Database Users

Webcam and touchscreen+Onenote performance

I'm a guy who is unfortunate enough to be carrying around a notebook computer most of the time for work and is starting to get a bad neck so am starting to look for a serious alternative. I've been following the HTC SHIFT discussion and reviews avidly but unfortunately till now I have been unable to get the answers which I seek. I hope one of you can help me with this problem.
I generally use my notebook for 5 tasks and I need to ascertain whether the HTC SHIFT is up to these tasks before committing to one (otherwise I'm going to use the same money and get a Dell XPS)
1. Web video call with MSN Live Messenger - does the SHIFT offer adequate performance with its webcam/processor power/memory capacity to perform this properly?
2. Note taking - I've never used a tablet PC before, so does the Touchscreen/OneNote combination actually usable? For example, the Notes program on WM5/6 is NOT useable in work situations: The width of the pen "nib" draws a line that is too thick on the screen, the ink appears late on the "paper", causing a disconcerting delay effect, and the screen on PDAs is too small for this purpose.
3. Since this is an INTERNET device, I would be installing the relevant security programs on it, e.g. resident antivirus, antispyware and firewall programs. With an 800MHz processor and only 1GB of RAM running VISTA, would I still have a usable computer? I'm only talking about EXCEL/WORD/POWERPOINT/ONENOTE/WMP/YOUTUBE type usage.
4. Powerpointing - I believe the SHIFT would be perfect for this, with its VGA output and small size.
5. Internet browsing - as I understand there has been no problems with speed whilst browsing
It would be incredibly appreciated if those of you who own this device or have a test device or have tested the device to give me any information!
Thanks

I've not used MSN Messenger but have used it with LCS and performance seems fine.
Note taking with OneNote seems to also be ok but you won't want to have too many applications running in the background. I'm keeping mine to the bare min really and concentrating on Office 2007 products (with the exception of Visio. I comes with an AV product but I've replaced it with McAfee and that seems to be ok. Using it with Outlook 2007, Word Excel PPt etc its really only large or multiple files that seem to cause serious lag.

Alan,
Sorry, just to clarify, do you think that Onenote/inking capabilities are acceptable on the Shift, as I've read elsewhere that they're not up to much?
Cheers
Squiggs

Managed Direct3D code--slow!

I wrote some Managed Direct3D Mobile code, using fixed point arithmetic. It runs slow as a dog and its performance relative to the floating point version of the code shows little improvement.
This is on a Kaiser phone. I know that there are issues with graphics on that thing. I am only trying to use the software renderer, but the speed of my app is so slow that I wonder if it's in my implementation. It is a cube with textured faces, spinning as as fast as it can, and I can only achieve 7 seconds per frame (yes... seconds per frame. Obviously my goal is something in the FPS range!).
Would anyone with experience in writing D3DM code care to give me a hand by looking at my code? I'm at kramer (underscore inserted) ae (at) hotmail (dot) com.
Thanks,
Brian

Sorry to say the Kaiser only has reference drivers for d3dm, all software driven. Thats why its a dog.

and it also dont help that ms stoped all development of Managed Directx along time agoe and most people who wanna do 3d from .net these days use opengl
also on a as weak platform as arm compared to pc
.net being much much relatively slow on arm compared to on x86
doing 3d in a not truely native language as c++ will never give much speed
less so when it comes to graphics

These comments aren't helping. I understand that my environment is not up to industry standards in terms of performance (15-60 fps, for example). But rendering a cube in Direct3D should not be as bad as one frame every 10 seconds. I'm in search of someone who knows the correct baseline performance expectation for my scenario and can help bring the perf of my simple 3D application in line with what is really expected. Alternatively, there may be anecotal information that says my application is actually performing as fast as expected. I don't know that.

The attached archive contains a native and a managed D3D example showing a rotating textured cylinder (from the WM6 SDK). Both run interactive on my HTC Touch (Elf).

