Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Just an observation that prompted a question. It seems that the N900 GUI is usable, at a "good enough" level. However, why isn't it silky smooth, highly responsive? Already running power kernel, OCed, lubed.

One simple example is UI redraw when starting an application. I understand that the animation can be tweak so that the animation stage can complete in, say, 50ms. But graphically, looking at it, it never seem smooth. It aways seem to appear as step-by-step redraw...anyone else feel the same?

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Reflash your phone/remove junk thoroughly and kill all that lubbing (leave OC kernel though). My n900 was running slow after I fooled with extras-devel apps. Now I'm more carefull. No glitches, everything is silky smooth. works better than Vibrant that i used to have.

UI on first androids sucked big time. Was slow and glitchy. I had G1... what a nightmare that was.

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Mine runs fine at 600mhz

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Maybe I should clarify the current state of my N900. It's been completely reflashed (no error, no glitches). There's nothing extra on the system other than additional repos, power kernel & lube.

I currently also own an old HTC Magic, a new-ish (last year) Samsung Galaxy S, a Galaxy Tab.

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

@azkay,

Glad to hear you're happy with yours. Can you verify one thing for me if you don't mind.

From the applications icon screen, start the Media Player. Upon starting hte Media Player, do you see the black, solid hard edge rectangle being redraw on the screen...as a maximizing animation. This maximizing redraw on my N900, though fast, is not "smooth". The stepping of the rectangle being redrawn is not linear, nor exponential...but rather, quite "jerky".

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Have you tried MaeModder with HWSync of Hildon / Hildon acceleration and dscobsct custom transitions? Maybe it's just my imagination, but at least I have a feeling that these mods made my non-overclocked N900 smoother.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=67989

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

smooth...ness can be built over time. If nokia keep working on the os. It may not be that smooth, but the way the user interface works with MTask and the way to close apps is far suppior to any other mobile os.

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Hildon itself is quite smooth, it's not the OS's fault, but the PVR's drivers and limitations.

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Hi Chatbox

Mine also runs smooth as a baby's bottom at 600mhz...

I see nothing like you describe above, for me it just starts - smooth, quick and ready...

Dan

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

the only way to feel almost as android and ios user is by using opera mobiel 11. it is damn smooth. beside that, i know what you mean. N900 is very powerfull but its not as visually atractive as other new oses.
i didnt overclook because my n900 is almost new and i am woried about my warranty

wouldnt it be possible to use drivers from meego on maemo?

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

That is something that i always asked myself:rolleyes:

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

It's the HWSync this syncs the redraws to the refresh rate of the display. This isn't on by default because it is unstable under Maemo, it can cause your GUI to hard-lock after a while (you'll still be able to SSH in if SSH is running and you're connected) forcing you to reboot. This affects my N900, but doesn't seem to affect everybody, so feel free to try it out, but it was disabled by default for good reason.

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Been rock solid in my device since I installed it, with default PR1.3 and normal kernel. Am I correct if this mod is pretty much the same as vsync in PC games, so there is no longer tearing?

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

The only mod you'll ever need for silky smoothness on a PR 1.3 n900:

See above line for technical explanation.

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

What are your configs in power-kernel? x MHz - y MHz? I run mine at constantly 850MHz, because hildon-desktop doesn't require a lot of resources, but when you force it to run at 850MHz, it runs super smooth. I used to have the same problem as you. When looking at system-info widget, I used to idle at 10%, now it's either 1% or 0%.

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

mine runs smooth just on stock with swapplube gui(think that's what it's called) but when i used CSSU i noticed a big difference very smooth can't wait for it to be stable :). just reflashed yesterday so it's pretty fresh @ the moment :)

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

sounds great how would i do this?

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

If you're using swappolube, I think it's already taken care of for you. In an xterm, run the following and see what you get:

It should output 30 or lower. If not, keep reading.

But if you weren't using swappolube, you would:

install rootsh
open an xterm
type root<return>
type echo 30 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness<return>

Making this reboot-proof is beyond this discussion, but I think swappolube handles that for you.

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

cheers yeah got 30 as the result thanks for your help :)

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

The problem is, some people just don't see the lags of UI. You can OC, change parameters via swaploube and so on (and it can be better), but it will never be the smooth like android / iOS / whatever...

Re: Any technical reason why the UI is not as smooth / fluid as, say, Android or iOS?
 

Yes, some things are quite odd, like Opera everyone mentions. It is buttery, nothing else in Maemo is this smooth, not lists, not test, not animations and I don't understand why. Not even scrolling images.

And while smoothness is indeed a personal metric, we all agree iPhone is way smoother at a lower spec.

I have sync enabled with no ill effects, but no benefits I can see. Frankly, if any, it's marginal.

Titan kernel, OC 500-900, Swappolube, MaeModder. It's only smooth is pegged CPU at at least 500 min and fresh boot. After about a day it starts to sag.