NVIDIA Tegra Architecture

You are right. I was in a hurry reading that, apologies for confusion :oops:

No problem. By the way, as mentioned earlier, I do agree with Fudo that the Snapdragon S4 Pro would be a good choice for a Nexus 7.7, positioned above the Nexus 7 and positioned below the Nexus 10. Tegra 4 is not even ready yet, and would be out of place in the current Nexus lineup if used in a 7.7 tablet variant.
 
There's a huge difference between a MP8 Mali450 (I meant) and a MP8 MaliT678 which you meant.

Fair enough but if you look at at least one of my posts I suggested a variant like that (didnt know the correct nomenclature :) )

Still it does seem that my original doom and gloom about sgx being series 5 octa is likely unfounded...with newly added extensions and more drivers theres plenty of life in the old dog yet :)

Edit: on a more general note..this was one of the first threads that I put up..and im quite astonished by the feedback on it...thanks folks :)
 
Its more advanced api wise (slightly) ...im sure its a higher performance? (Slightly) and its still on early release drivers..

Nexus4 and iPhone5 appeared on shelves more or less at the same timeframe. Both side's drivers should be more or less of the same age and since I can sense the reply already you better should double check if the iPhone5 GPU driver is unique or the same between a number of devices.

Although iphone 5 can be considered a real rival for top spot...in android devices nothing comes close :)

No matter what you want to consider it, iPhones are one single device selling with an insane profit margin, exactly because it's as expensive as it is. The Nexus4 sold something 1Mio devices up to now afaik; how many iPhone5 sets since it's introduction? It might not sound relevant to the above, but:

1.) Performance per se is not always the most defining factor as long as the difference is as close at it is in that case.

2.) The Adreno320 is by a margin faster in GL2.5, it's not in 2.1, not in effective fillrates, not in geometry throughput etc. according to the results here: http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare.jsp?D1=Apple+iPhone+5&D2=Google+Nexus+4&cols=2

3.) Are all Adreno320 smartphones performing on the same level as the Nexus4? I don't think so: http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare.jsp?D1=HTC+Butterfly&D2=Apple+iPhone+5&cols=2 How about about those Adreno320 cases where the performance is even way below 3k frames?

After some point it starts getting silly debating the same things all over again and despite that am I documenting my claims you're not willing to move a single inch from your conception. Now I'll lean out of the window and claim that Apple could if they wanted to to surpass through perfectly legitimate driver optimisations by a healthy margin even the Nexus4. What is not guaranteed in such a case is that the iPhone5 will have the same GPU and in extension device stability as it has right now.

Given that the Nexus4 poses on top of all 320 powered smartphones but comes with thermal throttling problems (which as I noted I'm not willing to generalize over all S4/Adreno320 device implementations until further data is known) but if a serious website like Anand mentions "freezer" in its benchmark results for the Nexus4 and has mentioned in detail a throttling problem that affects that particular device (and probably to some extend the LG Optimus G) I wouldn't get so stuck in your place on that result, but would try to think of the most stable device/platform behaviour with a Adreno320 GPU and then make performance comparisons.
 
Fair enough but if you look at at least one of my posts I suggested a variant like that (didnt know the correct nomenclature :) )

8 cluster Mali450 is OGL_ES2.0; practically just a Mali400MP4 times 2.

Still it does seem that my original doom and gloom about sgx being series 5 octa is likely unfounded...with newly added extensions and more drivers theres plenty of life in the old dog yet :)

Developers can have fun even on that one developing mobile games for the future which likely will played on such devices in extreme low quantities in the future and probably at equally crapalicious performance as on today's Adreno320 smartphones.

Edit: on a more general note..this was one of the first threads that I put up..and im quite astonished by the feedback on it...thanks folks :)

All of us learn something every day :)
 
Nexus4 and iPhone5 appeared on shelves more or less at the same timeframe. Both side's drivers should be more or less of the same age and since I can sense the reply already you better should double check if the iPhone5 GPU driver is unique or the same between a number of devices.



No matter what you want to consider it, iPhones are one single device selling with an insane profit margin, exactly because it's as expensive as it is. The Nexus4 sold something 1Mio devices up to now afaik; how many iPhone5 sets since it's introduction? It might not sound relevant to the above, but:

1.) Performance per se is not always the most defining factor as long as the difference is as close at it is in that case.

