[WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

Hi there,
I was looking for a comprehensive list of links or documentations to make my N9 a bit faster and smoother, and, as I didn't find it, I thought about creating this thread, I guess it could help people like me.

First: I'm an average (maybe power) user of the N9, but not a deeply involved guy into the N9 hacking.

Second: What will be described here can be dangerous for your phone. Use this at your own risks.

As far as understood, there are 2 ways to improve the N9 performances:

• Overclock the processor frequency
• Tweak the harmattan internals

Overclocking

The N9 processor frequency can be overclocked. Some can run it at 1300 MHz (lucky guys!), but it seems the average overclocked frequency is around 1100 MHz.

To overclock your N9, 2 steps:

• Install Inception to unlock the Harmattan security model
  
  Get the package here
  Copy the file to your N9
  Be sure you're in developer mode (Settings -> Security -> Developer)
  Open a terminal
  devel-su / rootme
  Go to the folder which contains the .deb
  dpkg -i inception...
  devel-su -c /usr/sbin/pasiv
  Answer "yes"
  Done.
  Update: I've had some trouble to install inception. It was fine after a N9 reboot.
• Install and run OPPtimizer
  You must first allow to install non store applications: settings -> applications -> installations -> turn on "non-store OK"
  Here again, you may face trouble to install, reboot before the installation could be a good idea.

Tweak the harmattan internals

There are several solutions to tweak the Harmattan internals, but 2 seem to be more widely spread:

• FasterN9 which is the tool to tweak the Harmattan graphic transitions
  Just install the deb file, nothing more to do.
• QuickTweak to tune the other system internals
  I didn't install this one, as the benefit are too limited to me.

Here is what I can say right now, as I haven't tested all of this by myself. I hope it helps, I'll probably come back later to add information from my own experience.

Bye, and now, I'm going to incept my N9 :p

Re: Summary about how to make the N9 smoother?
 

If you are responsible enough, overclocking shouldn't cause an issue...i.e start at say 1050MhZ and add 50 Mhz till maybe 1150MhZ and you should be fine...

Re: Summary about how to make the N9 smoother?
 

You don't need to overclock. Just faster N9 & Quiktweak mods A (option 4) and C. I also recommed Quiktweak mod M (change browser user agent to either Android or iOS), but before that you need to incept (mod EE). After these, there's no lag and at least in my case battery life increased (my average idle consumption dropped from 18 to 11 mA).

Re: Summary about how to make the N9 smoother?
 

I have heard and read a lot about these programs and how effective and influencing they are. However, like romu, I don't know how these programs work or do what they do and such.
Perhaps a wiki page about these great programs and the options they provide, or a detailed manual for modding the n9 to increase it's performance could be really helpful for users new to the n9 (including me).

Re: Summary about how to make the N9 smoother?
 

Faster N9 all the way baby!!

cannot get smoother than this tbh

Re: Summary about how to make the N9 smoother?
 

FasterN9 + oc the cpu. In the n900 ocing even up to 1150mhz didn't give as big boost as ocing the N9 to 1100mhz, 1200, not even mentioning 1300. I can't even imagine what Harmattan would have worked when packed with a Krait. When right now maemo5/meego are the best oses, N9 with a dual core krait, actually any dual core, would be like the best phone ever, period.

Re: Summary about how to make the N9 smoother?
 

Thanks eveyrone, that's encouraging about overcloking, and making the N9 smoother seems already ok.

So, I'll try to update the first message of this thread in order to centralize information and tutorials about tweaking the N9.

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

Hi,
I moved this question to a guide, which is still a work in progress.

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

I'd say FasterN9 should be enough. OCing will only decrease battery life.

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

you can overclock to 1100 mhz without raising the voltage, so battery life should not be affected. but to be honest, i don't really notice a difference. it's more for your peace of mind...
oc to 1350 mhz does make a difference but at the cost of battery life and probably reduces cpu lifetime...

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

I just installed Faster N9 and overclocked the CPU slightly to 1.1ghz. Now I basically have a new phone, buttery smooth, I don't think it will get noticeably smoother than this, even at higher clock speeds! My N9 is just perfect now, thank you all for your great work!!!

