wizardsden

I have been an impressed owner of an Axim X51v for about 5 years. One of the features that I use most intensively is the graphics capabilities. The Axim has the Intel 2700G accelerator with 16MB video ram on board. I understand that since the iPaq 210 is powered by a Marvell processor it has MMX instructions now, but there's no dedicated graphics device.
I have found the threads that talk about Core Player not running as well, dropping frames and such. Does this also affect the 210 when playing games like Anthelion, Flux Challenge and Worms World Party?
I'm trying to decide weather I will buy the iPaq 210 and give my Axim to my Wife, or buy another Axim from Amazon/eBay/online and give that to her.
If I flash my Axim X51v with one of the WM6.1 Roms that are floating around elsewhere, would I have a PDA that could give the 210 a considerable challenge?

Thanks All!!

gersen416

Greetings wizardsden - as also a long time owner of an X50v and recently a 210 I can offer some personal views. For unbiased opinions head on over to forum.brighthand.com and read the extensive 210 vs x50/51v info documented there.

I have run the standard and 3D graphics benchmarks and some emulated opengl games using pocketsnes on both machines and in a nutshell the 210 CAN'T touch the (still) lengendary axims for games and smooth video performance. In fairness however, as is the case with most new hardware, there's a lack of software out there that yet takes advantage of the Marvell PXA 310's hardware video decoding and optimizations. I'm sure in time this will be addressed. For now many are awaiting the next release of coreplayer (the commercial release of TCPMP) reported to support the new processor. Personally I've elected to hang on to my x50v and still use it for video until the SW support for the 210 arrives - at which point I might reluctantly pass it on or more likely dedicate it to GPS functions. Please also take note of the well documented screen tap/sluggishness issue on the 210. Overall however the 210 is a decent machine with an excellent screen, USB host capability, and SDHC and CF support. It's definitely a long term keeper particularly if the user community embraces it and demands HP address the issues and invest in support.

Hope this helps

Gersen416

Theemed

Doesn't TCPMP support Marvell's (ex Intel's) PXA architecture, as XScale rendering? I do get a -slight- performance gain from standard directvideo to xscale.

gersen416

Yes TCPMP does supoprt the PXA architechture however the PXA310 instruction set has apparently been augmented from the PXA270 to add hardware video decoding capabilities. The latest version of Coreplayer (1.2.2?) supports the new instructions improving video performance significantly according to Menisys excellent review on this site.

Ackbar652

It's times like these that I think i bought the wrong PDA...and waited 4-5 years too long to do it.

Theemed

Originally Posted by gersen416

Yes TCPMP does supoprt the PXA architechture however the PXA310 instruction set has apparently been augmented from the PXA270 to add hardware video decoding capabilities. The latest version of Coreplayer (1.2.2?) supports the new instructions improving video performance significantly according to Menisys excellent review on this site.

I am sorry to contradict you (really sorry, as I would have hoped you were totally right), but I just tried last version of coreplayer (1.2.3), and compared it directly with latest TCPMP (that RC2 version everyone has). I benchmarked it with the opening of the XviD rip of the anime Death Note. Well, curious about the results? Almost 66% of fullspeed in latest Coreplayer, against almost 63% in TCPMP... not much. I could get something slightly better by disabling soft zoom and enabling hardware vertical zoom (maybe useless the last one tho), to little more than 66%.. (obviously we are talking about high quality XScale rendering in both TCPMP and Coreplayer).