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tso is offline tso
2008-03-07 , 11:30
Posts: 4,783 | Thanked: 1,253 times | Joined on Aug 2007 @ norway
#51
ah yes, 3D. it actually surprised me that i didnt know the iphone packed a 3D chip under the hood. explains the snappy interface people have been raving on about...
 
Mixu is offline Mixu
2008-03-07 , 13:18
Posts: 99 | Thanked: 49 times | Joined on Jan 2007 @ Tampere, Finland
#52
Originally Posted by fms View Post
Funny how you quoted the thread but missed the point: the internal OMAP2 SRAM is still available for video, even although it does not cover the whole screen. MPlayer makes use of it, if I understand things correctly. In other words, given the drivers, you should be perfectly capable of doing 3D in a 640x480 window and place other stuff (like stats or controls) at the sides.
No, I didn't miss the point. I don't consider this to be a good solution. I don't think MID will have this kind of restrictions.
I'm not saying that current NIT hardware is bad. Competition is just getting stronger and I think that devices that offer best user experience out of the box will be the winners. Apple is very good at that and their SDK seems to be on the same track.


Originally Posted by fms View Post
AFAIK, Nokia offers world-wide warranty on its devices. So, it should still be valid.
I have asked this from Nokia Care and response was they they don't offer world-wide warranty.

Originally Posted by fms View Post
Why do you need to increase CPU frequency in the first place? 400MHz is sufficient for purposes N8x0 are designed for. Hell, you can even do 3D gaming at this speed, given the drivers. Increasing CPU clock will drain the battery faster and, with SDRAM access being the main bottleneck in this kind of devices, you may not feel any significant performance increase.

Believe me, with these devices things are not as simple as just increasing the clock rates.
I didn't say it's that easy and that's why I asked about OMAP3. You said that current design could be stretched further.
 
fms is offline fms
2008-03-07 , 13:30
Posts: 1,418 | Thanked: 1,541 times | Joined on Feb 2008
#53
Originally Posted by Mixu View Post
No, I didn't miss the point. I don't consider this to be a good solution. I don't think MID will have this kind of restrictions.
Oh, they will, they definitely will. The only problem is, they won't last through a day with that Silverthorne chip in its current gluttonous state. Also, most MIDs I have seen photos of are larger than N8x0 tablets. So, you will either have to wait for them to get smaller or wear cargo pants with spare batteries in the second pocket.

I have asked this from Nokia Care and response was they they don't offer world-wide warranty.
Too bad

I didn't say it's that easy and that's why I asked about OMAP3. You said that current design could be stretched further.
And I've said so because the current design can be stretched further. Put more SDRAM and rootfs flash in. Make SDRAM bus faster. Add PowerVR, Jazelle, and A2DP support to the firmware. Fix GPS acquisition times. make better use of OMAP2 video buffer. All of these do not require OMAP3.
 
fanoush is offline fanoush
2008-03-07 , 15:15
Posts: 2,152 | Thanked: 1,490 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ Czech Republic
#54
Originally Posted by fms View Post
Funny how you quoted the thread but missed the point
Well the points (in slighty random order) were

- with 'real' framebuffer in main RAM (SDRAM) whole system is slowed down by constant LCD display refresh that fights with any other access to RAM. When they designed 770 someone decided this is too much to bear and they used external LCD controller with its own memory. Same solution is used on PCs, integrated videocards steal RAM cycles from main RAM too, dedicated video cards are preferred for better performance. This solution however makes display updates more complicated as, unlike with PCs, external video RAM is not directly mapped to CPU and cannot be written to easily (and directly). It must be send 'by hand' (you can send specific rectangle of display area).

- OMAP 2 in N8x0 has SRAM good enough for 640x480 which is sadly less than 800x480 our tablets need, so problem is not solved and there is still external chip with its own 800x480 framebuffer. internal 640x480 SRAM is used for additional video plane (why not when we have it) but this does not bring big benefits now as it also needs to be transferred to external chip (together with rest of normal 800x480 framebuffer in SDRAM). I believe there is slight benefit of having this SRAM used now for video and some video scaling or other transformation is done by OMAP display controller but nothing substantial.

- as for 3D - maybe the video plane in SRAM would be a benefit but maybe not, I don't know if the (currently unused) 3D chip can draw to it or must draw to SDRAM and what is performance of both solutions (if both are possible). Maybe it doesn't matter much and this is not the main problem, see below

- you can draw as fast as you can (in 2d or maybe in 3d in future) to internal 'video' RAM (both SRAM and SDRAM) but you won't see it on display until transferred to external chip. This causes problem for fullscreen 800x480 display updates at good FPS rate but is supposedly good enough for 640x480 at ~25 fps so it is not show stopper but ..

