| Reported by jakkoterborg, Mar 01, 2010 I think it is pretty amazing that a device with a GPU like the droid/milestone does not use the GPU to make the UI and browsing more smooth. The benefits are obvious: - a better experience (more like the I phone) in almost every single function on the phone - the phone uses less power (the gpu is much more efficient at handling graphics functions than the cpu) - the cpu would have more resources available to handle touch input or data events Is there anyone able to say whether this feature has ever been considered? Why is half of the droid/milestone hardware not even used? As more and more smartphones get a gpu inside as well, it becomes more and more important to make use of this GPU in android phones, to not make android phones seem choppy and laggy compared to all other phones. (it is allready choppy and laggy compared to the ancient iphone 3g) |
Comment 1 by project member romain...@android.com, Mar 01, 2010This is something we've investigated a couple of years ago already and that we revisit regularly. Of course we thought of using the GPU, but there are non-trivial issues on many Android devices (a G1-class device for instance supports only one OpenGL context at a time, which would prevent you from using any OpenGL based app like games or augmented reality apps.) In our past experiments we even found many cases in which using the GPU was slower than normal rendering. New devices might allow us to overcome the past limitations that made GPU support a not-so-good solution. The "choppiness" and "lagginess" you are mentioning are more often related to heavy garbage collection than drawing performance. |
Comment 2 by jakkoterborg, Mar 01, 2010Thanks for your answer. I do have to say though that the constant choppiness i currently experience when browsing on my droid/milestone has little to do with garbage collections. Things like anti aliasing, text smoothing, fast zooming are currently handled by the cpu only. The difference becomes especially clear when one compares the iphone 3gs to the droid. We are talking about the exact same hardware, yet the smooth, constant high fps seen on the iphone is not seen on the droid. I understand that most phones before the n1 and droid were not capable of much hardware accelerated functions, but i really expected phones like the droid to offer a much smoother experience. |
Comment 3 by elderon, Mar 01, 2010I agree with jakkoterborg, I can understand from Google's point of view the difficulties in writing and incorporating drivers for all the various gpus from the different manufacturers. But there should be something done. It's pretty ridiculous to have phones with such power and it's wasting the gpu almost completely. who is responsible for the gpu coding for drivers or graphics in the kernel? are these closed sourced video chips? I can guarantee give access to any rom dev on alldroid.org and you'll see 300% improvement in speed overall in 1 week or less haha. This is the cause of the problems with live wall papers and the 2.1 launcher and we've already seen it proven in logs on alldroid. it tries and uses cpu only for the UI and bogs down trying to use these new features, features that should barely make it raise a sweat if properly coded to use the gpu like any decent os would. android is doing the equivalent of windows 7 running aero full settings using only cpu power. I understand older phones will lose out and start to fall by the wayside, but that is life and just how things are. Not incorporating full gpu functionality into android is just holding us back. It's not like every android phone is getting updated to 2.1 and beyond and soon enough neither the droid nor the nexus will be receiving updates either as their next gen replacements come out. The problem is I don't really know who to point the finger at, google for not forcing hardware acceleration into the new products or the manufacturers for not adding full support of their hardware into android or opening the source for drivers for the hardware so the community can do the job for them. It's just crazy to see phones with such massive specs and it's all being wasted. We have to turn to rom hackers and other community developers instead of Google and phone manufacturers to actually realize the potential of our phones. frankly I'd be rather ashamed of myself if I were Google or Motorola. community devs and hackers have managed to not only allow overclocks of over 100% on the droid in some cases, STABLE btw with not much increase in temps (which we can now monitor because of these devs) but seemed to have done a better job of getting live wallpapers and even the 2.1 launcher to work than either of you. There are roms for 2.0.1 even that run these things already and we're still waiting for the ota for 2.1 on the droid... what was supposed to be the cutting edge Google experience phone. Will Google pull the same crap on the nexus next time a new phone comes out? completely turn its back? seems like it from the droid communities perspective. anyways, I'm going off topic.. just had to let of steam. Full hardware acceleration of the operating system and it's apps by the GPU should be a PRIORITY for incorporation into the next maintenance update of android and should come out asap. |
Comment 4 by jakkoterborg, Mar 04, 2010A related issue, android currently does not use the NEON floating point part of the cortex a8. Is there any reason why this is not the case? |
Comment 5 by jakkoterborg, Mar 04, 2010Some custom droid roms allready have neon optimizations fixed. http://code.google.com/p/0xdroid/issues/detail?id=57 |
