[Q] READ! Low FPS in Quadrant? Poor drivers the cause?

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Let me start off by saying that I know that all benchmarks should be taken with a grain of salt, and that Quadrant is a poor and outdated benchmark. But, that does not matter. I'm sure we've all ran at least one Quadrant before. Well, there is an issue with the planets test. The D3 only gets 12fps on it, and there is artifacting throughout the test.

It has been this way for every OMAP based Moto phone. The OG Droid, Droid 2, Droid 2 Global, Droid X, and so on. They ALL run the planets test at 12fps with the same exact artifacts. No matter the GPU or clock speed. I feel like I'm the only one who has noticed this. Go and perform a Quadrant on your D3 and observe the planet test. If you have any other phones, benchmark them too. Compare a D3, D2, and Inc.

The OMAP 4430 has the PowerVR SGX 540 gpu. This was the GPU in the previous gen Hummingbird. On the planets test, it would constantly be at the framerate cap of 56 with no artifacts. The Droid Incredible, even with the pathetic Adreno 200 GPU, would run the planets test well above 30fps. It is not an intense graphics test and nearly any mobile GPU can run it above 30fps.

The only Moto phones that run the planet test without issue are those with the Tegra 2. Keep in mind that Tegra 2 based devices all use nvidia's own proprietary drivers. Sure, the Droid 3 is qHD, and it won't score as well as a Galaxy s or Optimus 3D with the same GPU pushing less pixels. The X2 is also qHD and the Droid 3 typically gets a higher framerate on other GPU benchmarks-except for the planets test. In theory, the Droid 3 should score the same, if not, slightly better, on the planets test.

All of the evidence leads me to believe that it is an issue with Moto's drivers. It isn't TI, since the Optimus 3D has the exact same CPU, but runs the test without a hitch. Is anyone able to provide any insight on this, perhaps someone who can speak with someone at Moto that would know? Will this affect games, or other benchmarks? Can it be fixed in an update? Something is obviously not right here, and I'd like to find out why.

EDIT: I'm on my phone and I was in general when I hit new thread. I don't know how this ended up in development, but I apologize. Will a mod please move this?

Games and emulators on the Droid 3 don't have the FPS problem as compared to other devices. I think it's a coding issue in Quadrant, not a problem in the drivers. It would be like running 3DMark 2000 on today's hardware and having it crash out or run slower than a P3 with a 3DFX card (which it actually does in many cases).

Originally Posted by elkay

Games and emulators on the Droid 3 don't have the FPS problem as compared to other devices. I think it's a coding issue in Quadrant, not a problem in the drivers. It would be like running 3DMark 2000 on today's hardware and having it crash out or run slower than a P3 with a 3DFX card (which it actually does in many cases).

A coding issue IS possible, but if it was a coding issue, then how is it that only specific phones from one manufacturer with CPU's and GPU's from the same manufacturers are the only ones with issues? The only Moto phones that don't have the issue are those with the Tegra 2, which uses proprietary coding and drivers from NVIDIA. There are phones from other manufacturers with the same SoC, and very similar hardware otherwise, that don't have the issue. It seems extremely likely that it is an issue with Motorola's software and coding.

Originally Posted by GoogleAndroid

A coding issue IS possible, but if it was a coding issue, then how is it that only specific phones from one manufacturer with CPU's and GPU's from the same manufacturers are the only ones with issues? The only Moto phones that don't have the issue are those with the Tegra 2, which uses proprietary coding and drivers from NVIDIA. There are phones from other manufacturers with the same SoC, and very similar hardware otherwise, that don't have the issue. It seems extremely likely that it is an issue with Motorola's software and coding.

I'll respectfully disagree. If the same FPS problem exhibited itself in any games on the market, then I would lean toward agreeing with you. However, I have pretty much every emulator on the market and about 75-80 games on my phone, and not one has shown any performance problems and all outperform my original Droid X by a very noticeable margin.

Or perhaps it's both? Quadrant could use something in OpenGL that isn't supported very well by Motorola's drivers, and it could be a feature that isn't widely used in other apps, so it's why you're not seeing any issues in them.

Originally Posted by Pokelover980

Or perhaps it's both? Quadrant could use something in OpenGL that isn't supported very well by Motorola's drivers, and it could be a feature that isn't widely used in other apps, so it's why you're not seeing any issues in them.

By all means, continue to investigate. I think the problem will end up lying in how Quadrant makes its OGL ES calls. The only one that would help right now is the developer of Quadrant, which if you can get to answer the question, would be great. Not stone hard fact, but a step toward solving this.

Quadrant is not optimised for dual core processors let alone any device that has recently come out in the last year including Tegra devices, the tests are not that complicated in the bench mark yet devices are scoring sub 30 fps values.

Use a different bench mark as Quad is old hat and in need of an update or 3.

-smc

I thought I should note that the PowerVR SGX 540 in our Droid 3's are not the same as the SGX 540 in Samsung's Hummingbird SOC. It's quite a bit faster!

The SGX 540 in the OMAP 4430 is clocked 100MHz higher and gets 4.8GFLOPS vs the Hummingbird's 3.2GFLOPS.

Originally Posted by snowblind64

I thought I should note that the PowerVR SGX 540 in our Droid 3's are not the same as the SGX 540 in Samsung's Hummingbird SOC. It's quite a bit faster!

The SGX 540 in the OMAP 4430 is clocked 100MHz higher and gets 4.8GFLOPS vs the Hummingbird's 3.2GFLOPS.

Yes, but the higher resolution screen counterbalances that.

Originally Posted by GoogleAndroid

Yes, but the higher resolution screen counterbalances that.

Well, not quite. The screen resolution only increased by 35% while the GPU is 50% more powerful than the SGX 540 in the Hummingbird SOC. In theory the OMAP4 should still perform better than the Hummingbird even at the higher resolution.

I would have to say that Quadrant is at least partly responsible for the low FPS. It seems likely that Quadrant is using an odd method of method of rendering for the planets test that in combination with Motorola/OMAP drivers causes a massive performance drop. Fortunately this performance issue has not been seen in other apps/games.

My main reason for posting was just to point out that the SGX 540 in our D3's is much faster. I would hate to think our GPU is no better than the Galaxy S'