Android Hardware Accelleration explained - by google engineer - Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

Link to Source
......
• Android has always used some hardware accelerated drawing. Since before 1.0 all window compositing to the display has been done with hardware.
• This means that many of the animations you see have always been hardware accelerated: menus being shown, sliding the notification shade, transitions between activities, pop-ups and dialogs showing and hiding, etc.
• Android did historically use software to render the contents of each window. For example in a UI like http://www.simplemobilereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2-home-menu.png there are four windows: the status bar, the wallpaper, the launcher on top of the wallpaper, and the menu. If one of the windows updates its contents, such as highlighting a menu item, then (prior to 3.0) software is used to draw the new contents of that window; however none of the other windows are redrawn at all, and the re-composition of the windows is done in hardware. Likewise, any movement of the windows such as the menu going up and down is all hardware rendering.
• "Full" hardware accelerated drawing within a window was added in Android 3.0. The implementation in Android 4.0 is not any more full than in 3.0. Starting with 3.0, if you set the flag in your app saying that hardware accelerated drawing is allowed, then all drawing to the application’s windows will be done with the GPU. The main change in this regard in Android 4.0 is that now apps that are explicitly targeting 4.0 or higher will have acceleration enabled by default rather than having to put android:handwareAccelerated="true" in their manifest. (And the reason this isn’t just turned on for all existing applications is that some types of drawing operations can’t be supported well in hardware and it also impacts the behavior when an application asks to have a part of its UI updated. Forcing hardware accelerated drawing upon existing apps will break a significant number of them, from subtly to significantly.) .....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The link above goes covers more bullet points on the issue. If you're interested click it and read

