[ROM] Unofficial OpenELEC for MXIII-G & Tronsmart MXIII+

[wilro_6276]

Great! Thanks for your support and to the actual contributors!

Edit: Will start shortly a thread on an Italian forum, will link to this if You consent, Wilro!

Hi vn800art,

By all means, everyone's welcome to try these builds - It's still very much a work in progress - Every hardware/software quirk/bug I've found/fixed seems to bring MORE of them to the surface (ARGHHH!) - I do believe I'm making progress overall though

[wilro_6276]

Hello wilro_6276,

Do you have your 2g ram recognised in openelec ?

I have an mx3 box which was advertised as an s802 but is actually an s812, this has bricked a few boxes around the forums but we seem to be getting somewhere with it now.

By using the original android bootloader it can run most 812 versions of openelec but i've not found one that can see more than 814mb.

Basically i think the box is a clone of an 'mx3 plus' it has s812 2g8g ap6330 and k200 board.

I've asked over at xmbc.ru and am struggling to get through all 200 pages ! I did find an early reference from kerber saying he only had 1gb working on the mx3.

Would you be able to adapt your versions to enable the ram above 1g for this box ?

They work very well as is but its a bit frustrating to know there's something being under utilised in the box.

thanks.

My builds certainly recognise the memory in the MX3G correctly - I do remember when playing around with different android roms that some of them only recognised my box as having 1G ram (amongst other problems - Actually the original android 4.4 rom for my box identified itself as a k200 (5.1 & OE always identified it as an n200, however)

I wonder if the memory issue is the order in which the bootloader searches or how the clone is identifying itself - The order in kerber's tree is:

meson8_k200b_1G_emmc_sdhc.dtd meson8_k200b_1G_emmc_sdio.dtd meson8_k200b_2G_emmc_sdhc.dtd meson8_k200b_2G_emmc_sdio.dtd meson8m2_n200_1G.dtd meson8m2_n200_2G.dtd

The MX3G 2G is listed last, but gets picked up correctly on boot - Now looking at the the original android rom for my box, I see that it's the same as above *except* the the k200b devices list the 2G model's before the 1G models - I will reverse this for my next builds to see if it makes a difference...

[cupra00]

My builds certainly recognise the memory in the MX3G correctly - I do remember when playing around with different android roms that some of them only recognised my box as having 1G ram (amongst other problems - Actually the original android 4.4 rom for my box identified itself as a k200 (5.1 & OE always identified it as an n200, however)

I wonder if the memory issue is the order in which the bootloader searches or how the clone is identifying itself - The order in kerber's tree is:

meson8_k200b_1G_emmc_sdhc.dtd meson8_k200b_1G_emmc_sdio.dtd meson8_k200b_2G_emmc_sdhc.dtd meson8_k200b_2G_emmc_sdio.dtd meson8m2_n200_1G.dtd meson8m2_n200_2G.dtd

The MX3G 2G is listed last, but gets picked up correctly on boot - Now looking at the the original android rom for my box, I see that it's the same as above *except* the the k200b devices list the 2G model's before the 1G models - I will reverse this for my next builds to see if it makes a difference...

Thanks,

one of the android roms i used to recover from being bricked let me use the customisation tool to have a look at the dtd file. (I don't have an image of the factory one)
I don't really understand the structure and how android / openelec roms are put together so this may not be relevant.

 /dts-v1/;
  /// ***************************************************************************************\n
  //$$ PROJECT="meson8m2"
  //$$ REMOVE 1
  void root_func(){
  //$$ ADD /{
  amlogic-dt-id = "m8m2_n200_1G";
  compatible = "AMLOGIC,8726_M8M2";
  model = "AMLOGIC";
  interrupt-parent = <&gic>;
  #address-cells = <1>;
  #size-cells = <1>;
  
  /// ***************************************************************************************
  /// - CPU
  //$$ MODULE="CPU"
  cpus {
  #address-cells = <1>;
  #size-cells = <0>;
  //$$ DEVICE="cpu0"
  cpu@0 {
  device_type = "cpu";
  compatible = "arm,cortex-a9";
  reg = <0x200>;
  };
  //$$ DEVICE="cpu1"
  cpu@1 {
  device_type = "cpu";
  compatible = "arm,cortex-a9";
  reg = <0x1>;
  };
  //$$ DEVICE="cpu2"
  cpu@2 {
  device_type = "cpu";
  compatible = "arm,cortex-a9";
  reg = <0x2>;
  };
  //$$ DEVICE="cpu3"
  cpu@3 {
  device_type = "cpu";
  compatible = "arm,cortex-a9";
  reg = <0x3>;
  };
  };
  
