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[Redneckerz]

Now, Android TV boxes have been a thing - People buy these as a media streamer and usually provide excellent 4K support, although Netflix is lagging behind. Easily the most popular are the Amlogic S905 range and S912. The S905 usually has 4x Cortex A53 cores with a Mali 450 MP3 GPU. The Mali 450 is an evolution of the ''good old'' Mali 400 series and provides twice the shading power over the 400 series.

The S912 is quite more capable and found in 50-60 dollar boxes, with 8x! Cortex A53 cores married with a Mali T820 MP3. This is a modern platform that supports OpenGLES 3 and Vulkan. However, its still 50-60 bucks, so its not in the ''entry-level'' segment. The A53 cores are also not that powerful compared to say bigger cores like A72 and beyond.

Asides that Mali 450 is still only OpenGLES 2.0. Meaning that for many years, mobile developers had to keep this baseline in mind. With the new SoC's, GPU won't be an issue anymore for the ultra low end and CPU won't be an issue for the mid-end.

Enter the Amlogic S905 X2/Y2 and S922X. Announced at IBC 2018 fair.

S905 X2/Y2:

S922X:

FYI: There is also the RockChip RK3326 - A quad Cortex A35 with the same Mali G31 MP2. The A35 is designed to follow up the Cortex A7, used in the NES Classic.

So why this thread?
These new SoC's will finally push entry level boxes into modern graphics territory. It means Android console gaming is become more modern, with vastly improved graphical feature sets, to which games like Fortnite and PUBG Mobile now will become playable to a new generation of SoC's. The latter requires OpenGLES 3 support, with the S905X2, even 20-30 buck boxes now will be able to play these. Ofcourse, these will also support 4K media - The S905X2 in particular is designed to be a follow up to existing media players. The Y2 drops the USB 3.0 for USB 2.0 and is more for TV sticks. The S922X is set to be a premium solution, similar to Rockchip's RK3399.

We are finally getting near Shield K1 levels of performance for a dime, really.

 

[longdi]

MP4 only have 4 GPU cores i guess?
That is near worthless for gaming, you need at least MP12 which the Huawei P20 have, which is already a low tier gaming phone for 2018.

 

[SonGoku]

Why is PowerVR absent from recent socs? they have the most promising mobile gpus

 

[blu]

A wild Dvalin appears!

On a more serious note, seems like the Utgard days are finally over.

Why is PowerVR absent from recent socs? they have the most promising mobile gpus

PVR are still found in MediaTek devices, but I think that about covers their presence. Rockchip's last use of PVR was in the RK3368.

 

[SonGoku]

A wild Dvalin appears!

On a more serious note, seems like the Utgard days are finally over.


PVR are still found in MediaTek devices, but I think that about covers their presence.

Im more puzzled by the lack of presence of their promising furian arch and how the high end is all rogue
Also curious what happened to their smartphone business they went from top dog to underdog with no presence at all currently

 

[blu]

Im more puzzled by the lack of presence of their promising furian arch and how the high end is all rogue
Also curious what happened to their smartphone business they went from top dog to underdog with no presence at all currently

That's what happens to you when you sleep with Apple for too long.

BTW, I believe I'm posting this from the most-powerful PVR in circulation today, outside of apple devices -- GX6250 found in the MT8173.

 

[blu]

Sorry about the double-post and the thread hijack, but to finish my PVR tirade: not only that ImgTech severely lowered their presence in the mobile segment, but their extremely promising raytracing tech they were so evangelic about up until last year is *nowhere* to be found on their site today..

 

[SonGoku]

Sorry about the double-post and the thread hijack, but to finish my PVR tirade: not only that ImgTech severely lowered their presence in the mobile segment,

Not at all, if anyone should apologize is me for bringing up the pvr topic
Any input/info on the current situation is much appreciated

I still remember the days Mali was the newly introduced underdog and pvr was killing it everywhere

but their extremely promising raytracing tech they were so evangelic about up until last year is *nowhere* to be found on their site today..

That too is very intriguing, same treatment their first new arch in 6 years got

 

[DeepEnigma]

How are these compared to Raspberry?

 

[cryptoadam]

Yet all these boxes will still be more laggy and crash filled then my Google Nexus player from 4 years ago.

 

[blu]

How are these compared to Raspberry?

Compared to pi3, the 905x2 -- overall better or on par, the 905y2 -- perhaps more or less on par, and the s922 would just murder the pi3.

Not at all, if anyone should apologize is me for bringing up the pvr topic
Any input/info on the current situation is much appreciated

I still remember the days Mali was the newly introduced underdog and pvr was killing it everywhere

The progress Mali has demonstrated, starting with the Utgard, then Midgard, then Bifrost, has been nothing short of amazing. I can't name another GPU vendor who have achieved that in a similar timespan.