duplicate thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1377519

Related

SmartPhone Game Emulator For SmartPhone

I was looking for Emulator(GameBoy/GameBoy Color/Gameboy Advance) for Smartphone and i found a lot of others that does not work or there is no option for me to change the resolution because it is too small.
Finally i found a post from modaco that work on my cingular 3125 wm5/wm6/wm6.1
I believe it also work on older OS like wm2003
Hi everybody,
I've been hunting on the net for good console emulators for the smartphone and came across PicoDrive and PocketSNES. Unfortunately neither of these emulators worked properly on my C550. So I decided to try and fix it so I could play my favourite games on my phone.
The biggest change is probably getting it to work at QVGA resolution, which was a definite improvement to the postage stamp size window. After much tinkering, I think I've reached a milestone and am happy to share it with the rest of the community.
Disclaimer: These programs have been tested on my C550. I hold no responsibility for any damage caused by running them on your own devices.
Credits:
Full credit should go to the following people for original conversion to smartphone. Please provide donations to the relevant developers for their efforts, so that more projects like these remain open source and free to everyone.
FileDialogSP.dll by STomski
PicoDrive (original source) by Dave @ finalburn.com
PocketSNES (original source) by SpaceMonkey
PocketGNUboy (original source) by ???
MameCE3 (original source) by Techmaster
PocketNester (original source) by Rick Lei
Fixes/Tweaks:
Update: Now works on all smartphones including QVGA screens
PicoDrive (Genesis) Attached File PicoDrive_QVGA_19_01_06.zip
-QVGA compatible in all screen modes. (Portrait/Landscape)
-Integrated FileDialogSP.dll by STomski for ROM file selection.
-Game save/restore options
-Added key configuration screen
-Portait mode now uses full width of QVGA screen
- No sound
PocketSNES (Super Nintendo) Attached File PocketSNES_QVGA_04_01_06.zip
- QVGA compatible in all screen modes. (Portrait/Landscape)
- CPU cycle adjustment to increase game speed (lower value equals faster emulation)
- Game save/restore options
- Integrated FileDialogSP.dll by STomski for ROM file selection.
- Fixed screen freeze on startup.
- I have provided two version of the app in this archive. Version 1.43 core app will have better compatibility but will only work on QVGA phones. If you have trouble running this please refer to 1.39 version.
- No sound
PocketGnuboy (Gameboy Color) Attached File PocketGnuboy_QVGA_08_01_06.zip
- QVGA compatible in all screen modes. (Portrait/Landscape)
- Integrated FileDialogSP.dll by STomski for ROM file selection.
- Game save/restore options
- Added Extended Config Key option to redefine directional and game keys
- Fixed low res screen position offset
- Enabled GAPI draw mode by default and disabled option in Preferences screen.
- Sound enabled
MameCE3 (M.A.M.E) Attached File MameCE3_QVGA_25_01_06.zip
- This is a fairly cut down version of the full Mame32. It supports 200+ games but can be enabled for more depending on hardware emulated.
- To "OK" the legal notice screen use LEFT->RIGHT directional keys
- Added key configuration screen
- Fix default mame key quirks
- Game screen now shrinks to display size. Some games may be difficult to view on low-res phones.
- Menu option to turn auto scaling on/off
- Improved screen scaling but still a bit slow.
- Use * and # to adjust frameskip rate.
- Added option to refresh game list
- Sound enabled - but nothing to get too excited about.
PocketNester (NES) Attached File PocketNester_QVGA_14_01_06.zip ( 138.47K )
- QVGA compatible in all screen modes. (Portrait/Landscape)
- Integrated FileDialogSP.dll by STomski for ROM file selection.
- Game save/restore options
- Added key configuration screen
- Extended Sound options
- Sound enabled
There have been changes to the HTC hardware to disallow volume/record/camera keys to be used as game buttons, please stick to the keypad when redefining your own to avoid problems.
I would appreciate some feedback on your experiences with these emus, whether good or bad.
Please send enhancement requests to the original developers as I have no plans for doing any more updates to these programs.
Enjoy!
Kien Phan (Parallax).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All credits goes to modaco Kien Phan (Parallax).
The best emulator I've seen is SmartGear. It has support for NES, GBC, GameGear, Genesis and a couple others I think. It's going to have SNES support really soon apparently too.
The only problem is it's not free, but it works so well and with unlimited free upgrades, I think it's worth it.
bitbanksoftware.com (there's a dev discussion at modaco)
Wicked. Just what i needed. Thanks for posting this (..and thanks to Parallax for the changes!)
What are game emulators? The name implies a peice of software which enables running various formatted console games. Or is it a console game that has be rendered to play on a multitude of devices. In which case, a more appropriate name would be game emulation.
is this worked for 6.1 pro erofich ?
The PicoDrive is an interesting app.
But isn't it possible to load ROMs from a SD card?
I can't select the card in the menu and with my 64 MB ROM there's enough memory for just 1 ROM.
are there any GB/GBC/GBA emulators for HTC diamond? i tried "PocketGnuboy_QVGA_08_01_06.zip" and i was able to config the keyboard for directional keys and game keys but every time i tap the screen (to launch keyboard), it always pause so i cannot play it anyway.
any other alternatives or solutions please....
i appreciate it thanks...
hahaha... i just found a keygen for smart gear...it's funny coz the keys are dependent to owner ID.

[APP] SimplePiano V4.3 [21.06.10] [ VGA / WVGA / QVGA / HVGA ]

