[Dave12308]

Total newb here, had my Storm for 2 weeks and 2 days now. Tax refund gift to myself, to replace a Voyager that was frankly annoying in its limitations. I see alot of comments in here regarding the Storm's performance vs. the iPhone; like "the Storm's processor is more powerful than the iPhone, it should be at least as smooth and fluid"

This thinking is fundamentally flawed, as the iPhone has one significant component that the Storm doesn't (or at least doesn't make use of at this time, whether or not it has the necessary hardware seems to be a point of debate)... And this magical component is: a hardware 3D accelerator.

The iPhone uses a Samsung S5L8900 processor which contains a 412MHz ARM 1176 processor AND a PowerVR MBX 3D coprocessor. I believe it uses Apple's "Core Interface" hardware acceleration which is OpenGL based for both drawing of the GUI, and 3D rendering. The CPU is left free for applications and background processes.

The Storm, on the other hand, uses the Qualcomm MSM7600 processor; which contains a 400MHz ARM11 and a 274MHz ARM9 CPU core. Notice, neither of these cores are GPU cores, they are CPUs; the Storm uses software rendering. The CPU cores must run both the OS and phone software and also take care of graphics rendering.

A good way to illustrate the difference is to think back to the introduction of the graphics accelerator card for the PC (think 3Dfx Voodoo). Remember how old DOS games always ran at an ultra-low resolution, and basically felt really clunky? There's software rendering for you. Now think about the 3Dfx card, and the Glide API; all of a sudden DOS games ran in a high res (for the time) at 30fps (also speedy for the time). Another good illustration is how a PCs graphics card renders things right after Windows is installed and before the proper drivers are in place.

In summary, the Storm may very well never approach the user experience an iPhone does. The Storm, to me, is a workhorse that does what it needs to; not necessarily speedily, but well. Its performance WILL improve over time as the coders get more experience coding for the device, and subroutines are optimized; unless the programmers are REAL slow learners. CPU cycles will be freed up, and there will be more resources for graphics rendering. But the current trick with the leaked firmwares of lowering the bit-depth of the display may well be the only way to keep things running at a truly acceptable level.

[rellims]

Interesting thoughts and info, makes sense.

[liz_309]

Total newb here, had my Storm for 2 weeks and 2 days now. Tax refund gift to myself, to replace a Voyager that was frankly annoying in its limitations. I see alot of comments in here regarding the Storm's performance vs. the iPhone; like "the Storm's processor is more powerful than the iPhone, it should be at least as smooth and fluid"

This thinking is fundamentally flawed, as the iPhone has one significant component that the Storm doesn't (or at least doesn't make use of at this time, whether or not it has the necessary hardware seems to be a point of debate)... And this magical component is: a hardware 3D accelerator.

The iPhone uses a Samsung S5L8900 processor which contains a 412MHz ARM 1176 processor AND a PowerVR MBX 3D coprocessor. I believe it uses Apple's "Core Interface" hardware acceleration which is OpenGL based for both drawing of the GUI, and 3D rendering. The CPU is left free for applications and background processes.

The Storm, on the other hand, uses the Qualcomm MSM7600 processor; which contains a 400MHz ARM11 and a 274MHz ARM9 CPU core. Notice, neither of these cores are GPU cores, they are CPUs; the Storm uses software rendering. The CPU cores must run both the OS and phone software and also take care of graphics rendering.

A good way to illustrate the difference is to think back to the introduction of the graphics accelerator card for the PC (think 3Dfx Voodoo). Remember how old DOS games always ran at an ultra-low resolution, and basically felt really clunky? There's software rendering for you. Now think about the 3Dfx card, and the Glide API; all of a sudden DOS games ran in a high res (for the time) at 30fps (also speedy for the time). Another good illustration is how a PCs graphics card renders things right after Windows is installed and before the proper drivers are in place.

In summary, the Storm may very well never approach the user experience an iPhone does. The Storm, to me, is a workhorse that does what it needs to; not necessarily speedily, but well. Its performance WILL improve over time as the coders get more experience coding for the device, and subroutines are optimized; unless the programmers are REAL slow learners. CPU cycles will be freed up, and there will be more resources for graphics rendering. But the current trick with the leaked firmwares of lowering the bit-depth of the display may well be the only way to keep things running at a truly acceptable level.

that's why the graphics in some of the later leaks had degradation in the screen resolution...hmm. Makes sense now. I couldn't think of why that would happen so late in the game. I love the beautiful screen so hopefully they can find a happy medium.

[vaca232]

The MSM7600 does have a GPU built into it... The storms OS doesn't have any 3D acceleration though as far as I know.

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[Bundy#AC]

There was a post recently that linked to the spec sheet of the Storm's processor, and, well, I think you may be wrong. Look it up.

[Bundy#AC]

With that said, I think you're right about the developers not taking full advantage of the hardware...yet.

