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Snapdragon hardware multimedia support, possible?

Hi!
I've been trying to find any documentation on Snapdragon's DSP and hardware based video and audio decoders. So far, nothing. I'm just thinking if it would be possible to cook the support into custom ROM as it is quite ridiculous that decoding something like MP3 or AAC takes any CPU time at all, as according to Qualcomm's web site Snapdragon has hardware support for decoding MP3, AAC and H.264. I take it Qualcomm only provides the documentation to partners, as it is impossible to find?
Hopefully full support for hardware acceleration comes with WM7, if it can not implemented on 6.5. Should be doable with custom driver (in kernel mode) anyway by cooking, provided the documentation is leaked or something.
Mikko.

It's not possible to have the SnapDragon documentation because Qualcomm will never release it.
It's possible instead to have the missing SnapDragon drivers for Linux or I hope for Windows CE only when a QSD based smartbook that will have these drivers will be out.
With Windows Mobile 7 it's a whole new story, new CE7 kernel and support for all the new ARM instructions. I hope that we'll get that things and soon

kholk said:
It's not possible to have the SnapDragon documentation because Qualcomm will never release it.
It's possible instead to have the missing SnapDragon drivers for Linux or I hope for Windows CE only when a QSD based smartbook that will have these drivers will be out.
With Windows Mobile 7 it's a whole new story, new CE7 kernel and support for all the new ARM instructions. I hope that we'll get that things and soon
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That's a waste of potential, but we can only wait (or not? )

you Cant really expect qualcomm to release documents on its IP.
but it would be nice if they and htc worked together to release a dev sdk.
if they are serious about developing the platform then its a step they really do need to make.
if samsung can get a sdk out for the omnia ii then it seems sensible to think htc need to play catchup.. the chipset does have potential,and it appears qualcomm are becoming more dev friendly.
look at what southend have achieved with some decent support from QC..

documentation?
Qualcomm should be giving documentation to ISVs its just a matter of it falling in the wrong(or right) hands. In the meantime, Snapdragon uses ARM Cortex-A9 core and you can find more details here:
http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARMCortex-A9_MPCore.html
Not sure if that includes DSP.

My acer s200 has support for H.263, H.264 out the box =]

Ca5c4d3 said:
Qualcomm should be giving documentation to ISVs its just a matter of it falling in the wrong(or right) hands. In the meantime, Snapdragon uses ARM Cortex-A9 core and you can find more details here:
http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARMCortex-A9_MPCore.html
Not sure if that includes DSP.
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Snapdragon is Cortex A8 based and yes it does have DSP

mightymn said:
Snapdragon is Cortex A8 based and yes it does have DSP
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Do you know are the hardware multimedia decoders really silicon or SIMD/DSP based? From the QC's documentation you get the feeling they are ASIC stuff, but it might be marketing and in reality they are IP cores.
Mikko.

mikolas said:
Do you know are the hardware multimedia decoders really silicon or SIMD/DSP based? From the QC's documentation you get the feeling they are ASIC stuff, but it might be marketing and in reality they are IP cores.
Mikko.
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Nope, don't know that

Gingerbread to be in AOSP soon says Googler

I see CM7 in the near future...
http://www.androidcentral.com/gingerbread-be-aosp-soon-says-googler

CM is my rom of choice and I appreciate so much everything teamdouche does. But if I had to guess, CM7 is not as close as some people and blog's think. After all, didn't CM6 take several months to arrive after Froyo?

its gonna more like 3 to4 weeks for the first nightly to hit.

Cyanogen re-tweeted it last night so he def' has it on his mind. Can't wait. I just want to see how the new Adreno 200 drivers perform.

Award Tour said:
Cyanogen re-tweeted it last night so he def' has it on his mind. Can't wait. I just want to see how the new Adreno 200 drivers perform.
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Any idea where we can read more about the new Adreno drivers? Does Qualcomm release notes or the drivers themself?
I wish we could simply visit the mfg.'s site, like NVidia, download the souce for compilation. Does Google get the latest source and simply include it in AOSP?