SimplePiano V4.3​
SimplePiano with the SP_mickesjo WVGA Skin​
As the name suggests it's a simple piano application. I took over "CrisRowlands SimplePiano" after Cris decided to give up developing it (Original thread). The main reason I took over is because I wanted to implement multitouch. I own HTC HD2 so my emphasize was on the WVGA format, but the application should also support VGA resolution. It should be pretty easy to create skins for other resolutions as well...
Features:
WVGA, VGA, QVGA, HVGA versions.
It has three octaves.
Record and Playback.
Dualtouch via the PinchToZoom events (not ideal but the best I could find...)
Customizable skins.
Customizable sounds (currently include Piano, Acoustic Guitar & Violin).
Currently in develop:
Continuous sliding of the keyboard view.
Change the skn files to support arbitrary number of keys.
CHANGELOG:
21.06.10(4.3)
Added two single finger chord modes (Major and Minor) - Requires special skin. I don't like this solution so I didn't follow it. If anyone is interested in this please let me know...
Added minimum note sustain length control (in milliseconds). If minimum sustain is not specified the full sample is played.
Added support for looping over the sample (by looping over the sample) Two samples can be specified, one is played once in the beginning, and the second is played over and over until the key is released. If the second sample is not specified the first one is used for the loop. This feature requires appropriate sound samples to be available.
Sounds are controlled via "Sound.lst" file. Different behavior of the notes (those mentioned above) can be controlled via this file.
Added OK/Cancel button to the settings dialog.
Vibration LED index can be now set via the "Device" tab in the settings dialog.
Polyphony can control to the "Device" tab in the settings dialog.
Fixed a problem where SimplePiano closed if an incompatible skin was chosen.
Fixed issue where bitmaps were not always clipped to bounds.
Fixed crash when sound file did not exist.
Changed applications icon (thanks mickesjo)
11.06.10(4.2) Added some exception handling during initialization and a vga skin for the Default skin. Fixed the link to point here.
10.06.10(4.0) Initial release including the new features (dualtouch, recording etc. as desribed in this post).
Screenshots:
Skins: Default WVGA skin, MewSkin WVGA skin, MewSkin VGA skin, SP_mickesjo WVGA skin, Saplorer UI WVGA skin
Settings Dialog​
Download:
SimplePiano V4.3 (WVGA/VGA/HVGA/QVGA)
Alternative Download(Uploading) (including mickesjo's skin and Osprey00's alternative piano sounds - thanks to Osprey00)
Additional Skins:
(must be installed in the same location as the main application)
HVGA Rescale of the original skin (thanks to sam-2007 on post #130).
MewSkin (WVGA/VGA)
SP_mickesjo (WVGA/VGA/QVGA), thanks mickesjo. atlaswing created replacements key images, these can be found on post #47. HVGA version (thanks to sam-2007 on post #130).
Saplorer UI (WVGA), thanks xclarinetistx
Additional Sounds (thanks conantroutman):
(must be installed in the same location as the main application)
Violin
Acoustic Guitar
Piano Samples 8bit (lower quality) - these samples replace the default piano samples that comes with SimplePiano.
Alternative piano samples (thanks to Osprey00)
Rectangular QVGA (320x320) patch - extract the files from the zip files into the "Default" skin folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Previous version:
SimplePiano V4.2 (WVGA/VGA)
For QVGA the modified default skin has to be installed too.
Skins:
Default (WVGA/VGA/QVGA)(CrisRownlands' original skin)
MewSkin (WVGA/VGA)
SP_mickesjo (WVGA/VGA/QVGA), thanks mickesjo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Other Notes:
If I may quote Cris:
I hope you folks like it
Feedback is appreciated, improvements can only happen if I know what you folks want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some documentation
Some useful information about the *.skn files and the Sound.lst file.
The *.skn files
These files define the location of the different items on the screen. For each screen resolution the skin supports there should be one skn file. When a skin is chosen, SimplePiano search the skin directory for a compatible skn file and loads the skin according to its content.
here's an example for a skn file
Code:
Display=0,0,480,800
This line declare the target resolution of the skin. It is given in the following format: 0,0,Width,Height
Code:
Name=mewskin
The name of the skin, currently not used for anything.
Code:
Octave1=360,10,120,120
Octave1Image=OneNormal.png,OnePressed.png
Each key should include those two lines. The first line describe the location and size of the image, using the following format:
KeyName=Left,Top,Width,Height​The second line points to the images to be used with this key. The following format is used:
KeyNameImage=NormalStateImage, PressedStateImage​Where KeyName is one of the following:
Octave1, Octave2, Octave3
Quit, Settings,
Record, Replay,
NormalKey1, ..., NormalKey8
SharpKey1, ..., SharpKey6​All these keys must be specified.
NormalKey# stands for the normal note keys (C,D,E,F,G,A,B & C)
SharpKey# stands for the semitone keys (C#, Eb, F#, Ab, Bb & C#)
In addition the toolbar background has to be specified as well:
Code:
Toolbar=360,0,120,800
ToolbarImage=Background.png
unlike a regular key here only one image is supplied.
In addition the optional chord modifier keys can be specified (using the same logic):
Code:
ChordMajor=-30,0,60,60
ChordMajorImage=MajorNormal.bmp,MajorPressed.bmp
ChordMinor=-30,60,60,60
