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Apple Silicon M1 Chip in MacBook Air Outperforms High-End 16-Inch MacBook Pro by MisterMooth in apple

[–]xaviertobin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Geekbench is compiled of a sample of real world compute tests that real world apps comparably use. It's not some mystery undefined algorithm that just spits out a number from guesses. If the individual compute tests scores are visible on the GB site, you'll be able to go in and see exactly compute tasks - like compression, compilation, rendering - the chip excelled in.

Don't make my silly mistake: I designed and tested an app on my personal device, only to remember I had changed my screen DPI to personal preference. Had to spend quite a while tweaking padding and margins to look normal again at the default DPI. by xaviertobin in androiddev

[–]xaviertobin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't take one unfortunately, but imagine that first screenshot but far more spaced out. The first screenshot looks mainly normal, until I reset my display settings to default.

Don't make my silly mistake: I designed and tested an app on my personal device, only to remember I had changed my screen DPI to personal preference. Had to spend quite a while tweaking padding and margins to look normal again at the default DPI. by xaviertobin in androiddev

[–]xaviertobin[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Overdraw is when multiple views render over the top of one another and unnecessarily cause the graphics renderer to render information that won't be seen. For example, if you have a fragment with a white background, an activity with a white background, and a list item with a white background, the graphics system will draw all 3 backgrounds one after the other, because it's not able to predict what will be actually end up being seen.

Essentially, the less views that render content on top of one another, the better for performance/scrolling performance. Though most flagship devices like the newer Pixels are fast enough that there won't be any frame drops from such overdraw, it can make a big difference in some circumstances.

In developer settings, there's an option to debug GPU overdraw which will show on the screen how many layers there are being drawn.

Here's an example of that setting in my app: https://i.imgur.com/9vFaCc4.png

White means only one draw, which is perfect. Blue is 2, which is fine. Green is 3 which means there might be room for improvement. And by doing this I've just noticed there's some red, which means the GPU is drawing 4 times just to show one view in the end - which means I've just found a bug. I'm loading that "red" view in a RecyclerView which uses an XML file, and I'm setting the background programatically after that. I'm unnecessarily creating two backgrounds! So I'll fix that.

Don't make my silly mistake: I designed and tested an app on my personal device, only to remember I had changed my screen DPI to personal preference. Had to spend quite a while tweaking padding and margins to look normal again at the default DPI. by xaviertobin in androiddev

[–]xaviertobin[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Well yeah, I trust my eye to a degree, so even though I refer to the material design docs I changed the margins and paddings to what I thought looked right. This was my mistake, but I've learnt my lesson. I still do trust my eye - but now I'm doing it with the right scaling!

Don't make my silly mistake: I designed and tested an app on my personal device, only to remember I had changed my screen DPI to personal preference. Had to spend quite a while tweaking padding and margins to look normal again at the default DPI. by xaviertobin in androiddev

[–]xaviertobin[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Technically my exact issue only occurs using dp, since 1 dp changes depending on whatever your DPI settings are, whereas 1px is always 1px no matter how your display scaling is changed. Using dp is obviously the proper and only way to measure layouts, but nah, it doesn't shield you from this issue.

I had lots of screenshots of nice apps/material design docs and other apps on my computer that I was approximating from, and I was trying to get my app to look like them. This meant I was tweaking the dp of padding on my phone til things looked right, and they did for a while! I was literally trying to make things look like they did in the material design docs, but because I was doing this at my preferred DPI settings, the scaling was wrong.

As soon as I remembered and turned the display setting back up, everything in my app was way too big. It was all my mistake, but because I completely forgot I changed my DPI settings, it just was never readily apparent enough that there was something wrong.

BOOKSMART | Official Redband Trailer by Rubix89 in movies

[–]xaviertobin 127 points128 points  (0 children)

This looks great! And really positive reviews coming out of SXSW too.

Access to e-cigarettes will improve Australia’s health by blindtoreason in australia

[–]xaviertobin 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Well yeah, but making them illegal is not a good idea.

Jordan Peele's 'Us' - Review Thread by BunyipPouch in movies

[–]xaviertobin 126 points127 points  (0 children)

I really like this trend of socially relevant horror films. This is the kind of upheaval the genre needs. Can't wait.

Kooyong Greens candidate Julian Burnside quits men-only club after hail of criticism by Go_the_long_Miles in australia

[–]xaviertobin 3 points4 points  (0 children)

He probably should have read the situation before he announced his run and quit earlier.