Comment 6 by evilmushroomlord, Mar 23, 2010I believe one of the barriers for many people that I have talked to is the relative choppiness in scrolling and various animations... most importantly the browser. Always when I talk to someone that's on the fence between Android and iPhone the choppy scrolling is something they point out to me as a concern.... which is frustrating to me as I see how powerful + free Android is. To have such a visual element be a stumbling block is annoying. I have both a Nexus One and a iPhone 3gs (although 3gs soon to be sold)--- and one is simply blind if they think the nexus one's browser (and other areas) scrolls as smoothly as the 3gs. I am most definitely an Android advocate. I'm someone that appreciates function over form, which is why I chose Android again going forward, but I think smoother visual GPU integration would do wonders for non-technical peoples' perception of Android. (which is quite frankly only the pretty pretty flowing UI they see) Please reconsider this again. :) |
Comment 7 by jneiberger, Apr 15, 2010I switched from the iPhone 3G to a Droid. I would never go back, but I'm still stunned at how much smoother the UI is on the iPhone. It feels so much more interactive when there is virtually no lag between your finger movements and the movements on the screen. I've gotten used to the lag and I don't notice it as much now, but whenever I use an iPhone, I'm reminded of it again. It would be a gigantic boon if it were possible to use the GPU on the N1 or the Droid. I realize it's a bit complicated, but the current situation is extremely inefficient and a waste of available resources that could greatly enhance the user experience. |
Comment 8 by sopandj, Apr 21, 2010I just got my milestone a week ago without trying it out first (bad idea), after selling my 3gs. Sadly just like everybody here, I am disappointed with the fluidity of its UI. It's even more disappointing to know that my milestone actually has what it takes to match iphone's user experience, but isn't doing it. "New devices might allow us to overcome the past limitations that made GPU support a not-so-good solution." So, there is the answer, new devices. I like android alot, but until this UI thing is sorted out, i'm going back to 3gs and wait for "new devices" as suggested. |
Comment 9 by avielbt, Apr 29, 2010is the nexus one/desire/incredible/EVO 4G not "new devices"? its really sad that android offers so much, but reality dictates that whoever has the best presentation (UI in this case), wins in the real world regardless of features. so yeah, the world is shallow and getting android up to par (GPU accel UI) is by far the biggest leap you could do for android in the eyes of the masses right now (and i doubt it would take as much time as the other planned features). my suggestion, put this into maximum priority but time will tell, and you will see im right ;) |
Comment 10 by afox66, May 13, 2010Yes, I agree. Please add this. |
Comment 11 by RTX101, May 13, 2010I have a N1 and so disapointed about the jerky ui. Google, please do something! PLEASE! |
Comment 12 by Artem.Momot, May 26, 2010Add it! |
Comment 13 by pierre.lafayette, May 26, 2010If you star the bug, it counts as a vote. Please refrain from posting "I agree" or "Add it" or "Me too" as it spams everyone who has starred this bug. Please only post comments if you have some additional technical knowledge that you wish to share. Thanks. (Sorry for spamming the list myself!) |
Comment 14 by christian.granstrom, May 29, 2010If Android is aiming at the tablet/pad market this must be a top priority. Tablets will use resolutions if 1024x720 and higher. There is no way to push that much data using the CPU and still keep the overall system performance at a high level. A multitasking system needs a Ul that doesn't halt the system while scrolling homescreens and windows. Besides it really hurts to see unused hardware inside my gadget. ;) |
Comment 15 by CrAsHeR.iT, Jun 08, 2010romain... talked about hardware limitations on some android device. WE know that, differently from iPhone, Android runs on many different platforms..But i don't think that it's too hard for you to enable GPU Acceleration only on some capable devices! Moreover, Google doesn't release an unique update for all devices, but each one has its own. So it isn't hard to code each update in order to use GPU Power. We want to be the No. 1 in the world..and this is where to start from, imho. |
Comment 16 by johnnieAres93, Jun 11, 2010Please Google Use the GPU acceleration for the GUI please! |
Comment 17 by hatoum, Jun 11, 2010+1 The choppiness on the N1 is what makes the experience lacking. The UI is great but it's just not fluid. Google need to pay more attention to UI smoothness as it seems that's what gives non-techy people trust in the system they're using. Don't get me wrong, I love my N1 and wouldn't have any other phone, but it would be so much better with fluidity! |
Comment 18 by kuntau17, Jun 11, 2010Google should listen to us customer and consumer. Please don't be Microsoft scared to implement new thing to avoid conflict with older device. Not the future we want (you said this in Google I/O) Walk the talk please. |
Comment 19 by superg05.jeremy, Jun 11, 2010that weird i thought it was gpu accelerated i guess that's just custom roms :( wtf? |
Comment 20 by CrAsHeR.iT, Jun 11, 2010Well if android was gpu accelerated it was way better.. We can have more UI effect, more fluidity more responsivness since the GPU can render the screen while CPU is working hard.. As i said before, Google release an AOSP source code that then is modified by vendor for each device.. So i can't see any problem! Just add GPU acceleration to capable devices only! Hope to see a reply from Google soon... |