ChordMinorImage=MinorNormal.bmp,MinorPressed.bmp
The Sounds.lst file
This file defines the sounds to be used with the selected instrument. First of all it binds a note to a wav file. In addition different properties can be set for each note, as I'll explain below:
Code:
[1]
The file is divided into octave, currently there are 4 octaves (since SimplePiano also includes C4 &C#4). Each octave is titled with its number.
Code:
C=Data\C1.wav, Loop=0
Then, the sound files for this octave are given. The following format is used:
Note=FileName, Option1=value1, Option2=value2,...​Note is one of the 12 notes in an octave. The following notation is used: C,Cs,D,Eb,E,F,Fs,G,Ab,A,Bb,B.
Then a relative path to the sound file is specified. Followed by a list of parameters and values pairs separated by comas. These parameters are optional. The following parameters can be declared:
Loop=#​This specify how many times to loop over the sample (0 - plays the note once, -1 loop infinitely). If a non-zero value is given for a note, the note will be played as long as the key is pressed, once the key is released the playing will cease immediately. By default (if not specified) Loop=0.
MinimumLength=#​This specify the minimum length (in milliseconds) a note is to be played. If this value is -1 the sample will be fully played. any other (non-negative number), the note will be played at leas this amount of time. For example, if a value of 500 is specified, every touch on the keyboard will generate a 500ms sound. If the key is held longer than 500ms the sound will stop when the key is released (or the sample reaches its end). The default behavior depends on the "Loop" setting: If Loop=0 MinimumLength=-1. Otherwise MinimumLength=0.
Good job man
Good luck with this
I don't suppose you could maybe send me a copy of the source code etc?
Maybe upload it & give me a link.
The main reason I wasn't able to implement these features is because I don't know how. It would be quite interesting to learn about how you did it
good job on significantly improving chris' already nice work
And dang you've beaten me to first reply
ephestione said:
good job on significantly improving chris' already nice work
And dang you've beaten me to first reply
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cris_rowlands said:
Good job man
Good luck with this
I don't suppose you could maybe send me a copy of the source code etc?
Maybe upload it & give me a link.
The main reason I wasn't able to implement these features is because I don't know how. It would be quite interesting to learn about how you did it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks guys...
Cris... no problems, just let me tidy the project a little...
I love your simple piono 4.1. Now 4.2 should be better than 4.1. Thanks for the updated version...
OP, thanks for the APP. I look forward to future updates once more of the bugs have been knocked out!
Update: added a download link to the mewskin, this is nicer looking especially for the VGA resolutions (but also on the WVGA). Kudos to the author (xxmewstarxx)...
Just install the mewskin.cab after installing SimplePiano (no need to reinstall).
Z.
for now, I vote for default to 0 interval between multitouch keypresses, instead of 300ms
Not much of a big deal as you can change it yourself, yet if you already restarted to register multitouch, and you change that option later, you need to restart again
I am also thinking about spanning through more than 3 octaves, and a different method of changing the octave that lets you do that faster and more easily, will report back when I have a better idea
Nice!
Unfortunately the space on the screen ins't that much but if there was a way to "somehow" squeeze in and create spaces for Chord Symbols/Buttons and when these are being pressed, a chord is being played (a flat chords, an arpeggio). Said chord-sounds could be default-sounds distributed with the application or pre-recorded by the user. Something similar to those Casio-chords (or whatever they are called) which do the fingering for you. Another option could be that it played just the root of the chord so one could create some variety and a little base-line while playing the melody on the normal keyboard.
The problem, I guess, is surely the space on the screen and the limit of two touches simultaneously.
Just some thoughts....
ephestione said:
I am also thinking about spanning through more than 3 octaves, and a different method of changing the octave that lets you do that faster and more easily, will report back when I have a better idea
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tilleke said:
Nice!
Unfortunately the space on the screen ins't that much but if there was a way to "somehow" squeeze in and create spaces for Chord Symbols/Buttons and when these are being pressed, a chord is being played (a flat chords, an arpeggio). Said chord-sounds could be default-sounds distributed with the application or pre-recorded by the user. Something similar to those Casio-chords (or whatever they are called) which do the fingering for you. Another option could be that it played just the root of the chord so one could create some variety and a little base-line while playing the melody on the normal keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, as for the 3 octave limitation, that could be easily broken, just that I don't have the sounds... If someone's willing to generate them I'll include them in the application.