2.) The Adreno320 is by a margin faster in GL2.5, it's not in 2.1, not in effective fillrates, not in geometry throughput etc. according to the results here: http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare.jsp?D1=Apple+iPhone+5&D2=Google+Nexus+4&cols=2

3.) Are all Adreno320 smartphones performing on the same level as the Nexus4? I don't think so: http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare.jsp?D1=HTC+Butterfly&D2=Apple+iPhone+5&cols=2 How about about those Adreno320 cases where the performance is even way below 3k frames?

After some point it starts getting silly debating the same things all over again and despite that am I documenting my claims you're not willing to move a single inch from your conception. Now I'll lean out of the window and claim that Apple could if they wanted to to surpass through perfectly legitimate driver optimisations by a healthy margin even the Nexus4. What is not guaranteed in such a case is that the iPhone5 will have the same GPU and in extension device stability as it has right now.

Given that the Nexus4 poses on top of all 320 powered smartphones but comes with thermal throttling problems (which as I noted I'm not willing to generalize over all S4/Adreno320 device implementations until further data is known) but if a serious website like Anand mentions "freezer" in its benchmark results for the Nexus4 and has mentioned in detail a throttling problem that affects that particular device (and probably to some extend the LG Optimus G) I wouldn't get so stuck in your place on that result, but would try to think of the most stable device/platform behaviour with a Adreno320 GPU and then make performance comparisons.

Ok point taken..I still stand by my claims :) but we await anandtechs take on droid dna before jumping for the stars.

I dont want to rehash old ground again also...but I still do feel there is some grounds for pessimism on adreno compilers..and good drivers to make up for it...who knows whether that carried over to new gen or not...time will tell.
 
Looking at the best results on glbenchmark is a bit misleading IMO. Nexus 4 scores 33,7 fps at its best but the average result drops down to 26 fps

whereas the iphone 5 scores 29 fps but the average score is still very close at 28 fps

And comparing to the other Adreno 320 phones that are all scoring somewhere between 29-31 fps, it puts Adreno 320 neck to neck with SGX543MP3. The difference is that the latter is clocked much lower, we will see what happens when Samsung releases series 5 chip that is clocked closer to the competition
 
And comparing to the other Adreno 320 phones that are all scoring somewhere between 29-31 fps, it puts Adreno 320 neck to neck with SGX543MP3. The difference is that the latter is clocked much lower, we will see what happens when Samsung releases series 5 chip that is clocked closer to the competition

According to the leaked Qualcomm slide (http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1700375&postcount=308), the Adreno 320 GPU used in the S4 Pro SoC has a GPU clock operating frequency of 400 MHz. The SGX 543MP3 GPU used in the A6 SoC should have a GPU clock operating frequency of at least 325 MHz (and possibly even higher than that). So the differences in clock speed between these two GPU's is significant but not so huge.
 
Besides I dont see how clock speed is relevant here?...they are 2 different uarchs how can we start saying 'well if this had this clock or this had this clock' the phones and soc have already been released...so we take it at those clocks...this isn't between imagination vs qualcomm adreno...

The only thing you can say after release that may affect performance ..imho is drivers...but that depends on who you talk to :)..

They are both neck and neck..with iphone 5 better on open gl es 2.1 and adreno slightly better on 2.5.

Once both have had another round of driver updates which seem to be incoming from both gpu manufacturers then we will likely have a better idea..although wouldnt be suprised to see them dead level again :)

I only say adreno 320 because I feel (not everyone granted :)) that they newer slightly more advanced api of the adreno..along with the newer uarch means more might be able to be extracted from it...my opinion only.

Edit; to clarify what im saying..obviously to everyone here is things such as power consumption and heat/yeilds also play a part on gpu design and final clocks...so we cant just say one soc isnt performing properly because it isnt clocked quite as high as a competing soc with a completely different uarch and likely execution units...just saying.
 
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According to the leaked Qualcomm slide (http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1700375&postcount=308), the Adreno 320 GPU used in the S4 Pro SoC has a GPU clock operating frequency of 400 MHz. The SGX 543MP3 GPU used in the A6 SoC should have a GPU clock operating frequency of at least 325 MHz (and possibly even higher than that). So the differences in clock speed between these two GPU's is significant but not so huge.