Comment 21 by MykeB.NYC, Jun 13, 2010I agree also, Romain guy your have been listening to the community implementing such features this should be one of them to really listen to. I can't even enjoy the standard launcher i have to use launcher pro or ADW just to have smooth scrolling even in froyo(pre-release) at times. There should be a simple switch to enable or disable 3d accelerations like how ubuntu does it with Compiz. Your seriously telling me your cannot implement a auto-detection feature to see if the phone can handle it and if it can, then the 3d accel is enabled for that phone? THIS IS BLASPHEMY! |
Comment 22 by CrAsHeR.iT, Jun 13, 2010Completly agree with MykeB.NYC.. You must install ADW or LauncherPro to have better scrolling experience..using them everything becomes smooth..really smooth and fluid..!! I Don't think this as implementation problem..i think it's just a feature to add.. Would be awesome to read something from Google about it :) |
Comment 24 by MykeB.NYC, Jun 13, 2010""Completly agree with MykeB.NYC.. You must install ADW or LauncherPro to have better scrolling experience..using them everything becomes smooth..really smooth and fluid..!! I Don't think this as implementation problem..i think it's just a feature to add.. Would be awesome to read something from Google about it :)""" - Thanks for backing me up i think this feature outweigh the positives more than the negatives...couldn't google implement a feature where if a game is loaded that requires 3d, 3d on the desktop is disabled until the game exited? |
Comment 25 by hatoum, Jun 13, 2010Surely if someone can do it with something like Launcher Pro, Google could do it! If not, hire the guy! |
Comment 26 by CrAsHeR.iT, Jun 13, 2010Well i think that this should be easy to do.. As i understood, the GPU must be used by one process at time so Using Priority, scheduler(maybe) and semaphore do the job. If you run a game, it get exclusive use of GPU while all other app are rendered using CPU. As soon as you come back home, the game lose it's access to GPU that return to Home application. This shouldn't be so different from the mechanism of giving CPU to each process :) Google did a perfect job with multitasking..that's why i really want gpu acceleration! |
Comment 27 by MykeB.NYC, Jun 13, 2010"""Well i think that this should be easy to do.. As i understood, the GPU must be used by one process at time so Using Priority, scheduler(maybe) and semaphore do the job. If you run a game, it get exclusive use of GPU while all other app are rendered using CPU. As soon as you come back home, the game lose it's access to GPU that return to Home application. This shouldn't be so different from the mechanism of giving CPU to each process :) Google did a perfect job with multitasking..that's why i really want gpu acceleration!""" Cool, also doesn't ubuntu use this method if im not mistaken with compiz? |
Comment 28 by CrAsHeR.iT, Jun 13, 2010Well if i'm not wrong, ANY hardware component can do 1 job at time.. The user feel that Pc does 20/30 things at time..But it's just the abrstraction given by Operative System..a CPU can execute just 1 instruction at time.. (Ofcourse we are talking about single core architecture..) It's the software implementation that changes everything..Google engineers surely know what to do :) |
Comment 29 by MykeB.NYC, Jun 13, 2010lol okay thanks for your responses ... welp guess last thing is if google implements it or not GO GOOGLE! |
Comment 30 by viktor.mads, Jun 13, 2010Star this issue folks. Android will never be able to compete with iPhone UI-wise w/o GPU acceleration. |
Comment 31 by jimmy.shimizu, Jun 14, 2010Is there any phone today that runs android that doesn't feature a GPU (either buitin or dedicated)? I mean, the MSM7200A/MSM7201A which is used in Dream, Magic, Hero aswell as a bunch of other phones should contain a builtin GPU, what other plattforms is it actually run on? |
Comment 32 by CrAsHeR.iT, Jun 20, 2010I've seen a lot of review about new Samsung Galaxy S i9000.. Despite it's running Eclair 2.1-R1, i think that samsung enabled gpu acceleration..Why? Scrolling is so smooth and wherever you scrool, you also got additional effect like on the iPhone.. (you can check out this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz7fXu8MMlU&feature=player_embedded) Check when he scrools in Gmail or just in settings menu.. |
Comment 33 by evilmushroomlord, Jun 24, 2010Compare default Launcher App window->window scrolling and app launch animation with the ADW Launcher. The latter is waaay smoother. I haven't yet examined why that's the case. It makes me wish the rest of the phone's apps were like it. :) Unfortunately it's still affected by touch input flood. (compare animation with "flicking" a screen vs "dragging" a screen) |
Comment 34 by aeo087, Jun 25, 2010I agree with the common opinion here... It is very hard to pitch Android to someone who is not tech savy, simply because of the choppy and sluggish UI. This has also become the talk of the masses, most people who haven't even used Android say the following: "I've seen Android, its cool, but its not as smooth and stable as the iPhone." The iPhone's hardware fails a lot (I've exchanged my 3Gs twice in less than a year), it also freezes at times and drops calls, but what do people see and remember!? UI!! If android wishes to ever compete seriously with iOS, GPU acceleration is a must! On a side note, who cares about the older phones!? they can keep being sluggish... There's less than a handful of Android phones that won't support GPU acceleration, there's more than 30 that do... Conclusion: MAKE THIS A PRIORITY, its time to put the choppy UI days behind us, this year is going to bring amazing hardware to the table, and the new iPhone is good, but not THAT good... As it stands, all iOS has on Android is a "smoother experience", why hesitate to fix it!? |
