Intel XScale processor performance problems (30% SLOWER)

[niels786]

[James S]

Thanks, but we all knew about this a LONG time ago.

The XScale never claimed to be faster. What it does offer is 4 times the battery life, which is what is important in a handheld. Performance is not what PocketPC's are about.

But in many applications the XScale processor IS faster. Games such as Snails, Lemonade Inc., and Argentum all run faster on XScales than on StrongARMs. PocketDivX and other mutlimedia playback applications also run faster on XScale than on ARM.

There are many cases in which XScale runs faster, but more where it runs slower. What's important is that, on average, it runs the same speed as the StrongARM 206MHz but offers 4 times the battery life.

[ottoman]

Moose, IMO those games you mentioned do not run any faster on x-scale than they do on the StrongArm. StrongArm still outperforms in all GAPI related applications. The animation in Snails and Argentum is much smoother on my StrongArm PPCs versus what I have seen on the e550g, iPAQ3955 and E740 (which I shouldn't even include since it has its own bag of issues, even post rom-upgrade).

Also while I don't run PocketDIVX I do use PocketTV and it produces framerates as much as 30% greater on the StrongARM versus x-scale. And I am using the enterprise version of PocketTV with the x-scale enhancements on my E740 versus the classic addition on the HP568.

And on the issue of battery life. Personally I have yet to see battery life "four times greater" than what I was getting on the StrongARM. I am comparing the iPAQ 3850 versus the iPAQ 3955 which I think has the same battery.

Are you getting this information based on personal experience or the marketing material the vendors provide? And speaking of marketing material both HP and Toshiba boasted about the "blazing speed" of the 400mhz processor so I think to a degree it was being sold as "faster than before" but never to the point where they said it was twice as fast as the previous generation of PPCs.

[James S]

Personal experience. I've frequently exceeded 12 hours of battery life with my H3955 (400MHz XScale), compared to 2 hours with my E-125 (180MHz MIPS). My peak amount of hours with my new device has been 15 hours, but it never reached the point where it simply shut down to the point that it wouldn't let me use my device anymore, so I'm sure I could squeeze 30 more minutes out of it if need be.

Also I never have experienced a single dropped frame in PocketDivX all the way up to 600kbps, as opposed to many many dropped frames on my previous device even with 150kbps video.

Things such as the load time on Lemonade Inc. are much, MUCH faster than on StrongARM devices. It loads in seconds, where Strongarms take around 10 seconds.

I don't have a wide range of devices to test with, I'm just a simple consumer. It works well with everything I've tested it on and I'm not about to complain. It's a great device and I've had zero problems with it. It's speed is more than adequate for what I use it for: PIMing, web browsing, the occasional game, and ripped DVD movies on a storage card.

[sponge]

I agree with Moose. Battery life is simply stunning, coming from a 3630, and even the idea I'm getting about the battery life of a 3800.

If the animation is smoother, and loading is faster, in Argentum and Snails (both games I've played on my 3600 and 3900) how is the XScale *still* slower in these applications? What your saying doesn't make sense. Sure it's slower in most programs, but the UI is snappier, the battery life is simply stunning, and all the newer generation devices pack more features in than any other ARM device ever had.

All of this has been known for a while already, and it's not just Intel, it's the OS. I've been hearing very positive things about how the XScale will be on Linux due to it being compiled for ARM V5.

[Mechcommander]

[(TSC)Bender]

[James S]

[ottoman]

[Chris Edwards]

[James S]

[sponge]

[TechMage]

[randall]

[niels786]

Update :

As some people in some forums where I posted my original message just did not believe the SLOWER performance of the XSCale Pocket PC over an ARM based Pocket PC here you can test for yourself.
Download the benchmark program from

http://www.pocketgear.com/software_deta ... ociateid=9

(I am not in any way associated with the developers of this program)

This program just tests floating point performance.

Result for me :

Compaq 3850 (ARM) for 100000 loops : 47.099 seconds
Compaq 3950 (XScale) for 10000 loops : 57.764 seconds

XScale is 23% slower for floating point ops ! This becomes WORSE for memory block copying operations.

please fill in other XScale devices !

Niels