Re: Boost N900! :)
 

tried the new (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=272) version, didnt use phone much but noticed no difference...

now just installed newest version, will test

edit: bout time this got into extras-devel ;-)

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

This shouldn't ever be put into a repository. It replaces "critical" files and does so without any real redundancy. The package explains nothing about what it's doing, shoves files into start-up and it's generally very obnoxious.

Having said that, it's a very good modification by the author, took a lot of testing and works as it should. This is what the community is for, and if others want to make changes like this - they need to actively search them out and get involved.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

bla-bla-bla
Are u making final decision what to be in repo and what not? Ha)) Are u Linus LOL.
Don`t think too much bout ur self.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

I agree with you on two things....I shouldn't put it in the repositories, but cause it replaces system files. Nokia would probably hunt me down and place some lawsuit against me. Not that they'd find me :|. Or simply remove it after checking the package contents who knows....

You also said the package explains nothing about what it's doing. I'm working on documenting my findings right now, so you guys could try and make the device faster yourselves. It was poor coding and documentation on my behalf, so I can understand why you would call it "obnoxious".

It's actually quite easy to make the n900 faster using the files I uploaded...If you know what to look for....

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

And to the post above..
Hawaii, there is some people here that actually do some good job here, and what have u done for this community?.. u know the answer, think bout it.
And for SavageD thx again for job, cause sound of our n900 is not good enough and many of us want to make it bit better, so dont stop this project, and dont listen to script kiddy's.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

@devdsp;

Clearly, if the author of this very modification, has no qualms with what I said AND agreed with me - none of you should. Regarding what I have done...well, realistically, the TuneN900 script included in his package is based directly on Swappolube - which draws immediately from my own blog post and findings. Go find the thread, you'll see the FIRST post giving a link and credit to me.

Let's just end it at that.

@SavageD;

What you could do, was simply package a script that modified the files, instead of shipping modified ones. A little bit of grep/awk/sed work and it'd be done.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

I thought it would be easier to simply replace the files, I guess using those commands would work just as well. hmm would make file smaller too.

O.O, so I'm guessing it is you that the public owes it to for presenting those wonderful swappolube/virtual memory tweaks?

Honestly I didn't who it was that truely created it, I thought that it was a script that blew up or was modified by various users over time in the forum. So now I know who to truly thank for the script man. Thank you :-)

I'll change the info to suite...where can I find your blog post?

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

http://www.knownokia.ca/2010/08/n900...-and-more.html

I've yet to make a follow-up, to some of the comments and concerns. Most of the information and discussion is in the "swappolube" thread.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

using the lastest experimental version, and I swear my battery drains quicker than the [updated] one from OP

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Some comments after having used it for a week or so. I have the feeling that it does not work very well in (at least) one circumstance: having wifi +playing music through a bluetooth headphone.
I have then quite a lot of stuttering...

Otherwise thanks a lot for the work :)

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

thx for feed back, I don't have any bluetooth headsets so can't test anything there, its good to know so i can at least try to make it smoother.

Did browsing the internet with a bluetooth headset have stuttering before using the patch?

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Hey SavageD, not sure if this bug have been reported before:

when playing movies in the default media player sound through headphones only play in one ear, but mplayer works fine. Using the latest version of the script.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

the bug I am mentioning is not new in the sense that before the script, I as suffering from the same problem but (I need to confirm that with further tests probably) I feel that it is worst after the patch.
I am not sure if Ihad applied the script correctly but I think I have even suffered from the stuttering even without any wifi on and using my bluetooth handset. But it is a limited problem and not link to a cpu hang as far as I could see.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

I use bluetooth headphones and have occasionally experienced the stuttering even without wifi active. My fix when it happens is to turn bluetooth off then back on again, I suggest you try that need time you get that problem. I haven't yet applied this patch so I can't comment on whether it makes any difference to the problems the N900 already has with bluetooth.

Bluetooth and wifi both use the 2.4GHz frequency range, and apparently the N900 uses the same antenna for both of them, this seems to sometimes cause interference issues between them.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

SavageD, what version is in OP?? Im unsure what version im using but its great! I applied the very latest version, then overwrote the files in the BoostN900 folder with the previous version.. Not sure if that reverts to previous version or not. (I didnt re-do the xterm code)

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

What research did you do into this? Was it just changing and observing that it made the computers you tested faster, or was there more to it than that?

While investigating the function of each of the settings that swappolube changed, I had a hard time finding much information on this one, so I ended up digging around in the kernel source code, and there was a comment saying that even though there are performance benefits from larger values for systems with larger amounts of RAM there were negative effects from setting this value above 3, so the default for a vanilla kernel is 3 (or 2 on very low memory systems), however there was no indication as to what the negative effects were in the comments. This value is used both for the number of swap pages to read ahead, as well as the number of swap pages to write in one go, it also uses the number in the 2^n fashion, so a value of 6 indicates 64 pages. Higher values are mostly of use when swap is on a hard disk drive where seek time is an issue, so it is beneficial to group read/writes into larger chunks to reduce the amount of time spent seeking. On an SSD seek times are less of an issue, so I would expect less of a benefit from high values, I would also think that lower values would tend to reduce lagginess when writing to swap since it will be doing it in smaller chunks. But to be honest I don't truly know how this affects responsiveness on the N900 and what is the best way to go.