 

[MayauMiao]

I love these Android TV boxes. I used it all the time to surf the web and watch youtube vides on my non smart tv HDTV. Yes, even played some retro games. Why, I even replied this very message on my Android TV box. Loving it.

Nice to hear Amlogic coming with a new chip but it still sucks how its 3D capabilities is still way behind mobile phones. On my S912, PUBG still runs like shit, others would glitch. I wish they fix up the 3D engine for better compatibility and performance. Let's see how the new chip will handle the gaming performance. I might considered replacing my old S912 if it lives up to the hype.

 

[blu]

I love these Android TV boxes. I used it all the time to surf the web and watch youtube vides on my non smart tv HDTV. Yes, even played some retro games. Why, I even replied this very message on my Android TV box. Loving it.

Nice to hear Amlogic coming with a new chip but it still sucks how its 3D capabilities is still way behind mobile phones. On my S912, PUBG still runs like shit, others would glitch. I wish they fix up the 3D engine for better compatibility and performance. Let's see how the new chip will handle the gaming performance. I might considered replacing my old S912 if it lives up to the hype.

Have you tried experimenting with resolutions in PUBG to see if it's the GPU that is the bottleneck? I'd venture to guess that PUBG is not well multi-threaded, and likely does not make use of the 8 cores on the S912. A single A53 is not that powerful, to boot (it's extremely area- and power-efficient, though) -- an A57/A72/A73 should be about 2x the IPC of the A53 in general code, even more in fp code (like 3d math), and at 1.5GHz top clock some things could easily be CPU-bottleneck'ed on an A53 box.

 

[Redneckerz]

MP4 only have 4 GPU cores i guess?
That is near worthless for gaming, you need at least MP12 which the Huawei P20 have, which is already a low tier gaming phone for 2018.

Not really. In mobile GPU land, modern feature support is key. For years on end games had to run on OpenGLES 2 to maintain compatibility with the Mali 400-450 series since those GPU's costed nothing. And hey, they ran Unreal Engine 3 Mobile quite well.

A G31 MP2 is still vastly more modern than a Mali 450. Even if its similar in powers or similar to a Mali T720, such enables stuff like Shadowgun Legends and PUBG to exist and run rather well. Heck, Rockchip RK3288 from 2014 still is one of the better performing SoC's out there, and can run PUBG Mobile due to its OpenGLES 3 support, despite being only 32 bit (With Cortex A17 cores)

For instance, my quad A53/Mali T720 MP2 setup at 720p can comfortably run Legends on High and PUBG Mobile rather well. So if anything, Mali G31 MP2 should perform similar, or even better at 1080p. The bigger issue is that in TV Box gaming, resolution is never applied. So its strange to read that even outdated Mali 450 can push 1080p graphics on recentish games that just run OpenGLES 2, so its hard to summarize how powerful they are.

Mali G52 is ARM's mid-range next gen GPU. Combinded with A73, you will have a pretty potent device. Obviously not Tegra X1 levels, but it ensures that even low costing tv boxes are moving up towards PS360/PS4/XBO levels of visual complexity here, more easily.

On a more serious note, seems like the Utgard days are finally over.

And thank Fuck for that. Its only since last year that mobile devs are effectively targetting OpenGLES 3 and modern rendering paradigms because they all wanted to maintain that OpenGLES 2 backend.

Glad titles like Modern Combat Versus and Tau Ceti: Unknown Origin showcase proper next-gen visuals.

Sorry about the double-post and the thread hijack, but to finish my PVR tirade: not only that ImgTech severely lowered their presence in the mobile segment, but their extremely promising raytracing tech they were so evangelic about up until last year is *nowhere* to be found on their site today..

The moment Apple announced they were going to stop with ImgTech, is when things went down hill.

How are these compared to Raspberry?

• S905X2 should be comparable, since it has quad A53, but Mali G31 is vastly more modern and includes Vulkan support, so proper next-gen visuals are to be expected. They will usually cost similarly to a Pi aswell, except you get Android and a Case along with it.
• S922X is more a premium product for 50-70 buck boxes, similar to Rockchip RK3399, RK3288 and so on. These are more forward looking machines.

Yet all these boxes will still be more laggy and crash filled then my Google Nexus player from 4 years ago.

Can you elaborate on this? Because a Nexus Player was quite advanced (PowerVR G6430), but only has 1 GB ram and a Atom x86 SoC. I am not even sure if the latest Android titles run on it because of it.

Its GPU though also saw usage in AllWinner A80 and that can run PUBG, so..

