Cellphone graphics performance?

[LancelotSA]

I see lots of talk on this forum about the graphics performance of various phones together with talk of processor speeds, triangles per second etc etc but I ain't no expert on this topic so perhaps someone can help me decipher this :

http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare....Samsung i9000 Galaxy S&D4=HTC Desire HD (Ace)

Are higher numbers always better? Which test is the more important when it comes to a cellphone?

Thanks

 

[UnUnOctium]

In short: yes, the higher, the better. The flipside is, more powerful GPUs eat more power.

 

[LancelotSA]

In short: yes, the higher, the better. The flipside is, more powerful GPUs eat more power.

Surely the same would be true of a more powerful CPU? On that note, do all phones have CPUs and GPUs? My understanding is not.

And what is hardware graphics acceleration?

 

[Y'all Qaeda]

Hardware acceleration means there is a dedicated chip to doing graphics. Otherwise is uses software, and the CPU has to do all the work.

 

[UnUnOctium]

Surely the same would be true of a more powerful CPU? On that note, do all phones have CPUs and GPUs? My understanding is not.

And what is hardware graphics acceleration?

Well, some phones actually have the silicon of the GPU integrated into the CPU so you don't really have a discrete GPU per-se. Not all phones have GPUs or GPU silicon, but the phones needs it if they wanted hardware acceleration. And that's exactly what hardware acceleration is, seperate microprocessor designed to be especially fast (and parallel) so that it can perform rendering much faster than if the CPU were to do it.

 

[LancelotSA]

Well, some phones actually have the silicon of the GPU integrated into the CPU so you don't really have a discrete GPU per-se. Not all phones have GPUs or GPU silicon, but the phones needs it if they wanted hardware acceleration. And that's exactly what hardware acceleration is, seperate microprocessor designed to be especially fast (and parallel) so that it can perform rendering much faster than if the CPU were to do it.

So if we took two of the phones shown in the comparison, the N8 (which I understand has a dedicated GPU) and the Galaxy S (which has a far faster processor but I am not aware of it having a dedicated GPU) would it be unfair to compare the processor speeds directly? How does one factor in the part played by the GPU?

Those numbers shown confuse me as some are considerably higher for one phone but then on another test it is reversed. Which is the most important number? In asking that I assume the answer would depend on what you were trying to do with the phone.

 

[Monkey101]

So if we took two of the phones shown in the comparison, the N8 (which I understand has a dedicated GPU) and the Galaxy S (which has a far faster processor but I am not aware of it having a dedicated GPU) would it be unfair to compare the processor speeds directly? How does one factor in the part played by the GPU?

Those numbers shown confuse me as some are considerably higher for one phone but then on another test it is reversed. Which is the most important number? In asking that I assume the answer would depend on what you were trying to do with the phone.

The Galaxy S has a GPU also

Rather compare it to the HTC desire.

 

[UnUnOctium]

So if we took two of the phones shown in the comparison, the N8 (which I understand has a dedicated GPU) and the Galaxy S (which has a far faster processor but I am not aware of it having a dedicated GPU) would it be unfair to compare the processor speeds directly? How does one factor in the part played by the GPU?

Those numbers shown confuse me as some are considerably higher for one phone but then on another test it is reversed. Which is the most important number? In asking that I assume the answer would depend on what you were trying to do with the phone.

As mentioned, the Galaxy S does have a GPU.

Yes, it depends what you do with the phone since some phones are designed (and support) GL extensions etc. while others don't. There really isn't a standard yet for mobile phone GPUs. The benchmarks test different capabilities (and extensions) of the GPUs, some extensions may not be supported by one GPU while they are by another, hence the big drop in score.

 

[LancelotSA]

The Galaxy S has a GPU also

Rather compare it to the HTC desire.

OK, cool, I based that assumption on information from GSM Arena.

 

[HapticSimian]

OK, cool, I based that assumption on information from GSM Arena.

Rather don't. When it comes to fine details, omissions are often rife in gsmarena's info:

All Snapdragon processors contain the circuitry to decode High-Definition (HD) video resolution at 720p or 1080p depending on the Snapdragon chipset.[3] Adreno, the company's proprietary GPU technology, integrated into Snapdragon chipsets (and certain other Qualcomm chipsets) is Qualcomm's own design, leveraging assets the company acquired from AMD.

wikiwack

That's the Desire, by the way.