Comment 35 by rafymercenario, Jun 25, 2010Android is starting to follow the steps of windows mobile concerning user interface acceleration, a lot of 2007+ windows mobile devices had on board gpu's witch could render user interface, but MS never even bothered into making windows mobile user interface Hardware accelerated, even tho most of its new devices have on board gpu capable of rendering open gl es 1.0/2.0, Android sadly seems to be following this very same ideology, most if not all of current mid/high end devices are fully capable of rendering Open GL ES 2.0, this been said why is google crippling its UI to only software rendering is beyond my comprehension |
Comment 36 by theineffablebob, Jun 25, 2010Reviews are complaining about the Droid X's slightly jerky UI. GPU acceleration should be a high priority. |
Comment 37 by kuntau17, Jun 25, 2010Star this issue folks. Android will never be able to compete with iPhone UI-wise w/o GPU acceleration. |
Comment 38 by superg05.jeremy, Jun 25, 2010to the people comparing android to the iphone os if you like it so much get one back on topic now gpu acceleration can help with battery life and on nevermind because i have a sneaking suspicion your already working on that since i know you have Nvida terga 2 devices coming out soon so I'll shut up and eat my gingerbread now with some froyo |
Comment 40 by Gregor.Gruber.88, Jun 26, 2010I also don't see why it is a problem to implement this if old devices can't use it, just make the old software renderer a fallback option and everything will be ok. Although if I think about that solution there is a big possibility that hardware vendors won't adapt their drivers etc. and update their android version on existing devices because they would want to use this feature as an argument for selling new phones. So on second thought maybe it would be better to make this feature mandatory for all Android phones from 2.2 on or so, that way there is a higher possibility that more users would profit from it. In general I think it would greatly improve the user experience in general and after all that's a huge point in making a phone appealing to users. Users don't care _why_ something doesn't work the way they like (especially if they don't know and don't want to know about the technical stuff behind it), they just see it doesn't look as fluid as <competitors handset> so they won't buy it. In my opinion Android absolutely needs this feature to fully compete in this rapidly changing market and this feature would be a huge step towards market supremacy. |
Comment 41 by nkostis, Jun 29, 2010Most people who see an android phone will immediately do two things: swipe through home screens and scroll through the app list. If they see lag and choppiness they inevitably compare to the iphone and assume that the phone as a whole is not as fast and responsive, end-of-story for them. If they know just enough to ask about what cpu/ram the phone has, they're even more amazed by the fact that a "1GHz phone" can't produce smooth enough scrolling. This is definitely damaging to the platform; feature superiority isn't enough on its own to pull people in, especially when the competition has a "good-enough" feature-set done "better" (ok, just smoother) i'm staying with android for a ton of reasons apart from features, but this thing bugs me. |
Comment 42 by ixsander, Jun 29, 2010Issues like this all belong to UX (user experience) category. Now as the article from TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/16/android-team-laser-focused-on-the-user-experience-for-next-release/) points out, Google should have started spend more time on UX. Now, the question is how much more?? and how serious they are thinking about the problem. we should see some result of their effort in Gingerbread. I am a huge fun of Android but frankly speaking Android is still far behind iPhone in terms of UX. I hope Google have the confident to challenge Apple on this front. |
Comment 43 by radical.dreamer, Jun 29, 2010From Anandtech's recent review of the EVO 4G (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3791/the-sprint-htc-evo-4g-review/11): "There's lag or choppy animations when scrolling down a page, swiping between screens and generally interacting with the phone. What's even more frustrating is if you leave a lot of apps resident in memory there are times when the UI will stop being responsive. If you have haptics turned off there's no way to tell whether or not a button tap was recognized, often resulting in a double or triple tap which then results in an unintended phone call or similarly frustrating action. It definitely hampers the experience." "Scrolling isn't GPU accelerated, so a quick flick down a page will drive CPU utilization up to 40 - 50%. The only way around this is to either optimize the crap out of the code or move to dual core CPUs so there's another core ready to handle anything else you throw at it. Combined with a lightly CPU intensive app I found that scrolling can sometimes even send CPU utilization up above 70%!" This is definitely something that needs to be resolved. |
Comment 44 by CrAsHeR.iT, Jun 29, 2010If i'm not wrong, without GPU Acceleration, we have also more battery drain due to high cpu utilization, don't we? Dunno what they are waiting for..but i don't think that we need dual core to have fluid UI.. Can we have a reply from you, Google? :) |
Comment 45 by seraph...@gmail.com, Jun 29, 2010Everyone I talk to about android talks about how laggey the interface can be and they compare it directly to the iphone. Sometimes when using my hero it seems alright, but often you will press something and the phone will take a little while to catch up and other times it just didn't respond to what you pressed. It improved a lot when the 2.1 update came and also when I used an overclock kernel. Maybe there should be some sort of gpu requirement for android and phone manufactures should be developing phones which can make light work of rendering the UI. But in terms of how the touch controls are handled Google is still going to have to do a lot of work to get this up to scratch. Lag and fluid animation are all issues at the moment. It would be good to see this worked on, so hopefully we will see something happening about this when Gingerbread details start appearing. |