About changing octaves I thought of two possibilities, one would be to just add two buttons at the end of the keyboard that moves one octave up or down. Another possibility is to create a slider above (or below) the keyboard on which you can slide left or right to change octaves. Sliding can also be continuous so that the first note is necessarily C. Such slider can also have some buttons to toggle chords buttons as tilleke suggeted...
tilleke said:
The problem, I guess, is surely the space on the screen and the limit of two touches simultaneously.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really hope HTC will release some proper API that supports real multitouch...
Z.
tilleke said:
Nice!
Unfortunately the space on the screen ins't that much but if there was a way to "somehow" squeeze in and create spaces for Chord Symbols/Buttons and when these are being pressed, a chord is being played (a flat chords, an arpeggio). Said chord-sounds could be default-sounds distributed with the application or pre-recorded by the user. Something similar to those Casio-chords (or whatever they are called) which do the fingering for you. Another option could be that it played just the root of the chord so one could create some variety and a little base-line while playing the melody on the normal keyboard.
The problem, I guess, is surely the space on the screen and the limit of two touches simultaneously.
Just some thoughts....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
zevele said:
Well, as for the 3 octave limitation, that could be easily broken, just that I don't have the sounds... If someone's willing to generate them I'll include them in the application.
About changing octaves I thought of two possibilities, one would be to just add two buttons at the end of the keyboard that moves one octave up or down. Another possibility is to create a slider above (or below) the keyboard on which you can slide left or right to change octaves. Sliding can also be continuous so that the first note is necessarily C. Such slider can also have some buttons to toggle chords buttons as tilleke suggeted...
I really hope HTC will release some proper API that supports real multitouch...
Z.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was thinking the exact same things regarding octave switching, more like automatic recognition, as in when you press a key near the border, the keyboard gets slided past the border of a X length to accomodate for the "direction" you're taking
And tilleke suggestion is very interesting.
Here's my take: just like you play two sounds together when you do multitouch, you don't need to really record a chord, you only need to play 3 sounds together.
Example, put a swith on top, with three positions:
1) Normal
2) Major chord
3) Minor chord
Then you press, say, C
Cases:
"normal" : the note C is played
"major" : the notes C E and G are played
"minor" : the notes C D# and G are played
THe switch would be a slider onr, because a toggle one (1-2-3-1-2 and so on) would take too long if you need 1 and you're currently on 2.
Glad to see somebody picking up on this where Chris left off.....
If you want more octaves I'd be happy to provide them.
Just out of interest, are the samples in this version the same ones from Chris' original version?
conantroutman said:
Glad to see somebody picking up on this where Chris left off.....
If you want more octaves I'd be happy to provide them.
Just out of interest, are the samples in this version the same ones from Chris' original version?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More samples can't hurt, but at the moment I'm trying to solve the chords feature...
The samples are the same ones from the previous version.
Thanks,
Z.
Totally awesome. Poor WM support. it seems like everyone writes off Windows platform as thou its limited, but if you had the support you show with this simple piano, the experience level and communication would be thought on a positive (note) about windows platform... GOOD JOB!!
Thanks zevele for the work!
xda member TWolf has a FlashPiano that he stopped developing. The program itself has a great sample of 4 instruments in mp3 form, but I don't know enough about music to rename them. Maybe somebody here can take a look and rename the files. Here's the link and source code from TWolf:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2806409&postcount=126
Would be nice to include mellotron in this, like the Manetron for iPhone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcIRG1X0VMs
dio62000 said:
Would be nice to include mellotron in this, like the Manetron for iPhone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcIRG1X0VMs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seeing these applications on the iphone just depresses me... they run so much better than on the windows mobile...
Specifically to your question... If you mean playing several instruments in parallel, it shouldn't be to complicated to implement...
Okay, here's my idea for a solution for the chords feature, I've added two buttons below the keyboard one toggles a major chord and the other a minor. As all other buttons these can be moved and changed through the skin files. Please try it and let me know what you think...
SimplePiano
http://rapidshare.com/files/398328285/SimplePianoV43beta.CAB
MewSkin
http://rapidshare.com/files/398329265/mewskincabV43beta.CAB
Thanks,
Z.
Can this be hosted somewhere else? Rapidshare gives some of us problems and the the download limitation sucks. I can't download the v43beta after just downloading the v42 version. My suggestion is drop.io or dropbox... You can even use the free Skydrive for this.
Thanks for the good work...