Hmm i must have missed this. I was under the assumption that it was clocked at 267 MHz based on Anandtechs preview
 
Hmm i must have missed this. I was under the assumption that it was clocked at 267 MHz based on Anandtechs preview

Yeah, I think that Anandtech's guess in the iphone 5 preview was wrong. The GLBenchmark 2.5 data on iphone 5 vs. ipad 3, the GFLOP throughput comparison on iphone 5 vs. ipad 3, the CPU-to-GPU clock ratio comparison in past Apple i-devices, all point to a GPU clock operating frequency that is at least 325MHz for the iphone 5 GPU.
 
The adreno 320 doesnt struggle with gl benchmark john..see above.
You really think that ~30fps on GLBench2.5 isn't struggling?
Im buying into any arm marketing "bullshit"..
Not wanting to dwell on this, but you did quote ARM marketing bullshit about GPU CPU integration...
I mearly stating that all current games can run smooth on an Adreno 205/sgx 540 class of hardware...we are well beyond that perfomance now...
ALL games or just "generic" mobile content that is written for the lowest common (performance) denominator?
like i said, if all games can run on smarphones with those gpus...whay couldnt there be in game options to enable more features and IQ?? Of course there can be.
Yes agree, and the first thing you need for this, before throwing esoteric features at the problem, is performance, this is particularly true within an extremely limited power budget.
On your point about sgx 5 series enabling extentions that take it near parity with halti..your right..ive just read an article that also states this...so perhaps 5 series is still a good option.

;-)
 
You really think that ~30fps on GLBench2.5 isn't struggling?

Not wanting to dwell on this, but you did quote ARM marketing bullshit about GPU CPU integration...

ALL games or just "generic" mobile content that is written for the lowest common (performance) denominator?

Yes agree, and the first thing you need for this, before throwing esoteric features at the problem, is performance, this is particularly true within an extremely limited power budget.


;-)

John with respect..we seem to be going back over the same ground....on one hand you agree there is perfomance to spare with last gen hardware on current games, on the other you keep saying "we need performance before IQ/features" ?

We both agree there is obviously performance headroom even with last gen adreno 220/sgx 543 class hardware on smartphones...obviously when talking about smartphones we can only be referring to generic lowest denominator type games such as the ones described. .aka gta, mc4 etc....soo with that being said....it is not out of the stratosphere to extrapolate that up to next generation and expecting more IQ and features is it not??

You keep saying "we need performance first,"..yea as stated we already have it with old hardware...with next generation hardware performance disparity with available software is going to be massive if we carry on as we are.

There is clearly room for more IQ at smartphone resolutions using next gen hardware.

Edit..just to clarify I have already outlined the scenario I think we will hit (and already have in alot of cases) where games will be built with options to scale to any smartphone hardware of say 2 years or so...that takes out the lowest doniminator scenario....studios can develop like pc for multiple soc/ performace/resolutions with minimal cost.
 
Edit..just to clarify I have already outlined the scenario I think we will hit (and already have in alot of cases) where games will be built with options to scale to any smartphone hardware of say 2 years or so...that takes out the lowest doniminator scenario....studios can develop like pc for multiple soc/ performace/resolutions with minimal cost.
Wait, are you saying that current mobile games don't scale graphics settings based on the hardware that's available? Just because they don't reveal those settings to the user doesn't mean they aren't present and being used by the developer to optimize for each device. GTA III/VC enables higher polygon models, textures, lighting effects on A5/A6 Apple devices compared to A4 devices. The Android version, of course, gets a full user configurable graphics settings menu. Infinity Blade I/II optimizes different combinations of overall display resolution, texture quality, anti-aliasing, and shaders to make the most out of each supported device. Real Racing 2, NOVA 3, Modern Combat 4, etc similarly have differing graphical quality depending on device.

For games where graphics are important and have the development budget for it, developers have been able to scale to take advantage of both high-end and low-end devices. I just don't see Infinity Blade II, for example, as having left a lot of performance on the table on A5 devices, which had the fastest GPU available when the game was in development, even though it also supports the much weaker iPhone 3GS GPU. If the A5 was being underutilized, accommodating the Retina iPad wouldn't have been such an issue for games. Admittedly, developers hard optimizing settings for each device is easier for iOS where there are fewer devices than Android where a few generalized performance classes are probably used. User configurable options would make sense for Android so users can further tweak things for their specific device when the developer hasn't been able to.
 
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Ok point taken..I still stand by my claims :) but we await anandtechs take on droid dna before jumping for the stars.

