[opensource-dev] SL on ARM platform

Ron Festa overdrive at dceo.rutgers.edu
Thu Jul 22 09:08:42 PDT 2010


Except there's many problems with the N900 that would have to be overcome.
For starters its CPU clock is normally 200mhz below the minimum spec. Even
though it can overclock you're going to be depending on pushing the CPU a
lot more then what its suppose to operate at which will require additional
cooling unless you want to shorten its lifespan. RAM is physically half of
the minimum required. Yes you have 1 gig virtually using swap space, but
swap is dependent on the memory card which will require a good memory card
like a class 6 or better to avoid system lag due to heavy thrashing of swap
space. Swap also naturally decreases the life of the memory card and such
aggressive thrashing will speed that up. Finally SL is written to use
OpenGL, not OpenGL ES which is a totally different beast.

To successfully port SL to this device you would have to increase the
efficiency of SL's code to run in a lower resource environment and adapt the
rendering engine to use OpenGL ES instead otherwise you're looking at a
client that would barely run if at all. Naali had the advantage of using a
real game engine (ogre) and still being a young ground up project where very
few things are set in stone with how it operates. If one has the time, the
team, and the dedicated resources to tackle SL's shortcomings on that
platform then by all means go for it and keep us updated. Personally though,
I feel the Android platform with the newer phones coming out which have more
CPU power and RAM would be a better choice to attempt a port (Google does
have an NDK that you can use to code in C/C++).

Ron Festa
Virtual Worlds Admin
Division of Continuing Studies at Rutgers University
PGP key: http://bit.ly/b1ZyhY
Phone: 732-474-8583


On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 8:01 PM, Tigro Spottystripes <
tigrospottystripes at gmail.com> wrote:

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> here is an excerpt from
> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nokia_N900 :
>
> "The Nokia N900 is powered by a high-end OMAP 3430 ARM Cortex A8 which
> is a System-on-a-chip made by Texas Instruments based on a 65-nanometer
> CMOS process. The OMAP 3430 is composed of three microprocessors; the
> Cortex A8 running at 600 MHz used to run the OS and applications, the
> PowerVR  SGX 530 GPU made by Imagination Technologies which supports
> OpenGL ES 2.0 and is capable of up to 14 MPolys/s and a TMS320C64x, the
> digital signal processors, running at 430 MHz used to run the image
> processing (camera), audio processing (telephony) and data transmission."
>
> I've read people managed to overclock the processor up to about 1 GHz,
> some people even made it so the clock would change depending on how much
> is being demanded from the processor, not only getting better
> performance but also increased battery time.
>
>
> On 20/7/2010 14:52, Altair Sythos Memo wrote:
> > On Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:35:01 +0000 (GMT)
> > DEEPAK JAIN <j.deepak at samsung.com> wrote:
> >
> > compile on ARM is possible, depending on which operating system you
> > want to do. ARM since V4 is basically a 32bit little endian processor
> > (latest version big endian 64bit too), a GCC since V2.95 can compile
> > ELF binaries.
> >
> > Using ARM linux you can follow a generic "standalone build" how-to
> > (preconf libraries aren't compiled for ARM), but the problem is only
> > shifted on performance side. I've worked on Familiar Project to
> >  5years ago (ex-compaq linux project on ARM devices) and about all
> > application written in a good ANSI C/C++ can be compiled without too
> > much pain, the step after is who do all the rendering job. A lot of
> > nowadays portable devices (handhelds, smartphone, pdaphone, tablet pc)
> > have a "sort of" GPU or graphic co-processor, but very few of them have
> > full OpenGL support (I think OpenGL2.1 is the minimum for latest
> > viewers), some have only software OpenGL API (ridicolous performance).
> >
> > some detail more can be usefulkl to answer to your wuestion ;)
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