Have you tried experimenting with resolutions in PUBG to see if it's the GPU that is the bottleneck? I'd venture to guess that PUBG is not well multi-threaded, and likely does not make use of the 8 cores on the S912. A single A53 is not that powerful, to boot (it's extremely area- and power-efficient, though) -- an A57/A72/A73 should be about 2x the IPC of the A53 in general code, even more in fp code (like 3d math), and at 1.5GHz top clock some things could easily be CPU-bottleneck'ed on an A53 box.

A53's are basically just 64 bit Cortex A8 cores. Even Cortex A9 is better. Its similar to A7 though, so Rockchip's A35 SoC should be slightly better performing than a S905X2.

A53 cores incredibly tiny though, and i reckon PUBG isnt aware of all cores on a S912 - Which makes sense since most SoC's arent octocore, atleast in TV Box world. I know of exactly one box which use an octacore Cortex A7 but it won't run PUBG since it has a PowerVR SGX544 SoC.

 

[SonGoku]

This is what i don't get, why don't these android boxes go ham with specs since they don't have to worry about power consumption
Use the most capable CPU/GPU cores available and as many of them as posible

For $200 im sure they could build something that bests all the high end smartphones and tablets out there

 

[MayauMiao]

Have you tried experimenting with resolutions in PUBG to see if it's the GPU that is the bottleneck? I'd venture to guess that PUBG is not well multi-threaded, and likely does not make use of the 8 cores on the S912. A single A53 is not that powerful, to boot (it's extremely area- and power-efficient, though) -- an A57/A72/A73 should be about 2x the IPC of the A53 in general code, even more in fp code (like 3d math), and at 1.5GHz top clock some things could easily be CPU-bottleneck'ed on an A53 box.

I already set PUBG at lowest setting, still sucks with framerates. It can still run well enough, but often times the frame rates gets below 30 way too much which hinders a good experience. Guess we'll have to see how it compares with the latest Amlogic S922.

This is what i don't get, why don't these android boxes go ham with specs since they don't have to worry about power consumption
Use the most capable CPU/GPU cores available and as many of them as posible

For $200 im sure they could build something that bests all the high end smartphones and tablets out there

Most of these TV boxes are build for media consumption like streaming TV service, youtube, light web surfing, etc. In some case, I've seen these cheap box used in one of those standalone advertisement kiosks at shopping malls. Some countries use these Android TV boxes as set top boxes supplied by the Internet provider with modified firmware to run as if its like the other non-android set top boxes.

If the price is approaching $200 you might as well get an Intel powered TV box or Nvidia Shield. The high price will also defeat the appeal of these neat little gadget.

 

[blu]

A53's are basically just 64 bit Cortex A8 cores. Even Cortex A9 is better. Its similar to A7 though, so Rockchip's A35 SoC should be slightly better performing than a S905X2.

A53 cores incredibly tiny though, and i reckon PUBG isnt aware of all cores on a S912 - Which makes sense since most SoC's arent octocore, atleast in TV Box world. I know of exactly one box which use an octacore Cortex A7 but it won't run PUBG since it has a PowerVR SGX544 SoC.

That was me, though, not MayauMiao ; )

That was exactly my point -- while I can see PUBG making use of 2-4 cores, I sincerely doubt it can make use of 8, and thus an S912 is effectively an 4x A53@1.5GHz in the context of that game. And 1.5GHz A53 is not that fast, to boot. Only recently, with sub-28nm nodes we started getting 2+GHz A53's.

This is what i don't get, why don't these android boxes go ham with specs since they don't have to worry about power consumption
Use the most capable CPU/GPU cores available and as many of them as posible

For $200 im sure they could build something that bests all the high end smartphones and tablets out there

So Tegra Shield TV? -- Effectively a Switch sans Nintendo's and console-3rd-party support ; )

 

[SonGoku]

So Tegra Shield TV? -- Effectively a Switch sans Nintendo's and console-3rd-party support ; )

Yeah pretty much, but the shield is discontinued not receiving hw updates anymore
Even with its old tech does it still hold performance crown vs high-end tablets/phones?

But yeah i get that android gaming is a joke, more interested in it for emulators with the pipe dream of running PSX2 and dolphin full speed

If the price is approaching $200 you might as well get an Intel powered TV box or Nvidia Shield. The high price will also defeat the appeal of these neat little gadget.

Good point, though i suspect Nvidia and intel make quite a bit of profit at those price points

 

[onQ123]

Why is PowerVR absent from recent socs? they have the most promising mobile gpus

Probably because the company has a new owner now

 

[Meh3D]

Just glancing through the thread. So do these new/previous SoCs come in stand alone devices for someone to “tinker” with? Likes a raspberry pi? Or do I have to buy some Android product, hack and then tinker with that?

