What truth is there in HWA?

[Guest]

Hello guys,

I've already posted about the supposedly missing HWA.

As I said, maybe Huawei disabled HWA in some parts of the UI because of the lack of ram (read link above to understand why).

But I really like to know, if latest B934 ICS release of Huawei makes HWA available for other apps which need it.

A simple way to test this, is to check whether Google Chrome is running flawless. Here you can see how it should work (tab animations etc.):

So when HWA isn't implemented in this rom, you should only see a empty page in Chrome.

Maybe someone could test this and report the result. (I haven't installed ICS cause I'm waiting for official OTA release)

Greetings

Edited August 25, 2012 by Guest

[Guest Potatoes]

Nope, Chrome is usable but it's pretty choppy and very noticeable lag when scrolling / zooming unlike in the video.

[Guest PACOSH]

So when HWA isn't implemented in this rom, you should only see a empty page in Chrome.

what do u mean by empty page? chrome works well (tabs etc.) on b934 with genokollar's overclock.. dunno what is your way of testing the hwa...

[Guest]

Nope, Chrome is usable but it's pretty choppy and very noticeable lag when scrolling / zooming unlike in the video.

Yes, but thats because of the poor performance of the adreno 200 in the G300. The Nexus S in the videos has a PowerVR SGX540 (which is much faster).

what do u mean by empty page? chrome works well (tabs etc.) on b934 with genokollar's overclock.. dunno what is your way of testing the hwa...

Well, Chrome uses some TextureView methods which had been implemented in ICS API and only work with HWA. I also have a Motorola Defy, running on latest CyanogenMod. At the beginning of development, the Defy hadn't the right GPU drivers, so we had no HWA. Chrome was working only after we got the drivers and HWA. Also on the Defy we have a option to disable HWA for certain apps. Here you can see it:

So after disabling HWA for Chrome (on my Defy), it just shows an empty page after opening a URL. Also tab view is corrupted:

So I'm pretty sure, HWA is generally working for every kind of apps on Huaweis ICS. I still think they only disabled it for the system UI.

Another way to find out whether HWA is working, is the gradient black/grey background in some apps (like in my first screenshot at HWA Settings) and you can see when your launcher (in my case Apex) is using HWA. The icons are kind of smoothed when you wipe the first page to the right:

Maybe you can also test this. :)

Edited August 25, 2012 by Guest

[Guest PACOSH]

ok.. so for me chrome works well.. mayb with heavy flash sites it has difficulties (chopped scrolling etc), but generally its good experience.. so what does it mean, that hwa is actually implemented for some apps on huawei?

[Guest]

Yes, I think so. Maybe you could test Apex launcher and see if Apex settings menu has gradient background and icons get smoothed. ;)

Edited August 25, 2012 by Guest

[Guest Potatoes]

Yes, but thats because of the poor performance of the adreno 200 in the G300. The Nexus S in the videos has a PowerVR SGX540 (which is much faster).

Meh that's pretty sucky, seems like a sad day when we need a high power gpu in order to use a browser

[Guest]

Meh that's pretty sucky, seems like a sad day when we need a high power gpu in order to use a browser

There are many other browsers out there. Chrome is supposed to more high-end ICS/JB devices. So why complaining? ;) Could you please look after my questions about Apex launcher?

I haven't followed the whole discussion about OpenGL and 2D acceleration aka. HWA in this forum. Seems like Dazzozo said, there is no HWA. But I'm wondering why Chrome is working? Is Huawei using a software hack? Can't imagine that.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Guest

[Guest PACOSH]

will install apex launcher and put some info here afterwards..

edit: so apex menu has just black standard background.. not sure what u mean by smoothed icons tho..

edit2: noticed ur img in previous post about icons.. on screen its difficult to notice any diffs..

Edited August 25, 2012 by PACOSH

[Guest]

edit: so apex menu has just black standard background.. not sure what u mean by smoothed icons tho..

edit2: noticed ur img in previous post about icons.. on screen its difficult to notice any diffs..

