Why Adreno GPU is better than Tegra 2 GPU. - Xperia Play General

Many people have said that SE should have put a Tegra 2 dual core chip inside the Xperia Play instead of the Snapdragon with Adreno 205.
In the real world the Adreno 205 was a much better choice for complex game effects and battery life.
This is a heavy read but there are plenty of charts & pictures that tell a fairer story from a Game Developers point of view.
http://blogs.unity3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/FastMobileShaders_siggraph2011.pdf
Here's hoping Tegra 3 is a much better effort.

First of all Tegra II is not a GPU. It's a CPU. So a more valid comparison would be snapdragon V's tegra II or Adreno V's GEforce.
Adreno 200 really was a poor GPU and qualcomm made a mess when they purchased the Adreno project off ATI. Although i think were all agreed that the jump from adreno 200 to adreno 205 was massive.
Adreno 205 is easly on par with the GPU in any single core CPU. I dont quite think it is a match for the 8 core ULV GPU inside the tegra II.
And imo NVIDA has proven with some of the tegra II games that the mobile version of GEforce inside there CPU is in a league of it's own compared to our GPU. Although i think Adreno 220 is on par with the Tegra II GPU. The soon to be released quad core tegra III CPU comes with such an awesome GPU it will be hard to beat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI-guAGGK3s

AndroHero said:
First of all Tegra II is not a GPU. It's a CPU. So a more valid comparison would be snapdragon V's tegra II or Adreno V's GEforce.
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I think I tried to say that in the post the header could have been a bit clearer.
Adreno 200 really was a poor GPU and qualcomm made a mess when they purchased the Adreno project off ATI. Although i think were all agreed that the jump from adreno 200 to adreno 205 was massive.
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Agree I have tried rudimentary GPU benchmarking on all my phones, the Xperia Play would have been severly weakened if it went ahead with using a Adreno 200 based SOC.
Adreno 205 is easly on par with the GPU in any single core CPU. I dont quite think it is a match for the 8 core ULV GPU inside the tegra II.
And imo NVIDA has proven with some of the tegra II games that the mobile version of GEforce inside there CPU is in a league of it's own compared to our GPU. Although i think Adreno 220 is on par with the Tegra II GPU. The soon to be released quad core tegra III CPU comes with such an awesome GPU it will be hard to beat
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I also thought the NVIDA GPU chip would be much better, but after reading the PDF I don't think it is. It looks like to get the best from the NVIDA GPU you have to use the CPU's much more than the Adreno 205 which will hit battery life. Also the Adreno looks like it has some hidden tricks that help in more complex scenes.
Give the PDF a read.

From the (very little, it is a really technical paper) content I can extract, it seems that the Nvidia Tegra devices follow a "classic approach" and load many more things on the CPU, while the Adreno and PowerVR (aka Apple's chip) follow a "smarter" approach, reducing the CPU load and loading the GPU, plus using tricks.
I'd say that, if that is correct, that it comes from the legacy of Nvidia as a desktop pc GPU maker, and that it makes sense that Nvidia is betting on getting multi-core devices out ASAP, for their approach is much more CPU-taxing and multiple cores allow to reduce CPU stress.

Techdread said:
I think I tried to say that in the post the header could have been a bit clearer.
Agree I have tried rudimentary GPU benchmarking on all my phones, the Xperia Play would have been severly weakened if it went ahead with using a Adreno 200 based SOC.
I also thought the NVIDA GPU chip would be much better, but after reading the PDF I don't think it is. It looks like to get the best from the NVIDA GPU you have to use the CPU's much more than the Adreno 205 which will hit battery life. Also the Adreno looks like it has some hidden tricks that help in more complex scenes.
Give the PDF a read.
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Click to collapse
I did look at the .pdf. But to be honest, it's a little over my head lol
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Interesting results for the Adreno 205.
Shader Performance
•Normalized to iPad2 resolution
•From single color:
• 1.4ms iPad2
• 3.5ms XperiaPlay
• 3.8ms Tegra2
• 14.3ms iPhone3Gs
•To fully per-pixel bump spec:
• 19.3ms iPad2
• 18.4ms XperiaPlay
• 47.7ms Tegra2
• 122.4ms iPhone3Gs

hairdewx said:
Interesting results for the Adreno 205.
Shader Performance
•Normalized to iPad2 resolution
•From single color:
• 1.4ms iPad2
• 3.5ms XperiaPlay
• 3.8ms Tegra2
• 14.3ms iPhone3Gs
•To fully per-pixel bump spec:
• 19.3ms iPad2
• 18.4ms XperiaPlay
• 47.7ms Tegra2
• 122.4ms
Hmmmmmmm
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Click to collapse

Double post......

