Database Users

[STICKY][REF] Honeycomb Info - The Only Post - UPDATED 5/14/11

This is a preemptive note about posting any new threads asking "when will honeycomb come to the gTablet?" or "why can't we do this because the Nook has it?" or "why isn't the sky blue today?"
Honeycomb is not available for the gTablet yet for the following reasons:
1. source hasn't even been released by Google yet
2. any port based on the SDK doth not a Honeycomb ROM make
3. we do not even have libraries (or source) from nVidia for Gingerbread yet
Until we have source from Google and nVidia, we won't have workable Honeycomb. There will be some ports, but until one of the above happens, we are not going to be getting Honeycomb. Best case is 30 days from now (roughly the end of March).
Any post asking about Honeycomb will be promptly closed and/or deleted.
This isn't about discouraging discussion about Honeycomb on the gTablet - it's about stopping the endless flaming and abuse and posting and complaining about something that has been answered multiple times - thus taking away from other progress and endeavors.
UPDATE 3/18/11 - We now have access to the Gingerbread libs needed for hardware acceleration, but in order to use them a complete rework of the github repo is required and a year's worth of merges and cleanups would need to be done. Slow going and no ETA.
UPDATE 4/12/11 - http://www.androidcentral.com/nvidia-stop-supporting-harmony-platform-past-froyo
UPDATE 4/13/11 - http://developer.nvidia.com/tegra/forum/honeycomb-harmony#comment-6191
UPDATE 13 APRIL 2011
A lot has been read into a very short post about a Tegra development kit. I'd like to clear up a few points.
First, nothing changes in what we’re delivering to the open source community or customers. NVIDIA will continue to post the Tegra kernel to kernel.org and publish our Android code to our public git servers. Additionally, we will continue to make our BSP (codecs, GPU driver etc) available to all our hardware partners. We will continue to do this and nothing about these processes has changed.
For our partners' Android devices, NVIDIA provides support until the hardware partner chooses to no longer support the device. So, for instance, NVIDIA will support the Xoom on all versions of Android Motorola requests until Motorola ceases to support the Xoom. The same goes for ViewSonic with the G-Tablet, Notion Ink with the Adam, Acer with the Iconia, LG with the Optimus 2X and so on.
In relation to my original reply, that was a response to a specific question about a Tegra 250 Development Kit. Given the confusion, we will work with owners of Tegra 250 Development Kits individually to determine their needs. The term "Harmony" is an internal codename for the Tegra 250 Development Kit. It is not a tablet reference design. Each shipping tablet is a custom design with varying hardware components and requires a custom OS image from the OEM who made the tablet.
Finally, while we cannot support or give out third party peripheral drivers or provide the Android 3.0 source before Google does, we do want to explore whether we can assist the open source ROM makers. We will be reaching out to them today.
UPDATE 5/10/11 - There is now a pretty hacked together port of HC that has been ported to the gTablet - it is a mashup of other, authorized by Google tablets which have stock HC on them, and thrown together for Vega, Adam and gTablet. A lot doesn't work; it is not feature perfect..... it is only recommended for testing type users who are familiar with nvflash etc. and it is not built from source specifically for our devices. It is by no means official, nor is it what would probably be called "stable" - but it is as close as we've come to HC on the gTablet. Here is the post that has more information: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1065220
UPDATE 5/10/11 - Per Google I/O's Fireside chat today there will be no Honeycomb source released. Ever. You'll have to wait for Ice Cream Sandwich which will be out in Q4 2011.
UPDATE 5/14/11 - The ADAM/VEGA/ZPAD/GTAB port of the mashup Transformer/Iconia/Xoom Honeycomb systems is coming along nicely. See the above thread for more information. Good work to the devs involved in that project.

[HoneyComb] NVIDIA's commitment towards continued support of hardware partners?

