What should I do now...

[blackice55]

Hello I bought the mk908 15 days ago. Before buying I had seen these review:

http://liliputing.com/2013/04/tronsmart-mk908-quad-core-android-tv-stick-performance-video.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j5ZFlJB7eo

every thing was looking perfect before I come in this forum for the first time. I have read a lot about the lag issue in video and all the other bad stuff about these chiness rom. I should receive my unit in 5 or 10 days and I am in the process of thinking if I should not open the box at all and resell it on ****... I feel seriously cheated and I dont know why the non official review do not even talk about these problem! I waited 6 month for buying one of those mini pc and I was sure that this one was finaly the perfect one. And by perfect I mean working... just working you know... like playing video and good wifi!! My main interest with this device is to be able to run the xbmc xaf build with external mx player and play local video over wifi. Would it be possible to doing this or I should give up already? Do The rom and the fix actually available should be a good reason to open the box or not? Thx for your help guys before I found this site I was not even aware that this device had serious problem with the sofware. (sorry for the bad english)

[thesawolf]

Hello I bought the mk908 15 days ago. Before buying I had seen these review:

http://liliputing.com/2013/04/tronsmart-mk908-quad-core-android-tv-stick-performance-video.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j5ZFlJB7eo

every thing was looking perfect before I come in this forum for the first time. I have read a lot about the lag issue in video and all the other bad stuff about these chiness rom. I should receive my unit in 5 or 10 days and I am in the process of thinking if I should not open the box at all and resell it on ****... I feel seriously cheated and I dont know why the non official review do not even talk about these problem! I waited 6 month for buying one of those mini pc and I was sure that this one was finaly the perfect one. And by perfect I mean working... just working you know... like playing video and good wifi!! My main interest with this device is to be able to run the xbmc xaf build with external mx player and play local video over wifi. Would it be possible to doing this or I should give up already? Do The rom and the fix actually available should be a good reason to open the box or not? Thx for your help guys before I found this site I was not even aware that this device had serious problem with the sofware. (sorry for the bad english)

Everybody has different experiences and expectations. I have an MK908 and I love mine. Have awesome wifi and after my cooling mod can run anything without much trouble or worry. As i'm working on my own kernel/rom, I've been able to get away from the manufacturer rom's and bloatware, but even then, finless' rom (based off the manufacturer stuff) works fine for me. And I use XBMC (xaf and libstagefright test builds) with mx player and archos player over wifi and have minimal issues watching 720p/1080p videos (1080p has a few stuttering issues with the default stuff, but Strauzo put out some test kernels that should fix some of that and I've had little problems with my own kernel (slight o/c) and upgraded mali drivers) YMMV. But ultimately, it's up to you. G'luck on whatever decision you make.

[hilltopper06]

thesawolf, is your kernel/rom available for download?

Is this rom you are working on still the CM10.1 build?

Have you seen anywhere in the code what the Mali GPU is clocked at? I have seen conflicting reports on the Mali 400 that the RK3188 uses. Some say it is 600mhz, some 533mhz, and others say it is still clocked at 250mhz like the RK3066.

On a side note, I have noticed that on 3D applications (like Epic Citadel, or the OpenGL 2.0 benchmark component of Antutu) that the framerate seems to be very inconsistent. Is this part of the larger video stuttering problem, or a different issue (possibly heat). On Epic Citadel, it is constantly spiking to 60 then dipping to 30. These chips should be able to do 60fps no problem I would think.

Sorry to bother you with all the questions. Thanks!

[thesawolf]

thesawolf, is your kernel/rom available for download?

Is this rom you are working on still the CM10.1 build?

Have you seen anywhere in the code what the Mali GPU is clocked at? I have seen conflicting reports on the Mali 400 that the RK3188 uses. Some say it is 600mhz, some 533mhz, and others say it is still clocked at 250mhz like the RK3066.

On a side note, I have noticed that on 3D applications (like Epic Citadel, or the OpenGL 2.0 benchmark component of Antutu) that the framerate seems to be very inconsistent. Is this part of the larger video stuttering problem, or a different issue (possibly heat). On Epic Citadel, it is constantly spiking to 60 then dipping to 30. These chips should be able to do 60fps no problem I would think.