AndroHero said:
The soon to be released quad core tegra III CPU comes with such an awesome GPU it will be hard to beat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI-guAGGK3s
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Click to collapse
Holy cr*p that looks amazing!
When is the Tegra 3 and Adreno 220 coming out? which will be the best? tablet only or on phones too?

FK1983 said:
Holy cr*p that looks amazing!
When is the Tegra 3 and Adreno 220 coming out? which will be the best? tablet only or on phones too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Adreno 220 is already out with the dual core qualcomm chips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehfyxvh2W4k&feature=related
Although the game in the demo is desert winds, an xperia play (adreno 205) exclusive

Comparing dual core Qualcomm chips to the Tegra is like comparing our current chip to the Samsung hummingbird.
The former is more widely supported, and better optimized. Whereas the latter is not well supported, and although it's supposed to be better on paper, it's real life performance isn't as good.
Sent from my R800

Logseman said:
From the (very little, it is a really technical paper) content I can extract, it seems that the Nvidia Tegra devices follow a "classic approach" and load many more things on the CPU, while the Adreno and PowerVR (aka Apple's chip) follow a "smarter" approach, reducing the CPU load and loading the GPU, plus using tricks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats the impression I got.
I'd say that, if that is correct, that it comes from the legacy of Nvidia as a desktop pc GPU maker, and that it makes sense that Nvidia is betting on getting multi-core devices out ASAP, for their approach is much more CPU-taxing and multiple cores allow to reduce CPU stress.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Desktop and handheld are vastly different in power & heat requirements, NVidia were probably rushing their dual core SOC's to market the lack of NEON in initial shipments and poor GPU's seems to confirms this.

Related

Hummingbird fastest processor on the market according to GLBenchmark2.0

http://theandroidsite.com/2010/12/1...r-on-the-market-according-to-glbenchmark-2-0/
Thought this was pretty cool information
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The real world performance of the Hummingbird is superior to all other ARM Cortex A8 processors I have found. Of course, that won't remain that way when CPUs like the Tegra 250 start coming onto phones like the LG Optimus 2x.
Yea the Tegra chipset will blow everything out of the water . I do like the Hummingbird processor though
Sent from my shoe, I mean....Epic shoe... I mean Samsung Epic! http://mobilehighway.blogspot.com/
sauron0101 said:
The real world performance of the Hummingbird is superior to all other ARM Cortex A8 processors I have found. Of course, that won't remain that way when CPUs like the Tegra 250 start coming onto phones like the LG Optimus 2x.
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Click to collapse
No, that will remain even after Tegra 2 comes out..simply because Tegra 2 is Cortex A9 lol
Its no surprise the Hummingbird is the fastest processor...originally the TI OMAP held the crown of pushing the Cortex A8 to its max..Samsung with TI OMAP in mind went a step farther to try to create something even better (despite many telling them its not possible)..and with hep of Intrisity the Hummingbird was made which pushes Cortex A8 beyond its limits..
The Hummingbird is the king of 2010..and it was made it 2009..it is only fitting that next year in 2011 a better processor comes out, and then a better one in 2012 and so on...
gTen said:
No, that will remain even after Tegra 2 comes out..simply because Tegra 2 is Cortex A9 lol
Its no surprise the Hummingbird is the fastest processor...originally the TI OMAP held the crown of pushing the Cortex A8 to its max..Samsung with TI OMAP in mind went a step farther to try to create something even better (despite many telling them its not possible)..and with hep of Intrisity the Hummingbird was made which pushes Cortex A8 beyond its limits..
The Hummingbird is the king of 2010..and it was made it 2009..it is only fitting that next year in 2011 a better processor comes out, and then a better one in 2012 and so on...
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Click to collapse
Hah, you guys sound like you've read my article. Or maybe I'm just flattering myself.
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=17125
Anyhow, there's one major problem with the article linked by the OP; that test is soley a GPU test, not CPU. The PowerVR SGX540 is, without doubt, the fastest GPU on the market today.
The Hummingbird does just barely edge past Snapdragon MHz to MHz in side-by-side processing tests, though any 1.x GHz OMAP / Snapdragon does have the 1 GHz Hummingbird beat (except when it comes to GPU performance, obviously.)
Where the Hummingbird starts to lose out MHz for MHz is in Android 2.3 where the JIT compiler was optimized for Snapdragon (and I assume OMAP) processors. Hopefully we'll see this change and Google work some better Hummingbird support into Android with the release of the Nexus S; now the flagship "Google Phone".
Electrofreak said:
Hah, you guys sound like you've read my article. Or maybe I'm just flattering myself.
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=17125
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually researched this info back before CTIA when the Hummingbird was first announced...but I do remember stumbling upon your article here and there.
Anyhow, there's one major problem with the article linked by the OP; that test is soley a GPU test, not CPU. The PowerVR SGX540 is, without doubt, the fastest GPU on the market today.
The Hummingbird does just barely edge past Snapdragon MHz to MHz in side-by-side processing tests, though any 1.x GHz OMAP / Snapdragon does have the 1 GHz Hummingbird beat (except when it comes to GPU performance, obviously.)
Where the Hummingbird starts to lose out MHz for MHz is in Android 2.3 where the JIT compiler was optimized for Snapdragon (and I assume OMAP) processors. Hopefully we'll see this change and Google work some better Hummingbird support into Android with the release of the Nexus S; now the flagship "Google Phone".
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Click to collapse
Even with 2.3 optimizations I do not think an old 1st gen 65nm Snapdragon will outperform a Hummingbird mhz for mhz..the newer 2nd gen ones are another story.
But yeah, optimizations from the Nexus S would be sweet..while I was hoping for an Orion CPU, I am quite happy they chose the same CPU as ours, this will help development a lot...