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

Ok, thanks for these useful answer, I'll go to FasterN9 in priority.

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

As its been said overclocking only helps in intensive tasks, faster n9 was what made the massive difference for me. It made multitasking and switching between home screens so fluid

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

Have you measured this?

I would expect that overclocking actually increases the battery life in some cases. This is because executing code is faster at higher clock rate, thus the CPU spends more of it's time idling at low frequency.

Normal usage profile of cell phone is such that CPU is rarely under constant load. Probably you would see increased battery consumption under heavy load (where some process keeps CPU at higher clock rate for fixed period of time), for example playing a video. But doing the usual stuff of browsing the web, running occasional app and making phonecalls the effect could be quite the opposite.

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

This isn't so simple and in regard to how processors work this is a misguided logic.

Processor power consumption is closely connected to their clock frequency. An OC chip will consume/require higher ad hoc wattage input hence draining the battery faster (simply said, with aspects for example regarding erratic power management when working outside of factory specs and so on left alone). Google overclocking vs power consumption and perhaps electric current in regard to microprocessors.

I haven't noticed any significant change concerning battery life. In theory, energy consumption might be a little higher due to overclocking of the CPU, however this is not important to me since I charge my device every day anyway. And as I've already mentioned, in practice you won't notice any difference in battery life assuming only slight overclocking and a normal usage scenario of the device. The situation might be totally different at overclocked CPU speeds close to 1.4ghz though...

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

OMAP3630 is rated for 1.2GHz so running it below that isn't exceeding factory specs. Higher frequency will naturally consume more power, but if you had read my message you'd probably realize that I wasn't arguing against that at all.

What I was saying is that it's possible to have CPU spend more time idling at low frequency/voltage by using relatively higher frequencies when necessary.

This is the reason why for example using the "conservative" CPU Freq governor in the Linux kernel, which adjusts frequency in steps correlating with the CPU load often uses more power than using the "ondemand" governor, which skips to highest frequency when load on the CPU reaches a certain treshold.

My N9, currently clocked to 1200MHz spends most of it's time at 300MHz and increase in battery consumption hasn't been noticeable. I'm not saying that it doesn't consume more power, just that the difference is so miniscule that it's hard to notice without proper measuring.

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

Yep,
FasterN9 has no belles and wistles.
Just a small script that makes the device faster.

that's all we need. Not tons of mumbo-jumbo tweaks

Theoritecally yes, If you plan to keep the phone for 10 or more years.
We've been OCing the N900 for two years now.

Still going strong : )

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

Don't patronize me (especially as you are not really making much sense).

As said, this doesn't work like that. A cpu running OCed for a moment will consume more energy than running balance for a longer while for what it's optimized by design. Go ahead, oveclock and measure this. (you can alternatively remain stubborn, I approve).

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

It's good if you will correct my false impressions so please point out where I'm wrong instead of trying to pick a fight. I'm not trying to patronise and I'm certainly not in any position to do so.

This is my current understanding more or less (sorry if I'm repeating myself, but i try to put it more clearly):

When OS is not busy it issues halt instructions which suspend operation of parts of the CPU and result in reduced energy consumption per tick. Thus a core running at higher clock rate can spend comparatively more time at less energy consuming state. If it consumes more or less energy overall is up to CPU design (idle power consumption, power consumption at different clock rates) and usage profile (continuos load, most of time idle or anything in between).

And the rest of what I (think I) know about subject is simply from following debate around Linux CPU Freq. governors and reading documentations such as these:

https://lesswatts.org/documentation/faq/index.php
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/...ide/index.html

Re: [WIP] Guide : how to make the N9 faster & smoother?
 

It works out pretty much even until you overclock too much; the relationship between frequency and power usage is mostly linear. If you overclock 10% then it uses 10% more power and completes tasks 10% faster. Unfortunately it gets hotter than normal and leaks more current at the same time.

ref: http://physics.stackexchange.com/que...typical-comput