Doing some tablet/mobile research & picking one

[Otakon7]

Hello

Nice to meet you and pardon for the intrusion on the forums

You can skip the intro if you don't feel like reading

I've been recently thinking about getting a tablet as a replacement for my aprox 8 year old laptop (Dell Latitude D530, T7250). which isn't exactly in the best condition, as a placeholder for the Desktop which I will be getting someday in the future (and overall, having a mobile device is handy).

Now, since I'm not too familiar with mobile hardware, thought I'd ask for opinions on what I have now. I usually find it nice to evaluate hardware (mostly the CPU) based on how well it handles emulation, usually using one of the more demanding games for comparison, though naturally, it does depend on what you want from the hardware, but in fair number of cases, if it can handle emulation, it should handle the rest as well in the areas the hardware excels.

Now, I've been using PPSSPP as the judge (theoretically based on videos, since I don't yet own a tablet) and found a few devices which seem to have a pretty nice price/performance ratio, but I need some info on how the said hardware works from people who are actually familiar with it.

Intro ends here.

Let's see, I believe something like Tekken6 or FF7: Crisis Core would be medium to high demanding games to judge how well these would fare.

So, here is what I found:

On the (acceptable) low budget range of 100$, I found tablets running :
1. Intel Atom Z2520 (a "local" rebrand tablet)
- 2 GB RAM, 7 inch, Android 4.4, 3k mAh, SGX544 mp2

2. Rockchip 3188 (happens to be PiPO S1 Pro tablet)
- 1 GB RAM, 7 inch, Android 4.2, 3.2k mAh, ARM Mali-400 (mp2 I believe)

Now, these seem to run about equally, with the biggest issue being Intel, which I hear has some issues with Android devices, so I need some info on how things stand.



Then, slightly above in the 120$ range, I found these, which seems to be a bit better:
1. MT8127 Cortex-A7 (another rebrand)
- 1 GB RAM, 10 inch, Android 4.4, 5.5k mAh, Mali-450 mp4

2. Intel Atom Z2560 (ACER Iconia One B1-730HD)
- 1 GB RAM, 7 inch, Android 4.2, 3k mAh, SGX544 mp2 (some site list "intel HD" instead, but I believe it's one and the same no?)

From these two, I saw that the z2560 had decent success with PPSSPP, but once again, I don't know how "liked" Intel is. The #1 has a "problem" with being A7 as opposed to A9 but it does have a Mali-450 so I'm not sure how well that fares. The next best thing seems to be Z2580 at 150$, but I'd like to avoid going that "far" in terms of budget.

Well, that's that; I don't really have many options at the local stores but I do think they'll do to evaluate how strong these CPU+GPU are.

I apologize if this may seem confusing, if you have any questions or want to point something ask, feel free to speak up.

Thanks

[fivefeet8]

Crisis Core will probably run fine on those devices albeit with some frameskipping in heavier scenes and at buffered resolutions of 2x and below. Tekken 6 on the other hand will probably not run very well on them without higher frameskip values.

I can tell you from experience that nothing beats the Nvidia Shield Tablet when it comes to PPSSPP on tablets. Unfortunately, you don't have that option.

[Otakon7]

I see, so CPUs in that power range with around 1.5GHz (to PPSSPP) are roughly equivalent to a Pentium with aprox 2.8GHz (to in example PCSX2/Dolphin), which means a K1 CPU would roughly be equivalent to a stronger i3 (maybe even weaker i5). Thanks.

I'm still left with a few questions.
1. How much of an impact does Intel's x86 arch affect things? (I mostly hear complaints, but didn't find anything specific)
2. How much would the GPU (and the CPU itself) affect things for the A7 mentioned above compared to a "recommended" A9? Can't quite find much info on that specific CPU, especially in regards to PPSSPP.
3. I did find a video showing a z2580 playing Tekken6 at (what seems like) full speed, so given 5ft's comment, Tekken6 seems a slightly more demanding game. Given that, should a z2580 be worth going over the others? z2560 does seem to be a nice "in-middle" option though.

EDIT: Slight update, I found an Acer tablet that has the Z3735G with Intel HD on Android for 120$; any ideas how good that is?