Atrix has an 8 core GPU

Yep so I just found out that the atrix has an 8 core GPU thanks to the forum members below.
This seems amazing considering the SGSII has a quad core GPU
Check this out:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html
bigdog_nick said:
Check this out:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html
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Click to collapse
OMG 8 cores?
So it is better than the SGS2
8 core GPU
Seems like so. From what i'm reading just now, the SGSII has a Mali-400MP4 which is only a quad core. Wow, Nvidia you outdid yourself. lol
Why dont they advertise the 8 core GPU?
RacecarBMW said:
Why dont they advertise the 8 core GPU?
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probably cause not many people know or even care what it is and moto and att didnt see it as a selling point
Dang, and to think I was always of the opinion that the Galaxy S phones had more GPU power than my Atrix.. Damn you AT&T.
not surprised as it's a geforce core
brian2220 said:
probably cause not many people know or even care what it is and moto and att didnt see it as a selling point
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Click to collapse
well they advertise the dual core CPU
Says it supports 12mp primary camera?
The next tegra is a quad core cpu, 12 core gpu. Its going to be a monster.
RacecarBMW said:
well they advertise the dual core CPU
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Click to collapse
that is always a big selling point in todays market
RacecarBMW said:
OMG 8 cores?
So it is better than the SGS2
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Click to collapse
Holy Moly. 8 core GPU?
And the SGSII only has 4 core GPU?
The Atrix wins overall. No question about it.
[/s]
Extra cores do not necessarily translate to win. Tegra is awesome, but has its limits, which are far more apparent than in the new Galaxy 2, which appears to be the most powerful Android phone to date.
YAY! 8 CORE GPU! what ever that means? lol
as far as i know. the SGS2 oxynes or whatever its called is more powerful than tegra 2.
not my much tho.
however Nvidia has an advantage of Tegra zone. games specific to take advantages of the Tegra 2.
and that alone is way better than playing the same game the nexus S plays well only smoother.
this makes Tegra 2 a better GPU imho hands down. but not the most powerful.
jivemaster said:
Extra cores do not necessarily translate to win. Tegra is awesome, but has its limits, which are far more apparent than in the new Galaxy 2, which appears to be the most powerful Android phone to date.
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What drugs are you on? SGS II? The most powerful to date? No ways Laydee
The Atrix hasn't even shown its true colours yet. Wait till Gingerbread is released. This will be the REAL test.
Only then will it be clear whether Atrix or SGS II is the better handset.
ll_l_x_l_ll said:
as far as i know. the SGS2 oxynes or whatever its called is more powerful than tegra 2.
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Click to collapse
Its called Exynos, and NO, the reports out there peg the Tegra 2 to be better clock for clock.
Why do you think Samsung overclocked the Exynos to 1.2Ghz? To be competitive, because at 1Ghz it wasn't.
Samsung has won the Quadrant war for the moment, but lets see what the Tegra 2 overclocked to 1.2Ghz (unlock that bootloader damit!) and with AOS 2.3.3 can do. And the hardware war can't be won on just a SAMOLED+ screen thats still can't be viewed in direct sunlight, and is heavily pixelated at 4.3" & 800x480 resolution (I certainly prefer qHD).
The Geforce ULV GPU in the Tegra 2 SoC is based on the Nvidia Geforce 6 series GPU architecture from 2004.
Computer GPU's at the time where still using "pipelines" before introduction of "unified shaders" (those are easier to be called multi-core) with the release of the nvidia G80 GPU in late 2006.
Piplines architecture has dedicated instructions shaders (nvidia like to call them cores for marketing reasons and to piss off Intel!) for each of pixel and vertex processing tasks. A GPU of this kind can't help itself if the load was heavier at one side of those tasks.
Where in "unified shaders" architecture those shaders can morph to handle any instructions tasks based on the load.
So it's more correctly to say the nvidia GPU in the Atrix has 8 shaders, But and it's a big BUT.. 4 of them must be preserved for the pixel processing and the other 4 must be preserved for vertex processing.

