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After reading this forum for quite a while, am i the only person who's sitting on the fence when it comes to ROMs?
All the ROMs which i checked out have one problem or another.... either not stable, slower than stock, buggy, or lack in one department or another. I don't really see the point of updating to any ROMs if there are some unresolved issues.
Is there any 2.0 based roms which are not buggy and which have all functions working perfectly? Or should i wait until the official ROM comes out?
copying my thread?
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=627494
Didn't see your thread... sorry. Seems like we are in the same boat.
that is why i stay with modaco rom xD faster then the original & keep those most function with speed boost.
Seems to be the sae reasonas to why im also trying to dig into customising roms. Though,thus far, any un-official rom i have tested thus far seems to be atleast just as stable as any official rom, except they tend to be alot faster. Might be worth it to try and get some sort of guide started once i know how it all works. One of the issues i didnt manage to find anything on yet is signing a modified rom .zip-archive.
One thing ill definately share when ive completed it will be a very stripped down sense 2.1 rom, and then try to see where i can get from there. Im currently in-between villain rom and the 1.6 beta rom with cooker app, switching back and forth from one another...
Atleast that tought me how to backup and restore things should i keep you all updated if anything changes?
How do you like villain? have you tried kagu? I'm undecided between the two..
i'm using ckdroid ... it's quite fast. very stable and fulfills all of my needs
if you don't really need / want a 2.x rom you should definitly go with modaco for the great tweaks and speed improvements!
also, the first ported roms from cyanogen are being released!
most of present quirks come from drivers not being available for 2.x roms from htc because they haven't realeased them in their own 2.x rom yet. just be a little more patient.
there are already rumors of an official 2.1 htc rom with sense coming out in the beginning of march
menatep said:
How do you like villain? have you tried kagu? I'm undecided between the two..
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As the Villain chef, you'd possibly expect me to promote my own rom. However, I find Kagu to be an outstanding rom. lox has done a great job with it. If I wanted a quick, Vanilla, feature-rich rom, I'd go with Kagu.
I love Sense UI though... hence Villain.
Kagudroid is good, CKDroid is awesome, but they are both Vanilla roms.
I like Villain ROM much better because of Sense UI, even though it's still a bit buggy and is a little slower. totally worth it for me.
You've obviously not been 'round the Dream parts of the forum...
I'm still running the original stock VZW/HTC ROM. I know, I know, slow adopter... I'd like to root and go with a ROM that delivers better battery life and a basic debloat. However, nearly every ROM I read about seems to have a major (in my humble opinion) flaw. A non working camera or video camera, non working voicemail notification, malfunctioning signal strength bars, no 4G, etc., etc.
Is my only choice really a Froyo ROM? I'm not willing to stomach any major loss of functionality (or apps), be it phone, camera, calendar, GPS, navigation, various google apps, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G and 4G, working signal strength bars, etc. I guess I am also in the "I prefer Sense" group but also have not given non Sense ROMs any time.
If responding I kindly request a few sentences of explanation/clarification rather than just saying "Get ROM X, it rocks, it is the best". Thanks in advance.
Everything works on most the gb roms, with some needing certain fixes to fix certain things. Gingeritis 3d, with chingys new radio is tits imho
Sent from my TBolt using my f***king thumbs...
Well, I'm not going to give you a few sentences, but I can tell you that I use Gingerth3ory (link in my siggy) and everything works, including vvm as long as you apply the bootable zip fix for that. Before, vvm was the only thing not working.
Camera, videocamera, wifi, 3g, 4g all work. I switched to youmail for vvm because I wanted netflix over stock vvm so that meant a GB ROM.
I highly recommend Droid Theory's latest Senseless Rom. This is the smoothest and quickest ROM of his yet and that is saying something. There is a large mod community if you're interested in that. Most importantly, DT is very responsive and provides great support. He will be coming out with an update very soon to fix the market issue.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1176922
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1187545
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1187545
Just showing there's been 3-4 other similar posts in the past few hours, just to avoid fragmenting answers or not getting the answer you wanted.
Just follow my link in my signature.
Synergy is the way to go.
Thanks folks.