Ubuntu on the HTC Shift

I've been checking out the stuff on the web about Linux on the shift, found these, pretty interesting. This ubuntu even detects the motion rolling from left to right, and he makes the cursor move around the screen by tilting the unit. Also has csreen rotation working:
http://mobilitysite.com/2008/07/ubuntu-in-a-htc-shift/
another one:
http://pof.eslack.org/blog/2008/04/14/linux-on-htc-shift/
"Once Ubuntu is installed, you get a menu at boot time which lets you choose which operating system to boot, Vista or Ubuntu. Surprisingly most of the hardware is auto-detected by ubuntu, and almost everything works out of the box:
* Audio is working, mute and volume control works using the Fn keys.
* SD card reader is working.
* Adjusting the screen backlight works with the proper Fn keys.
* Webcam is working (you can test it with gstreamer-properties).
* CPU frequency scaling works by default too on the Intel Stealy 800Mhz CPU, you can monitor it by enabling the cpufreq gnome pannel.
* ACPI is working, you can get the CPU temperature using the sensors-applet.
* Screen resolution works at 800×480. I have not tried higher resolutions yet.
* Bluetooth is working.
However there are a few things that require some extra work in order to have them working properly."

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=381915

its pof old work! it works only with 8.04 but once updated the system, most pof works will not work.

Hi
I installed Ubuntu last night as I can't get any other version of Windows (except the memory and space hogging Vista) to install at the moment.
I was very impressed with how much DID work without any fiddling and now I shall spend another few evenings reading exactly how to make the rest of it work.
I'm hoping to be able to then get rid of Vista (but not off the X partition JUST IN CASE!) and regain some space, but I think that I need Windows to run some software for my OU degree course... rather important given this was my excuse for buying a SHIFT (so I'd always be able to work on my degree regardless of where I was (or so my other half thinks!)).
However I know NOTHING about Linux and am somewhat daunted by it but also looking forward to getting a more "hands on" with the Shift and some more computing experience under my belt.
I am rather excited by the concept of actually being able to use things like the g-sensor. Why would HTC put it in then give you nothing to make it work under Vista? Kinda sums up their decision-process when creating the Shift, if you ask me...

Ubuntu on an external USB hard disk also works as described. Wireless doesn't work; this is noted elsewhere in this thread: the 8686 drivers need to be found, compiled, and installed; any detailed pointers would be much appreciated. 640x480 resolution (only) is a major drawback, as control panels come up with essential buttons off screen, and there doesn't seem to be any trick to move them on screen. It boots much faster and it is much more responsive than VISTA ... I would make Ubuntu permanent on the Shift platform if I could get wireless and the resolution control working.

cnbabbage said:
I would make Ubuntu permanent on the Shift platform if I could get wireless and the resolution control working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you go to POF's website (link in the second link in the first message of this thread I think) there is an installer packet that should make WIFI work although being a Linux novice, it doesn't for me! It seems to do what it's meant to do as I can see stuff happening in the terminal window but nothing actually happens or changes after it's done...
I agree that the resolution is a BIG problem at 800 x 640 or whatever it is under Ubuntu 8.04 and hope someone has a solution soon PLEASE!

for Resolution, you can go and reconfig your Xserver yourself. Never used to get it to work on ubuntu but on gentoo no problem at all.
All other pof stuff will work with smal adjustments !! just read the right threads.

Neutron83 said:
for Resolution, you can go and reconfig your Xserver yourself. Never used to get it to work on ubuntu but on gentoo no problem at all.
All other pof stuff will work with smal adjustments !! just read the right threads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I did well to get as far as I did as a Noob actually (and a girl one at that!). I have no problem with people saying "search the forum" to people who ask simple questions like "how do I access SnapVue" but when someone's clearly done their research and is still struggling, it's very frustrating. I've just spent nearly ALL weekend on this forum (and google) and got as far as making Ubuntu 8.10 work as I wanted except Wifi and screen resolution, given no one else has mentioned any of these necessities working on 8.10 as far as I can remember and the fact I know nothing about Linux!! Proof in point; your first comment about the Xserver - I don't even know what that is (though I've probably been fiddling in it)
When I have the time I'll start a new thread with all my wonderful findings so it's all in one place - but I have to earn a living and feed the family so it's not high on my agenda this week. I'm due some time off work, so will aim to get it done then (like painting the kitchen and making curtains for my daughter's room...!)

