Graphics driver weirdness.. certain apps causing issues with landscape graphics

[bast525]

okay so... coming from a TP1, I had always noticed that graphics performance in landscape mode was very poor and noticeably worse than in portrait view. I had confirmed this with benchmarking, using the "draw bitmaps" test in SK tools. Results in Landscape were almost 30% slower than in Portrait. But even without benching, it was painfully obvious in some apps.... animations would be choppier and there was some graphic tearing, like vsync was off.

One of the first things I did with my TP2 was run this same benchmark, and I was very pleased when the TP2 not only scored about 20% higher overall than the TP1, but it also scored identically in Portrait and Landscape.

But, now I have noticed that certain apps can "break" this, and make the TP2 perform just like the TP1, particularly, it will start running MUCH worse in landscape. The first app I confirmed was S2U2, but ONLY if the display mode is set to RawBuffer. If left to DirectDraw, landscape performance stays fine, BUT S2U2's graphics are garbled in landscape.

The second app I confirmed is Coreplayer. As soon as I open it, landscape performance nosedives. Whether I run a video or not.

Even if I shut either of these apps down completely, landscape peformance will remain broken until I soft reset. In the case of S2U2, I have to set the display mode back to direct draw and soft reset. The programs being installed does not cause the problem, only once they are run.

S2U2 and SK Tools Lite are free, if anyone else wants to see what I'm talking about. It pisses me off because a) this was one of my biggest complaints of the TP1, and b) S2U2 and Coreplayer are two apps I really dont want to go without. I am sure that there are other apps out there that will cause the same problem as well...

I dont know if anything can be done to fix this, but figured if anyone can, some of the geniuses here can.

[bast525]

*bump*

Nobody else seeing this? Nobody else care?

[GoodThings2Life]

In terms of performance, you can install the stand-alone At0mAng D3D driver or my own Touch Pro 2 Tweaks packages to install the driver to boost performance (see signature for link for my stuff).

In terms of compatibility, there are a lot of apps that just aren't properly compatible with the new resolution. Updates will be available over time... I know that S2U2 2.05 is being actively worked on right now to address the issues you've seen.

dont let Exiled see this thread.... he will have a field day

[bast525]

Dont take this wrong, I'm not trying to be a ****, but I honestly think this issue I'm describing has nothing at all to do with screen resolution. It seems to be strictly driver related. Why does it only happen when S2U2 is run in RawBuffer mode? Why does it only slow down Landscape performance? Why does it cause the TP2 to perform identically to the TP1, whereas normally the TP2 actually performs much speedier, and MUCH better in Landscape?

Also, A_C send me the 2.05 beta and we've been emailing back and forth a bit, so far he hasnt figured how to fix the landscape issues.

I'm also not sure why Coreplayer is doing the same thing, by just opening it, without even loading a video. My guess is that the app itself also uses the RawBuffer display drivers.

EDIT: Well I just found something interesting! Opening the Camera app puts things back to normal WITHOUT needing to soft reset. It's like the camera app uses the defaul/better drivers and forces the device back to that mode.

[GoodThings2Life]

Can you please give a full list of what you've installed and what tweaks you've made?

Here's what I know from my own experience:

-- I've installed a very small list of programs, but an extensive list of registry/performance tweaks.
-- I don't have any noticeable landscape performance issues.

-- Hard Reset
-- Touch Pro 2 Cleanup (my own set of hacks, see link for details... it DOES install the ATI D3D driver but not the GFXBOOST... still don't know what that is)
-- Contact Changer (doesn't do anything but convert all contacts to First Last instead of Last, First)
-- Facebook
-- Bing Search (replaces Live Search)
-- .NET Compact Framework 3.5
-- Font Pack (a collection of Windows fonts that I frequently need)
-- PHM RegEdit
-- S2U2 2.04 (see link, post #3 for customized version ... all settings configured for battery-friendly but functional settings ... preconfigured for RawBuffer mode)
-- Spb Screenshot applet
-- Total Commander

I would be interested in learning whether you have the same issues if you install my Tweaks package. It's very possible something I'm doing in it (modifying GlyphCache and the inclusion of the actual D3D driver, for example) is improving my experience enough to make me not notice an issue.

