Build Variation and Benchmark

[Aftershocker]

Hi Guys,

I know there can be a large variation between the speed of the various buildbot builds. Has anyone come up with a reliable (or quick and dirty) way of testing them?  Can we use the original Wind Waker benchmark?  I'm currently using build  7636 just because that's the one I've stumbled on that works well for me on the Sheild TV, but having seen some Youtube clips I'm guessing there are faster still builds out there.

[MayImilae]

The development builds are the fastest builds yet, especially on android!

If those youtube videos are getting better performance than you are, they are most likely using desktop dolphin running on desktop class hardware. Speaking of which, that i7-4790K and GTX 980 would run Dolphin greeeeat!

[Aftershocker]

The development builds are the fastest builds yet, especially on android!

If those youtube videos are getting better performance than you are, they are most likely using desktop dolphin running on desktop class hardware. Speaking of which, that i7-4790K and GTX 980 would run Dolphin greeeeat!

Yes I'm already using the android development builds, and the ones I'm comparing to are running on the same hardware.  There can be a lot of variation between builds though. In the space of a week some builds went from 45fps in Double Dash down to 30fps and then back up to 55fps. I'm not complaining I realize that is the nature of alpha builds.  I've settled on build 7666 for now and will just test a new build every week.

Been playing dolphin on the PC for years, but I'm currently enjoying playing a few games natively on the Sheild TV. I spent most of last weekend playing Wind Waker on it which the mrs wasn't extatic about :-)

[degasus]

you should try:
adb shell setprop persist.tegra.OGL_ThreadControl 0x01

and also forcing the GPU to be in high performance mode.

But only some games will improve because of this changes.

[Aftershocker]

you should try:
  adb shell setprop persist.tegra.OGL_ThreadControl 0x01

and also forcing the GPU to be in high performance mode.

But only some games will improve because of this changes.

Can I just ask ask what the adb command does? I'm assuming it will persist until you reboot, even after the device goes into sleep mode?

I have my GPU set to be in high performance mode in settings, is that sufficient or do I need to do something else as well?  

Presumably with root we could change some governor settings to something like "performance" to lock all the cores at the max frequency?

Thanks for taking the time to reply

[Sonicadvance1]

That is a persistent setting that sticks around even after reboot. This enables the Nvidia driver to run on a secondary thread, as similar to what it does in Windows.
Linux/Android this has to be enabled manually since it may cause issues randomly.
Setting the option of high performance mode in the settings isn't enough to force the GPU in to a high performance rendering mode. You've actually got to manually disable GPU clock scaling, otherwise the GPU will only run ~200Mhz instead of its full 1Ghz.

[Aftershocker]

That is a persistent setting that sticks around even after reboot. This enables the Nvidia driver to run on a secondary thread, as similar to what it does in Windows.
Linux/Android this has to be enabled manually since it may cause issues randomly.
Setting the option of high performance mode in the settings isn't enough to force the GPU in to a high performance rendering mode. You've actually got to manually disable GPU clock scaling, otherwise the GPU will only run ~200Mhz instead of its full 1Ghz.

I'm learning new things today. I actually was playing around with some settings in a sideloaded Trickster Mod app and I locked the CPU cores to the max frequency and set the governor to performance. It didn't make difference to performance actually but it was worth a try :-) Is there an additional command to disable GPU scaling and if so is it also persistent also?

I've also been using a floating system monitor app to get a better feel for what's going on during the emulation. 

[Aftershocker]

you should try:
  adb shell setprop persist.tegra.OGL_ThreadControl 0x01

and also forcing the GPU to be in high performance mode.

But only some games will improve because of this changes.

That is a persistent setting that sticks around even after reboot. This enables the Nvidia driver to run on a secondary thread, as similar to what it does in Windows.
Linux/Android this has to be enabled manually since it may cause issues randomly.
Setting the option of high performance mode in the settings isn't enough to force the GPU in to a high performance rendering mode. You've actually got to manually disable GPU clock scaling, otherwise the GPU will only run ~200Mhz instead of its full 1Ghz.

Sorry to bump the the thread guys, but is there an additional setting to run to boost the GPU into high performance rendering mode.

Goes without saying I will in no way hold you responsible for the longevity, or lack thereof of the device. 

[mrpj]

Hey guys,

I am just wondering if using the adb command made a difference?

Code:

adb shell setprop persist.tegra.OGL_ThreadControl 0x01

I have been searching all known resources to find information on this but havent so far.
Also wondering if anyone succeeded with forcing the gpu into a certain clock speed or even overclocking the shield?

Any help appreciated - and yes I know that this might brick/destroy the device, I am willing to toy around and try

[Sonicadvance1]

It definitely does make a difference in performance.
I force the clockspeed of the device to the max constantly.
This ADB command can't physically brick the device, and actually it is a bit wrong since it needs to run as root.
Something like this.
adb shell su -c "setprop persist.tegra.OGL_ThreadControl 0x01"