 

[Redneckerz]

This is what i don't get, why don't these android boxes go ham with specs since they don't have to worry about power consumption
Use the most capable CPU/GPU cores available and as many of them as posible

For $200 im sure they could build something that bests all the high end smartphones and tablets out there

Because SoC design is an expensive adventure and for the prices that these things go for and you still wanting to have some profit over it, you will have to pick your poisons.

With these new OpenGLES 3 capable SoC's though, even for the 20-30 buck segment (Which previously didn't have this), games can now be more visually complex and should be an incentive for mobile devs to go more into AAA developments.

I already set PUBG at lowest setting, still sucks with framerates. It can still run well enough, but often times the frame rates gets below 30 way too much which hinders a good experience. Guess we'll have to see how it compares with the latest Amlogic S922.

That really sounds like a cooling issue which quite a few S912 boxes seem to have if i remember correctly. It should be noted though that PUBG Mobile auto-defaults to a setting, not sure if later updates gave you the option to change this however.

That was me, though, not MayauMiao ; )
That was exactly my point -- while I can see PUBG making use of 2-4 cores, I sincerely doubt it can make use of 8, and thus an S912 is effectively an 4x A53@1.5GHz in the context of that game. And 1.5GHz A53 is not that fast, to boot. Only recently, with sub-28nm nodes we started getting 2+GHz A53's.

I legit have no idea how that happened, sorry :O

I think yeah, most games take into account 4 cores since thats what most SoC's are having these days. That being said, The GPU is pretty decent though, even when its a lower end Mali T8xx.

Weren't A53 locked to 1.5 Ghz though? I remember companies falsely advertised these things as reaching 2.0 Ghz+ but they never attained that.

Just glancing through the thread. So do these new/previous SoCs come in stand alone devices for someone to “tinker” with? Likes a raspberry pi? Or do I have to buy some Android product, hack and then tinker with that?

They do. There are some stuffs like the Vim and the 96boards spec. The latter is a standard that implements various SoC's on various boards, which might be exactly what you are looking for. - https://www.96boards.org/

Lastly are the Zynq boards. These are ARM boards, but also contain FPGA's to tinker with. One of them, the Zynqberry, even has Raspberry Pi size. - https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/0...-fpga-board-with-raspberry-pi-23-form-factor/

 

[cryptoadam]

Can you elaborate on this? Because a Nexus Player was quite advanced (PowerVR G6430), but only has 1 GB ram and a Atom x86 SoC. I am not even sure if the latest Android titles run on it because of it.

Its GPU though also saw usage in AllWinner A80 and that can run PUBG, so..

I mean more as a media device not a game playing device. I don't play games on my box. But as a media device compared to other android boxes I have seen the Nexus is the snappiest and most stable. Didn't know the Nexus was so advanced, but I am pretty sure it has to do with the software.

I bought android boxes about a year/year and half for some peeps and they ran like crap and crashed all the time.

 

[SonGoku]

The bigger issue is that in TV Box gaming, resolution is never applied. So its strange to read that even outdated Mali 450 can push 1080p graphics on recentish games that just run OpenGLES 2, so its hard to summarize how powerful they are.

What does this mean?

A53 cores incredibly tiny though, and i reckon PUBG isnt aware of all cores on a S912 - Which makes sense since most SoC's arent octocore, atleast in TV Box world. I know of exactly one box which use an octacore Cortex A7 but it won't run PUBG since it has a PowerVR SGX544 SoC.

I know its old now but i can't believe the PSVITA GPU (SGX 543MP4 im assuming the SGX544 is better ) its not enough to run pubg mobile, i played it and it didn't seem to be using any new fancy shader effects.

 

[Redneckerz]

I mean more as a media device not a game playing device. I don't play games on my box. But as a media device compared to other android boxes I have seen the Nexus is the snappiest and most stable. Didn't know the Nexus was so advanced, but I am pretty sure it has to do with the software.

I bought android boxes about a year/year and half for some peeps and they ran like crap and crashed all the time.

Well the Nexus Player is actually one of the oddball boxes out there, as its the only TV box that runs an Atom Z5360 Moorefield
SoC. Therefore it differs in app support from all the ARM based boxes.

What does this mean?

In TV box testing of games, unlike console titles, resolution is hardly ever mentioned and its usually guess-work. With mobile phones one can atleast logically assume it uses the cellphone screen resolution, although it hardly ever gets mentioned aswell.

I know its old now but i can't believe the PSVITA GPU (SGX 543MP4 im assuming the SGX544 is better )

The Vita used the 543MP4 +, with + denoting customized features by Sony. I assume one of it was a low-level driver so one could bypass OS overhead, which is what causes the majority of Android titles to be held back. Well that, and the variety of hardware supported.

its not enough to run pubg mobile, i played it and it didn't seem to be using any new fancy shader effects.

