Tomaz

I'm a bit confused about the speed of XScale processors...

I thought at first people were saying XScale processors emulated ARM, making everything slower. Then, I searched for information about that and could not find any indication of anything bad about XScale processors or that they were ever slower.

Now, I have an Axim Advanced (400Mhz) and it seems slower than my previous PocketPC, which had a 266Mhz StrongARM processor. I have the processor speed set to Maximum Performance, but some games run too slowly to be playable (they were fine on my previous PocketPC). I don't see anything running faster on my Axim.

It seems strange to me for all the new top-of-the-line PocketPCs to be slower than older ones. Is my Axim defective? If not, is the problem simply that some ARM programs emulate slower than others?

If I understand correctly, it is possible to have programs written specifically for XScale that do not run under emulation. Are there any games like this? I would really like to see what is available that can take advantage of the speed my Axim *should* have.

cmms_axim

If the program is made for the xscale then it will run the fastest on that. I have not seen exactly what you are talking about as the last ppc I had was a v35 (only for a month) and it had an xscale. I have seen many games on tosh and paqs run just as smooth as the ax, your right maybe a little smoother (I don't know why). Nothing should be un-playable unless your running a snes emulator or something.

If you have a 255 chip then you could upgrade to 2003 and get a speed increase!

Howard2k

The StrongARM was 206MHz, not 266MHz. You're right though, the XScale runs the old code in emulation mode. Hence it's inefficiency. However with an XScale optimised application there is improvement.


Are you running PPC2002 or WM2003?

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rbg08

You may be one of the unfortunate ones who has an Axim running WM2003 vA04. Look under your System Info. If so, an update to A05 will get you running faster than anything you've had/tried before. The Axim Advanced's running WM2003 vA05 benchmark significantly better than old PPC running PPC2002 on 206MHz StrongARMs.

Tomaz

Ah, I do have WM2003 "A04". Wow, I might have never found out about the update myself... thanks!