Different Performance Modes of Prime/Tegra3

demandarin · Dec 27, 2011

I was thinking of starting a performance mode thread. To see different peoples results and thoughts on different power modes. I read some people post that they just use it in power/battery savings mode. Some keep it in normal all the time. Others in balanced mode. Would be good to see how these different modes perform in real life usage. From user perspective. How do the different modes perform for you? What have you noticed from switching between them?

I've noticed, so far, that In balanced mode, battery drains about 10% or a little less an hour. This is with nonstop use including gaming, watching vids, web surfing, etc. now in battery savings mode, it drains even less per hour. The UI still performs smoothly. Only main difference you immediately notice is that it drops the contrast ratio. So a soon a you press the battery savings tab, you will see it look like brightness went down a bit but it's actually the contrast ratio lowered. If you look closely, the display doesn't look a sharp as other 2modes. Display still looks good but not a sharp. I haven't ran normal mode long enough to see how it drains compared to others. One thing though, web surfing drains battery just as fast as gaming.

Plus I think the modes doesn't affect gaming or video playback performance. I read that somewhere, either anandtech or Engadget. When watching vids or playing games, it goes into normal mode. So those things won't be affected no matter what power mode you in, I think..lol not exactly sure. Any confirmation?

tylermaciaszek · Dec 27, 2011

I always keep in normal mode and I am more than happy with battery and performance. today I watched hangover 2 in 720p so that's 2 hours of playback played probably an hour of riptide an hour of cordy about an hour of all other games combined surfed XDA using opera and had textab running got 7 or so hours of battery

demandarin · Dec 27, 2011

tylermaciaszek said:
I always keep in normal mode and I am more than happy with battery and performance. today I watched hangover 2 in 720p so that's 2 hours of playback played probably an hour of riptide an hour of cordy about an hour of all other games combined surfed XDA using opera and had textab running got 7 or so hours of battery

I will try out normal mode more to see what kind of battery life I get. There was a brief period that I used it that it seemed to drain less than in balanced mode. I always put it on normal mode if I'm charging it up and using it at the same time. The prime charges up pretty fast also.

demandarin · Dec 28, 2011

bump, so we can see what modes people running on, battery life on them, and performance observations.

tylermaciaszek · Dec 28, 2011

demandarin said:
I will try out normal mode more to see what kind of battery life I get. There was a brief period that I used it that it seemed to drain less than in balanced mode. I always put it on normal mode if I'm charging it up and using it at the same time. The prime charges up pretty fast also.

yeah it does charge really fast that is one thing i love i keep it in power saving mode alot and barely notice any performance issues

DaRacerz · Dec 29, 2011

I tried both balanced and power saving mode but can't see a difference. If anything I believe balanced gives better life but have not tested formality. What are you guys getting?. Over two days with using standby I'm averaging what seems to be 7 hours or so. 13-15% an hour. Seems low based on what Asus claimed and what I've read from you guys. Maybe its true newness with installing apps and using it heavily?? I do not believe battery conditioning will make up that big of difference.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

demandarin · Dec 29, 2011

DaRacerz said:
I tried both balanced and power saving mode but can't see a difference. If anything I believe balanced gives better life but have not tested formality. What are you guys getting?. Over two days with using standby I'm averaging what seems to be 7 hours or so. 13-15% an hour. Seems low based on what Asus claimed and what I've read from you guys. Maybe its true newness with installing apps and using it heavily?? I do not believe battery conditioning will make up that big of difference.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

its really dependent on what exactly you are doing while in each mode. like now for instance, I have 72% battery left on balanced mode. battery time shows 2 hrs and 54 mins. I've done basically nonstop web surfing here reading and posting in the forum. this goes with what I said before that it seems to drain 10% or a lil less per hr. I've achieved about the same even in normal mode. its weird cuz you'd think in normal mode it'll drain alot faster when I've noticed it only draining a little faster than balanced. like I said, I think no matter what mode you in, it really depends on exactly what you're doing and brightness level.

I have yet to really test battery/power save mode. because when you put it in that mode, it immediately lowers the contrast levels, if you haven't noticed. if not, try pressing power save mode and it'll immediately look like the screen dimmed a lil. it actually didn't and if you look closer you will see contrast levels dropped and display doesn't look as sharp and colors don't pop as much as other modes. almost cartoonish looking. display still looks good but not like when in balanced or normal. if you go from battery save back to another mode, you'll immediately see display switch back to high contrast level and colors pop again.

droidx2.3.3 · Dec 29, 2011

Ive been keeping mine in balanced mode except for when i play certaingemes like shadow gun. I couldnt be happier with battery life.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium

Haro912 · Dec 29, 2011

Used a good part of today. Mostly downloading apps, playing games, Web browsing, and xda a loooooot. Lol

I was in normal mode all day and turned ips on for about an hour or so.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium

Mithent · Dec 29, 2011

DaRacerz said:
I tried both balanced and power saving mode but can't see a difference. If anything I believe balanced gives better life but have not tested formality.

It's believable that reducing the CPU's max clocks could result in more power usage overall. It will still clock down and use the companion core in any mode (although a "turbo" mode that doesn't use it would be interesting for comparison), so the idle power consumption won't change. Reducing the maximum speed means it won't be able to use as much power at peak, but it may be forced to run at its (reduced) maximum speed for significantly longer, which uses so much more power than idle that the reduction in power from the lower frequency doesn't offset the increase in power from increasing the task length.