When you open app drawer and try to wipe one before the first apps (endless scrolling must be deactivated), there is a effect. When you holt it in this postion you can see pixels around the icons when HWA isn't used.

Because Apex hasn't got gradient background in settings I think the worries about HWA are true. It seems like Huawei implemented all importend OpenGL Extensions and stuff like that (Chrome works), but not fully activated 2D GPU acceleration for apps like Apex and Nova. Very strange. :wacko: But maybe you could try to figure out whether icons get smoothed.

[Guest PACOSH]

cant upload pics at the moment, but there is no difference with/without hwa in icons smoothness .. bad news :(

[Guest]

Don't know what you made, but i flashed latest, official stock B934 and Apex Launcher has gradient background and also icons are smoothed. So I think there must be some kind of 2d acceleration!!?

Edited August 29, 2012 by Guest

[Guest tillaz]

i know for a fact its not fully working... that gray gradient thing, if you add this to an apps AndroidManifest.xml it will show the grey back ground

obviously you need the app to be using "android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo" and running ics

android:hardwareAccelerated="true"

[/CODE]


huawei have this disabled all over the place... and for good reason, turning this on can make some apps not work or run much slower


if you turn forced GPU  render on from the dev settings it makes the system really slow and laggy, making some apps force close,

for example the news and weather app, if you try opening the graph view it will force stop, logcat points at adreno200...


using forced GPU render normally has better effects on a rom, performance wise...

on my tegra  2 device i have managed to get nearly 2000 more points in antutu...


its ui acceleration that's broke from what i understand...

[Guest]

i know for a fact its not fully working... that gray gradient thing, if you add this to an apps AndroidManifest.xml it will show the grey back ground

obviously you need the app to be using "android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo" and running ics

android:hardwareAccelerated="true"

Yes, you have to set hardwareAccelerated="true" in the app manifest to tell the system shall render it by GPU. So apps that don't support HWA would have set this to false and won't be accelerated. But you need working GPU acceleration to render the one set to "true" and get gradient background! Otherwise they maybe also work, but at least without this background. One good reason for not using GPU acceleration, is to save ram in apps, like settings, systemui, phone.apk and stuff like this. Because with HWA, apps normaly need a bit longer to load, because first a new OpenGL process must get started.

if you turn forced GPU render on from the dev settings it makes the system really slow and laggy, making some apps force close,

for example the news and weather app, if you try opening the graph view it will force stop, logcat points at adreno200...

using forced GPU render normally has better effects on a rom, performance wise...

On no device it's recommenced to force HWA. Some apps need to get software rendered. And as I said, not all apps really benefit from it.

its ui acceleration that's broke from what i understand...

Well I still haven't found a detailed explanation how HWA is broke and whats not working and whats missing. Take a look at this screenshot from chrome. There you can see that some parts are definitly are GPU hardware accelerated.

Here you can see how it looks like at a fully HWA accelerated JB Rom on the defy (WebGL is also disabled, but normaly Canvas should be accelerated). So I guess Huawei only uses GPU acceleration for some parts of the UI. But it's definitly there!

Edited August 29, 2012 by Guest

[Guest psionandy]

Meh that's pretty sucky, seems like a sad day when we need a high power gpu in order to use a browser

*cough* Windows 7 aero *cough*

[Guest tillaz]

Yes, you have to set hardwareAccelerated="true" in the app manifest. So apps that crash would or don't support HWA won't be effected with HWA generellay activated. One good reason for not using GPU acceleration, is to save ram in apps, like settings, systemui, phone.apk and stuff like this. Because with HWA, apps normaly need a bit longer to load, because first a new OpenGL process must get started.

well, those apps you mention have it enabled by google as default, if you look at the stock nexus s rom (very similar device to the g300)

On no device it's recommenced to force HWA. Some apps need to get software rendered. And as I said, not all apps really benefit from it.

not sure where you got that but it makes a massive difference on other devices for me... on my tegra 2 it adds nearly 2000 more points in antutu benchmark,

and feels a lot more snappy...

anyway, if it was not broken why would huawei say its will be fully working in the official release..

also, the weather app dose not force close with it enabled on phones that have it fully working...