  /// ***************************************************************************************
  /// - Cache
  //$$ MODULE="Cache"
  //$$ DEVICE="cache"
  cache-controller {
  compatible = "arm,meson-pl310-cache";
  reg = <0xc4200000 0x1000>;
  arm,data-latency = <3 3 3>;
  arm,tag-latency = <2 2 2>;
  arm,filter-ranges = <0x100000 0xc0000000>;
  cache-unified;
  cache-level = <2>;
  aux-instruction_prefetch;
  aux-data_prefetch;
  aux-ns_lockdown;
  aux-force_no_write_alloc;
  aux-cache_replace_policy_round_robin;
  aux-early_write_response;
  aux-full_line_of_zero;
  aux-ns_int_ctrl;
  aux-share_override;
  prefetch-double_line_fill;
  prefetch-prefetch_drop;
  prefetch-prefetch_offset = <7>;
  };
  
  /// ***************************************************************************************
  /// - Memory
  //$$ MODULE="Memory"
  //$$ DEVICE="memory"
  //$$ L2 PROP_U32 = "aml_reserved_start"
  //$$ L2 PROP_U32 = "aml_reserved_end"
  //$$ L2 PROP_U32 6 = "linux,usable-memory"
  memory{
  device_type = "memory";
  aml_reserved_start = <0x06000000>; /**reserved memory start */
  aml_reserved_end = <0x05000000>;/**reserved memory end */
  phys_offset = <0x00200000>;
  linux,total-memory = <0x3fe00000>;
  
  //$$ DEVICE="mem_4k2k_decoder"
  //$$ L3 PROP_U32 2 ="reg"
  mem_4k2k_decoder: region@1 {
  region_name = "cma_4k2k";
  linux,contiguous-region;
  reg = <0x00000000 0x0c000000>;
  };
  
  cma_0:region@0 {
  region_name = "cma_0";
  reg = <0 0x01200000>;
  linux,contiguous-region;
  };
  };
  ///

This rom does show 1.4gb ram total in android apps page.

The ddr section of the custom tool has ddr size as 60000000hex which lines up with the 1.4gb

[ilfrance]

Just an heads up to tell that the latest 6.0.0.2d build is working very well for me, now if only i could wake up the box using my tv remote through hdmi-cec and play those 4k mkv files then it would be perfect.
Keep up the great work

[Mati-PL]

Hi wilro_6276, your work is really great, keep it up
I have a question. Which OpenELEC version is the most stable and allows to watch movies without stuttering or other bugs ? I just received my MXIII-G and I can't stand Android on it.
Thanks !

[wilro_6276]

Thanks,

one of the android roms i used to recover from being bricked let me use the customisation tool to have a look at the dtd file. (I don't have an image of the factory one)
I don't really understand the structure and how android / openelec roms are put together so this may not be relevant.

 /dts-v1/;
/// ***************************************************************************************\n
//$$ PROJECT="meson8m2"
//$$ REMOVE 1
void root_func(){
//$$ ADD /{
amlogic-dt-id = "m8m2_n200_1G";
compatible = "AMLOGIC,8726_M8M2";
model = "AMLOGIC";
interrupt-parent = <&gic>;
#address-cells = <1>;
#size-cells = <1>;

/// ***************************************************************************************
/// - CPU
//$$ MODULE="CPU"
cpus {
#address-cells = <1>;
#size-cells = <0>;
//$$ DEVICE="cpu0"
cpu@0 {
device_type = "cpu";
compatible = "arm,cortex-a9";
reg = <0x200>;
};
//$$ DEVICE="cpu1"
cpu@1 {
device_type = "cpu";
compatible = "arm,cortex-a9";
reg = <0x1>;
};
//$$ DEVICE="cpu2"
cpu@2 {
device_type = "cpu";
compatible = "arm,cortex-a9";
reg = <0x2>;
};
//$$ DEVICE="cpu3"
cpu@3 {
device_type = "cpu";
compatible = "arm,cortex-a9";
reg = <0x3>;
};
};

/// ***************************************************************************************
/// - Cache
//$$ MODULE="Cache"
//$$ DEVICE="cache"
cache-controller {
compatible = "arm,meson-pl310-cache";
reg = <0xc4200000 0x1000>;
arm,data-latency = <3 3 3>;
arm,tag-latency = <2 2 2>;
arm,filter-ranges = <0x100000 0xc0000000>;
cache-unified;
cache-level = <2>;
aux-instruction_prefetch;
aux-data_prefetch;
aux-ns_lockdown;
aux-force_no_write_alloc;
aux-cache_replace_policy_round_robin;
aux-early_write_response;
aux-full_line_of_zero;
aux-ns_int_ctrl;
aux-share_override;
prefetch-double_line_fill;
prefetch-prefetch_drop;
prefetch-prefetch_offset = <7>;
};

