Did Pawel062, ltxda, Cmonex and Olipro give up on the Athena and move on to the ...

[eagle 1]

Did Pawel062, ltxda, Cmonex and Olipro give up on the Athena and move on to the polaris?

Its been a couple of months since the their last rom and I have been hoping to try another one. Has it really been two months?

Wonder if anyone else is willing to build one, or Midget update his rom kitchen with new os and easier to use like pandora's kitchen for Hermes, or will the original group still release their secret rom version 4?

A new rom from Pawel062 would be my preference tho.

[marka2k]

Post #423 in the AP Dual Thread indicates they are working on it.

[yetdy]

they will be releasing a surprise in a few days or weeks that will make our athena become more powerful. :) Maybe a video driver fot he ati chipset? :)

[Confucious]

They have said it will be a while before V4 is released so more likely weeks rather than days. Not sure what else they can add but I'm sure it will be great.
In the mean time I'm happy with V3

[Midget_1990]

an update for the kitchen is on its way :)

takes longer because i have to get someone with an athena to test it ;)

[Pawel062]

well im waiting to recieve a new build *cough* midget.. the new build with have the latest of all the apps. we before have been working on expanding the os.nb so more will fit in the rom making the extended rom maybe even empty. this would mean u would have as much storage as if u wouldnt let anything install from extended rom.

we are hopping to also maybe get the snapvue orientation done for 4.0 I dont know if what we want will work but we haven't really tried yet. remember also im working t the same time on a polaris rom for those people. that doesnt mean i aint working here. i am using a newer beta of a build i got a few weeks ago. too bad this build isnt releaseable.

we have a few more suprises up our sleeves but i cant reveal everything :p

[eagle 1]

Thanks for the update Midget and Pawel, can't wait to see your latest developments. We appreciate both of your efforts and time spent to make our devices more productive and usefull. And thanks to ltxda for his contributions, testing and very helpfull responses to many, many questions.

[hdubli]

Since 6.1 for UNI is released, I can post here a basic clean 6.1 ROM for athena.But Before that I must take permissions from Oli and Pawel, if they say yes, then I do that.

[Pawel062]

no need. we will have same space if clean or full as said previously. u probable have seen this already.

[eaglesteve]

Since 6.1 for UNI is released, I can post here a basic clean 6.1 ROM for athena.But Before that I must take permissions from Oli and Pawel, if they say yes, then I do that.

Can you give us your initial impression of 6.1 versus 6? I'm very curious to know the difference in terms of performance, signal strength, battery life, and what major UI enhancements there are.

Thanks!

[athenalover]

Since 6.1 for UNI is released, I can post here a basic clean 6.1 ROM for athena.But Before that I must take permissions from Oli and Pawel, if they say yes, then I do that.

A clean basic one would be fantastic. I don't mind not using up the space as long as I don't have unwanted software appearing. I would rather install all software myself, so that I can choose my own and upgrade to newer version whenever I want.

Would be fantastic to go to 6.1 now. Can you PM me to let me have it please?

[hdubli]

I was about to stop using athena, but then came 6.1 and I could cook using pawel kithen with T mobile wm6 ROM as a base ROM.It became so responsive that i can't imagine.very fast and snappy, feels like there is a 624 Mhz processor.Threades SMS is good, and now u hv signature "Sent from my Windows Mobile Device" in mails, and some improvement towards phone side, viz easy contact lookup.

[Martincyborg@gmail.com]

Would be great to see a nice clean ROM with as less as possible! can hardly wait to discover what you can do with 6.1!!

[mlambert890]

they will be releasing a surprise in a few days or weeks that will make our athena become more powerful. :) Maybe a video driver fot he ati chipset? :)

Checking the registry, the filesystem, and the ati config txt file in \windows, it looks to me like the ATI is very much being supported. Its not the same issue as the big Qualcomm problem HTC is having - the Advantage is a PXA270+ATI.

The video playback issue is likely due to the fact that TCPMP/CorePlayer team have *never* gotten their ATI support sorted. Since thats the only player we've got, the problem effects everyone.

