yep just tried the screen on and off trick and averaged 55 fps.....so we definitely know that it isn't a hardware limitation. And now i'm starting to believe the guy that says the nexus one boot screen start at around 60 fps. WE ARE MAKING PROGRESS BABY!!!!!!!
[EVO 4G General] Minjin:
Hold on guys, lets be scientific here. Someone needs to try the screen on and off test with another android phone that does NOT have a cap and verify that turning the screen off does not affect the FPS average. Only then do we possibly have some legit info.
[EVO 4G General] linkmaster_6:
This is a little off topic but if the HDMI is allways on wouldnt that have really bad effects on the battery life? I would think that would be a huge power drain
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
Looking at the board code, there's definitely HDMI GPIO on/off capability built in.
[EVO 4G General] luisrcastillo:
While I can confirm that turning the screen on and off while running fps2d shows an improvement, can somebody explain why I'm getting almost twice the average than everyone else? I'm getting an avg of 102. Attaching screenshot with proof. This is very odd....
[EVO 4G General] abiezer:
WTF?????? :confused: :eek:
[EVO 4G General] Young_e:
not sure but those are definitely good numbers. Do you leave the screen off the entire time??
[EVO 4G General] abiezer:
Seriously though I think this means that the test with the screen off is not precise.
[EVO 4G General] luisrcastillo:
I didn't. I pressed the power button several times to turn the screen on and off. I just ran the test leaving the screen completely off and I got 55. I don't think this test is very reliable
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
Well I found something interesting. I ran the FPS2d, turned off the screen, turned it back on immediately and kept tapping the lock screen to keep it active until the screen just shut off on its own. When I turned it back on and unlocked it, this is what I saw:

Tons of peaks in the 40-60 range, and even in the 60-80 range.
[EVO 4G General] vinscuzzy:
Yeah, I think your right. I'm pretty sure the lock screen does something to alter the way its calculated. Try this, start the test, then immediately double tap the power button, so its basically running the test with the lock screen on(not the screen off). If you do this, it finishes the test really fast, and gives an average fps of 199...
[EVO 4G General] sfox8:
Tried it and I averaged from 150 all the way up to 199. Most of the time it was in the 169-170 range.

Even if the test isn't completely the same across the board, doesn't this mean we're onto something? It can't be a unfixable limitation if the device actually DOES reach over 30fps then, can it?
[EVO 4G General] abiezer:
Yep, this is definitely not a reliable test. Sucks...
[EVO 4G General] redct:
Wow, good overnight progress guys! :D

It's 60Hz, if you run adb logcat when you start up, you can see the drivers outputting stuff about setting the screen @ 60Hz.

I can't find the post now, but about the person who said that they got the boot animation to run 'silky smooth' when they removed the Adreno drivers: could this mean that the limiter is in the driver?

Also, if anyone with the time and an HDMI cable could run adb logcat while plugging in an HDMI cable to the phone and to a TV, that would be great.
[EVO 4G General] catpunt:
i emailed htc and got this response:
[EVO 4G General] nashjax:
Message from Sprint.

Here's the message I received from sprint today regarding my questions into the 30 fps cap.

Dear Mr. Jackson,

Thank you for contacting Dan@Sprint.com in regards to the HTC EVO frames

per second rate. Sprint has reached out to the manufacturer HTC in

regards to this issue. They acknowledge the problem and are in the

process of developing a Firmware update that will address this issue. I

sincerely apologize; there is no available turnaround time for resolve

at this time. You may contact HTC for additional information.

Thank you for contacting Dan@Sprint.com.

Sincerely,

Sheila S.

757-223-3253

Sprint
[EVO 4G General] clamknuckle:
Because the average cell phone user has the IQ of a baby.
[EVO 4G General] clamknuckle:
Couldn't have said it better myself man. My EVO scrolls and moves smoother than my Hero ever did, even with custom ROMs.

Personally I think this issue is more placebo than anything. People see numbers and get upset, but there's no noticable difference.
[EVO 4G General] drbadass:
The problem I have with responses like these is that there is no timetable. And in fact, they've specifically gone out of their way to mention that there is no timetable.