OK we have votes for Gingeritis 3d, Gingerth3ory and Droid Theory's latest Senseless Rom. Has anyone ran more than one of these? Any important compare/contrast between them? I care much more about stability and battery life over eye candy. Those are my top 2 concerns. If those things are improved over the stock VZW/HTC ROM I should be happy. The biggest problems with this stock ROM for me are maintaining a data connection when switching from 3G to 4G and back. Also the speed of the GPS lock is very slow. How are these things in these recommended ROMs?
(yareally: You posted 2 identical links but mentioned 4 threads. Yes the questions in some of these were related to mine but certainly were not identical request.)
I'm going to venture a guess you haven't actually looked at the threads or the dev's pages. Most have a thread for bug reports. GB ROMs are about as solid as any OTA these days. If you're new to flashing DO NOT, DO NOT use Synergy. It's a frankenstein project with no official stable release and a constant onslaught of nightlies with no end in sight. STAY AWAY FROM NIGHTLIES. Try BAMF. Try Gingeritus. Try Eaton. Try GING3R3DTH3ORY. Try something that's known to work and isn't revised several times a week. From the sounds of it, Eaton might be what you want. It looks and works very much like stock.
swamp2 said:
Thanks folks.
OK we have votes for Gingeritis 3d, Gingerth3ory and Droid Theory's latest Senseless Rom. Has anyone ran more than one of these? Any important compare/contrast between them? I care much more about stability and battery life over eye candy. Those are my top 2 concerns. If those things are improved over the stock VZW/HTC ROM I should be happy. The biggest problems with this stock ROM for me are maintaining a data connection when switching from 3G to 4G and back. Also the speed of the GPS lock is very slow. How are these things in these recommended ROMs?
(yareally: You posted 2 identical links but mentioned 4 threads. Yes the questions in some of these were related to mine but certainly were not identical request.)
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last one was a miscopy, there was another one at least on the front page, but I was half asleep at the time. I said 3 to 4 btw, not 4. There have been lots though of rom reccomendation postings though and felt you would get a better idea by reading what other people had asked already.
i'm using Synergy with the "06275r" radio and the dreamKernal. i also have SetCPU on set to "performance". it runs really smooth and the battery life is better then stock.
i've tried pretty much every ROM out there and have had this running for several days now. i like it and will keep it for a tad bit longer(why just a tad? i can't help it.. i like to keep trying new ROM's)
loonatik78 said:
If you're new to flashing DO NOT, DO NOT use Synergy. It's a frankenstein project with no official stable release and a constant onslaught of nightlies with no end in sight. STAY AWAY FROM NIGHTLIES....Try something that's known to work and isn't revised several times a week.
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I have to disagree. Just because Synergy is updated every night does not mean you must flash reflash every day. The nightlies have very minor revisions (adding HTC Car Panel, changing the host file for better ad blocking, changing the Market icon color, changing the email splash screen, etc). If you don't need the newest revisions, then don't flash the latest nightly until something comes along that you really want/need. Synergy nightlies aren't released because it is an unstable rom. Quite the contrary. I have tried roms from 4 other devs and Synergy is the fastest & smoothest of them all. The only time I've had lockups or reboots is when I overclocked too much, which would have happened on any rom.
Don't be dissuaded from trying Synergy because there are nightly updates. If anything, that should tell you the devs are committed to making it better.
sublimaze said:
I have to disagree. Just because Synergy is updated every night does not mean you must flash reflash every day. The nightlies have very minor revisions (adding HTC Car Panel, changing the host file for better ad blocking, changing the Market icon color, changing the email splash screen, etc). If you don't need the newest revisions, then don't flash the latest nightly until something comes along that you really want/need. Synergy nightlies aren't released because it is an unstable rom. Quite the contrary. I have tried roms from 4 other devs and Synergy is the fastest & smoothest of them all. The only time I've had lockups or reboots is when I overclocked too much, which would have happened on any rom.
Don't be dissuaded from trying Synergy because there are nightly updates. If anything, that should tell you the devs are committed to making it better.
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I don't agree with that and I'll tell you why. Let's say I tell Joe Bob to go try synergy. He does, and downloads who knows what on whatever night. Then he has a problem... Now what? Try to decipher Ziggy's advice? Try another nightly version? As far as I'm concerned nightlies are for developers. I think that because that been the whole point of nightlies from the beginning. I'm pretty sure CM was the first, but even they did that in support of a release candidate aiming towards an official release. I wouldn't tell someone "Go try a CM nightly!" even if they were looking mostly solid. I've read almost all of the thread for synergy. It's hardly a work without error. I don't believe that project is dedicated to producing reliable ROMs. They show no sign of such in any form, be it a release candidate or a final release. It appears to be a few developers tinkering and experimenting, in many cases against the law, and I cannot in good faith suggest someone fresh on the scene jump into one of the most convoluted ROMs for the Thunderbolt.