As it appears they have had either a change of heart or the community is large enough to have a voice..
Mar 16 2011 at 12:07 AM #1
UPDATE 13 APRIL 2011
A lot has been read into a very short post about a Tegra development kit. I'd like to clear up a few points.
First, nothing changes in what we’re delivering to the open source community or customers. NVIDIA will continue to post the Tegra kernel to kernel.org and publish our Android code to our public git servers. Additionally, we will continue to make our BSP (codecs, GPU driver etc) available to all our hardware partners. We will continue to do this and nothing about these processes has changed.
For our partners' Android devices, NVIDIA provides support until the hardware partner chooses to no longer support the device. So, for instance, NVIDIA will support the Xoom on all versions of Android Motorola requests until Motorola ceases to support the Xoom. The same goes for ViewSonic with the G-Tablet, Notion Ink with the Adam, Acer with the Iconia, LG with the Optimus 2X and so on.
In relation to my original reply, that was a response to a specific question about a Tegra 250 Development Kit. Given the confusion, we will work with owners of Tegra 250 Development Kits individually to determine their needs. The term "Harmony" is an internal codename for the Tegra 250 Development Kit. It is not a tablet reference design. Each shipping tablet is a custom design with varying hardware components and requires a custom OS image from the OEM who made the tablet.
Finally, while we cannot support or give out third party peripheral drivers or provide the Android 3.0 source before Google does, we do want to explore whether we can assist the open source ROM makers. We will be reaching out to them today.
UPDATE 12 APRIL 2011:
Sorry folks looks like I caused a bit of confusion. Since this is a developer forum my comments
were targeted at Tegra Honeycomb developers and for this we’d like to focus on Ventana. For shipping or production products, customers should contact the device makers directly for OS support plans. They are responsible for the OS shipping on their device.
In relation to our linux kernel git repository, NVIDIA will continue to provide full open-source support for all of our kernel components and will push more of that upstream over time.
ORIGINAL 16 MARCH 2011:
NVIDIA is only supporting the Ventana platform for android releases going forward. At the moment we have released Froyo and Gingerbread OS images for Ventana and will release Honeycomb after Google has done so.
Andrew Edelsten
Tegra Developer Relations
NVIDIA Corporation
SOURCE(s):
http://developer.nvidia.com/tegra/forum/honeycomb-harmony
http://notioninkhacks.com/index.php/2011/04/12/huge-problem-on-the-honeycomb-front/
http://conclave.notionink.com/showt...mb-on-Harmony-NVIDIA-s-Official-Stance&p=1281

Qualcomm Releases Adreno 2xx GPU Binaries for on ICS ARMv6 Devices

Look at here!
Not too long ago, we shared fantastic news that Qualcomm had released the Adreno 2xx GPU Binaries for Ice Cream Sandwich. However one thing that we failed to consider was that these precompiled GPU binaries were compatible only with ARMv7 devices.
Sadly, this left many users with older and less powerful ARMv6 devices out in the cold. Due to having less powerful CPUs, these are devices that could stand to benefit greatly from full GPU hardware acceleration in ICS. Not content with sitting idly by, XDA Forum Member sweetnsour quickly saw fit to create a global petition asking Qualcomm to compile and release the necessary Adreno 2xx GPU binaries to get ARMv6 devices up to speed with ICS back on March 17th.
Less than two weeks later, and thanks largely to sweetnsour’s petition efforts, Qualcomm Senior Staff Engineer Dave Astle—otherwise known as XDA Forum Member myopicrhino—lets us know that Qualcomm has shared the goods with the development community. In other words, we now have the proper Adreno 2xx GPU binaries for ICS on ARMv6 devices.
In the words of the Qualcomm Forum Master:
In order to provide enthusiasts with recent improvements made to Snapdragon’s Adreno graphics driver for the 7×27 based on the ARMv6 ISA, Qualcomm has posted the updated Adreno 200 graphics driver binaries here. It has been tested with the Ice Cream Sandwich CAF release M8960AAAAANLYA1030, but Qualcomm is providing these driver binaries “as is” to those of you who have requested them.
Official Release Information:
This release contains the user-mode driver binaries for Qualcomm’s Adreno 2xx GPU on Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich for ARMv6 based chipsets. It has been tested with the CAF release M8960AAAAANLYA1030. Supports any Adreno 2xx GPU on Android ICS using the ARMv6 chipset (7×27). Google’s libRS (LLVM) does not currently support ARMv6.
Well there you have it, folks. Score this as another big win for the development community. And just as before, we would like to extend our gratitude for Qualcomm for playing nicely with the enthusiast / development community. ARMv6 developers looking to get cracking with the new GPU binaries can find what they’re looking for in Qualcomm’s Mobile Gaming and Graphics page or from myopicrhino’s post.
Qualcomm, thank you for once again showing that you care about your users and the Android development community.
[Huge thanks to myopicrhino for the tip!]
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I'm just distribute this news... If this topic has already been disscussed by another people, sorry me and close this thread. Thank you..
Hope developer see this...

Yep . Already dude

New kernels from nVidia

I don't know if this could help in developing better roms, but I found this on nVidia developer site: http://developer.nvidia.com/linux-tegra.
It seems they released the kernel 3.1 for Tegra...
CYA

Not very useful for android but it might be usefull for lilsteves ubuntu

Backporting their tegra-specific stuff from this source drop to the upstream sources for Android shouldn't be hard, but it would be a futile exercise since their closed-source drivers shipped with ICS would be 99% incompatible with the resulting kernel ABI (and those shipped with L4T won't work with the Android userland).
The only thing that give us a glimpse of hope is that they're dropping support for the obsolete Harmony reference design and instead they're focusing their efforts on Ventana (for Tegra-2) and Cardhu (for Tegra-3).

