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Animated GIFs and ARM speed. How well does this page run on Android 4 ICS?

Eug

Eug

Lifer
I have an iPad 2, and my dual-core 1 GHz Cortex A9 doesn't seem to like animated GIFs so much. Pages like this page can really slow it down:

http://senorgif.memebase.com/

How well does it run on your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich device, and what CPU/GPU does it have?

I'm considering buying an Android 4.0 Rockchip RK30xx based 7" tablet when they're available later this year.
 
On a Galaxy Nexus using the Google Chrome browser the gifs don't slow it down at all, it scrolls at seemingly 60fps. It does redraw as you scroll though similar to the checkerboarding in iOS except it's just a blank white instead.
 
That page loads up fine on iPad 3 on iOS 5.1. Zooming and scrolling are perfectly smooth just like on every other page.

Some animations not as fast (seems like they play in slow motion) as my netbook or laptop, but overall acceptable.

Are we talking about "slow" as in the GIFs playing back slow or as in the whole page feels stuttery/laggy while zooming/scrolling?

Edit: just tried on iPhone 4 on 5.0.1. Takes foreeevveeerrrr (approximately 15 minutes) to load. iPad 3 took 20 seconds to load all animations in comparison. My MBP took 15. Scrolling and zooming is also a lot stuttery (and by that, I mean completely frozen every 5 seconds).

Looks to me like it could also be lack of RAM. I'll see if I can get a 5.1 iPad 2 to compare.

Edit 2: got an iPad 2 on 5.0.1 to test. It loads faster than iPhone 4, but it's still pausing momentarily while scrolling and zooming. Animations are also a lot faster and smoother on iPad 3. Looks like iPad 3 with more RAM does help a lot with things like this.
 
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Once that page loaded on my LG G2X phone (Tegra 2 based), it ran fine, and that's on Cyanogenmod 7.2.
 
Takes a while to load and scrolling is a bit jittery on my Touchpad running ICS. Animations aren't smooth with the stock ICS browser.

Animation is pretty smooth in Opera Mobile, Firefox Mobile and Chrome though.
 
Anyone running a RK2918 based Android ICS machine? That's my other option, but I'm avoiding it so far because it's only got a single core Cortex A8.

My iPhone 4 and iPad 2 experience (iOS 5.1) with this site is like runawayprisoner's. Painful on the iPhone 4, and slow on the iPad 2.

Given the iPad 2 has the same CPU as the iPad 3, I wonder if it could be related to the GPU, or just the RAM as mentioned.

I wonder if the other mobile browsers as others mentioned would improve things on a RK2918 machine too.
 
So it looks like most of you are running dual-core devices:

Galaxy S II: Samsung Exynos 4210 - 1.2 GHz dual ARM Cortex-A9, Mali-400
Nexus S: Samsung Exynos 3110 - 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8, PowerVR SGX 540
Galaxy Nexus: TI OMAP 4460 - 1.2 GHz dual ARM Cortex-A9, PowerVR SGX540
LG G2X: NVIDIA Tegra 2 - 1.0 GHz dual ARM Cortex A9, ULP GeForce
HP TouchPad: Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 - 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9, Qualcomm Adreno 220
HTC Sensation: Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 - 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9, Qualcomm Adreno 220

The one that is the closest to RK2918 is the Nexus S (single-core A8), but yoda says it's a bit slow on that one. Then again zerocool says it runs OK.

Hmmm... What to do... Wait 6 months to a year for RK30xx or just get a $130 7" RK2918 based device now...
 
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poofyhairguy said:
That page loads fine for me on my Ginger SGS2. It just got a working ICS so I can try that later today.
Click to expand...

Give it a shot, but I just flashed SHOStock ICS (UHLPE w/ Entropy's latest kernel) and it's still a little laggy. Input lag is especially bad, but scrolling and buttons still have a little delay. I was curious, but I'm going back to UnOriginal until the ICS builds settle down.
 
It loads fine on my stock Atrix 4G running Gingerbread, stock browser, Tegra 2.

The page scrolls smoothly, but the stock browser freezes all GIF animations during scrolling (so that might explain the smoothness). GIFs play back at full speed.
 
Eug said:
Anyone running a RK2918 based Android ICS machine? That's my other option, but I'm avoiding it so far because it's only got a single core Cortex A8.

My iPhone 4 and iPad 2 experience (iOS 5.1) with this site is like runawayprisoner's. Painful on the iPhone 4, and slow on the iPad 2.

Given the iPad 2 has the same CPU as the iPad 3, I wonder if it could be related to the GPU, or just the RAM as mentioned.

I wonder if the other mobile browsers as others mentioned would improve things on a RK2918 machine too.
Click to expand...