I've been using nightlies for INC and they've all been stable for the past several months. They just keep adding features. At first it sort of bugged me that I never had the most updated version but then I just lived with staying with my version for several months until I got bored enough to flash the latest.
If nightlies isn't your thing then that's fine but I don't see a reason to tell other users to stay away from them. Generally they *will* have more bugs because the dev's don't thoroughly check the ROM's before they release - they expect the people who flash to find the bugs and then they fix it in the next releases, but after a while all those bugs are gone- then they move to adding a new feature and that may have a bug, and the cycle continues.
But in most cases these bugs are very minor and overall the ROM is superior in performance / battery / features than other ROM's.
POQbum said:
I've been using nightlies for INC and they've all been stable for the past several months. They just keep adding features. At first it sort of bugged me that I never had the most updated version but then I just lived with staying with my version for several months until I got bored enough to flash the latest.
If nightlies isn't your thing then that's fine but I don't see a reason to tell other users to stay away from them. Generally they *will* have more bugs because the dev's don't thoroughly check the ROM's before they release - they expect the people who flash to find the bugs and then they fix it in the next releases, but after a while all those bugs are gone- then they move to adding a new feature and that may have a bug, and the cycle continues.
But in most cases these bugs are very minor and overall the ROM is superior in performance / battery / features than other ROM's.
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Click to collapse
Please read what I wrote. I would not tell a NEW user to try a nightly. That would be stupid. The last thing some virgin flasher needs is to flash some nightly that got some new test kernel cooked into and its quirky as hell, or some jazz like that. We ALL wanted our first flash to work and not freeze or crash. I'm telling a NEW user to stay away from nightlies, not the experienced guy. I don't care how stable one night's version might be, or if almost all of them are. They are test beds and you don't know what you're getting night to night. And NO nightly I've ever used has been quirk-free.
loonatik78 said:
Please read what I wrote. I would not tell a NEW user to try a nightly. That would be stupid. The last thing some virgin flasher needs is to flash some nightly that got some new test kernel cooked into and its quirky as hell, or some jazz like that. We ALL wanted our first flash to work and not freeze or crash. I'm telling a NEW user to stay away from nightlies, not the experienced guy. I don't care how stable one night's version might be, or if almost all of them are. They are test beds and you don't know what you're getting night to night. And NO nightly I've ever used has been quirk-free.
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Well.. I've had plenty quirk-free. But the Incredible nightlies are more polished than the thunderbolts.
I think you shouldn't tell them not to flash a nightly, just warn them of possible issues and explain to them what they are (and they would see this anyway because every nightly thread I've been to explains this)
POQbum said:
Well.. I've had plenty quirk-free. But the Incredible nightlies are more polished than the thunderbolts.
I think you shouldn't tell them not to flash a nightly, just warn them of possible issues and explain to them what they are (and they would see this anyway because every nightly thread I've been to explains this)
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if someone is starting a thread like this, reading threads probably ain't in their game plan. I don't give advice to strangers I wouldn't give to a friend. You run something like a version of BAMF and you're running something a dev has hung his hat on. Not so with a nightly because there will be another tomorrow night! Telling a noob to try a nightly, regardless of stability, is like telling your kid to learn to drive behind the wheel of a Kenworth. If something goes wrong, its going to become a bigger deal than it would be if the guy had flashed 2 or 3 ROMs. This seems real obvious to me. Are you forgetting your first experience rooting and flashing ROMs? I'm not gonna warn someone of the dangers of doing something I consider stupid. I will say "If you want to do something stupid, go flash a nightly for your first ROM. If your LUCKY it will all work right. If it doesn't, go fly a kite because you're own your own, bro."
Thanks for the further comments. Let's not try to get too side tracked on one ROM with many nightlies. I definitely prefer to steer clear of a ROM with nightlies. I'd like to let others do all that valuable beta testing and simply benefit from their work. Selfish - sure but uncommon - no.
