Intel Clover Trail CPU/GPU and light gaming

[NTMBK]

No its not . But ya see I don't like the red triangle. So I just marked OT . I wasn't complaining about them just marking them .

I always reckoned the red triangle was more likely to get some attention, the mods are very busy people

 

[zlatan]

How is it for basic video watching, netflix use, reading, etc?

And you said freelancer worked fine?

Netflix mostly works fine in SD, but when I switched to HD it really-really stutters.
Reading is ok.

Freelancer is running at 30-35 fps, but as I said the display driver crashes randomly, and the water is fully white. It doesn't rendered correctly. This is a typical problem for PowerVR when a program not optimized for the low-level pipeline.

 

[Gabik123]

Netflix mostly works fine in SD, but when I switched to HD it really-really stutters.
Reading is ok.

Freelancer is running at 30-35 fps, but as I said the display driver crashes randomly, and the water is fully white. It doesn't rendered correctly. This is a typical problem for PowerVR when a program not optimized for the low-level pipeline.

This seems good enough for what I'll need the tablet for. I'll have an ipad mini around for other stuff

BTW, what do you use for reading .epub files in metro?

 

[zlatan]

Honestly, I'm too much of an early adopter to wait, and I need a laptop-style device now anyways, so its the best time to get one. I've sort of changed what my expectations for use on the device will be, so I'm not sure i need the A-Game, and if its so much better, I'll just sell this tablet on craigslist to finance the new one 🙂

If you really want a traditional PC experience on a tablet. Your only choice now is AMD Hondo.
It's fast for a tablet, and based on the Brazos platform. This is important, because developers already optimized dozens of applications for it.
The downside is the higher power consumption, but the designs will work with passive cooling.

You can search for C50 benchmarks on the web, if you want to know the performance of the Hondo APU.

BTW, what do you use for reading .epub files in metro?

.epub file with Adobe Digital Editions Home.

 

[Sale7]

Hey,
do you think that Clover Trail would be good for light programming and watching movies?

and would you recommend ordering Lenovo ThinkPad 2 Tablet ?

 

[LogOver]

If you really want a traditional PC experience on a tablet. Your only choice now is AMD Hondo.

What "traditional PC experience" you're talking about? Performance wise z-60 is the same, as z-01 (passmark score: 485) and going to be much slower, than Atom z2760 (passmark score: 679) in CPU-related tasks. GPU in z-60 is faster, i guess, but it is not enough for desktop games and going to be overkill for upcoming tablet-optimized games (since it will be optimized for gpu such tegra3 or powervr). Any way, the only tablet based on z-60 introduced by now is Fujitsu Q572 (10.6", 1366x768, 13.9 mm thickness, 0.820 kg, ~7 h. battery life) will probably carry $1K price tag. For ~$800 you can buy Acer W700 with much better specs (Core i3, 11.6", 1920x1080, 12.7 mm thickness, 0.930 kg, ~8 h. battery life).

 

[Gabik123]

Hey,
do you think that Clover Trail would be good for light programming and watching movies?

and would you recommend ordering Lenovo ThinkPad 2 Tablet ?

Works great at playing movies, have tried through 720p no problems, no stuttering or fragmenting at all.

As far as light programming, almost certainly ok.

Get the samsung Ativ Smart PC (not the pro if you are looking at the TP2). S-Pen + actual laptop-style keyboard dock and the bigger screen do it in. Hardware is otherwise identical, and the Samsung is less expensive for more.

 

[Maragark]

As far as light programming, almost certainly ok.

I can imagine programming on a tablet to be incredibly frustrating, not from a performance perspective but from a usability one.

 

[ettescott]

Hey,
do you think that Clover Trail would be good for light programming and watching movies?

and would you recommend ordering Lenovo ThinkPad 2 Tablet ?

I have one in the mail. It should arrive Jan 2nd. I'll post again with hands in impressions.

I'm in for one because:

10in screen: The 11" Samsung ativ was awkaward in my arm as a tablet.

Battery life and portability: Lighter and longer battery than core processor tablets like the surface pro.

Full windows 8: Will run any app an atom netbook will run, perhaps a little faster (but probably not much). I had an Asus Vivo Tab RT and really enjoyed it but the app store is too small to make it really worth it so having full windows 8 will expand its versatility and make it work worth the price hike from an android tab.

Build quality: preproduction models were favorably viewed when it comes to quality. I didn't like the build quality of the Samsung ativ when I handled it at BB, and the vivo tab rt that I had a few weeks was good but I worried about Asus customer support in the future. Lenovo is reliable with their support and build quality.

