Not getting expected performance on LG V40

[mdav9609]

Hey everyone. I have not been able to find any posts about users reporting any problems specifically with the LG V40 so I wanted to ask here. The V40 has the same processor, GPU, and ram as the Samsung S9 plus. However, I am finding that in all the games I've tested so far ( Twilight princess, wind waker, and Mario sunshine) I am getting atrocious performance. Like 5 to 10 fps most of the time and then suddenly I will get 30 and full speed for a moment or two. I have tweaked every setting and tried various combinations (dual core, single core, override emulated CPU, opengl, vulkan, etc) but all perform roughly the same. I have seen videos of Galaxy S8's running twilight princess flawlessly and they have a less powerful CPU and graphics. I've tried about 30 different builds, some from 2 or 3 years ago all the way up until the latest one available for download with no success. I know my phone performs at expected levels in gaming due to running multiple benchmarks ( antutu, 3dmark, gfxbench, etc.) so I don't think it is an issue with just my phone specifically. I feel like something with LG's software is causing dolphin to run poorly. Can anybody else that has an LG V40 confirm if this is the case? I know I should be able to run at least playable and I can't get there even with no hi res textures and at 1x resolution so either I am just incredibly stupid or there is some kind of software bug with the v40. Any input or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[LG Fanatic]

That IS odd. Hmm, it could be that LG's cpu management is very aggressive with Dolphin? I've had issues with LGs in the past where the cpu & gpu throttling is very aggressive. How does it perform with other emulators like PPSSPP?

[JMC47]

Expecting any performance on Android was your first mistake.

If you want to see what your phone can do, root it, install a different CPU governor, and force yourself to make clock. If your phone overheats though...

[Grey1213]

LG and to some extent Samsung have aggressive thermal management and that lowers performance to keep the device cool. I've heard the Weihouya build doesn't have this issue, but I'm not sure.

[JosJuice]

(01-31-2019, 10:21 PM)Grey1213 Wrote: I've heard the Weihouya build doesn't have this issue, but I'm not sure.

That's not correct. Running a different build of Dolphin doesn't change the thermal management policy. All it can do is try to put the hardware under less of a load.

[mdav9609]

Hey it looks like my previous response didn't show up for some reason. Thanks for all the responses guys. I was thinking about throttling or the governor being the problem too. I can't get any real time monitoring while running the game though to confirm what the actual speeds are. Something like afterburner for android would be awesome. But I did notice the back of my phone doesn't heat up like I would expect it too in dolphin. The last phone I rooted was my note 3 but I might try to root this V40. But I may just hold off until the note 10 comes out and trade this one in early. At any rate, I just installed version 5.0-9429 and surprisingly I am at least getting into the 20s for framerate now more of the time using the exact same settings in opengl. Vulkan still is too crappy though. Still way worse than what I've seen people running on Samsung phones but at least semi playable. This throttling combined with the fact they removed the ability to use usb-c to HDMI output on this phone and the wide angle cameras are less wide than the the v20 makes me regret getting the v40 instead of note 9.

[Nintonito]

(02-02-2019, 02:23 AM)mdav9609 Wrote: Hey it looks like my previous response didn't show up for some reason. Thanks for all the responses guys. I was thinking about throttling or the governor being the problem too. I can't get any real time monitoring while running the game though to confirm what the actual speeds are. Something like afterburner for android would be awesome. But I did notice the back of my phone doesn't heat up like I would expect it too in dolphin. The last phone I rooted was my note 3 but I might try to root this V40. But I may just hold off until the note 10 comes out and trade this one in early. At any rate, I just installed version 5.0-9429 and surprisingly I am at least getting into the 20s for framerate now more of the time using the exact same settings in opengl. Vulkan still is too crappy though. Still way worse than what I've seen people running on Samsung phones but at least semi playable. This throttling combined with the fact they removed the ability to use usb-c to HDMI output on this phone and the wide angle cameras are less wide than the the v20 makes me regret getting the v40 instead of note 9.

LG phones are really bad for even regular games. Firstly because they throttle based o battery temp exclusively which is extremely conservative and inaccurate because simply using your phone in a hot room is enough to trigger total throttling even when idle. Secondly because since the G5 or so they use this weird CPU throttling mechanisms that just compacts the available CPU resources for extended tasks that don’t meet a seemingly arbitrary set of conditions (people on xda with the V29 and G6 reported CPU’s speeds being throttled down to 600mhz after a set time limit in games, some popular even).

TLR don’t buy LG phones for gaming of any kind, no matter what their advertisements claim.

[Jason56787]

I have the same issue on LG g7 thinQ it likes to slow down allot. But after I mess with the settings it seems to be ok.