Is Vulkan API coming to Zenfone 2?

I just heard that Vulkan API is coming to mobile and it is supporting PowerVR chips like the one we have on the phone.
(PowerVR G6430). Some people say on the ZENTALK forum that that's why it takes so much freaking time for Asus to implement Marshmallow as they are busy incorporating the API on the phone.
If this is true just image the gigantic boost it will give to our phones! (just watch on Youtube or search on Google for more information about Vulkan API)

If Vulkan API is implemented at our phone it would be fantastic. Hope Asus will work on the API and make the best for our phone, let's see in a couple of months of so

Too good to be true man, too good to be true.

hi, I'm very interested in everything about vulkan since i could see some videos about it. But my knowledge about api, android and rom's is not that good, so i would thank you if i could get some answers.
1 - Is this implementation of API a work for ASUS or Intel?
2 - Since i saw that PowerVR Rogue has now SDK(i dont know what it is) for Vulkan, Is ANYONE able to make a custom rom that could use Vulkan?
3 - I've heard that Android N will have native support for Vulkan. Does it mean that if i download a custom rom, like a cyanogenmod, for Android N to my Zenfone 2 i will have the benefits of using Vulkan?
4 - Does anyone know if that Galasy S7 that had 135k+ on antutu was using Vulkan? Because my Zenfone 2 is a great phone and only scores 65k, it's scary to thing that a S7 should have more than the double of hardware capacity that my Zenfone has. I thing that should be because of vulkan, but i need to hear it from someone who knows what's talking.
I hope to get answers for this questions. Thank you all.

SSJMatt said:
)Some people say on the ZENTALK forum that that's why it takes so much freaking time for Asus to implement Marshmallow as they are busy incorporating the API on the phone.
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Sorry, that's not how ASUS usually manages fixes and updates. That would take time and money and we've already spent our money so they have nothing to gain, therefore nothing will happen. Only future customers are a priority for ASUS.
A happy ASUS customer is one with low expectations.

Well, at least It'd give Asus a good excuse for being so late...

Vulkan is something that would need to be implemented at the OS level on Android (mainly the kernel, no idea what other bits Google is including in the rest of the OS). And support for each hardware would need to be provided by the OEM or manufacturers. It MAY be possible for a custom ROM to implement Vulkan support in some fashion in a current version of Android (harder and more "impossible" things have been accomplished) but it's not likely due to too many technical challenges. Besides, it wouldn't happen until after Android N is released and the AOSP code is posted. Only then would someone attempt to backport Vulkan.
I'm not 100% sure, but I do believe that Vulkan support will be a requirement by Google for devices to run Android N. So if Asus does plan on upgrading the phones then they will need to include a kernel for the hardware that supports Vulkan and those drivers would come from Intel. So the chance of the Zenfone supporting Vulkan is 100%, provided Asus upgrades it to N.

SSJMatt said:
I just heard that Vulkan API is coming to mobile and it is supporting PowerVR chips like the one we have on the phone.
(PowerVR G6430). Some people say on the ZENTALK forum that that's why it takes so much freaking time for Asus to implement Marshmallow as they are busy incorporating the API on the phone.
If this is true just image the gigantic boost it will give to our phones! (just watch on Youtube or search on Google for more information about Vulkan API)
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So is the VULCAN API present in the M update?

Is Vulkan something like the Mantle for Desktops?
EDIT:
Vulkan Drivers for Nexus Player
Google’s Android Image
As part of the Android N Developer Preview 2 release, Google released an Android N image for the Nexus Player that includes Vulkan drivers. You can find out more about the Android N Developer Preview here and can download the image here. As this image is officially supported by Google, we recommend using it for Vulkan Android development.
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https://community.imgtec.com/developers/powervr/vulkan/
There is two possibilities:
1- Vulkan added in Android N's mainline code, and CM14 (maybe) will do this too.
2- Vulkan driver will be only in manufacters Android N's source. In this case, will be needed to be backported.
In both possibilites, isnt impossible to do it, even without Asus help. But would be awesome if some official MM give it to us (not in the first version, obviously).

Its GPU manufacturer job to implement vulkan, they provide the drivers to OEM manufacturer implement it on their otas. Nvidia already did that on latest MM update to shield TV and shield tablet.