Comment 46 by koenraadpauwelyn, Jun 30, 2010I'm using Froyo now on my Nexus One and it's still the same. When I first had my N1 I loved the water live wallpaper with leaves on it. But since I know my device is so slow cause of the wallpaper I don't use it anymore. I'm only using static wallpapers now since it's the only way to have smooth scrolling between homescreens and apps. I really hope google will do something about is cause for a lot of people it is a very big deal. |
Comment 47 by samy.hamdy, Jun 30, 2010Even with Final Froyo FRF85b, There is still lag in UI with live WallPapers - only stock - without even adding more widgets or icon, What is the use of live wall paper features & other interface features if it makes everything very slow?! |
Comment 48 by christian.granstrom, Jun 30, 2010The issue of lagging UI has nothing to do with live wallpapers or cpu intensive widgets. Well it has but it still lags without any of these, a little less but far from smooth. I don´t think we should discuss the technical details of double buffering, gpu-accelerated block manipulation and update frequencies of the screen in this thread. For all you people who don´t understand the technical details of graphic manipulation at a low level and how to keep it smooth just trust us who do understand them. Android DO need GPU-accelerated UI to keep it updated at such high frequencies as needed to feel smooth. There is no way around it, period. The GPU inside most new phones is more than capable of handling this issue and leave the cpu free for all the other tasks. The GPU:s inside Android based phones are used only for gaming wich is a shame. My Amiga 500 7Mhz 68000 had a smoother UI than Android has on my Nexus one. Why? Because it offloaded the tasks of graphics manipulation to it´s GPU. That was in the 90:s. I do understand why Google didn´t design it that way to start with BUT, NOW is the time to fix it. |
Comment 49 by namik.kara86, Jun 30, 2010I sign all what christian said right before me! With GPU accelerated UI its much more smoother and the CPU can do other tasks. So the UI and the HOLE system get boosted and I think the battery time will hold much longer, because of the faster and longer idle times for all, the CPU and the GPU. |
Comment 50 by winrootkit, Jun 30, 2010I do also think, that the lack of a quick responding UI destroys a lot of the user experience. If you tap a button or a key you the response (even if not the result) must be there INSTANTANEOUS otherwise the user might repeat the action an get into other problems the same for scrolling, as the user gets frustrated if the layer he moves with his finger, does not do what he wants. e.g. Google Maps, it is quite fast on a Milestone, but if i compare scrolling and display of new tiles with Google Maps on my 5year old SE P1i it seems slower, because the SE interface is GPU accellerated, it can handle the task better, even with its damn slow 206MHz ARMv7 and stupid symbian backend ;) GPU usage in the UIclasses should be a big target for google and all the android devs :) |
Comment 51 by tdhutt, Jun 30, 2010Guys, please read comment 1, and this: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/16/android-team-laser-focused-on-the-user-experience-for-next-release/ And then stop ranting. |
Comment 52 by bpenda94, Jul 01, 2010another article: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/06/30/android-3-0-gingerbread-rumored-to-launch-in-october-for-high-en/ it seems like gingerbread will be the first android release to use gpu acceleration. |
Comment 53 by f1delity666, Jul 05, 2010Would be definately great. From time to time it's stuttering while changing desktops :/ |
Comment 55 by dm...@kabelmail.de, Jul 05, 2010what? Rephrase that please ... in english this time. |
Comment 57 by dm...@kabelmail.de, Jul 05, 2010yes, GPU-acceleration is a feature which HAS to be implemented ... otherwise i wont consider using android ... really : a tablet or a phone which does software-rendering??! Methinks not, other solutions are using a GPU for several years now ... |
Comment 61 by dm...@kabelmail.de, Jul 05, 2010you seem confused ... you're explaining the primary aspect of a request inside the very request to people who support the request! Take a nap. |
Comment 63 by dm...@kabelmail.de, Jul 05, 2010mkay ... it appears that even mentally underdeveloped children are here. I thought about developing for android but since even kiddies are able to poison the project ... ill try to have you excluded of some sort because all you do is "trolling" and insulting around here - for no reason at all. |
Comment 66 by dm...@kabelmail.de, Jul 05, 2010I didnt criticize you, i didnt insult you, which is clearly visible for everyone :-) You are seeing things, obviously. |
Comment 68 by dm...@kabelmail.de, Jul 05, 2010"the weaker minded and defeated warriors retreat to something which is older than humanity itself : irrational, unguided and constant attack" |
Comment 70 by dm...@kabelmail.de, Jul 05, 2010"obsessed" ... yes, of course young one - of course. I am obsessed with everything. What else. |
Comment 72 by MykeB.NYC, Jul 05, 2010Thread cleaned up on my end left my last post that was relevant to this topic :) |
Comment 73 by StefanD...@googlemail.com, Jul 05, 2010Unstarred. Bye! |