[Guest]

anyway, if it was not broken why would huawei say its will be fully working in the official release..

B934 is the official and final release.

HuaweiDevice ‏@HuaweiDevice

@thejaimes111 If you’re outside the UK, the full version of the international ICS upgrade is available here - http://ow.ly/dhqQ1

And from what Huawei says, it has HWA.

HuaweiDevice ‏@HuaweiDevice

@simon1speer Hi Simon, this version has Hardware accelerated UI http://ow.ly/dfcZj

well, those apps you mention have it enabled by google as default, if you look at the stock nexus s rom (very similar device to the g300)

Read this:

Because of the overhead of OpenGL, one may very well not want to use it for drawing. For example some of the work we are doing to make Android 4.0 run well on the Nexus S has involved turning off hardware accelerated drawing in parts of the UI so we don’t lose 8MB of RAM in the system process, another 8MB in the phone process, another 8MB in the system UI process, etc.

Also read this: Learn about the technical differences between Gingerbread and ICS

Yet another change in ICS, is that the graphics hardware acceleration is on by default for all apps from API level 14. For apps at lower API levels, it can be turned on in the manifest with the attribute android:hardwareAccelerated=”true”. Hardware acceleration means that the GPU is used to render graphics, which enables a smooth user interface. However, it also results in at need to load additional graphic libraries for certain apps, which makes them use even more RAM.

When we performed internal tests on our applications, we saw that the Settings app consumed 1-2MB more RAM, and actually took longer time to start with HW acceleration, compared to without. Once the app is running, the UI is HW accelerated, but unless the app performs advanced graphics, the user will not see the difference.

Another effect of the hardware acceleration is that it can make the battery drain faster in some cases. An example of this is video playback, where the hardware acceleration requires every video frame to be run through the GPU, thus making the system use more power than it would have without HW acceleration.

As a developer, you should therefore evaluate if HW acceleration is required or not, as it comes with a cost in terms of RAM usage, start-up time and possibly even battery duration which can have negative effects on the user experience. You can read more about hardware acceleration in Ice Cream Sandwich on the Android Developers blog.

So HWA isn't a full win and forcing HWA is a bad idea!!

PS: I don't want to offend you, but I thought you would have better technical knowledge in this stuff. :P

Edited August 30, 2012 by Guest

[Guest b4da55]

Simon1speer! nice to see other people noticing me trying to get some answers from hw

[Guest dragpyre]

B934 is the official and final release.

WRONG!

B934 is the official INTERNATIONAL release.

B963 is the Vodafone final, as confirmed here: http://www.modaco.co...-b963-approved/

Don't attempt to patronise others when you don't know the full story yourself, it makes you look like you have mental difficulties.

The fact you missed the point in your quotes makes you look even more ridiculous:

HuaweiDevice ‏@HuaweiDevice

@thejaimes111 If you’re outside the UK, the full version of the international ICS upgrade is available here - http://ow.ly/dhqQ1

Edited August 29, 2012 by dragpyre

[Guest 2saint4u]

Does anyone else have problems with this with international (official) B934 ?

After update from system/Storage/SD card upgrade

- There was no weather widget, and there was no shortcuts to wifi, bluetooth, data on the taskbar (when you slide it down)

So, I have found that file in "vendor" folder from the leaked update, and I have put that file in the "dload" like it's a full ROM, and started SD card upgrade again.

After that, the weather widget was avaiable, and shortcut icons have appeared. - good.

Note: aftrer that vendor file flash, entire internal memory was formatted like the phone is brand new.

noticed:

- I can "check" use GPU hw acc in 2d applications in developer system, 2d apps and games are running smooth.

Problems:

- 3D games, either are NOT WORKING, either running with massive lags, texture loss, artifacts, or touch screens seems to get "stucked" and "out of calibration" for example, you tap the direction on the virtual joypad and youer press gets "sticked" like you are holding it....

Games tested:

Dead trigger - working with texture glitches, stutter, but commands are responsive.