[Dave12308]

EDIT: Just read the official specsheet, the Storm should be capable of hardware assisted OpenGL ES rendering. Now, it's up to RIM to write an OS that uses this to draw the UI and handle all things graphics. This probably won't be happening until the 5.x OSes are released, as it would require a fundamental change to OS itself. It might not even happen until there are more touchscreen BB devices on the market. But i'm pretty sure as of right now, all that nice OpenGL ES goodness remains untapped. If the thing is currently using OpenGL, RIM has some lousy programmers. The Storm should be capable of running smooth as an iPhone once the display is hardware accelerated. And it should be capable of iPhone-esque games (like Asphalt 4/Ferrari GT) - and i'd think another side effect would be the accelerometer delay would disappear.

EDIT2: Knowing about this hidden capability has me even more excited over my Storm now..... Although I feel the OpenGL OS should have been completed before the device was released, after all, Apple didn't release the iPhone running MacOS 9; it was running OS X as intended.

[bradley1972]

For a newbie, you sure brought alot of great info to the table!

[Iya]

Hello Brad,

Newbie in CB is only about how many posting Dave made right ?

It doesn't tell what Dave is capable of.
Many people have hundreds of posts or some probably have 1000s but that does not mean anything in terms of real technological know how or actual contribution, it just showed number of posts made.

Its good to have someone like Dave and others who understand things on hardware level or software level because they have the background and able explain to IT-Blind guys like me in simple language...

I just hope people without real know how do not flame this kind of info merely because they love Storm more over iphone and took this thread wrong.

The way I see this forum, aside from being a very helpful forum...+++thank you CB and its members+++......there are many Storm lovers who will defend the Storm to death regardless of the facts that it may be lacking in some areas or not living to the expecation of the buyers or whatever other reasons.

Regards,
Iya

[blacktoothberry]

mine runs great love it

[Dave12308]

For a newbie, you sure brought alot of great info to the table!

Well, to be honest having an IT background causes me to be more interested in these types of things on a hardware level. A big factor in my decision to buy the Storm was how "open" it is compared to Verizon phones i've owned in the past. It seems like all the "dumb" phones are tied to Verizon on such a level nothing can be EASILY modded. I like not being tied to GIN for apps, and I like not having to walk into a VZW store for an OS upgrade (last time I did that, my Voyager was never the same again).

When I saw all the people noticing the color banding/etc. in the newer leaked OSes, it dawned on me that a reduction in bit-depth to compensate for a non-accelerated GUI was the reason the OS was snappier overall.

As for the whole Storm vs. iPhone debate, think of it this way: the iPhone is probably running as well as it ever will; no surprise updates are going to make it feel like a whole new phone. With the Storm, on the other hand, a new OS could be released someday with significant enough differences in the underlying architechture that we will all feel like we've received a brand new device.

[ntekllc]

It seems that the stable os is just as buggy as the leaked os. The hardware is not problem, is the bad os updates. I think that RIM is going the way of micro$oft and making all of us beta testers.

[lostmarine]

Hopefully the OS update that makes this feel like a whole new device comes sooner then later or I am trading for verizon version of the bold or 8900. I like the storm but don't love it.

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[kuppyr]

Great post Dave welcoem aboard!!

[Shiner]

Yeah nice opener lol... [He patts him on the back]

[drjay868]

Way to open up strong! Not to mention giving the rest of us tech noobs a little lesson in hardware vs software rendering.

[DankJemo]

Good read, nice and informative... You are the type of Noob that I like to see around. It sure is a change of pace to read stuff like this instead of "Hey, any new themes out yet?"

I only mention that because that is what i did when I was a noob.

way to be awesome, man.

[ritchied]

Thanks for the post. Very informative. I did not know the background on the banding or that the storm was in fact cable of 3D acceleration. I hope you continue to contribute in the future. It is posts like there that keep me coming back to cb.

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[Dave12308]

Thanks for the warm welcome, folks. Like I said, it's up to RIM to write an accelerated OS; whether they do or not is for the future to tell. Although if the hardware is there, there's no reason not to take advantage of it. Unless RIM deems that it eats up too much of the device's RAM, I see no mention on the spec sheet for the MSM7600 about having embedded graphics memory; so it probably uses a shared memory arrangement much like a low-end PC with an integrated graphics chipset (think Intel GMA series) - and it would have to share the base 192MB of RAM, although it would probably only take a couple of megs for the size of the display and it's maximum bit-depth. Using either the 8GB microSD card or 1GB internal flash would be impossible, because flash memory is simply way too slow and otherwise inappropriate to use as framebuffer memory. But basically being left with a couple of megs less RAM (which I think in BB terms is 'application memory') would only mean a battery pull would come slightly sooner, after I reboot my Storm I have about 32MB of free App memory, if 2MB were being used as framebuffer, i'd have 30MB instead. No biggie, especially if memory management routines are optimized.

[Dave12308]

Just a newb, but I am curious as to why this was moved to the Rants & Raves section? It was meant to be neither, just informative.

[misdeismo]

Question dave, there is already a java specification (jar 239) which allows for bindings to opengl es. If RIM releases a new blackberry os that allows for opengl es support, would that allow for the storm to tap into its hardware capabilities in the future?

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