Timed it on my iPad 2 with a stopwatch and it took 10 seconds to fully load the page. Animation is fine, except Safari freezes them when scrolling. I'm guessing a lot of the discrepancy in the results will be due to differences in Internet speed. I tried it on my desktop and it seems like it's maxing out my bandwidth at 10-20 Mbps for around 7 seconds.
 
Yeah, I just checked again on my iPad 2, and it's faster now (although not quite the same experience as on a full-blown computer). I guess it depends on the content, which is constantly changing. The iPhone 4 remains slow though.

Also, just a note that the page is different on the iPhone 4 vs. the iPad 2. On the former it's a mobile page, and on the latter it's the full regular page.

I wonder if my local shop has the RK2918 tablet on display. It'd be useful to try it myself and if tolerable I could get that in the interim, instead of waiting a year for a dual-core RK30xx. (I don't feel like spending $300 for another tablet.)
 
Eug said:
The one that is the closest to RK2918 is the Nexus S (single-core A8), but yoda says it's a bit slow on that one. Then again zerocool says it runs OK.
Click to expand...

It initially loaded up the mobile site. I just ran it again on the desktop site and it took longer to load up. Scrolling was definitely smooth but pinch to zoom was laggy.
 
sjwaste said:
Give it a shot, but I just flashed SHOStock ICS (UHLPE w/ Entropy's latest kernel) and it's still a little laggy. Input lag is especially bad, but scrolling and buttons still have a little delay. I was curious, but I'm going back to UnOriginal until the ICS builds settle down.
Click to expand...

Unless your desperate for some themes then your probably better off rooting the stock ICS rom and debloating with titanium. Thats what I did (as well as a bit of undervolting with Tegrak overclock) and mines great.

Just give the custom ROMs a bit of time to settle.

Edit:That was using the Chrome browser, the stock one lags very slightly on pinch to zoom.
 
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Eug said:
Yeah, I just checked again on my iPad 2, and it's faster now (although not quite the same experience as on a full-blown computer). I guess it depends on the content, which is constantly changing. The iPhone 4 remains slow though.

Also, just a note that the page is different on the iPhone 4 vs. the iPad 2. On the former it's a mobile page, and on the latter it's the full regular page.
Click to expand...

I think you just discovered the biggest difference in performance between iPad 2 and 3. I tried the site again on another iPad 2 on 5.1 and it still froze momentarily occasionally on that page whether with scrolling or zooming.

iPad 3 blazes through the thing just like it was any other page.

In any case, there is a link at the bottom of the mobile page that brings you to the full page on the iPhone. Be aware, though, it may freeze your phone.
 
Took about 20 seconds for them all to load on WiFi for me, but they played smooth and scrolling was fine after that. IE9 on Windows Phone 😛 Single core Snapdragon at 1GHz, somewhere around 512MB of ram.
 
WelshBloke said:
Unless your desperate for some themes then your probably better off rooting the stock ICS rom and debloating with titanium. Thats what I did (as well as a bit of undervolting with Tegrak overclock) and mines great.

Just give the custom ROMs a bit of time to settle.

Edit:That was using the Chrome browser, the stock one lags very slightly on pinch to zoom.
Click to expand...

You're in the UK, right? Meaning the i9100 instead of the i777? We just got ICS working since the source code dropped. There wasn't a leak for our device before that, so our lag is due to the kernels basically being 1st generation - they run without bugs, but are not optimized. So for now, I nandroided back to 2.3.4.

But yeah, I do agree, if I were on the 9100 I'd take the stock (LP2?) firmware and just debloat it. I'm not a big theme person. I actually don't mind TouchWiz. I do like the Apex Launcher quite a bit though. Have you looked at that?
 
sjwaste said:
You're in the UK, right? Meaning the i9100 instead of the i777? We just got ICS working since the source code dropped. There wasn't a leak for our device before that, so our lag is due to the kernels basically being 1st generation - they run without bugs, but are not optimized. So for now, I nandroided back to 2.3.4.
Click to expand...

Yeah UK, sorry I always forget that you guys have a ludicrous amount of similar models. How different is the i777?

sjwaste said:
But yeah, I do agree, if I were on the 9100 I'd take the stock (LP2?) firmware and just debloat it. I'm not a big theme person. I actually don't mind TouchWiz. I do like the Apex Launcher quite a bit though. Have you looked at that?
Click to expand...

I'm actually using ADWlauncher EX still. It seems to work fine on ICS and does everything I need it to. I might have a look at Apex though, I quite like it on my Touchpad.
 
It's weird because I was expecting it to be bad since my Touchpad, which is much faster, can't run it smooth in the stock browser (although the 3rd party ones did).

I AM running Cyanogenmod so it's possible there's some optimizations there.
 
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