Just to clarify some personal details that may help with recommendations. I've read many of the posts here from the devs themselves on their ROMs. However, slogging through hundreds of pages on a small handful of ROMs is not my idea of fun... I'm quite computer/phone literate but have not done programming in years. I also work in the software industry. After years of crappy and unstable WinMo devices and plenty of random freezes, resets and data loss, I've found a pretty nice new home with Android. I'm not afraid to experiment, trouble shoot, etc. However, I want a phone to USE much more than to constantly tinker, repair, troubleshoot, etc. I'd like a really mature, stable bulletproof ROM along with the ability to have GB and keep Sense. It is incredibly difficult for me to read the oftentimes massive features lists on the first page of any given ROM thread and distinguish it from other competing offerings. Despite being pretty computer literate, most of those pages are nearly entirely "greek" to me.
Perhaps there is no single best ROM or recommendation but I am going to continue to read all the replies here and hopefully get my choice narrowed down. Of course I realize no ROM choice is permanent. I'll just say again I like to USE my device rather than constantly "tinker".
Cheers.
InfuseTh3ory ... Try it.
Since you like Sense then check out Gingeritis
http://www.themikmik.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=271
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
gingertheory is a nice solid build that I've been running the last couple of weeks. No big deal breakers as far as bugs.
I switched from iPhone to Android last August and have been running UnNamed ever since. I love the android. I had wanted to re-flash it with a ICS ROM, but can't find many screenshots of how each rom looks like.
I noticed that the kernel was released for ICS 4.0.3 and lots of ROMS now have this in it.
Can any of you that have tried more than one of these roms comment on which rom you think is better? I'm not sure how to tell the roms apart from each other yet :/
I found and am deciding b/w these: SHOstockv2 ICS, CM9 (Not actual 4.0.3 ICS?), and Phone-Bricker.
I'm looking for a cool-looking ROM with lots of features. Those are my only requirements really when I look for roms.
Thanks guys!
Hi. We're not going to do vs. threads on new roms that have just come out or have been here for awhile.
Every phone is slightly different and what works great for you may not for the next person. The best bet is for everyone toy the roms for themselves and see what works best for them.
The reason we dont have these vs. threads is because it can very easily (and has in the past) turned into flame wars... because when one person says "I didnt like so-and-sos rom so I moved to this rom" its inadvertently putting down the work of that dev and his rom. It may not be intentional, but it happens. So to avoid that, we just dont do it.
So there are tons of different variations of MIUI nowadays and I just wanted to get a take on what everyone's favorite is, cus I myself have tried out many, and just thought it might be useful to have others feedbacks on certain versions and what not. Specifically I am interested in those who have SPEEDY builds of MIUI; referencing builds like AdyScorpius' build, or Dragon's MIUI SP, or RGUI, MIUI Scotland, things like that; ones with hardware acceleration. I've tried out all of the above including the normal builds, and the ICS of the ones above offered, and was wondering what everyone's favorite was. I'm talking about GINGERBREAD BUILDS, for Speed and Stability, since that is what I'd be using, but if you have ICS build and are commenting on that please go ahead too, just mention ICS. Specifically when commenting put which rom, the build, and what you like about it, or don't like about others. I have my own opinions about each of those but would like some extra feedback, thanks a lot. I'll give an example below:
Currently using MIUI SP (GB), it's got basically everything I'm looking for, has the ICS framework of MIUI, Stock SG2 Camera, as well as MIUI themes. Used Galnet but it wasn't quite as stable, had some mix ups with connection dropping right before a call, and lockscreen was inconsistent. RGUI is sweet, cept Bluetooth doesn't work. AdyScorpius is probably the fastest rom I've ever run but the market FC's every time...
Your turn
Using gb wiui! I've never tried MIUI before but it's amazing!
~ ~
° °
----
Asnet is the best for me.
Call quality was very poor with miui I found, How do you guys find it?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA
Official MIUI v4 is nice also ASNET MIVI is also nice .!
We don't allow these threads, there is no 'best' ROM. Please just try them yourself.
Thanks
Good morning or evening to all,
this is my first post on the forum, so please by patient. I am new to the world of custom ROMs and I tried to educate myself by reading the noob guides. However, my questions become more and more widespread, and I am not sure where to try to find the answers.