What do you like about ICS?

Post here about what improvement did you find in ICS and what do you like about it..
The swipe to clear notifications and the auto spelling correction.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium
Panoramic camera is pretty awesome. Like the music settings, more control. Some nice dev features
Changing the right click is real nice too. Also, the google voice input is pretty accurate.
the smoothness and responsiveness improvements
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium
Did anyone find improvements with the WIFI?
everything so far. still figuring and finding out the new features. is there any kind of documentation that lists or explains all the new features that comes with ICS?
Has anyone been able to find the camera unlock feature? I don't think Asus included it in our build. :-(
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium
If you are referring to the camera shortcut on the lockscreen... you just slide left.
I'm digging the new font, Roboto. Looks great and it's used in more places than I knew. Really freshens things up.
To go along with the swipe-to-close notifications, there's not the X to close all notifications at once. That's welcome.
The new Settings panel is much more nicely organized.
The stock browser seems to perform much better, and I like the option to enable desktop mode per site rather than overall. That way I can go with a mobile site where it makes sense but quickly select desktop mode when desired.
Seem to be lots of little (and big) changes like that. I'll be doing a factory reset just to make sure nothing's gumming up the works.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
The browser is much faster and smoother.
Enhanced speed and performance
Virtual buttons in the UI, in place of capacitive or physical buttons
Separation of widgets in a new tab, listed in a similar manner to apps
Easier-to-create folders, with a drag-and-drop style
A customizable launcher
Improved visual voicemail with the ability to speed up or slow down voicemail messages
Pinch-to-zoom functionality in the calendar
Offline search, a two-line preview, and new action bar at the bottom of the Gmail app
Ability to swipe left or right to switch between Gmail conversations
Integrated screenshot capture (accomplished by holding down the Power and Volume-Down buttons)
Improved error correction on the keyboard
Ability to access apps directly from lock screen (similar to HTC Sense 3.x)
Improved copy and paste functionality
Better voice integration and continuous, real-time speech to text dictation
Face Unlock, a feature that allows users to unlock handsets using facial recognition software
New tabbed web browser, allowing up to 16 tabs
Automatic syncing of browser with users' Chrome bookmarks
Modern Roboto font
Data Usage section in settings that lets users set warnings when they approach a certain usage limit, and disable data use when the limit is exceeded
Ability to shut down apps that are using data in the background
Improved camera app with zero shutter lag, time lapse settings, panorama mode, and the ability to zoom while recording
Built-in photo editor
New gallery layout, organized by location and person
Refreshed "People" app with social network integration, status updates and hi-res images
Android Beam, a near-field communication feature allowing the rapid short-range exchange of web bookmarks, contact info, directions, YouTube videos and other data
Hardware acceleration of the UI[62]
Resizeable widgets – already part of Android 3.1 for tablets, but new for cellphones[63]
Wi-Fi Direct[64]
1080p video recording for stock Android devices
Here's a pictorial version...
http://www.android.com/about/ice-cream-sandwich/
1) General speed of the tablet, night and day compared to HC 2) Wifi better range and speeds on speedtest.net app, actually better range than my Bionic now. 3) Swipe Gestures. 4) Camera updates, crazy good zoom and overall much improved.
