Soft-review: the race for survival on the XScale processor

In recent years, programs for overclocking XScale, which are equipped with all the latest Pocket PC platform Pocket PC 2002, the fruit of an unprecedented speed. To date, at our disposal the following tools - Pocket Hack Master, XCPUScalar, Clearspeed, Speedstepper, Turbo Tray and XScaleCtrl. All the above have the same goal, differing only in the ways of achieving it, and, consequently, the results of the work. That's why we decided to find out which ones are of greatest interest. In the superficial study of user feedback it became clear that from this list are especially outstanding Pocket Hack Master, because of its functional completeness and Turbo Tray due to being free, compactness and convenience. About them and talk. Before you do overclock, you need to understand one simple thing: just as in the case of processors for large computer to burn the XScale is very difficult, but lose the information stored in memory, it is elementary. One has only slightly exceeded the frequency, and hard-rezet follow immediately. Therefore, before carrying out experiments on your pocket pet, save a backup copy of data and registry keys on the card. After preliminary training can begin operation. For our tests, we used RoverPC P3, high-speed analog U.S. HP iPAQ 1910. It is for these low-cost but highly-selling machines based on Pocket PC programmers create these tools. In addition, the cost handheld slowest XScale-processor, and their example will increase the speed of demand and particularly noticeable. I must say that during testing because it exceeds the rate in experimental instance had a hard rezet, but the information was restored by the foresight of the stock backup. Backup data, I contrived, thanks to proprietary utilities eBackup, which is located in ROM PDA. Also had to use Resco Registry to create a copy of the registry. I want to warn you that I have, even after a recovery fails to run some programs (such quite a bit, but still), and therefore rely on the backups are not worth it. No effect (a drop screen brightness, hard rezet, unstable work, and so on), pocket computer to run only at 300 MHz. On it I decided to stay. For performance testing I used the programs VOBenchmark 2.12 and PocketMVP.8P with. Avi-files of the following characteristics: resolution - 240x194, the total number of frames - 8365, FPS - 25 Audio Bitrate - 56 kb / s, frequency - 24 kHz, the total length - 0.5:34 min. During the determination of the speed of the PDA for the purity of the experiment, I intend to cut off WisBar and Animated Today, as well as shut down all running programs. The tests were conducted three times, the final result, I took their average. So, let's begin. To begin, define the starting performance of "typewriter" without overclocking.

In normal mode (200 MHz):


CPU Floating Point - 6.33


CPU Integer 13.50


Graphics Bitmap BitBlt - 17.12


Graphics Bitmap StretchBlt - 0.55


Graphics Filled Ellipse - 0.82


Graphics Filled Rectangle - 1.01


Graphics Filled Round Rectangle - 0.56


Memory Allocation - 6.52


Memory Fill - 0.82


Memory Move - 0.30


Text - 1.20





FPS: 17.40

Pocket Hack Master 2.10 in action!

This tool, a demo version which as always can be found in the "Programs" as mentioned above, interest, first of all, the richness of the settings. For example, using hand-editing parameters, you can overclock the processor to 1000 MHz. It is clear that the practical benefits of such options are now no, but its existence still significant. Of the interesting features Pocket Hack Master is also worth noting the possibility to see a list of loaded dll, change the SDRAM latency, automated monitoring and rehabilitation of these settings after the CCP. It is worth to mention separately the option called "Scale". With its help, the program adapts to the workload of the processor at the moment and thereby finds a balance between power consumption and speed. However, this feature is added to the program recently, so bugs probably exist, although at first glance, everything works pretty decent. But do not dwell on minutiae, but rather to look at our results.

At a frequency of 100MHz:


CPU Floating Point - 6.22


CPU Integer - 13.55


Graphics Bitmap BitBlt - 15.41


Graphics Bitmap StretchBlt - 0.50


Graphics Filled Ellipse - 0.83


Graphics Filled Rectangle - 0.99


Graphics Filled Round Rectangle - 0.63


Memory Allocation - 6.39


Memory Fill - 0.82


Memory Move - 0.31


Text - 1.18





FPS: 16.25


At a frequency of 300MHz:


CPU Floating Point - 9.32


CPU Integer - 20.14


Graphics Bitmap BitBlt - 20.84


Graphics Bitmap StretchBlt - 0.69


Graphics Filled Ellipse - 0.94


Graphics Filled Rectangle - 1.04


Graphics Filled Round Rectangle - 0.77


Memory Allocation - 8.40


Memory Fill - 0.84


Memory Move - 0.32


Text - 1.33





FPS: 24.92
As can be seen, the program is quite efficient and gives a significant performance boost at 300MHz and not too much slows down at 100MHz. In the latter mode, power consumption is reduced by about half as much. At 300MHz the system as a whole is much more sharply, which is especially evident when playing videos.

Pros: huge number of possible settings, the function of the intellectual setting for the performance, frequent updates.


Cons: large size, priced.

Acts Turbo Tray 0.91

Many users of the program say its compactness. And the truth is: it weighs a miracle of 18.432 kb, and during their work it is not visible in WisBar'e. But at the same time to display a shortcut menu with all the range of frequencies offered by just a click away. Well, of course, the main advantage softinkoy, especially for our users, is that it is free. As can be seen, the program is not full of settings, but it has all the most necessary. I wonder how this will affect the result? We'll see.

At a frequency of 100MHz:


CPU Floating Point - 6.20


CPU Integer - 13.29


Graphics Bitmap BitBlt - 11.15


Graphics Bitmap StretchBlt - 0.35


Graphics Filled Ellipse - 0.72


Graphics Filled Rectangle - 1.00


Graphics Filled Round Rectangle - 0.52


Memory Allocation - 6.51


Memory Fill - 0.82


Memory Move - 0.30


Text - 1.10





FPS: 1.05


At a frequency of 300MHz:


CPU Floating Point - 9.51


CPU Integer - 20.17


Graphics Bitmap BitBlt - 20.96


Graphics Bitmap StretchBlt - 0.66


Graphics Filled Ellipse - 0.92


Graphics Filled Rectangle - 1.04


Graphics Filled Round Rectangle - 0.62


Memory Allocation - 8.54


Memory Fill - 0.84


Memory Move - 0.32


Text - 1.30





FPS: 24.92
Judging by the results obtained, Turbo Tray is normal to perform its duties. The only thing disturbing, it is too low speed when playing videos. Apparently, the mode 100 MHz is not thought through, even though the free program you can forgive this shortcoming.

Pros: very simple and convenient operation, error-free operation (if you do not take into account speed video at 100 MHz), small size, free distribution.


Cons: poor settings, a strange glitch when playing back video at 100 MHz.

Total

From the above we can conclude that the considered utility really workable. Moreover, they are useful not only for those users who do not have enough speed to watch movies and clever toys, but also those who wish to conserve battery PDA, reduce the frequency of the processor. For a thorough application, we would recommend Pocket Hack Master, because this program can really come in very handy help everyone, largely thanks to the "Scale". Well, the decision to purchase Pocket Hack Master makes sense to look at the Turbo Tray. In general, driving on health, but do not forget about backups:) Download the trial version of Pocket Hack Master and complete Turbo Tray can be as always in our section "Programs." In the near future, read the review yet another tool to increase the speed of the PDA - XScaleCtrl 1.02. The authors, translation:

Dmitry Ryabinin