Minix Neo X7 - Finless 1.6 ROM - with overclock and frame skipping fix!

[gswiatl]

Minix Neo X7 - Finless 1.6 ROM - with overclock and frame skipping fix!

The frequency tables are based on extensive testing (thanks to all the testers!). Indeed the frequency scaling in the stock rom seems to be causing trouble with 1080p video playback. There are several aspects: the interactive CPU frequency governor is set to be quite conservative, there's the lag between heavy load and actually detecting the necessity to ramp up, etc. The lower limit of 1200mhz and less intermediate steps were chosen to reduce bouncing between frequencies and increase the minimum performance to a level more suitable for regular tasks. I also tried setting the interactive governor to be more aggressive but that was less effective than these limited frequency range tables.

I haven't actually measured the difference in power usage between 312 and 1200mhz, but I suspect it will be marginal for a mains powered device. At least the difference in heat production seems marginal on my devices.

OK, thanks for your reply. Since we agree on the governor issue, do you think that a non OC'd kernel with a stricter governor, will have enough juice to run 1080P movies fluently? I'm want to understand if OC is even required. Implying that MINIX can greatly improve their stock ROM's performance by changing their kernel's CPU governor regime, without making us compromise our devices with OC (though I agree that it's not a huge risk, but some may have different environmental circumstances than others).


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[pawnslinger]

OK, thanks for your reply. Since we agree on the governor issue, do you think that a non OC'd kernel with a stricter governor, will have enough juice to run 1080P movies fluently? I'm want to understand if OC is even required. Implying that MINIX can greatly improve their stock ROM's performance by changing their kernel's CPU governor regime, without making us compromise our devices with OC (though I agree that it's not a huge risk, but some may have different environmental circumstances than others).


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In my opinion, the cpu is way fast enough for video playback without any OC. The issues that Android, Rockchip and Minix have are almost all related to the GPU and its supporting software. For more than a decade all of this video stuff has been heavily hardware accelerated (read driven by GPU). The OC does help though in one respect, i.e. the GPU is OC too!! But look at the Nexus rom, it is quite powerful, with Antutu scores about the same or better than many of the OCs. Why? More efficient, more mature, cleaner chipset support.

Audio is another story, however, as many GPUs do not include extensive hardware support for advanced audio. So stuff like dts have to be done in software. There are exceptions to this, but not in Rockchip's GPUs. Consider the Western Digital Live, it has a very weak cpu, almost a joke, not much ram to speak of, and yet it plays all kinds of video effortlessly. At a very modest clock rate. How come? Because it includes some dedicated chips that are specialized in high quality video playback.

[gswiatl]

In my opinion, the cpu is way fast enough for video playback without any OC. The issues that Android, Rockchip and Minix have are almost all related to the GPU and its supporting software. For more than a decade all of this video stuff has been heavily hardware accelerated (read driven by GPU). The OC does help though in one respect, i.e. the GPU is OC too!! But look at the Nexus rom, it is quite powerful, with Antutu scores about the same or better than many of the OCs. Why? More efficient, more mature, cleaner chipset support.

Audio is another story, however, as many GPUs do not include extensive hardware support for advanced audio. So stuff like dts have to be done in software. There are exceptions to this, but not in Rockchip's GPUs. Consider the Western Digital Live, it has a very weak cpu, almost a joke, not much ram to speak of, and yet it plays all kinds of video effortlessly. At a very modest clock rate. How come? Because it includes some dedicated chips that are specialized in high quality video playback.

I agree that the CPU is not a major player here, as evident from the reletively low utilization. Is there a way to measure the GPU state while running load?

[pawnslinger]

I agree that the CPU is not a major player here, as evident from the reletively low utilization. Is there a way to measure the GPU state while running load?

Not that I know of... on the PC side of things, there are a few options for monitoring the gpu... I use a program called Real Temp. It monitors both cpu and gpu utilization and temp. But I am not aware of such a thing on mobile platforms. Perhaps an opportunity for someone to produce a utility.

The 1.6 rom does do something that is very nice, it raises the lowest frequency. Among other things, like better video, it overall is what makes the rom seem more snappy and responsive. For that reason alone, I really like this rom.

In fact, I finally feel like my system has most of the issues worked out and is ready to appear in the family room. I see the Android type boxes becoming a central feature of my HTPC.

[Finless]

Thanks pawnslinger!
Glad your enjoying the ROM

Bob

[Batfink32]

Re: Minix Neo X7 - Finless 1.6 ROM - with overclock and frame skipping fix!

Not that I know of... on the PC side of things, there are a few options for monitoring the gpu... I use a program called Real Temp. It monitors both cpu and gpu utilization and temp. But I am not aware of such a thing on mobile platforms. Perhaps an opportunity for someone to produce a utility.

The 1.6 rom does do something that is very nice, it raises the lowest frequency. Among other things, like better video, it overall is what makes the rom seem more snappy and responsive. For that reason alone, I really like this rom.

In fact, I finally feel like my system has most of the issues worked out and is ready to appear in the family room. I see the Android type boxes becoming a central feature of my HTPC.

I would agree, I've tried all of the Roms now and 1.6 with OC is the best by far. Really feels like its almost perfect.