I can upload older ubuntu 8.04 someplace. With this version all pofs configs and hacks work normally.

Hello together!
I'm also working on getting a current Linux up and running on the Shift (Arch Linux with kernel 2.6.28) and found these problems/"solutions":
- Display: I believe that's a combined hard- and software problem. The display doesn't report its correct capabilities and the driver doesn't handle interpolated resolutions that well (I modified the driver for this). I already mailed this to the xorg mailing list, but I didn't get an answer (perhaps I missed some information like driver version)
- Wifi: The old Marvell driver (from their website) isn't compatible with 2.6.28 anymore, but there is a new one in the kernel itself (called libertas), that only needs the firmware in /lib/firmware (check out this git repo if you need to). But at least in my case the chip is still not working, cause the SD controller is buggy and unknown. But I'm talking with some Devs who are willing to help.
- Touchscreen: You need this module to glue htcpen and the xserver together. Then it works like in Pof's manual.
All in all: I believe in having a fully working Linux on the Shift somewhen
Greetings,
Sven

Oaky guys:
Xserver = your grafical environment
Yea u're right the display doesnt send useable stuff to the Soft but you can hard overwrite the combinations of wich ModeLines are used, its a bit more advanced linux stuff but as far as you dont try to learn you wont get it .... i acctually use a 1024 x 600 is possible and i use it !
I Can give my x config to you here if you like to ! (When i am home
sorry for my roughness but i am not a linux pro just advanced PC user and i was able to do such stuff also !!
Greets

Appreciated!
If you could post your config when you have time I would be grateful (as would others!)

@Neutron83:
What version of the intel driver are you using? I'm using 2.4.1 (and newer) and I wasn't able to override the setting no matter what I did. But please share your config. I'd like to give it a chance.
Greeting,
Sven

please, can someone confirm me that ubuntu can do 1024x600 on htc shift?
i would like to buy one of them but i'm not sure about 1024x600 under linux.
thanks a lot

someone posted that xorg_conf can be modified in someway to get bigger resolution. no one have posted working config for this yet. If someone could post it, it would be great.

Shift's screen is 800x480 pixels (http://www.htc.com/europe/faqs.aspx?p_id=60&cat=0&id=45486.) Bundled software (~\htc\resolution.exe and ~\htc\ResolutioLauncher.exe) switches between native 800x480 and emulated 1024x600.
Any progress on a linux driver for the Marvell 8686 wifi card?

Hi @All,
maybe somewhere experts of you can build a script again for Ubuntu 9 users, the most of them I think can work with Linux, but the most are Windows users (like me) and are overstrained with modding aditional Hardware into Ubuntu ;-)

How's everyone going with Ubuntu on the Shift? Samstables?
I'm downloading and installing the current wubi to put ubuntu on with vista as a dual boot to see how much works out of the box and how much I can get working mucking around (low level linux user here )

hmm... my shift is a dustcover at the moment...

pls give me image iso ubuntu on a works drivers!!