[fivefeet8]

It's going to be difficult to find anything specific about those devices as they pertain to PPSSPP. You can go by what their benchmark scores in other areas to compare at best. In General and not all cases, Intel HD GPU's have comparatively inferior OpenGl drivers. On an Android device, you can only use the OpenGl render in PPSSPP. Anything with an Intel Atom CPU will generally have an Intel GPU.

Imagine Tech GPU's have more problems with rendering in PPSSPP because they are tile based. But this could be overcome with updates to the emulator. Out of all the devices you've listed, the Mali 450 is probably your best option at the moment.

[Otakon7]

I see, so I guess the Bay Trail Intel HD (listed as "Ivy Bridge" on some pages) that come with Z3735G and Z3745 isn't a good option for Android. Thanks again Feet.

I wonder if Intel HD would be any good on a Windows Tablet. I found an ok 155$ Windows Tab (ACER Iconia Tab W1-810) with the Z3735G, granted, it's 32bit, but should be ok, it's almost on par with the cheap N2830 laptops.

Anyway, the problem with the Mali 450 is the CPU it comes with, since I hear the A7 is almost half the performance of a A9. All things considered, I might go for the Rockchip 3188 tablet since it has OTG support and the performance in PPSSPP seems ok from what I've seen; but, it depends on the type of Mali, Rockchip lists Mp4 as the pair to 3188, but if by some chance it turns out to be Mp2, I will opt for the Intel version, since it does list the SGX544 Mp2 on the box.

[Haseeb]

I'm currently using Intel Atom Baytrail Z7340 Processor , tablet name "Lenovo Miix 2 8" Windows 8.1 Tablet . I would say , I'm satisfied and if you can get better , that would be even better.
I'm playing Resident Evil Remake - Dolphin and Resident Evil Code Veronica - PCSX2 with decent speed.

[Otakon7]

@Haseeb: Sounds nice; the Z3735 variants are technically the same as the Z7340, with the 40 one being Dual Channel, but I don't think it should affect things too much. Well, I did see a video running FF7CC flawlessly on the Z7340D so I guess that shows it works.

Well, that narrows my search a bit. So far, a 160$ windows tablet and 100$ android tablets seem nice options (prices relative to where I am).

[Terminator]

That new 64-bit Intel Atom Z3580 (2.33GHz + a PowerVR G6430 GPU with OpenGL 3.0 & 4GB RAM) in the new Zenfone will cover every game emulated in PPSSPP Go for that smartphone by Asus instead of a tablet.

[[Unknown]]

Just note that if you have a PowerVR SGX544 GPU, there are some games in which you will experience bugs / graphical glitches in PPSSPP. The GPU has math and precision issues, or at least seems to, and we've had to disable emulation features to make it even work most of the time. Most any other mobile GPU will not have these issues.

Also, the Mali-400 (not later ones) has problems as well, because of both drivers and available registers for the vertex shader (as far as I understand.) There are some games that will kick into slow mode because the GPU will be unable to handle it, but it'll just be slow, not glitchy. The 450 should afaik not have these issues.

For PPSSPP at least, the cpu speed isn't as important as the driver quality and GPU functionality and speed. PPSSPP is not a very good benchmark of CPU performance, actually.

-[Unknown]

[Howdareme]

No it won't, stop making assumptions and how would you know if the device isn't even out?

[Haseeb]

(01-07-2015 06:58 PM)Otakon7 Wrote:  @Haseeb: Sounds nice; the Z3735 variants are technically the same as the Z7340, with the 40 one being Dual Channel, but I don't think it should affect things too much. Well, I did see a video running FF7CC flawlessly on the Z7340D so I guess that shows it works.

Well, that narrows my search a bit. So far, a 160$ windows tablet and 100$ android tablets seem nice options (prices relative to where I am).

Yeah , I recommend Windows Tablets over android ones. In android , you can't run PC games or programs , windows is windows after all

[heiwasan]

I would like to have a Windows tablet... but one of these costs a loooooooooot in Brazil!

[bareera]

I would like to have a Lenovo K8 ...

[Lullaboo]

(04-09-2018 08:24 AM)bareera Wrote:  I would like to have a Lenovo K8 ...

It was a nice tablet.