Mali-400 MP vs Adreno 220

Which is the better GPU and why ?
I'm not sure of the technical reasons why, maybe people are just going off benchmarks, but the general consensus is that Adreno 220 has better gaming performance.
However, unless you are planning some hardcore gaming; Mali-400 MP or GeForce ULP will be just fine.
MALI-400 MP is imo a faster GPU but it really lacks stuff needed to be a good GPU. Also on the low level some of the major 3d scores are even lower than Adreno 205. So the quality here sucks. It misses many compression texture formats so low compatibility. Most games will come up with a solution for that but with time and that time could really end the life cycle of the gs2. Mali 400 is slower than adreno 205 in Geometric Tests, Common Tests, Exponential Tests. Adreno 220 will be a slightly slower GPU in synthetic tests but with more compatibility, better quality from the lower level, more texture compression formats and will be compatible with all games since start as adreno gpu games are already abundant in the market. So its more like a Samung delivered the fastest GPU with major flaws. Here Adreno 220 is like ATI and Nvidia and Mali-400 is like any other generic GPU from another company. And Galaxy S 2 coming in tegra 2 would really mess up the compatibility of Mali-400 seeing that Mali will be missing the number of devices so Mali - 400 could be a left out here.
Right now the game here is a Faster GPU (by a small margin) vs a more Compatible GPU. Better - if u can wait with no definite future mali and if u want everything now and in future its adreno
With CF working on compat I wouldnt be surprised if we're all playing Tegra Zone next month.
bilboa1 said:
With CF working on compat I wouldnt be surprised if we're all playing Tegra Zone next month.
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I agree. (10char)
Samsung's Galaxy S II Preliminary Performance: Mali-400MP Benchmarked 1Ghz Mali 400
Dual Core Snapdragon GPU Performance Explored - 1.5 GHz MSM8660 and Adreno 220 Benchmarks 1.5Ghz Adreno 220
Should give you a rough idea of what to expect.
_dsk_ said:
Samsung's Galaxy S II Preliminary Performance: Mali-400MP Benchmarked 1Ghz Mali 400
Dual Core Snapdragon GPU Performance Explored - 1.5 GHz MSM8660 and Adreno 220 Benchmarks 1.5Ghz Adreno 220
Should give you a rough idea of what to expect.
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Click to collapse
No, it's not even close.
My Galaxy S II scores 42.2 fps in the same benchmark, Adreno scores an impressive 38 fps but this is with the CPU at 1.5GHz.
_dsk_ said:
Samsung's Galaxy S II Preliminary Performance: Mali-400MP Benchmarked 1Ghz Mali 400
Dual Core Snapdragon GPU Performance Explored - 1.5 GHz MSM8660 and Adreno 220 Benchmarks 1.5Ghz Adreno 220
Should give you a rough idea of what to expect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, this one is not accurate.
Just look at the firmware, SGS2 was running Android2.3.1 at the time, it was not a retail device.
Retail SGS2 outperforms anything currently in GLbench.
"Originally Posted by iwantandroid
I cried when I lerned this phone i got from tmobile didnt have Android. Can sum1 help me get Android on my new G1 and then tel me how to jailbroke it please"
LOL OMG
_dsk_ said:
Samsung's Galaxy S II Preliminary Performance: Mali-400MP Benchmarked 1Ghz Mali 400
Dual Core Snapdragon GPU Performance Explored - 1.5 GHz MSM8660 and Adreno 220 Benchmarks 1.5Ghz Adreno 220
Should give you a rough idea of what to expect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
these tests are kinda misleading, between non-final device/software and capped framerate
i'm a bit disappointed that it comes from anandtech since they usually try to have stuff all squared out on PCs ;-)
lol, you guys are very defensive about your phones, understandably.
What you should be able to ascertain though is that the 1Ghz Mali benchmarks are decent and you can expect better performance with it clocked at 1.2Ghz.
Conversely you should be able to see that the Adreno at 1.5Ghz, though impressive, will be less so clocked at 1Ghz like in the Sensation, which will also have a higher resolution screen.
I only provided the links so that people could make up their own mind by using the same logic.
Are you sure the Mali-400 is clocked at 1.2Ghz ?
Because when I overclocked my SGS2 to 1.5Ghz I saw a 25% performance increase in computing performance, but almost no increase at all in graphics performance (using GL Benchmark), so I thought the frequencies of the two were totally unrelated.
I dont know what the clock speeds of the GPU are, but CPU speed bumps will also help with 3D performance.
_dsk_ said:
I dont know what the clock speeds of the GOP are, but CPU speed bumps will also help with 3D performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well in my case it did not. I guess a dual core 1.2Ghz CPU is not a bottleneck on a smartphone lol.
Ive heard there are FPS caps on the Galaxy line, not sure how true this is, usually benchmarks should see an increase when handsets are overclocked.
_dsk_ said:
Ive heard there are FPS caps on the Galaxy line, not sure how true this is, usually benchmarks should see an increase when handsets are overclocked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its true for the sgs1 and 2 at least, frame rate is capped between 56 and 66 fps depending on kernels/versions etc
many benchmarks hit the cap (like quadrant)