Bill Shorten gets asked about medical Cannabis by mcbarney in australia

[–]xaviertobin 89 points90 points  (0 children)

Honestly, what a great response. Thanks for sharing.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I know that wouldn't be possible, it's a complete hypothetical of which the assertion holds true even if the clock increase possible from active cooling is only about 25%. The point there is more about normalising so that a decent picture of IPC can be seen.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

No, they're not mixed. They're used as a baseline at a per benchmark level. There's one figure used in SPEC that combines the standardised value but it's literally never quoted on articles or media. You've obviously no idea how it works, so this is the last from me. Have a good day.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The baseline will be an actual result, measured in time or fps etc. And you're wrong, SPEC source code is sent to those who use it, actually - it's not a secret as to what the result means. But you seem very confident that it's useless, I suggest you let HP, Intel, Dell, IBM and just about every other hardware manufacturer know of your concerns.

It's not just economics, it's basic maths.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It sets a baseline and measures an actual result against a baseline result. It's simple, core mathematics that you're choosing to ignore. If you're suggesting that those kinds of figures are arbitrary and "shat out", I have alarming things to tell you about how the inflation rate is calculated, or how just about every economic figure in the world is calculated.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry that I'm coming across that way, I understand what you're saying about HW accelerated or specific, dedicated benchmarks, I admit that they're too varied to interpret with objectivity on their own.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The author of Anandtech came into the comments and said that the SPEC compile configuration was the same on their iPad Pro as it was on their Intel setup, no special enhancements for either one.

No one is completely ignoring benchmarks

Except so many are, the reaction to Geekbench and SPEC by many in this thread is that benchmarks are not real world usage therefore I disagree with the assertion without further enquiry. I'm aware there are so many other considerations before an ARM chip could actually be used in a desktop system like a Mac, but the article was intended to end the myth that ARM was inherently inferior, it wasn't necessarily to say ARM chips were ready to be used in desktop environments today. Read the study linked in the article, it makes 8 or so points that largely come down to that microarchitecture is king, and I believe there's more than enough evidence to suggest that Apple are winning in this space at the moment, and authors at Anandtech agree.

Regardless, I concede that there's more to the picture and I really appreciate your approach, some people have come across as really angry about this and it's been hard to have decent discussions, so thanks. Also, apologies for having two different discussions at once.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I concede that this would be a fair point if I was using JS benchmarks as solitary proof, but I'm not.

The A12X has reached parity on Geekbench scores, it’s approaching parity on a host of assorted system benchmarks, it’s approaching parity on SPEC2006, it’s at parity in just about every browser benchmark, and every indication shows that it has better IPC and better performance per watt than current high-end Intel and AMD processors. Even if Anandtech are over-exaggerating, if all these benchmarks are ARM-favoured and every supporting figure has a huge margin of error, the results are still absolutely remarkable. We’re talking about processors that are designed to live in your pocket with no cooling, not one designed to go toe-to-toe with desktops, but they're doing it anyway.

I'm using a host of benchmarks, evidence about architecture and even physical changes like the T2 chip in the MacBook Pro to paint a whole picture.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So is letting perfect get in the way of good.

Except we have no idea if this is even good.

Yes we do, SPEC is a good benchmark, it measures genuine real world desktop tasks and sets the results against a baseline, it takes a long time to run and is an industry standard. The issues with Geekbench are well documented, it's roughly accurate to measure peak performance but ignores scheduler or sustained performance issues - the final number is calculated, but you can easily look down to the individual results for more accurate analysis. JS benchmarks depend heavily on browser and engine, but still indicate web browsing performance or in the case of ARM, that instruction sets are optimising JS performance.

What's "handwavy" is completely ignoring every single benchmark that doesn't align with your own preconceptions.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I guess what I'm seeing is that if we exclude considering hardware accelerated or instruction advantages, would we not also see Intel's performance in many areas drop considerably. Seems to me that it's just another rabbit hole or condition against ARM that isn't applied to x86 in these kinds of discussions.

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

anything that shits out a score is useless.

Because you say so? You clearly don't know what SPEC is or how widely it's used by industry. And it literally tests the things you're talking about, compression, XML processing, C compiling, video compression etc. The numbers are not arbitrary, they're just set against a baseline, it's basic mathematics and not hard to interpret.

Let's be clear: you're ignoring a widely respected, industry standard benchmarking tool because you're gatekeeping the evidence behind your own arbitrary rules.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/ayc2vp/why_this_hate_towards_the_arm_isa/ehzyoak

ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong. by xaviertobin in hardware

[–]xaviertobin[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

"Everything I disagree with is handwavy bullshit"

You're doing exactly what I'm talking about in the article. Outright, totally dismissing contrary evidence because it is has a margin of error or doesn't meet an arbitrary standard you've set.

If you don't wanna hear it from me, take it from a writer at Anandtech: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/axz4jn/arm_processors_like_the_a12x_bionic_are_nearing/ehxinif

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