The aforementioned overhead, plus mobile GPU's are not so much geometry pushers as that they are effect pushers. Hence why a lot of games on Android like Dead Effect appear like a step above PS2/OG Xbox, but this is usually to do with shader effects, and not so much geometry complexity or texture complexity.

Geometry wise Dead Effect or Dead Trigger is like a PS2/Xbox title, its the effects plus general GPU effectiveness that makes games look as they are.

 

[SonGoku]

In TV box testing of games, unlike console titles, resolution is hardly ever mentioned and its usually guess-work. With mobile phones one can atleast logically assume it uses the cellphone screen resolution, although it hardly ever gets mentioned aswell.

I see, could there be dynamic rez at play here?

The Vita used the 543MP4 +, with + denoting customized features by Sony. I assume one of it was a low-level driver so one could bypass OS overhead, which is what causes the majority of Android titles to be held back. Well that, and the variety of hardware supported.

So barring any cpu/memory bottlenecks the vita gpu could run pubg mobile?

The aforementioned overhead, plus mobile GPU's are not so much geometry pushers as that they are effect pushers. Hence why a lot of games on Android like Dead Effect appear like a step above PS2/OG Xbox, but this is usually to do with shader effects, and not so much geometry complexity or texture complexity.

Geometry wise Dead Effect or Dead Trigger is like a PS2/Xbox title, its the effects plus general GPU effectiveness that makes games look as they are.

So where does pubg fall here? since it doesn't seem to be pushing any fancy shader effects

 

[Redneckerz]

I see, could there be dynamic rez at play here?

I don't think so. Dynamic res scaling is a thing present in Unity and UE4 titles, but its hardly ever mentioned. I do recall that John Linneman referenced something like it when he reviewed the latest Asphalt.

The thing is, TV Box gaming is a severely underrated way to play (Android) games. Its already quite something that DF covers mobile titles on phones, but TV Boxes are just that - TV Boxes. It also does not help that Android does not support a universal controller standard - If Android had that, and a revised focus on TV gaming through Android, then the ecosystem itself would be taken more seriously and more consumers would be aware of the benefits of these cheap little things.

So barring any cpu/memory bottlenecks the vita gpu could run pubg mobile?

Its really difficult to say. Judging by its feature set is uses OpenGLES 2 on mobile. PUBG Mobile requires OpenGLES 3. In terms of DirectX, it only supports DX9, which is even below the requirements of PUBG Mobile on the Tencent Gaming Buddy emulator (Which requires DirectX10)

Perhaps on a low-level it might, but then you have to factor in the other specs of the Vita, and although it has a seperate VRAM buffer (Meaning it won't have to share that with the main memory like all TV boxes do), Vita only has 512 MB of main memory, and its CPU cores run at really low frequencies. So a direct port might be out of the equation, but a custom, professional port might be attainable, a downscaled PUBG if you will.

Such is however a pipedream. However, Morrowind (Elder Scrolls) does run on Android hardware via the OpenMW project. OpenMW supplies a custom game engine (So no Bethesda code here!) that is tailor made to just run Morrowind. Its still in beta stage but there is an Android port around, and its noteworthy because the game is apparently fully playable. More info:

https://forum.openmw.org/viewtopic.php?t=4898

So where does pubg fall here? since it doesn't seem to be pushing any fancy shader effects

On Low it might not, yes, but as soon as you move higher up, you can see the differences in texture quality and what not. Its a bit difficult to describe for me what i am trying to say here, and perhaps blu can explain this better, but mobile GPU's aren't really great at geometry complexity (And thus, texture quality). This is why most games tend to be described as PS2+Xbox like shaders. But they are good at pushing effects, owing that to their more modern featuresets. Compare that to the low-level nature of Vita (And ofcourse, bigger budgets): Developers can push for a fixed platform and avoid the minuses that mobile GPU's have, allowing something like a Vita punch above its weight really.

You didn't have that luxury on mobile for now. Its only now that modern featuresets are getting more common that texture quality is bumped up to levels approaching PS360 quality, thus moving away from looking like the equivalent of 6th generation games.

 

[cryptoadam]

Well the Nexus Player is actually one of the oddball boxes out there, as its the only TV box that runs an Atom Z5360 Moorefield
SoC. Therefore it differs in app support from all the ARM based boxes.

So is that like the "secret sauce" it has that makes it run so well? All I can say is that box has been going strong for me for 4 years and handles any media app I throw at it. Google was onto something with it but as per usual they dumped it.

I bet if there was a still a Nexus player around it would probably be pretty beefy and doing well on running games. Welp we will never know :-(

 

[Redneckerz]

So is that like the "secret sauce" it has that makes it run so well? All I can say is that box has been going strong for me for 4 years and handles any media app I throw at it. Google was onto something with it but as per usual they dumped it.