Tegra 3 Vs. Omap 4430?

Quick question -- how does the Tegra 3 stack up to the Nook Tablet's OMAP 4430? i know it's a bump up, but i'd like to know how much of a bump up i'm getting with my fancy new bit of gadgetry. I know they're both based on a ARM A9 CPU, but that's all...
Mr. Argent said:
Quick question -- how does the Tegra 3 stack up to the Nook Tablet's OMAP 4430? i know it's a bump up, but i'd like to know how much of a bump up i'm getting with my fancy new bit of gadgetry. I know they're both based on a ARM A9 CPU, but that's all...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well you have two more cores, so thats twice the CPU performance in apps that can support quad core (browsers and some games).
the GPU is much faster on the tegra3 though. the geforce ulp is about 2-3x faster than the gpu on the omap 4460 chipset at the same resolution. not sure how far behind the omap 4430 is, but the tegra3 is definitely much better.
Souai said:
well you have two more cores, so thats twice the CPU performance in apps that can support quad core (browsers and some games).
the GPU is much faster on the tegra3 though. the geforce ulp is about 2-3x faster than the gpu on the omap 4460 chipset at the same resolution. not sure how far behind the omap 4430 is, but the tegra3 is definitely much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quad-core tegra 3 vs Dual Core OMAP 4430?
I know...quad core and tegra 3 is the winner, but Dual Core OMAG 4430(Galaxy Tab2 7.0) how much time will resist gaming market, if you know what I mean
T3 have better CPU+ GPU
Also better, faster, newer system by google
The 4430 is crap? The gnex has the 4460 and its not all that great either. The CPU in the 8.9 which is the 4470 is the only one that's better than the tegra3.
Sent From My N7 via White Tapatalk
Mr. Argent said:
Quick question -- how does the Tegra 3 stack up to the Nook Tablet's OMAP 4430? i know it's a bump up, but i'd like to know how much of a bump up i'm getting with my fancy new bit of gadgetry. I know they're both based on a ARM A9 CPU, but that's all...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Compared to the T3 the OMAP is garbage. I actually write firmware for TI processors (DSP's not OMAP's but still...)

[Q] Nexus 4 GPU performance

Hey guys,
Thanks for lending me your time towards my question...
As we know,
Nexus 4 has an Adreno 320 single - core GPU and Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC
My question is..
Is the Adreno 320 capable enough to run future graphics - hungry games?
And tegra 3 possessing a 12+1 core GPU, is Adreno 320 better than this?
Regards....
Adreno 320 is about 250% better in tests than Tegra 3.
Shreyas Iyer said:
Hey guys,
Thanks for lending me your time towards my question...
As we know,
Nexus 4 has an Adreno 320 single - core GPU and Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC
My question is..
Is the Adreno 320 capable enough to run future graphics - hungry games?
And tegra 3 possessing a 12+1 core GPU, is Adreno 320 better than this?
Regards....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha, Tegra 3. The Tegra 3 is by far the worst quad core chipset available in popular devices, my friend's One X lags even when playing Super Hexagon. The N4 has been able to run every game that I've thrown at it so far smoothly so I don't see why it shouldn't be able to in the future. Even the newer One and US GS4 use the 320 so it's clearly a great GPU.

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