Render-To-Texture with HTC Diamond 2

Hi everyone,
I have a small technical problem to solve and hopefully someone knows an answer for it. Someone gave me a HTC Diamond 2 (very nice toy I think). I don’t know which hardware is exactly inside the phone but I assume it’s an ATI ImageOn 2300 which fully supports OpenGL ES 1.0 + Extension Pack (that’s what GL_EXTENSION is saying). And all of these extensions are doing fine. As everyone knows HTC is not providing a D3D driver for their phones and all other drivers I have seen are just a wrapper around OpenGL ES. So using D3D is currently not an option.
I have to write an application which requires some render-to-texture functionality in realtime and here my problems are starting to grow.
[1] glCopyTexImage2D:
I recognized that glCopyTexImage2D() is very slow. My framerate is dropping dramatically from >100 frames down to ~20 frames. Somehow this is done in software by the driver and not hardware- accelerated. glCopyTexSubImage2D() is even more slow (down to ~10 frames per second), but both functions are working. I tried to move it into a different thread, but the driver is not supporting shared contexts. Also it’s not supporting two bound contexts at the same time with two different windows and threads. So this can’t be improved or I’m doing something wrong.
[2]PBuffers:
PBuffer are working fine. But PBuffers which can be bound to a texture are not supported by OpenGL ES 1.0. And that’s what happens also on this ATI card.
[3]GL_OES_framebuffer_object:
This was my preferred choice. But framebuffers are not officially supported by the installed OpenGL driver. But the libgles_cm.dll on the HTC is exporting these functions so I tried them and recognized that they are not working correctly. Somehow the vertex pipeline is allowing only triangles in the center of the viewport. All others will be discarded. When I turn it off it renders correct. Using glDrawTexiOES() will be ignored while using framebuffers. I assume that either the current implementation of the framebuffers is just waste of some development guys or the functionality is locked in some way.
[4]D3D:
Normally D3DM is supporting to switch between different rendertargets. But we are all know the D3D problem. I tested some other D3D drivers but they are not usable. Also I can’t imagine how render-to-texture will be implemented in these drivers while it’s not working in OpenGL.
I’m wondering what TouchFlow3D is using internally, whether they are using render-to-texture or not. The only thing I know is that they are using OpenGL ES and some extensions. But Manila.exe is querying the functions of libgles_cm.dll during runtime. So I have to write a few proxy dlls first and need to hook into the system to track what they are doing. And I don’t want to spend time on this.
Does someone knows an alternative to do some render-to-texture on the ATI or knows some secrets of the libgles_cm.dll which I don’t know? There are a lot of private functions inside but can’t find some documentation about it. Also ATI and Qualcomm are not very helpful to me.
Thanks.

Maybe, glReadPixels and then glTexSubImage2D (what probably glCopyTexImage2D is doing)?
(I know that this goes two times over the graphics bus, but you never know...)
What kind of scene (number of triangles, lights, textures) are you rendering with > 100fps?

glReadPixels() + glTexImage2D() is even more slow than glCopyTexImage2D...
Also this can't be parallized. I thought using AHI2DATI.dll instead to do the same thing, but I don't know how to get a surface handle from a OpenGL texture id.
>>>What kind of scene?
A very simple scene yet. Only a few depth sorted + material sorted objects (via VBO) with some textures (backed lighting) on it. Textures are compressed. Currently no lighting, no skinning or other things. While the render thread is waiting for glFinish() to return, a second thread prepares the next frame. Also the rendering thread is not redrawing the entire viewport each time.

The OpenGL texture id is the handle. There's nothing more you can do with it. PBuffers or framebuffer objects are the only way I know for doing performant render to texture in OpenGL.

No...I mean the surface handle of the AHI2DATI library. Here you have access to the raw data of the surface. Somehow the libgles_cm.dll uses these surfaces for it own buffers and/or textures or not?!
But this is not really useful unless someone tells us whats going on inside libgles_cm.dll.
See:http://greengalaxy.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/ati-direct-access-to-hardware/

Hi jeansmsixer, I don't think there is no efficient way to do it. Have you tried eglCopyBuffers?
Aren't all textures stored in system memory? - they surely have to be because the device reports no available video mem.
Even if you get a pointer to the color buffer, it's impossible to wrap the memory in a HBITMAP to select onto a HDC and use GDI fonts for instance. (which is what I need to do).
If you do write the proxy dll like you were suggesting, can you please let me know what TF3D does for fonts? Are they textures or have they somehow mixed 3D with GDI?

