dualcore processor

[thebizz]

Ok with all this talk about dualcore processor coming to Android. What's the use or need we already know froyo doesn't support dual core and gingerbread is a question mark. If it turns out that we wont see dualcore support until hunnycomb or later, why get one or why all the hype?

 

[BlackPrince310]

Gingerbread will support dual-core processors, but until most/all applications begin support for it there won't be much of a difference in performance. Most applications don't even need that kind of power unless you're gaming of course.

 

[Comineeyeaha]

Think of it this way, if the hardware jumps in performance, the software will gain the ability to get better. A year from now I'm sure we'll all be saying "I'm glad I got that dual core, or else I wouldn't be able to play awesome-game-x" or whatever. I say bring it on!

 

[BlackPrince310]

Think of it this way, if the hardware jumps in performance, the software will gain the ability to get better. A year from now I'm sure we'll all be saying "I'm glad I got that dual core, or else I wouldn't be able to play awesome-game-x" or whatever. I say bring it on!

That's true.

 

[Johnly]

Processers and gpus are always ahead of software. The idea is to have the hardware that can keep up with software releases, it is a good thing.

 

[thebizz]

Oh I can understand get the latest and greatest so when we do have the software we can use it. I wasn't sure if gingerbread would include support but if it does makes that rumored lg phone look that much better.

 

[Comineeyeaha]

I must have breezed over the part of your post where you questioned whether Gingerbread would handle it or not, so I apologize for stating the obvious. That's a good point though, I thought I heard a while ago that Android will handle dual core just fine, but that assumption was based off of the fact that it is built on Linux so I'm sure it's merit stands to be questioned. I would ask if there's any official word of it supporting dual core, but that would Google actually talking about it.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Support for Dual Core CPU's in the kernel isn't a problem (as long as they are fully ARM compliant). AFAIK, Google has never said that 2.3 would include SMP support in the OS. I certainly hope so, as the hardware is already out there in some of the off brand tablets.

 

[thebizz]

I understand the kernel will run the cpu and all. So im back to the starting point if I were to buy a dual core phone or tablet I would have to wait for the os to become fully compatible and actually utilize it or would the kernel automatically offload some of the task to the second core

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

All depends on the OS. With Froyo, the second core isn't doing anything useful. If GB doesn't support SMP, it will be the same way.

 

[thebizz]

Ok guess my decision will be made after gb is announced because now its a toss up between tegra2 or 8655 powered phones both would be excellent choices for a cpu but if smp isn't supported we would have to wait for hunnycomb but if that's just for tablets then who knows

 

[Comineeyeaha]

I don't know much about app development, but would apps have to be rewritten to support multiple threads? I mean, I get that all of the same apps will work just fine, it's just a matter of unmodified ones using only 1 core.

Bottom line, I had a single core processor in my desktop until about 8 months ago, so the fact that a phone now beats that is just mind blowing. I really want one.

 

[Johnly]

I don't thinks so, but I an not an expert. From what I know software is always backwards compatible.

 

[thebizz]

In most cases it is (from my limited knowledge)

 

[BSG75]

[The below is based on my experience as a windows programmer]

Most of your apps wouldn't have to be rewritten. Most of the software is probably already multi-threaded. If it weren't, the UIs would freeze everytime it tried to do some intensive background processing. I have not written an Android app yet, so I'm not sure of all the things you need to take into account, but I assume there is a decent amount of background processing for most apps.

All processing threads get queued by the kernel and they take their turns using the CPU. The only difference when there are multiple cores is that the kernel can give work to more than one core at a time. The software is pretty much stupid about how many cores are on the machine. The software just tells the kernel it wants to do these 3, 4, 5, 20 things concurrently. The kernel does the hard work of figuring out how to divide that work up amongst the 1, 2, 4, 8 (etc.) cores.

(Even if you have 1 core, the kernel gives each process a little bit of processing time round-robin style. They each take turns doing a little bit at a time, but do it so fast, that everything is seamless).

 

[Comineeyeaha]

[The below is based on my experience as a windows programmer]

Most of your apps wouldn't have to be rewritten. Most of the software is probably already multi-threaded. If it weren't, the UIs would freeze everytime it tried to do some intensive background processing. I have not written an Android app yet, so I'm not sure of all the things you need to take into account, but I assume there is a decent amount of background processing for most apps.

All processing threads get queued by the kernel and they take their turns using the CPU. The only difference when there are multiple cores is that the kernel can give work to more than one core at a time. The software is pretty much stupid about how many cores are on the machine. The software just tells the kernel it wants to do these 3, 4, 5, 20 things concurrently. The kernel does the hard work of figuring out how to divide that work up amongst the 1, 2, 4, 8 (etc.) cores.

(Even if you have 1 core, the kernel gives each process a little bit of processing time round-robin style. They each take turns doing a little bit at a time, but do it so fast, that everything is seamless).

And there we have it, that's the answer I was looking for. So really, all we're waiting for (other than the hardware) is for Android as an OS to support dual core. This is great, I can't wait to see what kind of performance we're going to get out of these phones.

 

[thebizz]

Me either let's hope google adds support quickly

 

[supermiah]

Interesting...hmmmm

 

[Comineeyeaha]

Everybody at work has been asking me about dual core lately, and thanks to this thread I've been able to (presumably) answer all questions accurately. Thanks for making me look smarter, AC!

 

[speedyg2012]

I get the impression that the delays over Gingerbread/Nexus-S is Google/Samsung going back to the drawing with a useful future proofing ability of getting Gingerbread to use dual core processing (Which was not in it's original re-mit) after Samsung said the Nexus-S is not powerful/future proof enough against next years phones coming soon and it was probably too similar to it's 'baby cousin' the Galaxy-S and impact on sales I guess.

Just a hypothesis from me mind.