Android: Where is our GPU Acceleration!?

[sniffs]

I'm tired of looking at iPhone's acceleration on OLD hardware outpace today's top Android devices. Why is the old iPhone 3G smoother at some things than my DroidX??

Rumors were we'd see GPU Hardware acceleration in 2.3 but now it seems left out.

Why can't Google get this right? We have a dormant GPU doing no acceleration in the OS and apps(minus games).. Anyone else tired of seeing laggy browsing, or laggy app scrolling?

It now seems that we'll see a dual core machine with 1 core dedicated to rendering and 1 to doing everything else..with the GPU acceleration STILL left out.

 

[Zaft]

I'm tired of looking at iPhone's acceleration on OLD hardware outpace today's top Android devices. Why is the old iPhone 3G smoother at some things than my DroidX??

Rumors were we'd see GPU Hardware acceleration in 2.3 but now it seems left out.

Why can't Google get this right? We have a dormant GPU doing no acceleration in the OS and apps(minus games).. Anyone else tired of seeing laggy browsing, or laggy app scrolling?

It now seems that we'll see a dual core machine with 1 core dedicated to rendering and 1 to doing everything else..with the GPU acceleration STILL left out.

I have a Droid x, came from iPhone 4. To me the iPhone Is only smoother sometimes in webrowsing. Download launcher pro for smooth app and page speeds. Its better then the stock ui.

 

[sniffs]

I'm just talking about the whole overall scrolling. News apps dont scroll as smooth, web sites. Download Pulse News on both iPhone and DX, iPhone's smoother..

Heck, on your DX, go to Google Fast Flip on your DX.. it's SUPER LAGGY compared to an iPhone... just some examples.


also, open up a pic in the gallery and use pinch/zoom to zoom in/out.. it's no where near as smooth as an iPhone.

 

[Zaft]

I'm just talking about the whole overall scrolling. News apps dont scroll as smooth, web sites. Download Pulse News on both iPhone and DX, iPhone's smoother..

Heck, on your DX, go to Google Fast Flip on your DX.. it's SUPER LAGGY compared to an iPhone... just some examples.


also, open up a pic in the gallery and use pinch/zoom to zoom in/out.. it's no where near as smooth as an iPhone.

i have both phones here, the iphone has no service obviously, but both are very smooth. i dont see the lag your talking about. I only see it in the gallary. Apps actually open faster on the droid x.

You also have to remember the iphone browser checkerboards on intensive sites, while any modern android phone never checkerboards.

 

[sniffs]

The thing is though.. is the DX should be much smoother.

The CPU is doing the acceleration where the GPU should.. this is taking cycles away from the CPU..

Go back to the original Droid 1 and the iPhone 3GS. Very comparable hardware(minus the screen res on the D1).. both run the same CPU and GPU.. yet look at the difference in overall perception of UI.. the iPhone 3GS is very smooth in just about everything it does, from scrolling websites, to scrolling apps, to scrolling within apps, to pinch/zoom in the browser, pinch/zoom in the gallery.. you can really see what using the GPU, which is designed for graphics acceleration, can do and where it shines and where using the CPU which wasn't designed for it, fails.

The Android OS isn't GPU hardware accelerated, and it absolutely should be, and not having it sucks.

 

[DroidXcon]

I have the DX , its fast for moving data but super laggy, thats why im in love with my Fascinate, just so much smoother over all.

 

[sniffs]

Issue 6914 - android - Make android use the GPU (if available) for UI and browsing. - Project Hosting on Google Code

Even a Google employee chimed in.. 2nd post.

 

[Zaft]

Download launcher pro its great.

 

[ddpacino]

Heard about Orion chips from Samsung, successor to the Humminbird? It's sporting dual core A9s with a quad core Mali 400 GPU.

But with that link sniffs pointed out, that garbage collection has been decreased in Gingerbread. It's quite evident in any demo of Gingerbread on the Nexus S. My guess is that it (GPU acceleration) should be present in Honeycomb with multi-core processors taking over in the next year.