Hi jeansmsixer, something else you could try is what is described here:
http://brewforums.qualcomm.com/showthread.php?t=10668
Looking on glbenchmark.com it looks like HTC devices support the extension. You should be able to get a pointer directly to the color buffer (which I presume is in normal system memory) so you could copy off pixels fairly efficiently with your own memcpy(). However, you will need to eglWaitGL() etc to ensure 3d stuff is complete before attempting to access it.
I love the irony of the only helpful information for WM opengl being found on a brew site for symbian. If WM7 is as terrible as the current mess, then I'm moving to iPhone.

Emulating Other OS's on the TouchPad via qEMU

ALL CREDIT GOES TO GRAZZT519, HE CAN BE FOUND HERE: http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=4289767
UPDATE 10/10: .IPK of qEMU now on Grazzt's website.
WE WILL NOT SUPPLY YOU WITH .IMGs of OPERATING SYSTEMS, IT WOULD BE VIOLATING COPYRIGHT AS WELL AS XDA'S RULES!
Grazzt also has dosbox and GemRB for the touchpad on his website: http://touchpad.grazzt.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TESTED/WORKING OS's:
Windows 95: Working (tested by grazzt) (Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CJ2mSToQS0)
Windows 98 SE: Working (tested by grazzt) (Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfwsIWv1eW0)
FreeDOS: working (tested by grazzt)
Windows XP: Not working (tested by grazzt)
Windows NT: Not working (tested by me, it bluescreens and then qEMU crashes)
Windows ME: Working (tested by me)
Windows 3.1: Partially working (tested by me, needs to type "WIN" via a keyboard to launch GUI)
IBM OS/2: Partially working (Boots up, than spits out C:\IBMCOM\PROTOCOL\NETBEUI.OS2 on line 108 of CONFIG.SYS was not installed, Line 108 is ignored. Press Enter to Continue...) It may potentially boot up if we had a virtual keyboard.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAQ:
Q: Did you make this?
A: No! It was made by a user known as Grazzt (he can be found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=4289767)
Q: Where are the download links?!
A: If you're talking about a qEMU .IPK, it can be found here: http://touchpad.grazzt.com/qemu/ but if you're talking about operating systems,
you must find them by your own means, I would be violating copyright and XDA's rules if I posted them here. Grazzt won't supply you with these, either, so don't bother him or me about .IMGs.
Q: How do I use this?!
A: If you have to ask this question, you shouldn't be using this, but if you would really like to know: Place your hdd.img in /media/internal/qemu and open qEMU, it should attempt to boot the OS within the .img
Q: Does this run smoothly?
A: For me it does, but on my TouchPad, I have a ton patches to lighten up WebOS, as well as UberKernel, set at 1.5GHz, with the performance governor . It will probably not run as smoothly on a stock TouchPad, but I suggest giving it a try.
Q: Where's my keyboard?!?!
A: A virtual keyboard has not been implemented (yet?).
Q: Does this overtake WebOS?
A: No, it runs in a card, as an application.
Q: WTF is wrong with the mouse?!?!
A: Nothing, the mouse is simply set to relative instead of absolute.
Q: Does sound work?
A: Yes, however, on certain OS's you may have to repeatedly increase and decrease the volume (with the TouchPad's volume rocker) to get it to properly intialize.

qEMU is what used to run win95/98, it is real, but such a hassle to run an outdated OS...not to mention the mouse calibration is wayy off, and none of the internal hardware works (no sound, wifi, opengl etc.)
also, the entire package has to be compiled, it isnt ready to use just by dl'ing it and providing a ripped OS...
its a neat little PoC, but totally not worth it considering ARM Win8 dev is dropping soonishly (hopefully )

Solidus_n313 said:
qEMU is what used to run win95/98, it is real, but such a hassle to run an outdated OS...not to mention the mouse calibration is wayy off, and none of the internal hardware works (no sound, wifi, opengl etc.)
also, the entire package has to be compiled, it isnt ready to use just by dl'ing it and providing a ripped OS...
its a neat little PoC, but totally not worth it considering ARM Win8 dev is dropping soonishly (hopefully )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
speak for yourself.
I'm a tinkerer.
I like diy projects
I do not like being hand-fed.
IT is worth it for me.