 

[LancelotSA]

Rather don't. When it comes to fine details, omissions are often rife in gsmarena's info

So how does one do a comparison then? You have some phones that only have a CPU, then some have a CPU and a separate GPU while still others have the GPU built into the CPU. So when one phone shows a CPU of 1Ghz how do you compare this to one with a lower speed CPU but a separate GPU?

 

[HapticSimian]

You don't. Because you run the risk of becoming like a rabid, geeky 30-year old sitting in his mom's basement drooling over his new PC's 3DMark scores.

You compare real-world user experience. Until we're all hooking our phones up to our 70" laser-plasma-led-lcd TVs for a game of Call of Duty 17: Back to Normandy it's nothing but a pointless pissing contest in my opinion.

 

[LancelotSA]

You don't. Because you run the risk of becoming like a rabid, geeky 30-year old sitting in his mom's basement drooling over his new PC's 3DMark scores.

You compare real-world user experience. Until we're all hooking our phones up to our 70" laser-plasma-led-lcd TVs for a game of Call of Duty 17: Back to Normandy it's nothing but a pointless pissing contest in my opinion.

Indeed I agree with your assessment of the type that tries to do direct comparisons but, without wanting this to head down the road of other threads , there are often comments made about the N8 only having a 680Mhz processor and other phones having a 1Ghz one. I too sit and wonder how much of a big deal this will play and therefore thought I would try to find out myself by asking relevant questions.

 

[HapticSimian]

Indeed I agree with your assessment of the type that tries to do direct comparisons but, without wanting this to head down the road of other threads , there are often comments made about the N8 only having a 680Mhz processor and other phones having a 1Ghz one. I too sit and wonder how much of a big deal this will play and therefore thought I would try to find out myself by asking relevant questions.

If you look at what the N8 is tasked with it does seem a little... erm... inadequate in the CPU department. However, nothing but long-term use of the device will answer the question unequivocally - I'd also be worried about its ability to cope with a phone loaded to the hilt with photos, music, apps and whatnot compared to what else is already out there, though.

Again, your own expectations and wants will factor into it. Phones like the Desire and Galaxy S have very flash UIs. They can handle it because I would suspect there is substantial headroom in terms of the load of pure telephony tasks and what the processor is capable of. As a simple example, take the HTC Legend: same basic interface as the Desire, but a processor 40% slower. Hello solid aluminium construction, good bye live wallpapers & 480 x 800 resolution.

Back to your N8 - we already know the UI will look like any other Nokia from the past 5 years. It should be fine.

 

[Ancalagon]

Most mobile phones tend to use PowerVR GPUs, so their results would be a little more comparable than a CPU comparison.

The problem with CPU comparisons is that even between different processors using the same ISA (instruction set architecture), performance can vary widely. For instance, the Samsung Hummingbird uses the ARM9 (I think) instruction set, same as the QualComm Snapdragon used in the HTC desire, yet the Hummingbird is generally regarded as much faster.

Its the same with desktop PCs actually - a 1.8 GHz Athlon 64 3000+ will beat a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz. The difference is the actual microprocessor design, the functional units, cache hierarchy, and pipeline length that makes a processors performance what it is.

 

[LancelotSA]

Hello solid aluminium construction, good bye live wallpapers & 480 x 800 resolution.

Interesting that you mention that as I have read some discussions on this topic too.... at what point does the higher resolution become wasted? To me it seems similar to the discussions had regarding LCD TV screen sizes and how far away you sit and watch it etc.

Again it merely seems like one of those pissing contests you were referring to earlier. Being able to brag about your higher screen resolution when in day to day use it actually makes very little difference.

 

[HapticSimian]

Interesting that you mention that as I have read some discussions on this topic too.... at what point does the higher resolution become wasted? To me it seems similar to the discussions had regarding LCD TV screen sizes and how far away you sit and watch it etc.

Again it merely seems like one of those pissing contests you were referring to earlier. Being able to brag about your higher screen resolution when in day to day use it actually makes very little difference.

Probably, but if you look at the two HTCs it's a 150% increase in pixel count, with a slightly bigger screen to boot. Having stood in the Lab88 store in Fourways with one of each in my hand, it's definitely very noticeable.