/// ***************************************************************************************
/// - Memory
//$$ MODULE="Memory"
//$$ DEVICE="memory"
//$$ L2 PROP_U32 = "aml_reserved_start"
//$$ L2 PROP_U32 = "aml_reserved_end"
//$$ L2 PROP_U32 6 = "linux,usable-memory"
memory{
device_type = "memory";
aml_reserved_start = <0x06000000>; /**reserved memory start */
aml_reserved_end = <0x05000000>;/**reserved memory end */
phys_offset = <0x00200000>;
linux,total-memory = <0x3fe00000>;

//$$ DEVICE="mem_4k2k_decoder"
//$$ L3 PROP_U32 2 ="reg"
mem_4k2k_decoder: region@1 {
region_name = "cma_4k2k";
linux,contiguous-region;
reg = <0x00000000 0x0c000000>;
};

cma_0:region@0 {
region_name = "cma_0";
reg = <0 0x01200000>;
linux,contiguous-region;
};
};
///

This rom does show 1.4gb ram total in android apps page.

The ddr section of the custom tool has ddr size as 60000000hex which lines up with the 1.4gb

Well, this dtb is definitely for the 1G model (amlogic-dt-id = "m8m2_n200_1G") - The key value for memory size is: (linux,total-memory = <0x3fe00000>), which indicates it's 1G, for a 2G model it would say: (linux,total-memory = <0x7fe00000>) - The android rom could certainly be identifying total memory differently, however, I'm fairly sure OE uses the value defined in the dtb to determine total memory.

Not having access to the original rom is problematic, esp. for the clone boxes - I made this mistake on my 1st HD18Q box - Thankfully, kszaq's customised bootloader works flawlessly, so it became a moot point (When I got a second one, I made sure to use TWRP on it before doing anything else - It would be nice to have access to the source code for the MX3G's u-boot - Most of the problems with this custom rom stem from the fact we are stuck on the original 4.4 bootloader

[wilro_6276]

Just an heads up to tell that the latest 6.0.0.2d build is working very well for me, now if only i could wake up the box using my tv remote through hdmi-cec and play those 4k mkv files then it would be perfect.
Keep up the great work

Hi ilfrance,

Thanks for the feedback, yes the problem area's centre mostly around the 4k stuff, not sure if we can fix the cec stuff, & the network speed - I'll be making another post regarding this shortly based on my latest experiments.

[wilro_6276]

Hi wilro_6276, your work is really great, keep it up
I have a question. Which OpenELEC version is the most stable and allows to watch movies without stuttering or other bugs ? I just received my MXIII-G and I can't stand Android on it.
Thanks !

Hello Mati-PL,

It really depends on what you want to do with the box - kszaq's builds are based on a very solid base, with limited addons included, kerber's builds are more bleeding edge, & include a lot more hardware addons/support.

[wilro_6276]

Howdy All,

My ongoing tests in improving stability with this rom has taken me back to looking at the bootloader (again!) - One thing has become very clear here, the bootloader we currently use (316k4 android 4.4.2) is as buggy as anything, whereas using the latest LP bootloader (106L1), stabilises just about everything EXCEPT it breaks all hardware based video decoding

My testing shows that when using software only video decoding, everything except x265 (& prob. 4k stuff) run far better with this bootloader - Even my 40G bluray image plays faultlessly! (The box certainly gets a lot warmer, however , so clearly the box itself can handle far more with this bootloader than the original can.

What I haven't figured out is why kodi doesn't play nicely when hardware decoding is enabled (even the mali 3d stuff performs better). going through the LP android rom, I suspect it may be related to hdcp? I'm a bit lost at this point, but have a few more (time consuming) things to try/test...

[envagyok]

Already wetek core is in the market.
I hope it helps developing for Android and openelec because it based on s812(h) too.
And it is a good developed device.

[Mati-PL]

Hello Mati-PL,

It really depends on what you want to do with the box - kszaq's builds are based on a very solid base, with limited addons included, kerber's builds are more bleeding edge, & include a lot more hardware addons/support.

Well, my box will be used for watching movies stored on Network Disk. So mainly I need is smooth playback 1080i movies (in HEVC included) and cec support.

[nighthawk1975]

Well, my box will be used for watching movies stored on Network Disk. So mainly I need is smooth playback 1080i movies (in HEVC included) and cec support.

I also want a good working cec.

[envagyok]

Mxiii-g with OE can play bd 3d iso?

[ChrisR132]

Hello,

I have the MXIII + from tronsmart is there a way to install this and keep android 5.1 on sort of like a dual boot? So when I start up I can pick this or android? Thanks

[87danp]

i can flash back to android after the op installed, right? like the updates from TRONSMART?