PocketMatrix

Tested my game Beshaped running GapiDraw with a new iPAQ 2210 running Pocket PC 2003 and graphics runs smoother on my old iPAQ 3600. On the 2210 sometimes the motion seems a little jerky. This was not what I had expected! Perhaps it is only noticable with my trained eye but irritating nevertheless. I recompiled the game with EVC 4 and the Pocket PC 2003 SDK but that did not help. I also experimented with some different thread priorities but no luck there eighter! I have not yet done any more detailed investigations (framrate etc).
Anyone that can explain this?

Have you made sure to use the GapiDraw DLL specific for PocketPC 2003?

You are the first person I know of who purchased a PPC with 2003 installed on it, and when I last read a review of the 2210 (or 2215, it's the same device sold through a different channel) it was supposed to be faster than anything else, and I quote the reviewer:

"it can easily be summed up by saying it's overall better than any other Pocket PC on the market" ... So I guess "overall" is relative, but the numbers were there to prove it was fast.

Anyone can shed some light on this?

--Eric

My 2210 cannot get above 50 fps. I compiled a test app that does nothing but exit when you tap the screen, and it never got above 50 fps, though the target framerate was 100. I have also tried every ARM version of the gd dll that I could, and the difference is almost non-existant.

This apparently also happens with the high end WM2003 iPaq (5455?).

I measured some times with my game Beshaped on my 2 devices Here is what I got:

iPAQ 3600
Average time drawing to the back buffer = 3 ms.
Average time flipping the back buffer = 4 ms.

iPAQ 2210
Average time drawing to the back buffer = 2 ms.
Average time flipping the back buffer = 19 ms!

One could argue that a framerate of ~50 FPS should be enough and that you won't notice any difference with higher framerate, But I did!

It would be interesting to know why flipping takes so much more time on the 2210.

Yes, the iPAQ 2210 uses the MediaQ 1178 chip. The video memory returned by GAPI is on the MediaQ chip and accessing it is much slower then DRAM. This is what is happening.

From what I have read about this chip back in june, it was supposed to be the cure to all ills with it's great speed and its 64 bit 2D engine.

I guess that was more advertising mumbo-jumbo.

--Eric