If you don't like the whole collection but we can identify the tweaks, I'll gladly post a stand-alone fix.

But here's the bottom line... all HTC devices have lots of quirks and the driver limitations are well known and documented on this site and XDA. That's why the replacement driver exists. I presume GFXBOOST is supposed to help too, though I've never used it. BUT, if you only experience it as a result of using certain apps in certain conditions, then it is a fault of the app, not the driver. Driver issues are going to appear everywhere.

Do I think S2U2 is causing an issue? Currently... yes! I don't use the other app you mentioned, so I have no idea on that. Some apps are like Spb Mobile Shell 3.0.1... it doesn't use the DirectDraw enhancements by default, because they know not all phones support it, but they make it an option. Some apps don't use it and don't give an option.

[bast525]

I can do one better. I figured it was some combination of things at first too, so as an experiment I did do a full hard reset to eliminate as many variables as possible. Now, since I installed Coreplayer to my memory card, it persists after a hard reset. I dont even need to reinstall it, I can just navigate to the exe and launch it. Same goes for SK Tools Lite.

So, here are steps I did to demonstrate this issue:

- Hard reset
- Open file explorer, navigate to program files on storage card, launch SK Tools Lite
- Run "Draw Bitmaps" benchmark in portrait and landscape. Both give a score of about 200 and the animation is smooth. Close SK tools
- Open Opera, force landscape,load a page and zoom in. Scrolling around the page, the animation is smooth, open Resco Photo Viewer Beta, scroll through pictures in landscape, animation is very smooth
- Navigate to Coreplayer folder and launch it. Immediately close back out of it
- Repeat tests with SK Tools, portrait still scores about 200, landscape scores about 130 and the animation is much choppier with visible tearing. Close SK Tools
- Repeat test with Opera, scrolling around in landscape is choppier and there is visible tearing. Open Resco Photo Viewer, scrolling through photos in landscape is VERY choppy with lots of visible tearing
- Open Camera. Close back out of it immediately. Re-run benchmarks, results back to normal, scrolling in Opera and Resco once again smooth
- Run the D3D Demo from the storage card, it barely runs... less than 1 FPS
- Install At0mAng D3D driver, soft reset
- Run D3D Demo, runs very nicely
- Repeat above tests with SK, photo viewer and Opera, before and after launching Coreplayer, results exactly the same as above, landscape performance lags after Coreplayer opened, goes back to normal after camera opened
- Install S2U2 and soft reset. Rerun tests, results normal.
- Switch S2U2 to run in RawBuffer mode, repeat tests, landscape performance lags
- Switch back to DirectDraw, run and close camera app, repeat tests, all results back to normal

[GoodThings2Life]

OK... right now... Download CeRegEditor for the PC... http://ceregeditor.mdsoft.pl/

Connect the phone to your computer and use this tool to take a backup of your registry state in a "working" condition (200 in landscape/portrait). Then, open CorePlayer so that it "breaks" the performance... then reconnect CeRegEditor and take another backup. Zip the files and post them here, and I'll do a compare on them to see if we can't at least figure out what it's doing.

I have used this trick to document that it's Opera screwing up the Classic Word Completion hack too (it's the program that keeps resetting the value of CurrentET9Style). It's possible that it's making some fundamental changes to your config while it's running that aren't getting reset when you exit.

Question: do you have Task Manager set so that "X" forces an exit of programs, or just the standard minimize function? If it's set to minimize, change it to force exit and see if that forces CorePlayer to shutdown and revert the settings on its own.

[bast525]

Ok I may not be able to do the registry extract for a couple of days, but I will definitely do it in the interest of figuring this problem out.

As for how I am closing Coreplayer, as part of my testing I've been ensuring that the app/process is completely closed by going in via FDC Task Manager and vieiwing the lists of running apps and processes. Coreplayer does actually exit if you select exit from the left softkey menu. Same with S2U2, if you select iLock from the start menu while it is already running, it does completely stop the running iLock/S2U2 process.

[GoodThings2Life]

OK, that's what I wanted to confirm with closing them down. The question remaining is what they may be tampering with in the registry that they aren't fixing on exit.