Mini motor racing - touch screen gets "stiucky" or simulating rapid press on 1 screen tap. (graphics looks OK, some stutter.

Shadow Hunter - game crashes after 15 sec in 3D.

Shadowgun - touch screen commands gets sticky, graphics looks OK, some slowdowns (not stutter, like -20% slow-mo at moments)

Reckless racing 1 - cant start at all.

Frontline commando - controls are ok, graphics are OK, but it has some slow mo slowdowns

All the games mentioned above WERE WORKING PERFECTLY IN GB 2.3.6 (VIP Serbia (vodaphone?) Provider)

OVER ALL - 3D apps FAIL MUCH, I do not reccomend this ICS upgrada for anyone who wants to play 3D games on the phone.

One other notice...

Before I have put that vendor file,.. I had sometnigh that I do not have now in { Developer tools }

There was an option, some kind of app killer, and if it was cheched, It said that every app is killed in the proces if you get it out of the screen. So basically, every final "back arrow system key" would kill the proces.

[Guest Dazzozo]

not sure where you got that but it makes a massive difference on other devices for me... on my tegra 2 it adds nearly 2000 more points in antutu benchmark,

and feels a lot more snappy...

anyway, if it was not broken why would huawei say its will be fully working in the official release..

also, the weather app dose not force close with it enabled on phones that have it fully working...

He's right. It's a developer setting and under normal usage should not be toggled (e.g Cut The Rope with forced acceleration breaks the menu). If it's making your launcher feel more snappy then the launcher isn't accelerated or it's a placebo. That's all there is to it.

[Guest Dazzozo]

I have a suspicion the HWA state in B934 will be the same as release. QA can probably deem that a usable experience and pull the "it would use too much RAM otherwise" card.

[Guest tillaz]

He's right. It's a developer setting and under normal usage should not be toggled (e.g Cut The Rope with forced acceleration breaks the menu). If it's making your launcher feel more snappy then the launcher isn't accelerated or it's a placebo. That's all there is to it.

iv always seen benefits enabling this...

before it was even in the developer settings, back on gingerbread

video.accelerate.hw=1

debug.performance.tuning=1

and its not just me, nearly every other custom rom had it enabled.

cut the rope must be a problem with the app, because this is turned on by default for quite a lot of system apps and normal apps,

if you look at there AndroidManifest.xml you will see this if its enabled

android:hardwareAccelerated="true"

(only difference with this is it only applies to one app, ticking the box in dev settings enables it for every apk)

if you check a stock ICS rom form a google device like the nexus s (witch i did) you will see the above is turned on by default in most places...

so turning it on obviously has sum benefit..

but when you look at the same apps in huawei's rom they have it turned off by default android:hardwareAccelerated="false"

so there must be a problem in huaweis rom if they are turning things off that is default in the AOSP

[Guest 2saint4u]

tillaz, can you check my post on the previous page, and tell me does your custom ROM works well with mentioned 3d apps?

[Guest Dazzozo]

iv always seen benefits enabling this...

before it was even in the developer settings, back on gingerbread

video.accelerate.hw=1

debug.performance.tuning=1

and its not just me, nearly every other custom rom had it enabled.

cut the rope must be a problem with the app, because this is turned on by default for quite a lot of system apps and normal apps,

if you look at there AndroidManifest.xml you will see this if its enabled

android:hardwareAccelerated="true"

(only difference with this is it only applies to one app, ticking the box in dev settings enables it for every apk)

if you check a stock ICS rom form a google device like the nexus s (witch i did) you will see the above is turned on by default in most places...

so turning it on obviously has sum benefit..

but when you look at the same apps in huawei's rom they have it turned off by default android:hardwareAccelerated="false"

so there must be a problem in huaweis rom if they are turning things off that is default in the AOSP

It's not a "problem" with the app. It simply cannot be 2D hardware accelerated. Many apps are the same, and that's why the hardwareAccelerated parameter exists.

Okay, you've seen benefits, you keep telling us about how it totally transformed your device, but that does not mean it's not a developer setting for a reason.