To be clear: I am NOT asking about 'what ROM is best' and such. I would like to know more about the following:
1) There are CM7 ROMs (Netrino for example), CM9 and CM10 ROMs. As I understand it, because there have been stock files from MOTO, CM& ROMs can have stable kernels, hardware acceleration etc etc. However, if there is no hardware acceleration, how can CM9 ROMs be smoother?
2) In the same vain, how can CM9 and 10 ROMs have kernels? Where they written from scratch? And how can they be faster than stock?
3) Due to my SOD problems, I flashed several ROMs and currently have a CM9 one, which is stable so far. If I go back to a CM7 one, such as Netrino 2.9, what differences would I see? Will the latter be faster or more efficient? Smoother? Or should I just leave it alone, since it works?
4) And to reverse the question, how can a CM10 ROM be smoother, if it does not have hardware acceleration and drivers?
I am sorry about the bombardment. I do not want to waste anybody's time, but some pointers would be helpful. Thanks in advance!
to give you a shorter answer for better understanding:the stock roms are mostly based on android 2.3.6 which is the newest firmware.the roms only differ from the regions and mostly have battery tweaks or connection tweaks etc...
lets go to cm 9 and 10.cm9 is basically android4.0 and cm10 android 4.1.these are faster because they do not have many unnecessary apps like stock roms do.
i hope this explains a bit...
peddarson said:
to give you a shorter answer for better understanding:the stock roms are mostly based on android 2.3.6 which is the newest firmware.the roms only differ from the regions and mostly have battery tweaks or connection tweaks etc...
lets go to cm 9 and 10.cm9 is basically android4.0 and cm10 android 4.1.these are faster because they do not have many unnecessary apps like stock roms do.
i hope this explains a bit...
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the answer, peddarson.
Can it be that the only difference between roms is the absence of apps? Then, netrino should be the fastest of them all. And where does the absence of hardware acceleration and drivers factor in?
A few of your questions could be easily answered just by flashing the roms and seeing for yourself. Or Googling.
For example, you keep asking about hardware acceleration without knowing what it does or what it means. If you did, you'd know it plays a much bigger role with how apps function than the UI. The "smoothness" described in CM10 is with the UI and not the apps themselves (hint), while certain programs like the camera app, Chrome, etc. have a tendency to be unstable (hint.) You might be able to piece together that the UI isn't as ha-dependent as you thought. Maybe the visual experience has more to do with the actual software than hardware.
The answer to a few other of your questions is that these ROMs play off an original source and then tweaked to be optimized to the author's liking. Kernels can be overclocked, memory management can be altered, etc. If you want to know specifics, look into what each specific ROM does. It's right there in black and white.
nh777 said:
A few of your questions could be easily answered just by flashing the roms and seeing for yourself. Or Googling.
For example, you keep asking about hardware acceleration without knowing what it does or what it means. If you did, you'd know it plays a much bigger role with how apps function than the UI. The "smoothness" described in CM10 is with the UI and not the apps themselves (hint), while certain programs like the camera app, Chrome, etc. have a tendency to be unstable (hint.) You might be able to piece together that the UI isn't as ha-dependent as you thought. Maybe the visual experience has more to do with the actual software than hardware.
The answer to a few other of your questions is that these ROMs play off an original source and then tweaked to be optimized to the author's liking. Kernels can be overclocked, memory management can be altered, etc. If you want to know specifics, look into what each specific ROM does. It's right there in black and white.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing is that, as I said, I do not want to flash the ROMs (again) and see. I am not interested in learning the specific merits or disadvantages of each. I just want some pointers on what hardware acceleration does, how it synergizes with the UI, how different ROMs come about with or withoit drivers etc. And because I don't know, I ask (hint). Your post, for example, clarified some of these things, sarcasm aside. It would clarify even more if you could provide some links for me to pursue.
Haha. Welcome to XDA. People are quite unforgiving and harsh with noobs, I appologize on their behalf. I am still pretty new myself but for the past 4 months, I have read and learned quite a lot and have flashed many roms.
My first love was actually neutrino. I always seem to crawl back to neutrino rom because it is ridiculously smooth and stable for me. I've seen many people have issues here and there but I really have no complaints about neutrino. I have tried CNA, which is a port by Bill based off of CM10. I was quite impressed with how nicely it ran. The battery life wasn't as good as I'd like and I require a camera so I flashed back to neutrino.
