But have you used a samsung phone? They're filled with so much shit that they're practically unusable. Entire homescreen pages filled with unmovable widgets that are basically full screen ads for samsung, basic settings hidden under 4 layers of "helpful" categorization, and factory-installed apps that you've never even used nagging you to register them every 30 minutes. Instead of feeling like using a phone it feels like trying to navigate a porn site without a pop-up blocker.
Have the nexus 9's OpenGL limitations been fixed in android 5.1?
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05-13-2015, 11:08 AM
(05-13-2015, 10:44 AM)tueidj Wrote: But have you used a samsung phone? They're filled with so much shit that they're practically unusable. Entire homescreen pages filled with unmovable widgets that are basically full screen ads for samsung, basic settings hidden under 4 layers of "helpful" categorization, and factory-installed apps that you've never even used nagging you to register them every 30 minutes. Instead of feeling like using a phone it feels like trying to navigate a porn site without a pop-up blocker.I think you might have jumped the gun there. At no point did I say "hey bloating the crap out of core android software is totally awesome". When did I say I support samsuns's methods? I'm simply suggesting that Google should customize nexus builds a bit. Pure android is what AOSP is supposed to be, so why not ship tweaked builds on these shipping devices. I never said Google should start overloading android. You are putting words into my mouth saying that I recommend Samsung or some stupid crap. Imm suggesting that Google should start treating nexus as something akin to Motorola type stock builds (or GPE phones for that matter). Stock android, but with necessary third party modification to provide an optimal software. I never said touchwiz, and I certainly don't endorse it. 05-13-2015, 12:55 PM
(05-13-2015, 11:08 AM)Nintonito Wrote: I never said Google should start overloading android. You are putting words into my mouth Quote:Stock android, but with necessary third party modification to provide an optimal software. I don't need to put the words there... The point of nexus devices has always been that they don't have any extra crap. If that's what you want, get something else. Don't buy a device that uses unmodified AOSP builds and then complain because it's unmodified AOSP. 05-14-2015, 01:30 AM
(05-13-2015, 09:24 AM)Nintonito Wrote:(05-13-2015, 08:11 AM)agrabren Wrote: Google does not seem all that interested in a full OpenGL stack. If they were to provide it on the N9, how would they support it on the other Nexus devices which don't offer full OpenGL? Now, they'd be stuck with the Nexus 9 offering support, but likely whatever the next Nexus tablet is not offering it. Yes, notice the 2012 N7 was a Tegra processor, and the 2013 wasn't. 05-14-2015, 01:36 AM
(05-13-2015, 12:55 PM)tueidj Wrote:(05-13-2015, 11:08 AM)Nintonito Wrote: I never said Google should start overloading android. You are putting words into my mouthQuote:Stock android, but with necessary third party modification to provide an optimal software. The problem is, Nintonito is right. It's one thing to bloat devices, but there *are* optimizations for each SoC. Different SoC processors can perform different operations better than others. Tegra is definitely a more powerful graphics processor, but may not be the fastest SoC CPU available. You're better leaning on the graphics when possible, even using the full OpenGL stack or even OpenCV. Android was written for devices that didn't even *have* a GPU. Hardware graphics support is an add-on. So there are places in the AOSP code that can be optimized by leaning on the GPU more, which reduces heat, power, and battery drain. But that's not the AOSP way, hence the Nexus devices being sub-optimal for a particular architecture. Jack of all trades, master of none.
The only android device that never had OpenGL compatible hardware was the G1 (unless you want to count things like the android-x86 project).
The entire graphics stack in Android has been dependent on OpenGL+hardware since Jelly Bean. Saying "hardware graphics support is an add-on" is completely wrong. 05-14-2015, 12:10 PM
(05-14-2015, 08:40 AM)tueidj Wrote: The only android device that never had OpenGL compatible hardware was the G1 (unless you want to count things like the android-x86 project). Actually, even the HTC EVO 4G (original) did not make use of GPU capabilities. And saying they've been dependent on it since Jelly Bean is both incorrect (it was Honeycomb when the first GPU-accelerated AOSP logic went in) and actually proving my point. When the original versions of Android came out, they relied exclusively on software rendering. And so the entire frameworks architecture was designed around that. If you're trying to claim that Google rewrote the entire OS just to make EGL a well-thought design decision, the AOSP git history disagrees with you. While Google has been trying their best to improve everything, using GPU processing whenever possible, this was *not* a design decision from the beginning with an OS designed for it. It's an OS designed around software rendering which was later retrofitted with GPU support and an ever-increasing move toward full hardware acceleration. And there is also a big difference between OpenGL-ES and full stack OpenGL. And Android had *never* depended on more than the GLES stack, with the exception of dedicated APIs used by the HWC, which is outside the scope of graphics stacks, as it's inaccessible to apps. 05-14-2015, 01:39 PM
So we've gone from "Android was written for devices that didn't even have a gpu" to "Android uses GPU processing whenever possible", but that's not good enough because it didn't do it from the beginning - when devices didn't support it. And apparently the AEP doesn't exist because Android never uses anything beyond standard GLES.
Whatever your point was, I've lost it trying to follow your incoherent arguments. (05-14-2015, 01:39 PM)tueidj Wrote: So we've gone from "Android was written for devices that didn't even have a gpu" to "Android uses GPU processing whenever possible", but that's not good enough because it didn't do it from the beginning - when devices didn't support it. And apparently the AEP doesn't exist because Android never uses anything beyond standard GLES. Sorry, let me try to be clearer. My comment was that Google has been *trying* to use GPU processing whenever possible. Since they didn't start with an architecture that separated rendering from other logic, this has meant that many older parts of the architecture that don't get modified much haven't gotten GPU acceleration. And when they started adding real support, they were nervous about it breaking older apps which relied on the software rendering timing that they kept GPU acceleration disabled by default. These actions speak volumes about their experience in GPU development. Is it getting better? Yes. Is it where we would all like it to be? No. Further, the addition of AEP was to solve a handful of Google needs. They pick and choose which graphics APIs *they* need, and require support for them. It's incremental improvements instead of just requiring the full OpenGL stack. The Nexus 9 is fully capable of running full OpenGL, but Google has made the decision to prohibit it. The Nexus 9 is fully compatible with optimizations to AOSP which would improve performance and battery life for the embedded SoC, but again, Google prohibits it. This is the heart of the problem with pure AOSP, it's a jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none. They're trying to optimize for two different SoCs, a 32-bit and a 64-bit, from two different manufacturers, using the exact same code. You get the sum of all their limitations, not the pinnacle of each. |
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