Sorry to bother you with all the questions. Thanks!

Currently I'm still in tweak/build phase for kernel/recovery/rom. Once I get things to a decent point I'll release it for public consumption. Otherwise, anyone is free to tinker with the prelim device and kernel trees in my githubs to build their own. As for CM, I've got CWM 6.0.3.4 and CM10.1.1 working atm. As for the Mali's.. with what kernel sources we do have the freq range is set for 133MHz up to 600Mhz.. I'd have to look to see where the default is set. Sam321 hinted at some GPU O/C so I've got some test code all over the place trying to get the GPU O/C working a little so I'd have to look around at other sources to find the default again. The framerate issue is definitely part of the video stuttering issue (with maybe a side of heat.. I don't have heat issues with mine being cooling modded, so I don't know). Strauzo has some code to help alleviate the stuttering on the rk3188's but he's being stingy with sharing any code atm, plus I think he's off on holiday or something /shrug. With some of the O/C code I recently put in and the upgraded Mali drivers, I had very minimal stutter with some 1080p videos I was playing with MX player over wifi. Hopefully I can get some of this work finished and push it out to folks. I think someone mentioned over in the kernel dev area that rockchip is looking to push some fixes for the video stutter soon. Don't know tho'. I'll still be plugging away at my own stuff.
G'luck and no bother.

[leolas]

Re: What should I do now...

Currently I'm still in tweak/build phase for kernel/recovery/rom. Once I get things to a decent point I'll release it for public consumption. Otherwise, anyone is free to tinker with the prelim device and kernel trees in my githubs to build their own. As for CM, I've got CWM 6.0.3.4 and CM10.1.1 working atm. As for the Mali's.. with what kernel sources we do have the freq range is set for 133MHz up to 600Mhz.. I'd have to look to see where the default is set. Sam321 hinted at some GPU O/C so I've got some test code all over the place trying to get the GPU O/C working a little so I'd have to look around at other sources to find the default again. The framerate issue is definitely part of the video stuttering issue (with maybe a side of heat.. I don't have heat issues with mine being cooling modded, so I don't know). Strauzo has some code to help alleviate the stuttering on the rk3188's but he's being stingy with sharing any code atm, plus I think he's off on holiday or something /shrug. With some of the O/C code I recently put in and the upgraded Mali drivers, I had very minimal stutter with some 1080p videos I was playing with MX player over wifi. Hopefully I can get some of this work finished and push it out to folks. I think someone mentioned over in the kernel dev area that rockchip is looking to push some fixes for the video stutter soon. Don't know tho'. I'll still be plugging away at my own stuff.
G'luck and no bother.

Great news thesawolf, i tried to buil cwm recovery from the cm sources and got a big fail, that was the first time I built cm from scratch, so I ported fun_ cwm and inserted a kernel in his generic cwm recovery, it works very well. Now I am busy, and I have no free time, but when I get some free time I will try it again. Are your cm work uploaded to your github? Or is in a very soon state?
Thanks.

leolas

[thesawolf]

Great news thesawolf, i tried to buil cwm recovery from the cm sources and got a big fail, that was the first time I built cm from scratch, so I ported fun_ cwm and inserted a kernel in his generic cwm recovery, it works very well. Now I am busy, and I have no free time, but when I get some free time I will try it again. Are your cm work uploaded to your github? Or is in a very soon state?
Thanks.

leolas

Interesting that you inserted a kernel and got it working for you. I can use fun_'s generic recovery just fine and my own CWM recovery is basicly just the ramdisk-recovery image that's output with the rest of the CM build. I've got a github set up with my specific version of CWM (as I'm trying to get overlay added so you can use mouse to navigate and not just keyboard) and the device tree is there too (tho it still needs a little more tweaking and I need to replace the prebuilt kernels and modules with some of the newer kernel builds I've been working on).. but everything is pretty much there on the github. I'm still tinkering with the kernel again trying to get some of the diffs between my previous kernel sources and that new one that linuxium put on his github. There's some interesting hdmi and fb stuff in there that I'm trying to get integrated properly. Plus I'm still tinkering with O/C stuff trying to get some of the higher ranges running a bit more stable. Hopefully I'll get finished with it soon so I can get back to working on the recovery and rom. I'll keep you posted