There are two new cm7 based roms that have surfaced recently, Atrix MRom and TopSmarts. I tried MRom and it is quite a nice rom. I wasn't a fan of the Holo Launcher that it uses so now I'm on TopSmarts. This rom has been great for me. Like I said, I always end up back with neutrino but this is quite the contender. It's pretty new and only the first version so it will most likely be updated often.
I'd give a couple cm7 roms a go, if I were you. Just make sure you make a Nandroid backup of your current rom so you can always restore. I feel that Cm7 roms have much better battery life and tend to be more stable. The only issue I have with cm7 is there's no webtop option. Other than that, I couldn't be happier with TopSmarts or Neutrino. Both of the devs are also really friendly and quite helpful.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions, you're welcome to PM me.
Sent from my MB860 using xda app-developers app
ProudGrognard said:
The thing is that, as I said, I do not want to flash the ROMs (again) and see. I am not interested in learning the specific merits or disadvantages of each. I just want some pointers on what hardware acceleration does, how it synergizes with the UI, how different ROMs come about with or withoit drivers etc. And because I don't know, I ask (hint). Your post, for example, clarified some of these things, sarcasm aside. It would clarify even more if you could provide some links for me to pursue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, what? Then what's this?
"If I go back to a CM7 one, such as Netrino 2.9, what differences would I see? Will the latter be faster or more efficient? Smoother?"
Come on, guy.
Google hardware acceleration and you might find out that, like I suggested with my previous post, it doesn't necessarily have to do with the UI. Sorry, but I'm not spoon-feeding you links that you could have found in less time than making this post.
I've already explained the different ROMs are based on current software and then ported/tweaked. If you looked at the bugs with each ROM, you'd figure out the holes that drivers would fix.
nw21st (Alphabet district, amirite?) had a great suggestion which was that cm7 roms were easily the most stable. Why? Atrix has drivers up to 2.3.6 so nothing's missing. If you're wondering what differences you'll see in cm7 vs cm9 then you aren't using your phone enough, eg, camcorder. That's fine. Loads of people are on cm9/10 and accept the bugs and limitations. But hands down, cm7 ROMs will remain the most stable.
ProudGrognard said:
Good morning or evening to all,
this is my first post on the forum, so please by patient. I am new to the world of custom ROMs and I tried to educate myself by reading the noob guides. However, my questions become more and more widespread, and I am not sure where to try to find the answers.
To be clear: I am NOT asking about 'what ROM is best' and such. I would like to know more about the following:
1) There are CM7 ROMs (Netrino for example), CM9 and CM10 ROMs. As I understand it, because there have been stock files from MOTO, CM& ROMs can have stable kernels, hardware acceleration etc etc. However, if there is no hardware acceleration, how can CM9 ROMs be smoother?
2) In the same vain, how can CM9 and 10 ROMs have kernels? Where they written from scratch? And how can they be faster than stock?
3) Due to my SOD problems, I flashed several ROMs and currently have a CM9 one, which is stable so far. If I go back to a CM7 one, such as Netrino 2.9, what differences would I see? Will the latter be faster or more efficient? Smoother? Or should I just leave it alone, since it works?
4) And to reverse the question, how can a CM10 ROM be smoother, if it does not have hardware acceleration and drivers?
I am sorry about the bombardment. I do not want to waste anybody's time, but some pointers would be helpful. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Optimization, mainly
2) Motorola released the sources of each Atrix kernel (International, EMEA, ATT etc...). Devs can use it to make tweaked, optimized versions
3) By flashing a CM7, you will go back on Gingerbread (GB). CM9 = ICS and CM10 = Jelly Bean (JB). The main differences you can see are the different interfaces (GB looks ugly to me now...) and some apps like Chrome are missing on GB. Also CM7 is super stable, if you want a stable and customizable ROM then you should try it.
4) CM10 had a lot of optimizations all based around apps preloading/compiling (To be verified), also the animations were changed to make it look smoother. Stuffs like scrolling, animations are smoother on ICS/JB than GB because of optimizations too. If you flash CM7 you'd have the same kind of "smooth feeling" because of a high framerate but the apps won't load as fast as with CM9/10.
Personally I use CM10 even if it's not well supported (Not as well as GB) but ICS/JB is coming soon so I'm trying to get used to it for when it officially comes. I consider GB as a legacy OS, there won't be anything really new/innovative on it since Google doesn't develop any new app on it.