Those are the first major differences I saw. Others feel free to post your own observations.
I like nothing. This update didn't fix my WiFi/Bluetooth issue(s) so this device and the dock are going back in the box to be returned to amazon tomorrow. Unless someone on backorder desires to buy it from me for the full price I paid on Amazon .
BarryH_GEG said:
Enhanced speed and performance
Virtual buttons in the UI, in place of capacitive or physical buttons
Separation of widgets in a new tab, listed in a similar manner to apps
Easier-to-create folders, with a drag-and-drop style
A customizable launcher
Improved visual voicemail with the ability to speed up or slow down voicemail messages
Pinch-to-zoom functionality in the calendar
Offline search, a two-line preview, and new action bar at the bottom of the Gmail app
Ability to swipe left or right to switch between Gmail conversations
Integrated screenshot capture (accomplished by holding down the Power and Volume-Down buttons)
Improved error correction on the keyboard
Ability to access apps directly from lock screen (similar to HTC Sense 3.x)
Improved copy and paste functionality
Better voice integration and continuous, real-time speech to text dictation
Face Unlock, a feature that allows users to unlock handsets using facial recognition software
New tabbed web browser, allowing up to 16 tabs
Automatic syncing of browser with users' Chrome bookmarks
Modern Roboto font
Data Usage section in settings that lets users set warnings when they approach a certain usage limit, and disable data use when the limit is exceeded
Ability to shut down apps that are using data in the background
Improved camera app with zero shutter lag, time lapse settings, panorama mode, and the ability to zoom while recording
Built-in photo editor
New gallery layout, organized by location and person
Refreshed "People" app with social network integration, status updates and hi-res images
Android Beam, a near-field communication feature allowing the rapid short-range exchange of web bookmarks, contact info, directions, YouTube videos and other data
Hardware acceleration of the UI[62]
Resizeable widgets – already part of Android 3.1 for tablets, but new for cellphones[63]
Wi-Fi Direct[64]
1080p video recording for stock Android devices
Here's a pictorial version...
http://www.android.com/about/ice-cream-sandwich/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ran out of thanks...Thanks...This ICS is running great on prime. things run more faster/smoother.
Its OK
10char
Simply put, the improved wifi. I can actually use the thing now! Streaming flash videos also work properly!
- create folders
- inactive apps that you don't use or want to see in the application drawer.
- faster switching between to power options
- smooth UI
- better browser experience/options/UI
- built in photo editor
This is not maybe ICS thing but things that also came with the update.
- New widget "Asus Task, manager"
- better screen color
- no need for tapatalk, xda now is really fast in the browser if you set the XDA theme to classic
the speed plus they over clocked the CPU to 1.6ghz for us!!!
the touch responsiveness is wonderful!
I also found a cool setting if you have the dock in Asus customized settings with the mouse if you select gesture mode it allows you to zoom web pages with the track pad! its sweet!
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201
Wordlywisewiz said:
the speed plus they over clocked the CPU to 1.6ghz for us!!!
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you do a little digging through the threads while the max output has changed to 1.6 it isn't scaling any higher than before. So the potential is there but it isn't enabled.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
Can someone run Sunspider 0.91 and Browsermark with the ICS Browser and the Performance mode?