I don't think its secret sauce, but Google did gave the Nexus Player considerable first line support, which i reckon has amounted to a smooth experience overall.

In terms of gaming though, i am not so sure. There is little to be found of people using their Nexus Player to play the latest titles - Something which considering the hardware it should be able to. A reason for this might be in its RAM allocation: Just 1 GB of it - In a time where more and more Android games demand 2 GB and top end titles like ARK even ask for 3, 1 GB simply does not cut it anymore.

Gameloft does do some optimization for these kinds of devices though, but for the majority of games, 1 GB won't make you keep up with the latest. Which is a shame, because on a GPU perspective, a Nexus Player would have had no issues running Elder Scrolls Blades, i reckon.

I bet if there was a still a Nexus player around it would probably be pretty beefy and doing well on running games. Welp we will never know :-(

I know it runs Modern Combat 5 but not Versus or Assassins Creed Identity. I really am leaning towards the 1 GB ram being a major culprit in this - There is simply too little memory to render the game, assigning VRAM to the GPU (Which has to be shared from the 1 GB), and OS overhead/background processes.

Had the Nexus Player shipped with 2 GB, then i reckon it would have been taken more seriously as a game platform. Even at launch, 1 GB was already pushing it. It seems as now it really holds the device back in terms of games, because GPU wise, it would cope.

 

[MoogleMan]

Yeah pretty much, but the shield is discontinued not receiving hw updates anymore
Even with its old tech does it still hold performance crown vs high-end tablets/phones?

Source? AFAIK, the shield TV is not discontinued.
It's still the best android TV box to get.

 

[SonGoku]

Source? AFAIK, the shield TV is not discontinued.
It's still the best android TV box to get.

I meant in the sense that Nvidia its not making revisions or upgrading the hw
The tegra line has been rebranded/repurposed as well, they are no longer focusing on consumer grade products, instead focusing on particular made to order products

 

[blu]

Weren't A53 locked to 1.5 Ghz though? I remember companies falsely advertised these things as reaching 2.0 Ghz+ but they never attained that.

Not locked, but usually A53 tops at about 1.5-1.7GHz when implemented in 28nm. 2GHz was definitely unsustainable on that fabnode, even though you could push the core to that clock and it would not crash, per se. As whether an A53 would sustain 1.5GHz -- that largely depends on the thermals of the particular device. For instance, in my MT8173 chromebook I can't bulge the A72 cores from 2.1GHz no matter what I throw at them -- they never exceed high 40'sC, and likewise with the 1.7GHz of the A53s -- the device just has impeccable thermals. At the same time I've had A53 devboards where 1.5GHz has been kept for not longer than a few minutes -- no heatsink, no airflow -- nothing.

On Low it might not, yes, but as soon as you move higher up, you can see the differences in texture quality and what not. Its a bit difficult to describe for me what i am trying to say here, and perhaps blu can explain this better, but mobile GPU's aren't really great at geometry complexity (And thus, texture quality). This is why most games tend to be described as PS2+Xbox like shaders. But they are good at pushing effects, owing that to their more modern featuresets. Compare that to the low-level nature of Vita (And ofcourse, bigger budgets): Developers can push for a fixed platform and avoid the minuses that mobile GPU's have, allowing something like a Vita punch above its weight really.

You didn't have that luxury on mobile for now. Its only now that modern featuresets are getting more common that texture quality is bumped up to levels approaching PS360 quality, thus moving away from looking like the equivalent of 6th generation games.

You are generally right about mobile GPUs -- while they can have all the features, they usually lack the power envelope, and that affects their BW and clocks, so that means asset complexity and/or resolutions for same asset complexity. Or asset complexity and resolutions are preserved at the expense of framerate. Basically, at a lower power envelope something has got to give.

 

[Redneckerz]

Not locked, but usually A53 tops at about 1.5-1.7GHz when implemented in 28nm. 2GHz was definitely unsustainable on that fabnode, even though you could push the core to that clock and it would not crash, per se. As whether an A53 would sustain 1.5GHz -- that largely depends on the thermals of the particular device. For instance, in my MT8173 chromebook I can't bulge the A72 cores from 2.1GHz no matter what I throw at them -- they never exceed high 40'sC, and likewise with the 1.7GHz of the A53s -- the device just has impeccable thermals. At the same time I've had A53 devboards where 1.5GHz has been kept for not longer than a few minutes -- no heatsink, no airflow -- nothing.


You are generally right about mobile GPUs -- while they can have all the features, they usually lack the power envelope, and that affects their BW and clocks, so that means asset complexity and/or resolutions for same asset complexity. Or asset complexity and resolutions are preserved at the expense of framerate. Basically, at a lower power envelope something has got to give.

