Graphics Category - Page 14 of 28 - CNX Software

October 28, 2014October 29, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ARM Unveils Mali-T800 Series GPUs, Mali-V550 VPU, and Mali-DP550 Display Processor

ARM has just announced several new Mali media IP: three Mali-T800 series GPUs (Mali-T820, Mali-T830, and Mali-T830) based on Midgard architecture, as well as Mali-V500 video accelerator, and the Mali-DP550 display processor. Mali T800 Series GPU The new Mali T-8xx GPUs are based on the same Midgard architecture used in Mali T-6xx and T-7xx GPUs, but deliver better power efficiency thanks to technologies such as ARM Frame Buffer Compression (AFBC), and Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) for imput bandwidth reduction, as well as Transaction Elimination and Smart Composition. ARM provided some performance and energy-comparison between T800 and T600 series (but strangely nothing against T700): The Mali-T820 GPU is optimized for entry-level products, achieving up to 40 percent more performance density compared to the Mali-T622 GPU. The Mali-T830 GPU delivers up to 55 percent more performance than the Mali-T622 GPU. The Mali-T860 GPU provides higher performance and 45 percent more energy-efficiency […]

October 21, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

PowerVR SDK v3.4 Supports WebGL, 64-Bit Android 5.0 Lollipop, and MIPS Linux

Imagination Technolgies has just released PowerVR SDK v3.4 including the latest compilers for PowerVR Series6 and Series6XT GPUs to PVRShaderEditor, several performance optimization, a new WebGL SDK, 64-bit support for Android 5.0 Lollipop, and Linux support for MIPS based processors. The company has revamped the user interfaces of their tools, and made the following key changes: PVRTrace, a tool to capture and analyze OpenGL ES and EGL API calls, now supports OpenGL ES 3.1, compressed trace files, and they’ve reduce the software memory usage PVRTune, a performance analysis tool, now features new counters, and “significant” performance optimizations. PVRShaderEditor, a light-weight shader editing too, adds the latest compilers for PowerVR Series6 (FP32 and FP16) and Series6XT GPUs, as well as GLSL disassembler output. PVRTexTool, a utility for compressing textures, adds plugin support for Autodesk 3DSMax and Maya (2015 versions), and improves ETC decompression by up to 20% faster per surface. Imagination also […]

October 9, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linux 3.17 Released

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.17 on Sunday: So the past week was fairly calm, and so I have no qualms about releasing 3.17 on the normal schedule (as opposed to the optimistic “maybe I can release it one week early” schedule that was not to be). However, I now have travel coming up – something I hoped to avoid when I was hoping for releasing early. Which means that while 3.17 is out, I’m not going to be merging stuff very actively next week, and the week after that is LinuxCon EU… What that means is that depending on how you want to see it, the 3.18 merge window will either be three weeks, or alternatively just have a rather slow start. I don’t mind getting pull requests starting now (in fact, I have a couple already pending in my inbox), but I likely won’t start processing […]

October 6, 2014January 26, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

Can Rockchip RK3288 Android TV Boxes Play Videos at True 4K UHD / 2160p Resolution?

[Update 2: Now that I have a 4K TV, I’ve redone the test myself, and Rockchip RK3288 can play 4K videos properly. The mistake was to use Software decode in MX Player which renders to the framebuffer instead of the video buffer. Visit the post entitled 4K Output and Video Playback Capability Tested on 6 ARM based mini PCs and Boards for details.] [Update 1: The post has now been updated, after it was clear one of MX Player options was misunderstood. The conclusion remains the same] Over the last few years there have been complains about Android TV boxes decoding 1080p video, rendering them to a 720p frame buffer, and upscaling them back to 1080p resolution for video output, so you ended up playing 1080p videos at a real 720p resolution. I never investigated the issue in details, and thanks to new media players now coming with a 1080p […]

October 2, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

STMicro STM32F4 (Cortex M4) vs STM32F7 (Cortex M7) Graphics Demo

STMicro announced their latest STM32F7 micro-controller family based on ARM Cortex M7 last week. As ARM Techcon 2014 is now taking place, the company has uploaded an infomercial on their YouTube account, where STMicro and ARM representatives are interviewed about the new family, and talk about its performance, power consumption, target applications, business prospects, and so on. But there’s also an a short demo with two development kits one with a STM32F4 cortex M4 micro-controller, and the other with a STM32F7 micro-controllers. Since both MCU families are pin-to-pin compatible, the hardware is identical except for the MCU. Both kits are pre-loaded with a 3D graphics demo (ray tracer), and the board with STM32F7 completes the demo in about half the time of the one with STM32F439, allegedly with about the same power consumption (7 coremarks / mW). The video is about 8 minutes long, and the demo starts at 1:25. […]

August 21, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2014 Schedule – IoT, ARM vs x86, Optimization, Power Management, Debugging…

The Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELC 2014), CloudOpen, and LinuxCon Europe will jointly take place at the Congress Centre Düsseldorf, in Germany on October 13 – 15, 2014. The 3-day events will consists of keynotes, presentations, and tutorials. Each day will open with two or three keynotes by speakers including Jim Zemlin (Executive Director, Linux Foundation), and Jono Bacon (XPRIZE), followed by presentation and tutorials. There will be 45 presentations for ELCE, 58 for LinuxCon, and 47 for CloudOpen, I’ll make a virtual schedule with a few sessions part of the Embedded Linux Conference Europe “track”. Monday, October 13 11:15 – 12:05 – Performance Analysis Using the Perf Suite by Mans Rullgar, Consultant When faced with a performance problem, the initial steps towards a solution include identifying the sections of code responsible and the precise reasons they are time-consuming. To this end, the ‘perf’ profiling tools provide valuable insight into the […]

July 27, 2014July 27, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Testing VolksPC’s MicroXwin Android & Debian Distribution in MK808 mini PC

Earlier this week, I wrote about VolksPC mini PC running Debian and Android simultaneously, and the developers decided to send me a unit for testing. The hardware I received is the popular MK808 mini PC based on Rockchip RK3066 with 1Gb RAM, and 8 GB RAM, but loaded with MicroXwin unified distribution. MicroXwin is an implementation of Windows X that’s not using a client/server protocol, for instead communicates directly with the drivers for better performance, especially on low-end hardware. I connected MK808 to my HDMI TV, added a USB hub to connect a USB keyboard as well as Mele Air Mouse, and powered up the device. The boot to Debian takes about 30 seconds, and 50 seconds for Android. As you boot it will enter in Debian with XFCE desktop environment, and you’ll notice two files, namely the Quick Start Guide and Release Notes that explain how to get started […]

July 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ARM TechCon 2014 Schedule – 64-Bit, IoT, Optimization & Debugging, Security and More

ARM Technology Conference (TechCon) 2014 will take place on October 1 – 3, 2014, in Santa Clara, and as every year, there will be a conference with various sessions for suitable engineers and managers, as well as an exposition where companies showcase their latest ARM based products and solutions. The detailed schedule for the conference has just been made available. Last year, there were 90 sessions organized into 15 tracks, but this year, despite received 300 applications, the organizers decided to scale it down a bit, and there will be 75 session in the following 11 tracks: Chip Implementation Debugging Graphics Heterogeneous Compute New Frontiers Power Efficiency Safety and Security Software Development and Optimization Software Optimization for Infrastructure and Cloud System Design Verification There are also some paid workshops that take all day with topics such as “Android (NDK) and ARM overview”, “ARM and the Internet of Things”, or “ARM […]