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[MDS96]

With all the talking up of this rom all of you do, ya make it very hard for me to stay on stock and keep the faith! Lol....ugh what to do what to do!?? I have rooted and flashed roms on every Android device I've had/have, but I chose to keep my X7 stock cause the whole family will be using it at somee time, once most of the kinks are worked out, but it seems like 1.6 pretty much had accomplished that with the kernel tweaking!! The joys of being a flashaholic! Thanks for working on this Bob, and anyone else involved!

[phjanderson]

OK, thanks for your reply. Since we agree on the governor issue, do you think that a non OC'd kernel with a stricter governor, will have enough juice to run 1080P movies fluently? I'm want to understand if OC is even required. Implying that MINIX can greatly improve their stock ROM's performance by changing their kernel's CPU governor regime, without making us compromise our devices with OC (though I agree that it's not a huge risk, but some may have different environmental circumstances than others).

Here's a kernel compiled from source with just the vsync fix and more aggressive interactive cpu frequency governor:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/btwfyhwkkpsvzoz/kernel_20131001_070839_marvin_neox7.zip

There's one thing more to mention about the overclocked kernels though: the overclocked ram speed. The stock ram frequency seems far too low for 1080, increasing the ddr ram frequency shows huge increases in GPU speed in antutu. The ddr ram chips are rated for 667 mhz (x2 = DDR1333), yet they are mostly clocked at around 400mhz in stock roms. I assume this is done for power saving in tablets, but that's not really relevant for us.

[Trhuster]

Here's a kernel compiled from source with just the vsync fix and more aggressive interactive cpu frequency governor:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/btwfyhwkkpsvzoz/kernel_20131001_070839_marvin_neox7.zip

There's one thing more to mention about the overclocked kernels though: the overclocked ram speed. The stock ram frequency seems far too low for 1080, increasing the ddr ram frequency shows huge increases in GPU speed in antutu. The ddr ram chips are rated for 667 mhz (x2 = DDR1333), yet they are mostly clocked at around 400mhz in stock roms. I assume this is done for power saving in tablets, but that's not really relevant for us.

Regarding my early tests i did in the beginnig when i had many shutdowns and i did not know why. I now know that my T2 Airmouse make X7 shutdown randomly. And atm i use Kernel: 720P 1800CPU 600GPU 720DDR and it is stable for me. I did try 800DDR but it was to high for my X7 and it was not stable.

[phjanderson]

Regarding my early tests i did in the beginnig when i had many shutdowns and i did not know why. I now know that my T2 Airmouse make X7 shutdown randomly. And atm i use Kernel: 720P 1800CPU 600GPU 720DDR and it is stable for me. I did try 800DDR but it was to high for my X7 and it was not stable.

Good to hear that you solved the problem!

800DDR is really pushing the limits, it also doesn't work on my T428, so CPU1800/DDR720 is probably a safe choice for most devices.

[Loser]

Awesome

Just wanted to say thanks for this to finless (and co.)
got my x7 in today and was a little sad at some crashes, shutdowns and general slowness, thought I'd give this a shot hoping it wasn't hardware related. So far so good. in fact its awesome. I'll try to get a donation out tomorrow, it's past my bed time.

Thanks again,
Mike

[neoal]

Hello, has anyone managed to mount the external sdcard as internal card.
I was googling around and i found out that if i edit the vold.fstab file i can get the result that i`m looking for.
I opened the file and i found this two lines:
"dev_mount flash /mnt/sdcard auto /devices/virtual/mtd/mtd9/mtdblock9"
"dev_mount sdcard /mnt/external_sd auto /devices/platform/rk29_sdmmc.0/mmc_host/mmc0"
I guess the first line mounts the internal nand memory as sdcard while the second line mounts the external_sd
Now this is just guessing and i would like to be a little bit more sure before trying it, so if anyone knows pls share, if this are the lines that i need to swap to mount the external sdcard as internal???

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[Finless]

If you make this change it should work

"dev_mount flash /mnt/sdcard auto /devices/platform/rk29_sdmmc.0/mmc_host/mmc0"
"dev_mount sdcard /mnt/external_sd auto /devices/virtual/mtd/mtd9/mtdblock9"

Now they should be swapped.

Although not sure why you would do that. NAND is usually faster than SDcard.

Bob

[neoal]

Re: Minix Neo X7 - Finless 1.6 ROM - with overclock and frame skipping fix!

If you make this change it should work

"dev_mount flash /mnt/sdcard auto /devices/platform/rk29_sdmmc.0/mmc_host/mmc0"
"dev_mount sdcard /mnt/external_sd auto /devices/virtual/mtd/mtd9/mtdblock9"

Now they should be swapped.

Although not sure why you would do that. NAND is usually faster than SDcard.

Bob

The thing is that I have only 4 games and the nand memory is almost full only 1 gb left, I want to use a 32gb card. Thank you Bob

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[Jbardi]

Minix Neo X7 - Finless 1.6 ROM - with overclock and frame skipping fix!

Unless the app is explicit when developed, you should be able to move it over to the sdcard after install. Another option would be to use a different parameters file when flashing the rom so you have more storage for apps and less for media. Changing the internal storage location from NAND to sdcard is probably the worst option to your dilemma.