Performance on my x7501 is about the same as my HX4705 and the registry settings indicating ATI drivers are definitely there.

HKLM\Sytem\DDraw\DeviceEnum indicated ace_ddi.dll (thats the ATI driver)

\Windows has the ATI driver files and also the config file: atihwtbl0.txt

Selecting Imageon Decoder in TCPMP *does* work, the support just totally sucks and their support is for a different Imageon series to begin with (the 3200). The CorePlayer team claim they expect to sort out the ATI issues and have been working with ATI. We'll have to wait and see.

other than TCPMP, video performance for me on the Advantage is fine (scrolling, games, menus, etc). The symptom of having no driver support (as on the Qualcomm chipset) is horrible ddraw performance all over the place (scrolling, switching orientation, etc)

[adamelphick]

OK, so we are now saying that Athena has got ATI supported?

If so then why is media player so crap at playing videos full screen? Or has Microsoft not integrated ATI support properly into that too?

The whole thing is a shambles as Microsoft and HTC clearly work closely together as the wizard has been a part ofthe MS Windows Mobile website for ever and they cant use the image etc without permission can they....

If it's TCPMP's fault then shame on them... letting this run away with us and not bothering to comment that it's their fault all along!! You're not telling me they dont read this forum! LOL Come on guys own up and let's get on with things. The Athena is a brilliant machine let down by a few niggles that can easily be sorted I'm sure!

[mlambert890]

Basically yes, thats what Im saying.

WMP has always been pretty horrible on Win Mobile, so I dont even count that.

TCPMP support for ATI has always been REALLY bad going ALL the way back. My first VGA ATI device was the Toshiba E750! They've never gotten it right. They have always blamed ATI but claim (now that they are a commercial entity) that ATI is working with them and a final fix MAY be in 1.2 (which MAY be due in Feb)

You can go to coreplayer.com, search for ATI and see the gory details. WAY more devices have had the Imageon chip then this batch and NONE of them have been good. The Qualcomm chips have a different problem. If you check the registry, I believe that on those guys, the generic MS drivers are referenced and the ATI drivers arent included. Im not sure if anyone has tried copying them on and changing the registry, but the key would be getting that ATI driver config txt file right. That would be hard I think.

On the x7501, that stuff is all there. It looks JUST like my HX4705 just with different settings in the ATI txt (which makes sense - its a different Imageon). That leads me to believe that the ATI is integrated just fine.

What leads us to believe it isnt? TCPMP performance and WMP performance right? Well... performance on those has sucked for EVERY Imageon device and is an acknowledged issue by them.

This is good news really! If 1.2 comes out in Feb and does what they say,these issues on the Advantage will go away. The HTC Qualcomm devices will still suck.

The way it works with MSFT isnt quite what you'd imagine. They supply the OS and its agnostic. They supply it to OEMs and it requires two key things in order to actually be implemented - a BSP (board support package) and a RIL (radio interface layer). It is up to the OEM (HTC in this case) and the radio provider (often Qualcomm) to come together and integrate the Win Mobile OS onto the hardware and "plug it in" to those two lower level components.

Its almost like imagine if Windows NT was out of MSFT control from the HAL on down. Thats how it is with Win Mobile basically. Its a deliberate decision to give OEMs and carriers power and hence 1) stay out of monopoly court which is where EVERYONE wants MSFT ALL the time from now on and 2) encourage them to actually jump on board (in the face of powerful phone incumbants).

It can be good and bad. The good its lots of devices from all kinds of folks with all sorts of neat possible hardware and a common set of APIs, system software and UI. The bad is shit like this debacle with HTC. Apple and Nokia would be the diametrical opposite. Where the hardware OEM is also fully integrating the OS and, presumably, the radio and just submitting it to a carrier for compat testing. They have monolithic control over their devices and are, in essence, monopolies within their platform. Qualcomm is a pain in the ass in that they are a huge radio provider, jumped into software with BREW (which got huge traction) and generally is a powerhouse in the mobile space, yet is notoriously very difficult to work with and pretty draconian.