I could have sworn there was a record stating that they topped at 1.5 Ghz. Hm.

Yeah thats the thing usually with mobile GPU's - excellent featuresets, but OS overhead and power draws play a big part in game development. It really makes little use to throw effects like DoF in there when there is no power envelope to make that effect sustainable without framerates tanking.

In that sense its good that better compression techniques and new API's finally allow mobile GPU's to make actual use of their modern feature sets more appropiately.

 

[blu]

I could have sworn there was a record stating that they topped at 1.5 Ghz. Hm.

I guess the following could persuade you ; )

chronos@localhostj $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
model name      : ARMv8 Processor rev 2 (v8l)
Features        : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xd03
CPU revision    : 2

processor       : 1
model name      : ARMv8 Processor rev 2 (v8l)
Features        : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xd03
CPU revision    : 2

processor       : 2
model name      : ARMv8 Processor rev 0 (v8l)
Features        : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xd08
CPU revision    : 0

processor       : 3
model name      : ARMv8 Processor rev 0 (v8l)
Features        : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xd08
CPU revision    : 0

The above says cpu0-1 are A53, cpu2-3 are A72.

chronos@localhost $ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats/time_in_state
507000 720572
702000 4837
1001000 2131
1105000 542
1209000 418
1300000 314
1508000 680
1703000 291562
chronos@localhost $ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/cpufreq/stats/time_in_state
507000 614870
702000 35069
1001000 16141
1209000 6202
1404000 3860
1612000 2446
1807000 1754
2106000 341839

The above are the usertimes spent in the given freq state. Notice how 1.7GHz is the second-longest freq for the A53, and 2.1GHz is the second-longest freq for the A72, respectively. So the cores are either idling or running at full capacity.

 

[Redneckerz]

I guess the following could persuade you ; )

chronos@localhostj $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
model name      : ARMv8 Processor rev 2 (v8l)
Features        : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xd03
CPU revision    : 2

processor       : 1
model name      : ARMv8 Processor rev 2 (v8l)
Features        : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xd03
CPU revision    : 2

processor       : 2
model name      : ARMv8 Processor rev 0 (v8l)
Features        : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xd08
CPU revision    : 0

processor       : 3
model name      : ARMv8 Processor rev 0 (v8l)
Features        : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xd08
CPU revision    : 0

The above says cpu0-1 are A53, cpu2-3 are A72.

chronos@localhost $ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats/time_in_state
507000 720572
702000 4837
1001000 2131
1105000 542
1209000 418
1300000 314
1508000 680
1703000 291562
chronos@localhost $ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/cpufreq/stats/time_in_state
507000 614870
702000 35069
1001000 16141
1209000 6202
1404000 3860
1612000 2446
1807000 1754
2106000 341839

The above are the usertimes spent in the given freq state. Notice how 1.7GHz is the second-longest freq for the A53, and 2.1GHz is the second-longest freq for the A72, respectively. So the cores are either idling or running at full capacity.

Oh i believe you, i think i read this story because companies would falsely advertise that the A53 cores hitted 2.0 Ghz, which they never did in practice Hell, they still dont even with your interesting snippets.

 

[blu]

Oh i believe you, i think i read this story because companies would falsely advertise that the A53 cores hitted 2.0 Ghz, which they never did in practice Hell, they still dont even with your interesting snippets.

When did that stop companies from advertising a product? ; ) If the cores can hit freq X for even less than a minute, then it's 'freq X' product.

MacBookPro 2018 corei9, anybody? : )

 

[Redneckerz]

When did that stop companies from advertising a product? ; ) If the cores can hit freq X for even less than a minute, then it's 'freq X' product.

MacBookPro 2018 corei9, anybody? : )

The thing is they never hitted that 2.0 Ghz as advertised, even under ideal circumstances. Most of them stayed at 1.5 Ghz, which ultimately forced companies to change these values as it was a cut and chased case of false advertising.

 

[MayauMiao]

That really sounds like a cooling issue which quite a few S912 boxes seem to have if i remember correctly. It should be noted though that PUBG Mobile auto-defaults to a setting, not sure if later updates gave you the option to change this however.

Cooling not the issue. I even mod one of my S912 box with an old AMD heatsink just to keep the heat down to acceptable level and PUBG still runs badly. I even ran the game using the lowest setting.

Maybe PUBG is not well optimized so the best way to be sure is to wait for Android port of Fortnite.

 

[Redneckerz]

Cooling not the issue. I even mod one of my S912 box with an old AMD heatsink just to keep the heat down to acceptable level and PUBG still runs badly. I even ran the game using the lowest setting.

Maybe PUBG is not well optimized so the best way to be sure is to wait for Android port of Fortnite.