Comment 74 by MykeB.NYC, Jul 05, 2010[revised my post] Didn't know i was talking in spanish it was early /s Anyway, basically the rumors that was set in stone is just that, rumors. Eldar from mobile-review or whatever that site name is ,was called out by google saying he was lying on the blog [in a non-direct way]. So in actuality we really don't know what will happen with gingerbread besides Revamped UI, what was displayed at Google-IO, and The music store rumors. We still need to push this issue until it is finalized and we know for sure GPU acceleration[in the browser and UI] is a FACT and not RUMOR. |
Comment 75 by hwhrooster, Jul 05, 2010Please realize this issue is being followed by almost 300 people. You are not ment to have discussions here and certainly not flamewars. Just share your view/experience once. ;-) |
Comment 76 by MykeB.NYC, Jul 05, 2010Yes you are right and i feel a little disappointed StefanD986 unstarred this issue im more upset by that then the rant we both displayed. I apologize. |
Comment 77 by dm...@kabelmail.de, Jul 05, 2010"the rant we both displayed" allegation. |
Comment 78 by noisyoly, Jul 05, 2010Will those that are bickering please stop! Keep the thread on topic or move on. Please. |
Comment 79 by MykeB.NYC, Jul 05, 2010I posted this earlier i deleted it by accident: http://deals.venturebeat.com/2010/05/02/google-bumptop-android/ I know some people might have seen this, but this can be good news for Android if google is implementing some kind of feature set like BumpTop which clearly uses acceleration on the desktop. Hopefully Gingerbread gets something like this. |
Comment 80 by benzapp, Aug 02, 2010I vote for GPU acceleration. Forget the G1 devices. Particularly with the pressing need for something that rivals the ipad, this is not a trivial issue. |
Comment 81 by Steve.CalPoly, Aug 08, 2010Just wanted to comment that I can't believe there aren't more forums posts and complaints out there about this. I had to dig to find this issue logged with Google. I am considering selling my N1 and buying a used 3GS because the scrolling performance is so poor. Outside of making calls and text messages, i spend the most time surfing the web on my phone. |
Comment 82 by theineffablebob, Aug 08, 2010Just wait for Gingerbread. That's pretty much guaranteed to have GPU acceleration. |
Comment 83 by simonbroenner, Aug 08, 2010"Just wait for Gingerbread. That's pretty much guaranteed to have GPU acceleration." Link? |
Comment 84 by theineffablebob, Aug 08, 2010http://www.intomobile.com/2010/06/16/android-to-focus-on-user-experience-with-gingerbread/ It doesn't say it explicitly; I'm just connecting the dots here: since they're heavily focusing on user experience in Gingerbread, a smooth UI will be of high priority, and a smooth UI needs GPU acceleration. |
Comment 85 by simonbroenner, Aug 08, 2010Oh God I hope it's true. It's very frustrating to not be able to use features that have been heavily hyped because of performance issues - case in point: Live Wallpapers. As soon as one's selected, the UI becomes completely unusable, both on my Desire (all ROMs I've tried) and on my old Milestone... Why even add such a feature (which, by the way, everyone is using to make iPhone users jealous - "Hey, my Android phone does something the iPhone can't do..." - it's just a pity they usually forget to add that this slows the whole system to a crawl and causes you to turn it off again as soon as you're done showing it off) if you can't use it? I know, I know, function over form, but if it's a function of form, whose form is inadequate, the function also goes out the window ;). In essence: Don't make stuff with the function of "being pretty" unless you can really make it pretty (i.e. smooth!)... I suppose GPU acceleration would solve this, but how will this affect current devices? The GPUs on current and/or last year's devices, like the Droid, the Desire and the Evo, should be more than powerful enough for simple UI acceleration, shouldn't they? Will we need new devices come winter? Or will it be possible to bake custom ROMs with GPU support as soon as Gingerbread is out? I'm sure mobile Linux programmers would be able to answer this... does it depend on the implementation? Are the currently released/built-in drivers adequate for these purposes? |
Comment 86 by radical.dreamer, Aug 08, 2010"I suppose GPU acceleration would solve this, but how will this affect current devices? The GPUs on current and/or last year's devices, like the Droid, the Desire and the Evo, should be more than powerful enough for simple UI acceleration, shouldn't they?" The GPU in the Desire - the AMD Z430/Adreno 200 - can push 133Mpix/sec according to specs. If that's not good enough to push pixels on a handheld GUI... yikes. |
Comment 87 by simonbroenner, Aug 08, 2010"The GPU in the Desire - the AMD Z430/Adreno 200 - can push 133Mpix/sec according to specs. If that's not good enough to push pixels on a handheld GUI... yikes." Specs and real-world performance are two different things :(. IIRC back in Windows Mobile days, Qualcomm GPU drivers were relatively problematic (on devices like the Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Touch HD and their respective sequel devices) and didn't allow the GPUs to unleash their full potential at all. With the abysmal 3D performance of my Desire (it really is horrible - even the Droid/Milestone kicks its ass in terms of smoothness), I get the feeling that this is the case on Android too, and that worries me in terms of future GPU-accelerated GUI-implementations... |