 

[ddpacino]

I have the DX , its fast for moving data but super laggy, thats why im in love with my Fascinate, just so much smoother over all.

That's that Hummingbird goodness, PowerVR SGX 540 (better than the 535 in iPhone4). I had to drop my EVO in favor of the Hummingbird in my new Epic. Hasn't disappointed me one bit, outside of not having "Official" Froyo yet. Currently running a 2.2 ROM tho.

Really can't wait for an Orion powered phone next year with Honeycomb.

 

[wes008]

sniffs, you're running a Droid X? You know that MotoBlur taxes that thing to hell, right? I agree though, GPUs need to be used more in Androids.

 

[sniffs]

Not running moto blur.. running ADW.Launcher and have tried LauncherPro.

still though, with the CPU doing both processes and rendering which it's not good at, there's a left over processor that isn't being used fully and really needs to be.

 

[grajasekar]

Doesn't GPU acceleration work on the Android OS with the Hummingbird on the Galaxy S atleast?

 

[DroidXcon]

Not running moto blur.. running ADW.Launcher and have tried LauncherPro.

still though, with the CPU doing both processes and rendering which it's not good at, there's a left over processor that isn't being used fully and really needs to be.

Regardless of using ADW.launcher or launcher pro, motoblur is still running simultaneously

 

[wes008]

Regardless of using ADW.launcher or launcher pro, motoblur is still running simultaneously

Thanks for clearing that up. Now sniffs, root your DX, boot a Sapphire custom ROM on it, and scrap the old MotoBlur ROM. One of the most well designed phones ever, without the chains of MotoBlur.

 

[sniffs]

Guys.. I'm not referring to scrolling on the home screen.

My phone is smooth when scrolling between the screens.. it's smooth.

Just, the browser isn't hardware accelerated, pinch/zoom in the gallery lags.. the device is just overall not as smooth in it's UI than the iPhone. Especially with apps. The OS itself just isn't GPU accelerated.. What brought this up was Pulse News. I have this both on my iP4 and my DX. The iP4 is just vastly smoother and flicking between the news.. GPU acceleration, or lack thereof, is very evident on the Android platform and needs to be fixed.. it's unacceptable.

my phone is rooted, customzed, modded, themed, all with me cherry picking what I want.. not using a custom ROM..

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

Although you’re absolutely correct on a few things, especially with some UI interactions aren’t quite as snappy as they could be, I haven’t noticed any lag whatsoever on webpages and in particular the gallery. In fact, I think the gallery is one of the most impressively smooth apps on my phone. Maybe this has something to do with the Fascinate, I don’t know, but I definitely think it can be attributed to more things than just the lack of GPU acceleration.

 

[sniffs]

Try this, go to fastflip.google.com on your phone and tell me if switching between the new panes and flicking up/down to bring the bar up/down is smooth.

 

[joeman3429]

Try this, go to fastflip.google.com on your phone and tell me if switching between the new panes and flicking up/down to bring the bar up/down is smooth.

It's smooth as butter for me, on a LG Optimus S with Thunderom1.3, overclocked, and with launcher pro. After I flashed a custom rom and overclocked my phone (from 600mhz to 806mhz), the whole phone is a wonderful experience. The browser is extremely smooth, the gallery doesn't hesitate at all. The only thing that's suffering is angry birds, which aggravates me to no end.

This phone was free with a new contract, and my first android phone. I no longer feel jealous of iphone users =)

 

[hoosiercub]

Try this, go to fastflip.google.com on your phone and tell me if switching between the new panes and flicking up/down to bring the bar up/down is smooth.

Did it on my Droid Incredible.. it was smooth as butter as well. I think you're being dramatic.. or theres something wrong with your phone. Having tinkered with/modded/rooted a number of Android devices for friends ranging from Droid Eris to Samsung Captivate. I don't see this "lack of smoothness" in any part of the UI or any apps. I'm currently running CM6 RC2 at stock spec, no OC'ing. I've played with the 3GS and the iPhone4 and I don't see anything different than what I've come to expect from any high-end touchscreen device, whether it be iOS or Android.