HDMI Out Issues

[PeteUKinUSA]

Hey folks

Been playing FFIX and during battle scenes when using HDMI out frame rate drops to around 30fps. This is software rendering so normally it would run at 60fps easily with the frame limiter on.

Hitting the square button to remove on the on-screen menus makes everything run at full speed again. In addition, when hitting the triangle to go to the menu I experience the same frame drop. Tried a whole manner of settings and the same thing occurs. Any suggestions ?

Thanks

Pete

[bluezeak]

That's a known issue if I remember correctly, and it's not limited to the hdmi cable. I think your lucky that you don't have the issue without the hdmi cable. I suspect the chipset the device uses for hdmi brings out the problem, weird.

Anyway, the fix is to either turn off frameskip or Framelimiter, I can't remember which.

I'd like to point out that my device's performance (fps) tanks when I use the hdmi cable - though it's been a long time since I tested it. Count yourself lucky.

[bluezeak]

ok, I did some testing -

HDMI - VERY surprising to me, I had 0 performance hit with HDMI cable. I suspect ICS (ice cream sandwhich) may have fixed the issues I was having. Last time I did this I didn't have ICS. So - for all the notes below, HDMI made no difference - I could be using HDMI or not.

blitting & old software modes - need frameskip off or the menu is hidden in battles. this is a known issue.

blitting & old software modes - performance takes a hit when menu is up. pushing square to hide it increases performance. you can see this performance hit in other scenes as well (as you mentioned).

old software vs blitting - old software ran better!! Specifically, I had these options: system - force mono core OFF; video - hardware acceleration ON, enhanced 3d ON. hardware and force monocore make a huge difference. Also, I believe I had filtering off.

blitting - ran ok, but there were a lot of lag spikes. There were lag spikes in old software also, but not as many.

OpenGL - everytime I compare this, it's amazing how much better it is with the 3D graphics. ESPECIALLy on my 50 inch TV. Holy crap, the game looked terrrible without it, and looked decent (Almost good) with it. Looks fantastic on my phone screen.
Anyway - the outside world in the mist was terrible, and battles ran at about 35 fps. I thought I used to get better performance, but I know the mist is terrible. framskip boost it WAY up - up to like 65. but it was CRAZY choppy. Battles weren't too bad.

Anyway - I know you were asking about HDMI. I don't think your issue is HDMI related, and at least for me, I can say HDMI made no difference. I tested FF IX and FF Tactics both.

[PeteUKinUSA]

Thanks for the detailed responses.

My experience is similar to yours except I can't make the frame rate drop when I go into the menus, or on a battle scene. Tried just about every combination I can think of, it always runs fine. Unless you switch on OpenGL of course.

So it runs like a champ without HDMI. As soon as I plug HDMI in...

The only thing that springs to mind is that if I overclock my tablet from 1Ghz to 1.4Ghz there's no appreciable change in the frame rate, which makes me wonder if it's keying the speed off of the refresh rate of the monitor/TV it's connected to. You'd think if that was the case it would try and lock it's frame rate to 60hz not 30hz, but that's all I can come up with.

[bluezeak]

Is this your device?

http://www.gsmarena.com/acer_iconia_tab_a100-3841.php

If so, have you upgraded to ice cream sandwich yet? Like I said above, I remember significant slowdown with hdmi, bit not anymore. I thin ics saved the day.

[PeteUKinUSA]

Yep, that's the one. It's not running a stock ROM though, it's running a Black Bean one which is a Jelly Bean derivative. I think I've got a stock ICS one somewhere, I'll give that a shot and see what happens.