Im the "author" (well,ok, compiler) of the projects, and yeah, qemu is sort of lame for the enduser. Just wanted to see if it works and it does. Sound does work, and if I looked hard enough could probably change the mouse settings to be absolute instead of relative. Sad part is because Ive shut down win98 too many times ungracefully, I have registry errors, and too lazy to make a clean hdd image. lol
Cant really distribute it along with hdd imags of windows, Im sure you know why. I believe the freedos images from qemu.org work fine.
Dosemu has also seriously ticked me off, some games see mouse clicks, others dont, its frustrating. If you have a game that sees mouse clicks, I think it runs quite well.
Gemrb runs well, dont know what else can be said about it. Go for the eyes BOO!

grazzt519 said:
Im the "author" (well,ok, compiler) of the projects, and yeah, qemu is sort of lame for the enduser. Just wanted to see if it works and it does. Sound does work, and if I looked hard enough could probably change the mouse settings to be absolute instead of relative. Sad part is because Ive shut down win98 too many times ungracefully, I have registry errors, and too lazy to make a clean hdd image. lol
Cant really distribute it along with hdd imags of windows, Im sure you know why. I believe the freedos images from qemu.org work fine.
Dosemu has also seriously ticked me off, some games see mouse clicks, others dont, its frustrating. If you have a game that sees mouse clicks, I think it runs quite well.
Gemrb runs well, dont know what else can be said about it. Go for the eyes BOO!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WELCOME GRAZZT!
also, i wasnt bashing the project, its indeed clever, and ive see similar projects done befofe, but considering how low end some of the touchpad users here are (hopefully that doesnt last long!) its not novel for regular users.
having said that, it looks like the potential for winxp IS there, but we would have to resort to a minimalized "usb-stick" version with the media touch drivers slipstreamed (which really isnt a bad thing )
and scrizz, im the exact same as you , i dont buy, i diy! that post was more of an initial overview for ppl who just scrub through these posts and ask for links to complete projects and eta's but since the dev is here, im sure the project can advance by leaps and bounds with our help and testing

I cleaned up the original post a little.

"WE WILL NOT SUPPLY YOU WITH .IMGs of OPERATING SYSTEMS, IT WOULD BE VIOLATING COPYRIGHT AS WELL AS XDA'S RULES!"
Not fully true. You can post .img-files of Haiku and various Linux-distro's.

Vistaus said:
"WE WILL NOT SUPPLY YOU WITH .IMGs of OPERATING SYSTEMS, IT WOULD BE VIOLATING COPYRIGHT AS WELL AS XDA'S RULES!"
Not fully true. You can post .img-files of Haiku and various Linux-distro's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but linux distros probably can be run chroot'd (better performance than qemu emulation)

grazzt519 said:
Im the "author" (well,ok, compiler) of the projects, and yeah, qemu is sort of lame for the enduser. Just wanted to see if it works and it does. Sound does work, and if I looked hard enough could probably change the mouse settings to be absolute instead of relative. Sad part is because Ive shut down win98 too many times ungracefully, I have registry errors, and too lazy to make a clean hdd image. lol
Cant really distribute it along with hdd imags of windows, Im sure you know why. I believe the freedos images from qemu.org work fine.
Dosemu has also seriously ticked me off, some games see mouse clicks, others dont, its frustrating. If you have a game that sees mouse clicks, I think it runs quite well.
Gemrb runs well, dont know what else can be said about it. Go for the eyes BOO!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey nice to meet you. You can retake my project, I don't have a Pre anymore also you can use my IMG's if you want, I like people like you . Email me and let's talk.