Up to 40% thermal throttling isn't something to sneeze over: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6440/google-nexus-4-review/3 In GL2.5 offscreen 1080p it's at 18.5 fps vs. 30.5 fps in the "freezer". Now am I not jumping to any conclusions yet because the issue hasn't been revisited ever since and yes crap happens even in best families, but with such details at hand I'd be a bit more cautious in your place with performance claims, especially if anyone can run singled out tests in GLB and submit them. The real question would be how it looks like in real world mobile games and first above all if the problem has been rectified on Nexus4 devices in the meantime.

I dont want to rehash old ground again also...but I still do feel there is some grounds for pessimism on adreno compilers..and good drivers to make up for it...who knows whether that carried over to new gen or not...time will tell.

According to Qualcomm's own roadmap it sounds like the same amount of units for Adreno330 vs. 320 (at least it's the same amount of TMUs for sure - 8 for both). Given that according to that data the 330 is clocked at 450MHz and the 320 at 400MHz and they claim the 320 is 23x Adreno200, while 330= 30x Adreno330, there's a 30% claimed difference between the two. The frequency difference is at 11%, meaning that assuming perfect performance scaling with frequency gives you another 19% which would come hypothetically from some hw improvements + obviously quite a bit higher SoC bandwidth. If there are driver/compiler improvements down the line (more than likely) those could under normal conditions affect not only 3xx class Adrenos, meaning that in such a case the 30% claimed performance difference between 320 and 330 won't change much if at all.
 
Besides I dont see how clock speed is relevant here?...they are 2 different uarchs how can we start saying 'well if this had this clock or this had this clock' the phones and soc have already been released...so we take it at those clocks...this isn't between imagination vs qualcomm adreno...

The only thing you can say after release that may affect performance ..imho is drivers...but that depends on who you talk to :)..

They are both neck and neck..with iphone 5 better on open gl es 2.1 and adreno slightly better on 2.5.

Once both have had another round of driver updates which seem to be incoming from both gpu manufacturers then we will likely have a better idea..although wouldnt be suprised to see them dead level again :)

I only say adreno 320 because I feel (not everyone granted :)) that they newer slightly more advanced api of the adreno..along with the newer uarch means more might be able to be extracted from it...my opinion only.

Edit; to clarify what im saying..obviously to everyone here is things such as power consumption and heat/yeilds also play a part on gpu design and final clocks...so we cant just say one soc isnt performing properly because it isnt clocked quite as high as a competing soc with a completely different uarch and likely execution units...just saying.
http://withimagination.imgtec.com/i...taking-texture-compression-to-a-new-dimension

One aspect of how well Series 5XT fairs against the Adreno 320 is quality of texture formats. Imagination seems quite confident that PVRTC2 provides superior quality/size compared to ETC2/EAC and other image formats. The Amazon Fire HD 8.9 has PVRTC2 driver support although I don't know if any games use it yet. I'm not sure if ETC2 is in shipping devices drivers yet as an OGL ES 2.0 extension while we wait for OGL ES 3.0 drivers.
 
To bounce back a wee bit more on topic: if Fudo is right and NV has been set back with T4 hw due to a spin for two quarters I truly wonder if their expectation of having the fastest tablet SoC for this year will hold up to reality.
 
John with respect..we seem to be going back over the same ground....on one hand you agree there is perfomance to spare with last gen hardware on current games, on the other you keep saying "we need performance before IQ/features" ?
Firstly, at no point have I said there is performance to spare on current hardware, that's your claim. I have specifically stated that current generation mobile GPU's stuggle with _demanding_ content, e.g. ~30fps on glbench2.5 IS struggling, not that GLB2.5 is particularly strenuous by modern standards.

Secondly I have specifically equated performance to IQ i.e. more peformance = better IQ, at no point have I said we need performance before IQ.

I think the key difference is that you seem to have exclusely couple IQ to features, I'm pointing out that IQ is more related to performance at this time.

We both agree there is obviously performance headroom even with last gen adreno 220/sgx 543 class hardware on smartphones...obviously when talking about smartphones we can only be referring to generic lowest denominator type games such as the ones described. .aka gta, mc4 etc....soo with that being said....it is not out of the stratosphere to extrapolate that up to next generation and expecting more IQ and features is it not??
No. We agree that titles written for lowest common denominator could have IQ improvements if optimimised for higher performance platforms. However those IQ improvements will still primarily be capped by performance not features.