Digitizer pen: I became addicted to OneNote with a digitizer when I owned a tablet PC laptop a couple years ago. It was fantastic for school. Full OneNote supports recording while taking notes. Office RT doesn't support recording while notetaking. The Vivo Tab Smart will have the 10" form factor but will not have the pen support.


What I'm keeping in mind: There is not clover trail tablet with 1080p, they are all 720p. Clover trail is not a refined product, but is rather a 1st Gen rushed release product. Its very likely that more appealing Intel devices will be available before 2013 is over. That is why I did not order any additional warranty and won't be surprised if I sell the tablet and buy a new one before the end of 2013. I also realize this will not perform well with performance intensive games or applications. It might run Star Craft 1 and it I really hope it will run Baldurs Gate Enhanced 🙂. Also, the windows 8 app store is small and likely will never be as large as google or apple stores. In addition, the windows phone 8 store is entirely separate from the windows 8 app store. Apps I have bought on my phone are typically not available for my tablet or desktop and even if they are, the markets are separate and therefore have to be bought separately. That means even though I've bought into the windows 8 ecosystem and have a touchscreen desktop, windows 8 tablet, and windows phone, it costs me $5 to put angry birds on my desktop and tablet and $1-2 to put it on my phone (btw the apps are typically more expensive in the windows 8 store than in mobile stores, and what may often be free ad based in the google store is only avaialable paid in the windows phone 8 store... If its available at all.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Clover trail is not a refined product, but is rather a 1st Gen rushed release product. Its very likely that more appealing Intel devices will be available before 2013 is over.

Actually this is a last generation atom evolving. The next generation product we may see in Jan . At the show. In phones just like last year. This will be intels second generation Atom . It will also be OoO;.

 

[happysmiles]

I don't understand why anyone would buy any win 8 tablet before CES. The difference in a few months is going to be worth the money

 

[IntelUser2000]

What I'm keeping in mind: There is not clover trail tablet with 1080p, they are all 720p. Clover trail is not a refined product, but is rather a 1st Gen rushed release product. Its very likely that more appealing Intel devices will be available before 2013 is over. That is why I did not order any additional warranty and won't be surprised if I sell the tablet and buy a new one before the end of 2013. I also realize this will not perform well with performance intensive games or applications. It might run Star Craft 1 and it I really hope it will run Baldurs Gate Enhanced 🙂.

Clover Trail fully supports 1080p playback. But these low powered CPUs can only do it guaranteed when its done locally. Playing 1080p Youtube or other flash 1080p off websites won't, because they take more CPU then local playback. Hulu and Netflix need significant CPU use despite the GPU acceleration support.

Also, Clover Trail is a 3rd generation platform-wise. First was Menlow, then came Oak Trail. Clover Trail follows that. It is quite refined everywhere except the CPU and the GPU. It has the most advanced power management system on PC-based devices as of moment.

You will have NO problem running SC1. It's a 2D game, and 1.8GHz Atom is equivalent to a 1.6-1.8GHz Pentium 4 in that scenario. SC1 has a minimum system requirement of Pentium 90MHz.

 

[Fadeeaway]

Clover Trail fully supports 1080p playback. But these low powered CPUs can only do it guaranteed when its done locally. Playing 1080p Youtube or other flash 1080p off websites won't, because they take more CPU then local playback. Hulu and Netflix need significant CPU use despite the GPU acceleration support.

Also, Clover Trail is a 3rd generation platform-wise. First was Menlow, then came Oak Trail. Clover Trail follows that. It is quite refined everywhere except the CPU and the GPU. It has the most advanced power management system on PC-based devices as of moment.

You will have NO problem running SC1. It's a 2D game, and 1.8GHz Atom is equivalent to a 1.6-1.8GHz Pentium 4 in that scenario. SC1 has a minimum system requirement of Pentium 90MHz.

Well, there is no problem at all to stream 1080p h.264 in a mkv container over a LAN (I've tried a movie with a videobitrate of 17000Kbps). So it shouldn't be any difference over the internet. Just make sure you use dxva (I used LAV filters with dxva enabled).

But I didn't have much more time to try it out. My biggest concern if I'm going to buy a tablet with the Clover Trail or not is how the tablets and clover trail can handle point and click adventure games. Heard the new ones are strangely quite demanding.

 

[Exophase]

Missed this comment from a while ago..

I'd wait until you see some reviews- it's quite likely that Hondo will beat Clovertrail in performance, but the battery life is the thing to watch out for.

I don't see how Hondo can beat Clover Trail in CPU performance. It has more perf/MHz, sure, but we're talking 1GHz vs 1.8GHz, plus the latter has HT.