As an analogy, driving slower is more efficient than driving faster, because the faster you go, the greater the increase in power you need to maintain that speed (this is due to air resistance in cars, and the fact that power is proportional to voltage squared in CPUs). But that's only true up to a certain point: you don't get awesome mileage if you drive everywhere at 10mph, because it takes so long to get anywhere you'd have been better getting there 5 times quicker and then turning the car off entirely.

tylermaciaszek · Dec 29, 2011

This is why battery life is so good in sleep mode lol how low the processor runs it's under 102mhz

d1ez3 · Dec 29, 2011

tylermaciaszek said:
This is why battery life is so good in sleep mode lol how low the processor runs it's under 102mhz

Ha, that makes sense. I had 86% left and after being in sleep mode for a while my predicted battery life remaining is over 50 days. not too bad

tylermaciaszek · Dec 29, 2011

d1ez3 said:
Ha, that makes sense. I had 86% left and after being in sleep mode for a while my predicted battery life remaining is over 50 days. not too bad

The battery on this tablet is really good like amazing

demandarin · Dec 29, 2011

Haro912 said:
Used a good part of today. Mostly downloading apps, playing games, Web browsing, and xda a loooooot. Lol

View attachment 833624

I was in normal mode all day and turned ips on for about an hour or so.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium

that's great battery life for it to be in normal mode.

Mithent said:
It's believable that reducing the CPU's max clocks could result in more power usage overall. It will still clock down and use the companion core in any mode (although a "turbo" mode that doesn't use it would be interesting for comparison), so the idle power consumption won't change. Reducing the maximum speed means it won't be able to use as much power at peak, but it may be forced to run at its (reduced) maximum speed for significantly longer, which uses so much more power than idle that the reduction in power from the lower frequency doesn't offset the increase in power from increasing the task length.

As an analogy, driving slower is more efficient than driving faster, because the faster you go, the greater the increase in power you need to maintain that speed (this is due to air resistance in cars, and the fact that power is proportional to voltage squared in CPUs). But that's only true up to a certain point: you don't get awesome mileage if you drive everywhere at 10mph, because it takes so long to get anywhere you'd have been better getting there 5 times quicker and then turning the car off entirely.

good point. I also think that's only the case if you put it in battery savings mode and try to do more CPU intensive tasks. I would think that if you put it in that mode and only do more simple or less CPU intensive stuff, we would definitely see the best battery life in that mode.

tylermaciaszek said:
This is why battery life is so good in sleep mode lol how low the processor runs it's under 102mhz

is CPU Spy the name of that app?

d1ez3 said:
Ha, that makes sense. I had 86% left and after being in sleep mode for a while my predicted battery life remaining is over 50 days. not too bad

have you found a good app that shows remaining time or usage left on battery life?

tylermaciaszek · Dec 29, 2011

demandarin said:
that's great battery life for it to be in normal mode.

good point. I also think that's only the case if you put it in battery savings mode and try to do more CPU intensive tasks. I would think that if you put it in that mode and only do more simple or less CPU intensive stuff, we would definitely see the best battery life in that mode.

is CPU Spy the name of that app?

have you found a good app that shows remaining time or usage left on battery life?

Yes I used CPU spy!

ckoadiyn · Dec 29, 2011

Mithent said:
As an analogy, driving slower is more efficient than driving faster, because the faster you go, the greater the increase in power you need to maintain that speed (this is due to air resistance in cars, and the fact that power is proportional to voltage squared in CPUs). But that's only true up to a certain point: you don't get awesome mileage if you drive everywhere at 10mph, because it takes so long to get anywhere you'd have been better getting there 5 times quicker and then turning the car off entirely.

This is false if it was true gas milage in town would be higher then it is a car is built to get best mpg at 55 mph while on the highway

Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium

BongoBong · Dec 29, 2011

DaRacerz said:
I tried both balanced and power saving mode but can't see a difference. If anything I believe balanced gives better life but have not tested formality. What are you guys getting?. Over two days with using standby I'm averaging what seems to be 7 hours or so. 13-15% an hour. Seems low based on what Asus claimed and what I've read from you guys. Maybe its true newness with installing apps and using it heavily?? I do not believe battery conditioning will make up that big of difference.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

using normal mode I would say I am getting something similar to the 13-15% per hour you are.getting. I haven't kept an exremely close eye on it but definitely using a.bit more then 10% per hour.

Kohawk09 · Dec 29, 2011

I've noticed a bigger swing in battery when adjusting screen brightness more than between power modes... I keep it on normal, brightness between 50 and 75, still get amazing battery life. Super ips requires sunglasses when in a dark room lol.

tylermaciaszek · Dec 29, 2011

Kohawk09 said:
I've noticed a bigger swing in battery when adjusting screen brightness more than between power modes... I keep it on normal, brightness between 50 and 75, still get amazing battery life. Super ips requires sunglasses when in a dark room lol.

Watching movie last night pitch black room brightness on full I was curious so turned on super IPS thought I went blind for a second

Haro912 · Dec 29, 2011

demandarin said:
that's great battery life for it to be in normal mode.

Yeah. It did sleep for about an hour while I slept. But others I was on is doing something. I'm so used to my LG Revolution which eats through battery. This thing makes me so happy

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium

Different Performance Modes of Prime/Tegra3

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