Smoothness, Reliability, Battery life

[mr72]

I did extensive experiments with my Nook Color to come up with a pretty swanky setup with very, very good battery life, very good performance and great stability. Many people responded favorably to this discussion, so I figured I'd try the same with the HD+. The HD+, with CM10.x, simply does not have the tweakability that the NC did, but it has some tweakability.

My goals are still the same:
10+ hours of battery watching movies (no wifi)
15+ hours of battery reading books (screen on, no wifi)
smooth, fast, predictable performance
zero crashes, random reboots, etc.

To begin with, start with the CM10.1.3 stable version: http://get.cm/get/jenkins/42537/cm-10.1.3-ovation.zip
Do the normal steps to install CM, DON'T BE TEMPTED TO USE CM10.2.x! It is slower, less stable, and far worse on battery life

Then configure the following:
Settings -> Performance -> Processor: governor - HOTPLUG, min CPU 396MHz, max CPU 1500, set on boot checked
Settings -> Performance -> I/O scheduler: NOOP, set on boot checked
Settings -> Performance -> Memory management: zRam disabled, Allow purging of assets checked
Settings -> Performance -> 16bit transparency checked
Settings -> Performance -> Surface improvement: disable dithering

Now, for watching movies, use "BS Player", which has far better battery performance than MX Player

Using these settings and Moon+ Reader I am able to get >12 hours of active screen on reading time, and using BS Player about 8-10 hours of watching movies.

Performance is smooth and quick, zero random reboots.

Having an occasional crash of Chrome, but I don't think it's the tablet or OS's fault.

Enjoy!

 

[JeauxAdam]

Why noop over deadline?

Sent from my Nook HD+ using xda app-developers app

 

[rushless]

I agree about 10.2. The change log is mainly telephony improvements and opengl 3 that the 4470 does not support. Trim is problematic for most HD+ as well.
I might try this. ....

But yeah, why noop?

 

[Solar257]

I'd love to try this on the Nook HD. Are the performance settings missing in the stable 10.1 CM release for the 7" Nook HD? Or am I missing enabling a setting? I don't see settings>performance...

 

[leapinlar]

I'd love to try this on the Nook HD. Are the performance settings missing in the stable 10.1 CM release for the 7" Nook HD? Or am I missing enabling a setting? I don't see settings>performance...

You have to go to settings, about tablet and tap the build number several times. That activates developer options and I think performance too.

Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.

 

[rushless]

I have been using the suggested tweaks, but already had 16Bit on and use 402m heap size. Not seeing a noted difference yet, but turning dithering off actually results in lag in some games: Zen Pinball is an example. Turning dithering back on corrects the issue.

The device still is second tier for overall smoothness compared to the Excite 7.7 and TF300. Those devices though are not dealing with over twice the pixel count to manage and push. CPU of the 4470 is actually better overall than the Tegra 3, but twice the pixels is a huge difference.

 

[pdx1138]

interesting that BS player bests MX for battery consumption...I shall try it!...unfortunately its
not playing audio on some .avi files as MX does. But I'll use it when I can to save on battery

This 10.1.3 rom is it the CM RC2?

 

[rushless]

:fingers-crossed:I would not describe the Nook HD+ as "smooth and predictable", since the combo of display, gpu (not cpu) and low ram are fixed overhead we probably can not compensate completely for with tweaks (the price we pay for the pretty display). Some of the settings you kindly posted seem to create their own issues, if you play games or use a lot of apps.

After a few days of testing myself with 10.1:

Settings -> Performance -> Processor: governor - Interactive, min CPU 396MHz, max CPU 1500, set on boot checked
Settings -> Performance -> I/O scheduler: Deadline, set on boot checked
Settings -> Performance -> Memory management: zRam disabled, Allow purging of assets checked
Settings -> Performance -> 16bit transparency checked
Settings -> Performance -> Surface improvement: Leave dithering on middle setting

1. Hotplug seems more suited for quadcores unless you are mainly doing light browsing, video and light gaming.

2. Noop seems to cause additional I/O lag after opening and closing a few apps over time- especially games.

3. zRam disabled is good and ditto for purging assets!

4. 16bit transparency helps!

5. Turning dithering off can/will create lag and stutter in games- especially 3D.

6. It seems the two biggest performance killers as far as settings are activating zRam and turning dithering off.

Added:

Again, as far as 10.2, I still 100% agree that 10.1 performs better. If people respectfully look at the change logs, 10.2 does nothing for performance since the updates were telephony and opengl 3.0 that the 4470 does not leverage. Trim for most HD+ tablets can be a slow or quick kiss of death. The net result with trim disabled is a rom with no apparent performance advantages. That said, if people are happy with 10.2 on the HD+, cool stuff!

What some might be seeing when going to 10.2 is the starting from scratch and cache cleaning is more the actual improvement than 10.2 itself. If this is the case, the improvement could be short term, but there are a few features that make 10.2 worthwhile for some folks.

 

[mr72]

Hotplug seems to be better for battery life vs. interactive. I don't do any gaming or 3D graphics stuff, really just web browsing, reading books and watching movies. I favor stability and battery life in these cases. I suppose there are better settings for gaming especially if you don't mind sacrificing battery life.

I leave tomorrow on one of my frequent trips from TX to Europe, and again I will run my HD+ to the limits of battery life watching movies and reading books on the plane. Anyone have comments about whether the Deadline scheduler is better for battery life (or any different) vs. Noop?