[Q] Turning off hardware acceleration

I wanted to use the SB Nation Android app, which is basically a program for reading sports articles.
However, I encountered a problem, which I wrote about to the dev:
I just wanted to alert you to what seems to be a bug in your app.
Basically, I cannot see any text in any of the articles. The
background of the articles is a light gray; pictures and text within
quotes show up (so do comments). However, the main text body does not.
I'm running an HTC Flyer on Honeycomb OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The dev wrote back:
While we don't have an HTC Flyer to test with, but one thing you could try is to check your device settings for something along the lines of
"hardware acceleration" or "GPU acceleration" and turn this option off.
While these options generally improve UI responsiveness, it's a known bug
for them to wreak havoc on embedded web views. Let me know if that does or doesn't resolve the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there a way to switch off hardware acceleration to test this issue?
I think the app developer is blowing smoke or smoking blow. There is no user setting to turn off the GPU on any Android device. A properly written app can deal with those settings for example MX player knows which formats can use HW accel and which one's need SW codecs.
If you are running on a rooted ROM, there is a parameter in the system/build.prop file
video.accelerate.hw=1
you can change that to 0 and reboot to see what happens. It will definitely slow other things down though.
Acceleration off
Sir,
how can i switch off the HW acceleration,will be helpfull if anybody teach me how to build custom rom with HW acceleration off for nexus 4.
pls help to to learn from you.

Daydream Elements: Free VR Development Guidebook App

Daydream Elements by Google is a new, free app that serves as a guidebook, covering VR development basics. While those familiar with VR development would probably be disinterested in this new app, as it is so basic, it’s a great starting point for those unfamiliar with VR. The app showcases six examples of tips and tricks for VR development, complete with the pros and cons for their use.
According to Upload VR, “three of these [examples] are concerned with locomotion. One details teleportation, another showcases smooth movement with restricted peripheral vision, and another shows third-person gameplay. Interestingly examples of all three of these types of experiences have hit Daydream in the past few months. Teleportation can be seen in the VR port of Layers of Fear, while the excellent Eclipse uses smooth movement. Meanwhile both Lola and the Giant and Along Together both used a third-person camera that followed a main character.”
Google’s developer page outlines the following examples below:
Locomotion: techniques for enabling navigating a VR environment
Three ways to achieve locomotion:
Teleportation is locomotion technique for apps using first-person perspective that allows the user to near-instaneously move to a target location. This technique reduces the simulator sickness that many users feel when the virtual camera moves.
Tunneling is a technique used with first-person locomotion (such as walking
) where, during movement, the camera is cropped and a high-constract stable grid is displayed in the user’s peripheral vision. This is analogous to a user watching first-person locomotion on a television set.
Chase Camera is a technique used with third- person locomotion, where the user is controlling a character. Standard third-person camera implementations are problematic in VR and contribute to simular sickness. Chase Camera offers predictable motion – camera rotation only occurs under user direction, and small character movements don’t move the camera at all.
Menus and Virtual Controls: The Daydream controller only exposes two buttons to developers: the clickable touchpad, and the app button. For many developers, two discrete controls does not provide a rich enough set of commands for the games and applications that they would like to create. One solution is to present the user with virtual controls for the app’s command scheme.
Click Menu provides the user with a radial menu of commands emanating from the cursor when the menu is invoked. Because users must click directly on options, this menu design trades the speed of a more gestural approach with the control of discrete clicks and scales well with complex command hierarchies.
Swipe Menu leverages the Daydream controller touchpad to allow the user to quickly select between a small set of commands. This menu trades efficiency for accuracy and does not scale well to large number of commands.
Rendering and Lighting: Performance is critical to VR apps but can be especially challenging on mobile GPUs. Many commonly available mobile shaders and per-pixel lighting solutions provide high quality results but perform poorly on mobile VR systems due to extremely high resolutions, rendering multiple views, distortion and general mobile performance issues.
The Rendering & Lighting demo uses Daydream Renderer to showcase rendering effects that are typically difficult to achieve on mobile hardware. This scene demonstrates Daydream Renderer features like per-pixel lighting, tangent-space normal maps, dynamic shadows, realtime specular highlights, and reflections.
Daydream Rendering and Lighting Demo included as part of Elements as a demonstration of the Daydream Renderer’s capabilities.
The app also spells out all known issues, which you can find here.
This app is definitely for newcomers to VR, however since many people are not yet familiar with the space, it seems like a user-friendly platform that encourages people to try their hand at developing.
Source: appdevelopermagazine

Categories

Resources