Comment 88 by bpenda94, Aug 09, 2010"Specs and real-world performance are two different things :(. IIRC back in Windows Mobile days, Qualcomm GPU drivers were relatively problematic (on devices like the Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Touch HD and their respective sequel devices) and didn't allow the GPUs to unleash their full potential at all. With the abysmal 3D performance of my Desire (it really is horrible - even the Droid/Milestone kicks its ass in terms of smoothness), I get the feeling that this is the case on Android too, and that worries me in terms of future GPU-accelerated GUI-implementations..." I was under the impression that TI omap has a better gpu than snapdragon. |
Comment 89 by simonbroenner, Aug 09, 2010"I was under the impression that TI omap has a better gpu than snapdragon." Seems so, but how much of that is actually hardware based, and how much of it is driver problems? On paper, the Snapdragon GPU actually pushes something like twice as many polygons as the OMAP CPU... |
Comment 90 by bpenda94, Aug 09, 2010"Seems so, but how much of that is actually hardware based, and how much of it is driver problems? On paper, the Snapdragon GPU actually pushes something like twice as many polygons as the OMAP CPU..." really? wow that's amazing. i've actually been considering switching to windows phone 7 if gingerbread is a disappointment. |
Comment 91 by simonbroenner, Aug 09, 2010I dunno... WP7 looks a bit gimmicky - awesome but gimmicky. Hardware acceleration or not, I'm sticking with Android... although having a smoother UI would help with feelings of inadequacy when talking to iPhone users ;) |
Comment 92 by geoff.ricks, Aug 09, 2010I had a Nexus One, and just upgraded to the Captivate. Ubelievable difference. The A8 Processor is SOOO much smoother than the snapdragon. It bothered me too as I had come from a 3GS and the browser was stuttery. I would love to see GPU acceleration still. |
Comment 93 by theineffablebob, Aug 09, 2010Problem with Windows Phone 7 is that there's no multitasking and no copy and paste. |
Comment 94 by hatoum, Aug 09, 2010I know I've said this before, sorry to repeat, but if you use LauncherPro with the Nexus one, the home screen super zooms. Would still love to see GPU for maps and browser though. |
Comment 95 by simonbroenner, Aug 09, 2010"I know I've said this before, sorry to repeat, but if you use LauncherPro with the Nexus one, the home screen super zooms. Would still love to see GPU for maps and browser though." I bought Launcher Pro Plus as soon as it came out of beta, but I don't think it uses the GPU - heavy CPU loads in other programs make it slow down too... as do live wallpapers. Or do you have info I don't? :) |
Comment 96 by bpenda94, Aug 09, 2010"I had a Nexus One, and just upgraded to the Captivate. Ubelievable difference. The A8 Processor is SOOO much smoother than the snapdragon. It bothered me too as I had come from a 3GS and the browser was stuttery. I would love to see GPU acceleration still." How often do you upgrade your phones?!?!?!?!?!?! I still have a g1! "I dunno... WP7 looks a bit gimmicky - awesome but gimmicky." the main reason im considering it is the built in zune. it would be great not to have to carry both my phone and my zune with me. |
Comment 97 by blue.icecore, Aug 09, 2010just waiting for android phones with cortex a9 processor(multicore).hopefylly android will be able to benefit from the speed. gpu acceleration is still a must! |
Comment 98 by arashed31, Aug 09, 2010@geoff.ricks All 3 phones you mentioned have different chipsets but are all based on the same Cortex-A8 processor. It seems that in Android the only time the GPU is used is when OpenGL ES is running. There are Live Wallpapers based on OpenGL that run smoother than those that aren't. |
Comment 99 by bpenda94, Aug 09, 2010"All 3 phones you mentioned have different chipsets but are all based on the same Cortex-A8 processor." that's what i was thinking too. either the android build on the galaxy s is much more optimized than the one on the nexus or it's just a placebo effect. |
Comment 101 by peylow, Aug 13, 2010Correct me if I am wrong: I do not think adding hardware acceleration to the Android Ui is just that easy. Google made choice with Android; to be "jack of all trades, master if none". A medium powered smartphone ano 2007 was chosen as the base line hardware. This choice is what formed the design and architecture of the UI frameworks and the graphics pipeline. Retrofitting hardware acceleration onto that is not an easy task. Apple also made a choice, and a leap of faith, with iPhone architecture. Apple bet that GPU for mobile use would only get cheaper. And that touch was the future. By discarding low end hardware and alternative input methods they could create a leaner and more optimized graphics pipeline. Turns out that Apples leap of faith paid back. Google bet on the safe route came back to bite them. I think for now OpenGL is the way for high perfomant Android UI. For the future a new UI framework and graphics pipeline is needed. |
Comment 102 by sparriskrigaren, Aug 24, 2010Not having hardware accelerated menus and UI is incredible. I just bought my first smartphone - Samsung Galaxy S which is supposed to have better hardware than the iPhone 4 even. Still, menus are lagging - totally unacceptable. GPU accelerated menus has been around for at least 10 years in Windows. |
Comment 103 by Henrik.torphammar, Aug 25, 2010GPU acceleration seem like a basic linux feture that really should be included in android too. no reson not to... looking forward to 3.0 :) thanks! |
