Monday, May 14, 2012

Android phone: Performance & Gaming Guide

Because many are asking about the "performance of android mobile phones", especially gaming, I'll try to make a brief introduction about the aspects that affect the "performance of an Android phone". This post is not intended to make you a 'hero' "Android phone hardware", but just so guide you in reading the spec phone, and match it to your needs.

"Performance of an Android phone" is influenced by three things: CPU, GPU, and RAM.
 

CPU
CPU is responsible as the "brains" of the major mobile phones, process instructions / orders of the application.

CPU performance is affected by: (or, in other words, what you need to consider if you're reading the spec phones)

1. Clock speed (in MHz or GHz) - the faster clock speed was, "more and more" instructions that can be done.

2. Technology (recorded as a processor brand (Scorpion, OMAP) or a brand chipset (OMAP, Qualcomm / Snapdragon, Hummingbird, etc.)) - A great technology that will be more efficient in the number of instructions. The most striking example: Qualcomm 800MHz performance, the new can be considered equivalent to the old 1GHz Qualcomm.
In addition to the efficiency of power consumption levels as well, which found its way into his wasteful batteries.

Unfortunately I know about the order of performance between the brands, because there are a variety of information as well. A clear distinction between TI OMAP, Hummingbird, and Qualcomm (new), you do not need to worry, because its performance nearly equal.

3. Number of cores - the more cores, the more the number of instructions (threads) that can be done at once.

Because the difference is in working together dual core / well, then the effect of presence / absence "dual-core mobile performance in" depends also on the number of applications that you want to multitask, and on whether your applications are programmed specifically for multicore (programmed with multithreading).

CPU affects performance:
1. How smooth user interface / home screen
2. How smooth running applications (including games) on the outside of the 3D aspect. Games that do not use 3D, but a lot of calculations (for example: Angry Birds), more CPU than GPU affected.

GPU
GPU can be regarded as a special brain, which works instructions associated with graphic / display.

GPU performance is affected:
1. Fill rate: how quickly he can "draw" to the screen. How much / fast fill rate required depends on the number of screen pixels, frame rate (defaults to 60 fps, CMIIW), the number of colors and transparency.
2. Poly / sec: how fast it can process instructions and issued a "3D model" as a result. How much / fast is required, depending on how complicated / advanced / realistic 3D applications that you wish to run.
3. TBR: TBR if the GPU has a feature, then it will process only the visible objects only, which are not visible will not be processed, making it more efficient.

Because only a few types of GPU on the market, I can direct you list is only:
1. Adreno 200: GPU the most basic mobile phones in circulation today.
FR: 133m - P / S: 22m - No TBR

2. SGX530: GPU that "its 3D capabilities" under Adreno 200, but more efficient (with TBR) and better at handling the phones screen width (or number of colors a lot), so that in practice it is more superior than the Adreno 200.
FR: 500M - P / S: 14M - with TBR

3. Adreno 205: GPU high-end of the line Adreno. Specific data is not there unfortunately, but I read and read said its performance is comparable to SGX535 (not used in Android, the iPhone 3G only), with poly / sec fill rate is good but (still) relatively low compared to the SGX series.

4. SGX540: The most powerful GPU at 1GHz single-core era.
FR: 1G - P / S: 28m - with TBR

GPU performance affect:
1. How smooth 3D applications (including games)
2. How smooth application that uses the 3D accelerator (although there is no aspect of its 3D)

RAM
If the CPU (and GPU) is like someone who was working behind the counter, then the RAM can be compared with the size of his desk. The larger the table, then the more work he could face at once, without having to open the cabinet. Alternatively, the greater the paper that he could deal with or are working on.

If the table is too small, then certain jobs will not be handled because the paper was too big.
If the table is too small, then must often commute to the cabinet to swap between the papers at hand and is being stored.

RAM is measured by its size alone (MB or GB).

RAM size affects:
1. How many multitasking applications that can be smoothly without the slightest need to swap memory
2. Applications (large) what can be executed
3. Performance of the phone with a lot of "running background services or apps". Applications that do X every Y minutes (egg: sync), or do X if Z occurs (for example: to reject calls from certain numbers), it will remain running in the background apps.

Conclusion / Summary
For those of you who ask for phone performance, especially for gaming, it seems necessary to clarify again: for what performance? Gaming is like what? Your will be a lot of multitasking or not?

If it will not run applications that use 3D, the GPU does not need too much attention. Even "Adreno 200" in the Galaxy Ace is enough to run the game quite a sophisticated (you try to check on You tube).

If it will not multitasking, then do not need a large RAM (512 is more than enough in my opinion). And if it’s not heavy multitasking (and for not a lot of multithreaded applications are programmed in), dual core processor performance will not change drastically.

If you want a smooth user interface, it is necessary to consider a combination of a processor with a screen size & number of colors (because the Android UI was unfortunately not 3D-accelerated).

So now you already know about how to choose the performance of mobile phones (android in particular) for the game

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