I am still going to say ''eh'' on that since my far less performan phone runs that stuff adequately on low. There must be something else going on...

 

[blu]

The thing is they never hitted that 2.0 Ghz as advertised, even under ideal circumstances. Most of them stayed at 1.5 Ghz, which ultimately forced companies to change these values as it was a cut and chased case of false advertising.

That's right -- some of them couldn't hit 2GHz (and were even lying to the kernel freq governor). Others could under custom dvfs, but then couldn't sustain those and quickly fell back. Yet others couldn't hit 1.5GHz if another core was doing 1.1GHz or above at the same time (hi, RK3368). As a rule, though, A53 was considered capable of 2GHz at 28-22nm: https://community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/the-top-5-things-to-know-about-cortex-a53

The snippets I posted are from a 28nm, 100%-passively-cooled setup ; )

 

[MayauMiao]

I am still going to say ''eh'' on that since my far less performan phone runs that stuff adequately on low. There must be something else going on...

 

[Redneckerz]

That's right -- some of them couldn't hit 2GHz (and were even lying to the kernel freq governor). Others could under custom dvfs, but then couldn't sustain those and quickly fell back. Yet others couldn't hit 1.5GHz if another core was doing 1.1GHz or above at the same time (hi, RK3368). As a rule, though, A53 was considered capable of 2GHz at 28-22nm: https://community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/the-top-5-things-to-know-about-cortex-a53

The snippets I posted are from a 28nm, 100%-passively-cooled setup ; )

Perhaps the new S905X2 - more on that below - can hit these? Yes, capable, but in practice, never attainable

So i gave this a watch yesterday. I am not entirely convinced by his premise.

• There is no mention of resolution.
• PUBG is actually very much a hardware aware kind of game. Where other titles like Shadowgun Legends allow you to pick every graphical option regardless of your hardware, PUBG hard locks you to a certain setting - Not with satisfying results, i would say. A Tegra X1 easily run that shit maxed out, for instance
• PUBG Mobile uses the mobile version of UE4, and its clear that it takes hardware into consideration. You still get a huge ass world to explore, but at visual settings that are equivalent to a hypothetical PS360 version of the game.

Also, what might be playing a part is memory speeds. Most TV boxes use DDR3 memory, it might be that this is playing a part, and why modern phones are often quicker as they use DDR4x, or LPDDR4, or DDR4 memory.

Fortunately, there is already a S905X2 up for preorder - The Vontar X96 Max. Keep in mind though that Vontar is just a brand name and that the X96 series is actually used by tons of Chinese re-brand houses - They use the same casing and PCB, sometimes even just re-using a PCB from more known brands that use their own models (like Vorke). So we still have to wait till more known brands like Beelink announce their stuff, but perhaps this will be happening by the end of the week. It certainly will happen before this thing will ship (Reported to be between 25 and 30 October).

Given there is now LPDDR4 support with higher bandwidth, perhaps this will solve your issues? The fact 4 GB models are listed means one should have this serve as a reference model to other S905X2 devices. If they are going to add 4 GB DDR4 (Which is even more than most RK3399 devices who either use DDR3 or certain S912 models which top out at 3 GB DDR4, then this might be an interesting new device, but i rather wait what S922x will do.

Also, perhaps look for an S912 with DDR4 memory

Also, specs, emphasis mine. You should like it blu that they report A53 at 2.0 Ghz again

• SoC – Amlogic S905X2 quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0 GHz (TBC) with Mali-G31 MP2 “Dvalin” GPU
• Three configurations with System Memory / Storage / Networking
  • 2GB LPDDR4, 16GB flash, 2.4G WiFi, 100M Ethernet
  • 4GB LPDDR4, 32GB flash, dual band AC WiFi, Bluetooth 4.x, Gigabit Ethernet
  • 4GB LPDDR4, 64GB flash, dual band AC WiFi, Bluetooth 4.x, Gigabit Ethernet
• External Storage – micro SD card slot
• Video Output – HDMI 2.0a output with HDR, AV port (composite)
• Video Codecs – VP9 Profile-2 up to 4K 60fps, 10-bit H.265 up to 4K 60fps, AVS2-P2 up to 4K 60fps, H.264/AVC up to 4K 30fps, H.264 MVC up to 1080p60, MPEG-4 ASP up to 1080p60 (ISO-14496), etc..
• Audio Output – HDMI, AV, optical S/PDIF
• USB – 1x USB 3.0 port, 1x USB 2.0 port
• Misc – IR receiver, IR expansion port, front panel display, LEDs
• Power Supply – 5V/2A
• Dimensions – TBD

 

[n0razi]

Im currently using a Shield TV (Tegra X1) and even that feels sluggish sometimes with 4k/30Hz, I can't imagine using something slower than a K1