Help Pandora on the Moment

[Stoney62]

I think there's a bit of an issue at hand with the actual architecture of the chip and the speeds it will deliver.

The Moment ships with an 800 MHz CPU, the Samsung S3C6410. But, unlike the Qualcomm MSM7K single chipset found in the other Android phones, Samsung has a separate ARM11 cpu and modem chipset. This is the same underpowered chipset that the extremely underpowered WinMo Samsung Omnia 2. The O2 on Verizon has the same media problems that are being reported with Pandora, the media player, the gallery viewer and basically, any multitasking projects that require any processing power what-so-ever.

If I am remembering correctly, the Hero featured the MSM72xx series processor that is still featured in the HTC Touch Pro 2, with the ATI subchip set for the graphics. Simply put, HTC did a better job of pairing the CPU with GPU than Samsung. Even though the processor itself is faster, the poor pairing creates a larger drain on the system resources and thus, the 'skipping' problem that most people are suffering though when the phone starts multitasking.

An example of this is that Pandora seems to do just fine for me until K9 fires up to check emails. It begins dropping and skipping, then after about 20 seconds and K9 finishes, it's completely normal again.

Samsung knows that the chipset doesn't multitask well and already has the Cortex A-8 Hummingbird in production for the Galaxy S and more than likely the Moment 2 with the DTV chipset as well. Hopefully, some of the issues will get corrected with the 2.1 update, although underpowered phones can't usually be fixed with software, but we will see.

So, in a close to this novel, there have been some issues found in the following programs that are 'approved' from the market on the Moment...

AudioPlayer with EQ Platinum - Serious audio lag/skips with random force closes.
Pure Music Widget - Some audio lag with skips.
Rhapsody (requires subscription) - Some audio skips, buffers better than most.
Photoshop Mobile - locks in gallery view often, requires battery pull to reset.
Pandora - Skips or stalls when accessing other applications, resumes when CPU frees.
Google Voice - Force close on startup - Fixed in newest update.
Opera Mini 5 (Beta) - Cannot type addresses into address line - had to google search, then open site - should be fixed in newest update (haven't tested)
YouTube Downloader - Cannot save files to SD card, shown as in-use or not writable.

This is just a short list, there are many more issues, but again, with 1.5 being 'ancient' look for most of this stuff to go away with the 2.1 update. Hopefully the Moment will run it without a glitch!

The only time my pandora is garbled is when moving the phone. It has to be the accelerometer. As it is sitting here stationary, there is no garble even when changing songs.

 

[kencrudup]

But, unlike the Qualcomm MSM7K single chipset found in the other Android phones, Samsung has a separate ARM11 cpu and modem chipset.

The MSM72XX (and 76XX, etc.) series CPUs have a seperate ARM processor for the modem and the CPU, too- it's just on the same die.

6 of one, half-dozen of the other.

 

[kencrudup]

Samsung knows that the chipset doesn't multitask well

... and where did you get this from? That ARM11 that "Doesn't multitask well" has been used in MILLIONS of products that do and isn't that much different than the Cortex you're hoping we get "next time".

All those issues you've listed come from either (1) inexplicably using too small a buffer for the audio, and/or (2) running a very early 1.5 release with apparantly little optimization (and a "force close" in buggy ass-d Opera is an Samsung CPU issue ...? Really?).

 

[zcarman]

@Stoney This is totally the type of "GPU intensive" action that can cause the lag, so yes, you are dead on with that thought.

@kencrudup Yep, the processor won't multitaks. It's exactly the same rap that the Omnia 2 took with the exact same chipset...

I was a WinMo tester up until launch of 7, so I do have a bit of information on what the processor draw backs are - both officially and unofficially. Basically, Sammy ran the 6410 chipset in 2 devices, the Omnia 2 and the Moment - both of which suffered from MAJOR processing issues, which is why the changed the architecture on the new C-8 Hummingbird.

Take it for what it's worth, but I have been dealing with these devices for a long, long time.

 

[kencrudup]

Take it for what it's worth, but I have been dealing with these devices for a long, long time.

Maybe- but when you make statements like:

@kencrudup Yep, the processor won't multitask

... then I'm sorry, I gotta question what that means. I've been putting ARM chipsets in customer devices for nearly a decade now, and saying the Samsung processors "don't multitask" means either one of: perhaps Windows Mobile is even ishttier than I'd heard it was (I don't design around it), you weren't involved in the development, design or testing, the issues were more related to the BIOS or BSP, or just simply, you don't know WTH you're talking about.

The Samsung chips are just vanilla ARM cores- all of which are very capable- wrapped around their own peripherals. Saying that their processors (or the ARM7/11 family) "doesn't multitask" flies in the face of millions of devices out there using these chips.