- current video system is pretty complex even now so it is not surprise that nobody at Nokia pushed hard for making 3D acceleration working. Even if hardware specs could do it, it is not easy to make it running with current architecture so (IMO) they better spend developer resources elsewhere. Also maybe the licensed 3d solution Nokia could buy would not fit this architecture and customizations would be costly or even impossible. Maybe all this can change if Nokia managers dazzled by iPhone decide to change some priorities but I'm not holding my breath for it :-)

- hopefully with next generation we may fit whole 800x480 (or more) to directly mapped video ram and ditch external chip making the architecture easier to support features like 3D, video out, etc

Not sure if all this gives you some arguments in your iphone vs Maemo SDK discussion though :-)
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sherifnix is offline sherifnix
2008-03-07 , 15:20
Posts: 344 | Thanked: 26 times | Joined on Jan 2007
#55
Lol this thread is pretty derailed.

Everything is so messy on the N800/N810. Weak video support, terrible LCD controller, no PowerVR drivers, bad GPS lock on times, a browser that loses finger/stylus control on sites with javascript. Its just an unfinished and unpolished product even after 3 years of development.

Its very unfortunate, as the idea behind the IT is awesome and something with arguably lesser hardware (iTouch) comes in and makes it look really bad.

Apple took the time to build a proper platform with no video tearing, 3d drivers, awesome scaling webkit engine, PIM syncing, email that works and now an incredible sdk with big name developers. And this is all in ONE year, not three.

I hope Nokia sticks with it. They have the right idea with the easy tethering, big high res screen and open source software... but they are at least another year or two out from really creating an "everyday" product. I'll continue to follow the product line, as it got me interested in the idea of a pocket browser.

For some it sucks that the iPhone SDK is Mac OS X only, but its one of the best I've seen for a mobile platform. I am patiently waiting for an iMac update and I'll definitely be messing around then
Last edited by sherifnix; 2008-03-07 at 15:38.
 
stjuste is offline stjuste
2008-03-07 , 15:36
Posts: 34 | Thanked: 16 times | Joined on Jan 2008
#56
Originally Posted by geneven View Post
That unbelievably cheap data plan still assumes that you bought a very expensive voice plan on top of it, right? I consider anything over $100 a year pretty expensive, since that's about what I pay for my cell phone now.
No, the monthly cost is 60/month and you get 450 minutes with unlimited data and web.

With verizon, it's 40 for voice plan, 60 on top if you want unlimited data.
 
stjuste is offline stjuste
2008-03-07 , 15:39
Posts: 34 | Thanked: 16 times | Joined on Jan 2008
#57
Originally Posted by tso View Post
no pay by traffic amount option built in to your original plan?

this stuff seems to come up a lot when comparing iphone and N8x0.

its making me think that the us mobile operators are working under the assumption that only corp "road warriors" use mobile data connections for anything other then downloading ringtones and phone "wallpapers", and those can be leeched on a bit more...

as in, the iphone isnt on a level playing field as it has a special plan attached to it that gives the owner more, for less. or at least so it appears.
That probably is true. All of at&t's competitors are trying to come up with comparable plans but it's difficult for them to do so. As it is now, the iphone has the best data plan right now. You are limited to using it on the iphone as of now but if that's all you need, why pay an extra premium to have tethering capabilities when you don't use it.
 
stjuste is offline stjuste
2008-03-07 , 15:42
Posts: 34 | Thanked: 16 times | Joined on Jan 2008
#58
Originally Posted by tso View Post
no pay by traffic amount option built in to your original plan?

this stuff seems to come up a lot when comparing iphone and N8x0.

its making me think that the us mobile operators are working under the assumption that only corp "road warriors" use mobile data connections for anything other then downloading ringtones and phone "wallpapers", and those can be leeched on a bit more...

as in, the iphone isnt on a level playing field as it has a special plan attached to it that gives the owner more, for less. or at least so it appears.
Also, the higher cost is because I have wanted to be able to have internet on my tablet at all times (or most of the time like the iphone is capable of depending on your location).
 
tso's Avatar
tso is offline tso
2008-03-07 , 15:56
Posts: 4,783 | Thanked: 1,253 times | Joined on Aug 2007 @ norway
#59
Originally Posted by stjuste View Post
why pay an extra premium to have tethering capabilities when you don't use it.
and thats the part i find so amusing in its difference.

here (norway) tethering do not come at a premium, its just another generator of data traffic thats payed by the megabyte (or you can get a unlimited flat rate option with the ones that have actual networks).
 
anidel's Avatar
anidel is offline anidel
2008-03-07 , 16:38
Posts: 1,743 | Thanked: 1,231 times | Joined on Jul 2006 @ Twickenham, UK
#60
Originally Posted by sherifnix View Post
Apple took the time to build a proper platform with no video tearing, 3d drivers, awesome scaling webkit engine, PIM syncing, email that works and now an incredible sdk with big name developers. And this is all in ONE year, not three.
That's not true.
Everything they have on the iPhone comes from Mac OS X.
They simply just had to fix some issues related to the "embedded" word (better power manager, touch input and so on).
But everything else comes from Mac OS X.
And they are working on Mac OS X more than Nokia on Linux+GTK.
Moreover, they are for sure working, internally, on the iPhone a lot more earlier than one year.
Like they did for Mac OS X on Intel. They said, later, that they were working on it since 2000.
Last, Cocoa stems from Carbon. Carbon comes from NeXT (still Steve, but running a darker company).
Last edited by anidel; 2008-03-07 at 16:39. Reason: typo
 
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