Regarding Starcraft, this may be interesting to some: soon you will be able to play it on Android tablets, with iOS support probably coming later:

http://blog.winulator.com/

 

[sontin]

Clover Trail fully supports 1080p playback. But these low powered CPUs can only do it guaranteed when its done locally. Playing 1080p Youtube or other flash 1080p off websites won't, because they take more CPU then local playback. Hulu and Netflix need significant CPU use despite the GPU acceleration support.

Tegra 3 has no problem with 1080p over flash. :sneaky:

 

[Fadeeaway]

Tegra 3 has no problem with 1080p over flash. :sneaky:

neither have Clover Trail. Atleast according all reviews I've seen. :sneaky:

 

[sontin]

Has Intel fixed the video decoding problems? Extremetech was not amused that the Samsung can't playback their 1080p videos...

Atom can play all three versions of our Star Trek encode, but the last two, only just barely. We had to shut down the Task Manager (keeping it open consumes 4-6% of the CPU’s processing power) and close every other open program. Unfortunately, none of our go-to applications fully support Clover Trail’s SoC; we couldn’t get a reliable read on whether or not the video stream was being properly offloaded to the GPU. Based on these figures, we don’t think it is.

http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/141317-samsungs-ativ-500t-not-the-tablet-youve-been-waiting-for/3

 

[Fadeeaway]

Has Intel fixed the video decoding problems? Extremetech was not amused that the Samsung can't playback their 1080p videos...


http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/141317-samsungs-ativ-500t-not-the-tablet-youve-been-waiting-for/3

Guess extremetech don't know how to activate dxva. I've never been a fan of VLC with it's own codes, so maybe there's an issue with it. But with LAV filters (video with dxva enabled, sound and splitter) playing in MPC is no problem at all, and cpu usuage is low.

 

[ettescott]

I apologize, I was referring to screen resolution in my previous post when I mentioned the lack of a clover trail tablet with 1080p resolution (screen). Not essential, but the high pixel density of a 1920x1080 screen is great for reading (although portrait mode with a 16:9 tablet is extremely awkward). I haven't noticed any problems with HD video playback on my Think Tab 2.

About my 1st gen product comment: true, its a refined atom processor. I was thinking more about the windows 8 tablet concept itself. The devices themselves are first-gen. In less than 12 months, rumor mill has it that either a new atom will get Intel hd integrated graphics or a new core series processor will draw little enough power for a passive cooling and all day battery life. (Skyrim on a tablet --that's not 2lbs--anyone?)

But as for games, here's my hands on experience with games on my Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2:

Google 'games that run on a netbook'. Those are your options. For gaming, the clover trail processor doesn't seem to have any advantages. It performs nicely in windows UI performance and video viewing, though.

ONE SIGNIFICANT DOWNFALL: gpu scaling doesn't seem to work. When I try to play StarCraft, it appears at 800x600 resolution (expected), but does NOT stretch to fill the screen (vertical or horizontal). It is just a little box. I tried a couple different resolution hacks that I found, but they did not work. Intel's graphics utility is void of options. All it gives are options to change the screen resolution and color settings for videos. Maybe this will be fixed in a driver update, but I'm not hopeful. Intel has a whole new architecture in the works for 2013 and clover trail will likely be swept under the rug in the process.

I am using the widescreen hack for Baldur's Gate 2, which is working great. Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition ran-- but at miserable frame rate (too bad--their ui mods are nice for touch. I make extensive use of the stylus on the original BG2 bc everything is so small. Text is readable with a big fonts hack though).

Out of pure curiosity, I tried SC2. 8fps on lowest settings. Unplayable. Skyrim crashed while loading my save.

Zelda Ocarana of time played smoothly on Project64. There were graphics glitches, but nothing that would specifically inhibit gameplay as far as I could tell.

Torchlight seemed to run well. Torchlight 2 failed.

My advice: wait for the next gen of Intel's ultrabook/tablet processors to come out. It sounds like by the end of 2013, we will be getting ultrabook performance out of our thin, light, all day windows 8 tablets instead of netbook performance. I'm hoping for a Microsoft Surface Pro 2.

For now, I'm impatient and I love my think tab 2. Great build quality. Enjoyable tablet experience, BG2, and --what I was looking for in the think tab 2-- pen performance in OneNote 2010 is great. Can't wait for office 2013.

 

[Nemesis 1]

I don't understand why anyone would buy any win 8 tablet before CES. The difference in a few months is going to be worth the money

I really didn't get what your saying here , But you maybe correct.

Intels has a new chip its the Z2580 Its said to come in 2 models . Z2580L which is for phones and uses 2 gpu core . The z2580 W The W I assume is for windows . The odd part is its a single core GPU. Now this makes no semse at all . They either mixed them up or the z2580 uses the intel IB IGP