Shidell said:
Any idea where we can read more about the new Adreno drivers? Does Qualcomm release notes or the drivers themself?
I wish we could simply visit the mfg.'s site, like NVidia, download the souce for compilation. Does Google get the latest source and simply include it in AOSP?
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There are no [solid] guarantees for new Adreno drivers but Google specifically stated that there are new graphic drivers via the 2.3 walk through (or whatever it was) on the Android site and since the Nexus One is a Google supported phone, it probably includes the Adreno 200. Nothing specific was said about the improvements.
I don't think it will be in the AOSP source, the devs will probably have to extract it from the new 2.3 Nexus One kernel when it's released.

Hmm. The encouraging factor is that the Evo and the Nexus One use the Adreno 200, so I have faith that the driver update will include the Adreno 200.
The kernel contains drivers for hardware, and Google releases that as part of AOSP, so I imagine they've gotten updated source from Qualcomm and it's bundled in, just like Bluetooth, sound, display, and a wealth of other hardware is.
I just wish we could know what "improvements" have been made and how substantial they (might) be.

An opensource Mali-400 driver is being developed

A reverse engineered, open-source, Mali-400 driver.
Pretty cool, but don't expect to see it running on the Note soon.
It would be nice to see more opensource drivers!
Imagine if a new Android build's source comes out and a developer already has access to drivers for i.e the camera.
I don't understand why ARM or any other company doesn't make their drivers opensource in the first place.
Popular hardware will get reverse engineered opensource drivers eventually.
Nvidia's optimus for example. It just takes a lot of time.
But a driver is software and software has to be closed source for some reason
Here's a link for some more information if you're interested.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=arm_mali_reverse&num=1

So the waiting begins. Bump this thread next year when they're done

DaanJordaan said:
A reverse engineered, open-source, Mali-400 driver.
Pretty cool, but don't expect to see it running on the Note soon.
It would be nice to see more opensource drivers!
Imagine if a new Android build's source comes out and a developer already has access to drivers for i.e the camera.
I don't understand why ARM or any other company doesn't make their drivers opensource in the first place.
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I think its just one of those bloody minded ideas in business. "We don't do it that way because thats not the way we do things." Kind of circular logic stupidity.
If you are selling a product then surely its in your interest for your product to be more useful and become more popular!
Imagine buying a sports car which required you to use a driver with it as you were never allowed to know how to drive it yourself ;-)

PurpleMelbourne said:
Imagine buying a sports car which required you to use a driver with it as you were never allowed to know how to drive it yourself ;-)
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Very nice comparison!

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

Samsung Set To Open-Source Parts Of The Exynos

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIxMjU
Samsung Set To Open-Source Parts Of The Exynos
Posted by Michael Larabel on October 22, 2012
It appears that Samsung is preparing to open-source some code pertaining to their Exynos ARM SoC.
At an event this weekend (YouTube stream), Samsung said they will open-source the kernel and platform components of their Exynos SoC. This new code is said to be dual-licensed under the GPLv2 and Apache 2.0 licenses.
Samsung also says it will support ARM Mali GPU driver development, which it uses with its Exynos SoC. It's not known at the moment whether this means supporting the community Lima driver project or something else.
As part of this new open-source initiative, Samsung looks like it will be upping its Linux support for the Origenboard, its primary Exynos development board.
Up to this point for Exynos there's been bits of open-source drivers, like their Exynos DRM driver that is in the mainline Linux kernel but the 3D bits are not covered and they have no open-source user-space for 3D / OpenGL ES coverage.
It will be interesting to see what Samsung ultimately does with their Exynos open-source play since most ARM SoC vendors aren't too open-source friendly up to this point. It was just days ago though that word on the new Google Chromebook emerged, which boasts a Samsung Exynos 5250 SoC with Cortex-A15 cores.
Google certainly does like open-source for their ChromeOS work such as their work on Coreboot support for new hardware and Google's work on open-source graphics drivers for use by their earlier Intel-based Chromebooks.
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We'll see how this plays out. It's not the first time Samsung promised us something.

BatGnat said:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIxMjU
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Hi, this is already being discussed in this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1925709 . No point posting it twice. Things are not what they seem apparently. Read Entropy512's post on the thread I linked for more information on that.