What do you want to bet you don't hear anything definitive until AFTER all of the first-day folks hit their 30 day limit? This way, they keep people hanging, and they can't be held to any sort of deadline.

Aggravating.
[EVO 4G General] donatom3:
It's actually very simple. If this issue is important enough to you to return the phone. Then if before your 30 days it's not fixed then you return it. If they fix it then you can buy it again.
[EVO 4G General] cary328is:
According to this:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Cellphonehardwarecompari1.png

The EVO uses a GPU "Imageon Z430 (Adreno 200) @ 133Mhz" embedded inside its Qualcomm QSD8650 CPU - I've read in some other thread that HTC isn't using the correct qualcomm driver to enable the full power of the GPU. Is this true? Sorry I'm not a dev, but I'm just trying to provide some lead way for you brilliant folks in here
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
You're mistaken. There is a HUGE noticeable difference. I did simple quick swiping though homescreens on my gf's Hero last night and it followed my finger almost instantly, while my Evo struggled to catch up. Even she noticed it and thought it was f'ed up.
[EVO 4G General] toenail78:
Re: Evo capping all graphics to 30FPS

you definately have something here guys because when i run the fps test on my wifes hero the results are pretty much the same weither the screen is on or off, but when i run the fps test on my evo turning off the screen there is a dramatic change.. good find homies
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
If HTC doesn't fix this or release source soon, I'm never going to buy their devices again until this kind of **** can be assured to be no issue.
[EVO 4G General] drbadass:
It becomes more complicated because if you DO return it and want to buy it again there are restrictions on how long you have to wait after your 30 day cancellation, plus I wouldn't be surprised at encountering credit issues if they decide they need to check you again.
[EVO 4G General] Minjin:
I always wonder when I read threads like this, just what the HTC engineers and support people who read this forum are thinking. Are they laughing to themselves? Are they silently shaking their heads? Are they just itching to say something but know they aren't allowed to? I guess we'll never know.
[EVO 4G General] donatom3:
Yeah for a current sprint customer who would just reactivate their old phone this isn't' as much of a problem. I can definitely see how it's more complicated for people who would have to go back to their old provider.
[EVO 4G General] Cicatrize:
I think about this too. I imagine most of them can't read English very well though. Those who do...probably all of the above? lol
[EVO 4G General] pirokosan:
Just got a response....

Dear xxxxxxx,

Hello xxxxxxx. Thank you for taking the time to contact HTC America Technical Support via E-Mail with your concern about the fps rate and the Bluetooth functionality of your HTC EVO 4G. I understand how important it is for your device to function to your specifications and I apologize for any inconvenience this situation has caused you. Please be aware that our technical team has been tracking these issues and we are actively working toward a resolution for our customers. Please continue to monitor our website for future postings, or call customer service at 1.866.449.8358 Sunday through Saturday 6:00 a.m. until 1:00 a.m. EST.

To send a reply to this message or let me know I have successfully answered your question log in to our ContactUs site using your email address and your ticket number 10USCW25ENA001260.

Sincerely,

Richard

HTC

---------------

We are unable to receive replies to this email account. Please visit us at htc.com if you have any questions or need further assistance.
[EVO 4G General] slvdc1:
I got this one 2 days ago:

Hello, Thank you for taking the time to contact HTC America Technical Support via E-Mail with your inquiry about your Sprint EVO 4G by HTC. I understand how important it is for you to have this information about your device. The EVO 4G does have a maximum frames per second (FPS) of 30. This decision was made to enhance the overall performance of the device. At this time, we do not have any information on when or if a software update will be available to change the FPS.

Seems like since I got this and when you guys heard from them they have woken up a bit.

Here's to holding out hope that they are indeed working on it.
[EVO 4G General] drbadass:
yeah :( I really really want to just believe this is going to get worked out. It's just that.. hearing things about waiting for support, conflicting reports of whether it's hardware or software, etc etc in conjunction with the story here about HTC basically just blowing off support on those phones while they slowly became obsolete make me a little weary.
[EVO 4G General] AssassinsLament:
What we need to do is give Sprint a July 1st - 2nd deadline to give an Official stand on this, so that people who want to return it and wait for a better phone can do so. I think if they just give an official word, everyone would be happier, instead they just brush everyone aside.