Comment 104 by hermanwillems, Aug 30, 2010@ Google Android workers, You people have done a fantastic job. But i want to mention, that most of the time I use my phone i am in the UI. The UI is pretty smooth. But still noticable less smoother then say: iOS/WebOS/WP7. The reason is why this topic is made: GPU accelerated UI. I am using android 2.1 on my Galaxy S. Sometimes it's choppy because the CPU is bussy while doing some graphic animations in the UI. If you seperate those 2 with the use of the GPU, you won't have these lags. Even average consumers say that android is more choppy and laggy then iOS. We need GPU UI acceleration. Or atleast make a light and a heavy version for phone makers. So they can choose. I want to show an example: We all use the Gallery in 2.1/2.2 it's GREAT. And super smooth because it uses OpenGL! This is how the UI must be like.. I hope Gingerbread UI makes use of the GPU. thanks, |
Comment 105 by seraph...@gmail.com, Aug 31, 2010"either the android build on the galaxy s is much more optimized than the one on the nexus or it's just a placebo effect." From what I have seen the Galexy S feels much more responsive then the Desire or the N1. But that could be more to do with how it is handling menus and scrolling - it just seemed a little more refined on the Galaxy then on any other Android phones. As for making use of the GPU for the UI, are we even sure that is the main problem here? Sure, it seems like it is, but that doesn't mean its where the problem is. Like stated in the first reply things like garbage collection will have a huge effect on performance and could very well be the cause of the issue. Maybe if the UI had been written in something like C or C# it would be a lot different. We can't really forget that the phone is using Java to do the UI. |
Comment 106 by seth.piezas, Sep 02, 2010I will go out on a limb and say: it's the lack of gpu. I don't think even their team thought gpus would be such an issue so quick. Until it's addressed it will always feel a generation behind iPhone. And for good reason- it is. I have both the nexus one and captivate and it was depressing to look at the ui or browser performance. It significantly reduces my will to develop knowing that I can't count on the browser to deliver a smooth webview experience. What's hysterical is that the captivate gpu is so much faster than iPhone 4. You just never feel it. And at the current tech they'll need to announce a 5 ghz phone to supply the fluidity iPhone does with 1. Time for android to make UI priority one. I |
Comment 107 by seth.piezas, Sep 02, 2010If I didn't make myself obvious, I'd like to formally request this issue be bumped to the highest priority. This will only get worse when tablets come into the picture and there are even more pixels to fill (scale, transform, blend, etc). |
Comment 108 by deeznotes.com, Sep 02, 2010I love my Android device, but I put my hands on an iPhone 3G for the first time ever and I was blown away at how responsive it was. I never considered switching due to many factors, but after that experience I feel that I should certainly leave it as a consideration. There have been plenty of advancements made in the past few years. I think it's time to focus on something that's very much lacking - the UI as a whole. **mumbles to self: also... that stock dialer sure is fugly! |
Comment 109 by stephenturner, Sep 07 (5 days ago)I'd say this is high priority. It's pretty unacceptable! |
Comment 110 by ioannis.nousias, Sep 07 (5 days ago)romain...@android.com: "a G1-class device for instance supports only one OpenGL context at a time, which would prevent you from using any OpenGL based app like games or augmented reality apps." as did the original iPhone apparently. Apple handled this limitation by multiplexing it in software, doing all OpenGL through an indirect context. There is of course a performance hit compared to direct rendering, but it's a lot faster than software-only-rendering. |
Comment 112 by bear.owned, Today (5 hours ago)Reddit! |
Comment 113 by ingenium, Today (5 hours ago)For people experiencing a lot of lag, I think it's garbage collecting related. On my rooted Evo, I installed Autokiller and used the Moderate preset, and it's been speedy every since. Autokiller tweaks Android's built task killer to be more aggressive, so garbage collecting tends not to happen when you scroll or do other things. That being said, some of the lagginess on the Evo is caused by a 30 FPS cap HTC implemented for some reason... There's a modified kernel on xda-developers that fixes this. With combined with Autokiller, my Evo flies now. No lag at all. |
Comment 114 by hmd.sidd, Today (4 hours ago)Seriously, a lot of my friends are turned off by android's the semi-lag that I get even after using LauncherPro on my N1. |
Comment 115 by subasic, Today (2 hours ago)My $.02 from the iPhone side of the world. I started with an iPhone 3GS when they first arrived. I made the choice after many lengthy comparisons and after buying and then returning-after-30-days an iPhone 3G about 4 months earlier. Since then, I have been looking for an Android based device that would allow me to get away from the iPhone and AT&T. I admit that it's shallow, but I have been so off-put by the sluggish performance of the UI that I'm still hanging onto my 3GS. I would have long since been an Android convert were it not for this cruddy feeling UI. Please do as this many other have asked -- make the UI hardware accelerated and stop chasing away willing (actually eager) potential users. |
--
Salam,
Agus Hamonangan
http://groups.google.com/group/id-android
http://groups.google.com/group/id-gtug
Gtalk : id.android
Follow : @agushamonangan
E-mail : id.android@gmail.com
--
"Indonesian Android Community [id-android]"
Join: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android/subscribe?hl=en-GB
Moderator: id.android@gmail.com
Peraturan Jual dan Kloteran ID-Android http://goo.gl/azW7
ID Android Developer: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android-dev
ID Android Surabaya: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android-sby
ID Android on FB: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=112207700729
No comments:
Post a Comment