You keep saying "we need performance first,"..yea as stated we already have it with old hardware...with next generation hardware performance disparity with available software is going to be massive if we carry on as we are.
No, I've repeatedly pointed out that old hardware does not have the scope to run _demanding_ content, as is clearly illustrated by GLBench2.5. However yes, the disparity between low and high end is likely to grow in the near term and of course, adding extra features at the high end would only make that disparity worse.
There is clearly room for more IQ at smartphone resolutions using next gen hardware.
Obviously.
 
John, I think french toast needs a real-world example where the limitation is clearly performance rather than features. Here's the most perfect example I can think of: The Witcher 2. It's still fully a DX9 game (which looks better than many DX10 and even DX11 games). SGX544/SGX554 are fully DX9 compliant.

Therefore, the only limitation for SGX544 to run The Witcher 2 at maximum quality settings is performance and nothing else. Now tell me honestly that this doesn't look many generations ahead of anything you've ever seen on a handheld:

http://assets1.ignimgs.com/2012/03/...nhanced-edition-20120308095456731-3611513.jpg
http://www.geforce.com/Active/en_US...s/TheWitcher2AssassinsOfKings-05042011-06.jpg
http://www.geforce.com/Active/en_US...s/TheWitcher2AssassinsOfKings-05042011-03.jpg
http://www.geforce.com/Active/en_US...s/TheWitcher2AssassinsOfKings-05042011-08.jpg

As I said, there's nothing that prevents SGX544 from running this except performance. Now that's not quite true for OpenGL ES2.0 in general; you do need MRT support for deferred rendering among many other things, but SGX will support all of these features and Khronos is widely expected to standardise a significant number of OpenGL ES3.0 features into standard extensions that multiple vendors will support.

Yes, there are features in DX10/DX11 (some of which are in ES3; many of which are not) which would allow The Witcher 2 to run faster/more efficiently on the same hardware. But they also cost area/power to implement so the increase in perf/watt might not be as large as you'd expect it to be. And I would describe ES3 as a very evolutionary API, its main advantage is that it standardises many extensions that have existed on some hardware for many years.

If you look at Battlefield 3, it makes very good use of tesselation, but there's only one real reason why it's a DX11-only game: DirectCompute shaders which they use for their excellent deferred rendering implementation. OpenGL 4.2 now includes compute shaders inside the API rather than requiring the developer to use OpenCL (and all the problems that can cause) but unfortunately that's not the case in OGL ES3.0 yet. Personally I completely agree with the idea that graphics is the killer app for compute, but unfortunately handhelds are not ready for it either in terms of API support or architecture (too many incompatible optimisations for different architectures e.g. shared/local memory bank conflicts). That's a much bigger problem than ES2 vs ES3 support in my opinion.

P.S.: On a separate note, please let me know when any handheld game is anywhere as awesome as TW2. Except for some adventure game ports, I haven't seen any good story-based game, and nothing as immersive (possibly because handheld games are more optimised towards shorter gameplay sessions).
 
If you look at Battlefield 3, it makes very good use of tesselation, but there's only one real reason why it's a DX11-only game: DirectCompute shaders which they use for their excellent deferred rendering implementation. OpenGL 4.2 now includes compute shaders inside the API rather than requiring the developer to use OpenCL (and all the problems that can cause) but unfortunately that's not the case in OGL ES3.0 yet. Personally I completely agree with the idea that graphics is the killer app for compute, but unfortunately handhelds are not ready for it either in terms of API support or architecture (too many incompatible optimisations for different architectures e.g. shared/local memory bank conflicts). That's a much bigger problem than ES2 vs ES3 support in my opinion.

P.S.: On a separate note, please let me know when any handheld game is anywhere as awesome as TW2. Except for some adventure game ports, I haven't seen any good story-based game, and nothing as immersive (possibly because handheld games are more optimised towards shorter gameplay sessions).
Battlefield 3 does support DX10 GPUs. I thought therefore DirectCompute was optional rather than falling back to Compute Shader 4.x?

I believe compute shaders were integrated in OpenGL 4.3 not 4.2.

Besides graphical/performance limitations and the naturally shorter gameplay sessions of mobile the other issue is going to be development budget impeding development of very immersive mobile games. I don't think even big developers are generally willing to risk the 10s or 100s of millions of dollars and "when it's done" indefinite development time that console/PC games can get on a mobile game. Admittedly big budget doesn't necessarily translate into a fun, immersive game, but mobile games are certainly not on an even playing field in this regard.
 
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