Personally I decided to heed the warning and set it to 3, while swappolube sets it to 0 (IIRC).

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Actually most of the patch is simply personal hack I made after looking into pulse audio and observing the file systems and the various functions in the device.

Basically there was a thread in this forum speaking about pulse audio being a bad choice for the n900 because of cpu consumption and what not....it peaked my interest and I decided to look into it, did some research into the various pulse audio files, (mainly alsa mixer) began changing things up...and thats it

About page cache....lowering the value makes the system slower, this I know for certain. The n900 needs swap for most things. Swap uses page-cache to perform more efficiently.

The default value is 5, I turned it up to 6 just to make things relating to swap a little more efficient.

Things were notably slower with page-cache set to 0 in all my tests.

The best way to go is to actually leave it at "5".

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Installed this and today I had 3 calls where there was no sound. I couldn't hear the caller and the caller couldn't hear me. When I realised what was happening I asked the wife to call me (she was 1 of the 3 previous callers) and this time wecould hear each other. Strange! This was the only new thing I had installed and it was an issue I had never had before so unless there was some major coincidence this was the source of the problem. Since I could hear on the last call I will give this a try for another day to see.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Was anything else working with sound after the call like the media player?

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Please this is important I need someone to run a simple test for me regarding the patches:

Reason: After removing my BoostN900 patch on my device I realized that my n900 had remained running as fast as it was with BoostN900 installed (extremely fast).


The test I need you to perform:

Run the BoostN900 script and restart

Run the slowest game or object you could find on the n900 that would make you see a difference in performance.

Remove the BoostN900 Script using RemoveBoostN900.sh and restart.

Plz Report back and tell me if the speed and responsiveness of the device has increased

If you already have BoostN900 installed...simply remove it, then restart the n900 and let me know if the responsiveness and speed is still the same as when the patches are installed.

I really need this feed back.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

just removed N900 boost script, and noticed after a reboot that although the device feels more responsive , the game NFSU feels more jerky.. havent tested sound quality tho !

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Yes media player sound was working,

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

I know, I've been following this thread with interest since the beginning and have read all of it.

Page cache is intended to improve efficiency on a traditional hard drive. It does not necessarily follow that it will be beneficial on a SSD with significantly different performance characteristics (though it may do anyway).

That is Nokia's default value, not the linux kernel devs, and we do not know how much consideration and testing went into deciding that value (if any).

I can believe that, I thought that reducing the page cache to a single page at a time was too aggressive. Though here I would like to know what tests you used to determine this. The swappolube tweaks were focused on improving responsiveness above pure performance which is quite subjective and difficult to benchmark. From my testing of it I felt setting it to 0 was sub-optimal but I couldn't really be sure.

Which raises the question, why did you change it to 6?

Sorry for dragging you off the main focus of you patches, but you did decide to include this tweak in with them and I was curious about why you made that particular decision.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

You don't have to be sorry about anything, It's only normal to be curious about things.


Taken from swappolube wiki:
Setting page cluster to a higher value means that the more pages has to be written out to swap for every attempt at swap thereby making it more aggressive. My next patch ignores page-cluster altogether and leaves at the default value "5"....

I changed it to 6 after observing that setting page-cluster to 0 made the device slightly slower.

The tests done to determine the best page-cluster values were simple. Return everything else to their default values, and play with the page cluster digits, then note the devices behavior/performance.

To see the differences I used things that would normally perform slowly on the device such as large webpages, emulators (vgba mainly) etc...things that would make it easier to see performance increases...

I decided to incorporate the tweaks after some experimentations in trying to find ways to make the n900 faster. But honestly I don't remember exactly how I came across the tweaks :/, I must've installed swappolube at one point....but I can't remember.

I do however remember the device performing alot faster when combining the tweaks with my original pulse audio package.

The next patch would contain documentation as to why I chose the values as I did, along with my findings and observations.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Hmm I too notice this...seems that the device remains fast after removing the patch but certain things, return to normal like the NFS game...Emulators however retain their speed, very confusing. I would have to look into this more, sound quality returns to normal, this I know for certain.

Anyone else notice the same thing after removing the patch?

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Removed.
1. NFS lags, with no background apps running. (When installed no lags even when 2 or more heavy apps running)
2. Media player lags playing FLAC audio, when using device for something else like surfing etc..
3. System lags and slowdowns when app manage updating repos.
4. Battery accord to battery-eye app becomes empty quicker.
Installed again. Waiting for updates.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

O lol guess everything returns to normal for some people ;-). Thx man :D.

Yea got an even faster patch that seems to save the battery a tad bit better than the others, but I want to test epitaphs script first, so might take a while, maybe another week to upload, just making certain everythings safe with this one...

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

i installed back the patch again, made a substantial diff in some games and apps

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

dude we want the new patch asap, pls pls. btw can something be done to enhance bass effect or better stereo widening effects

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

its clearly said patch increases volume of earphones/headsets and nothing changes with fone speakers !

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Ive got to say the out put of the Bluetooth audio is awsome, i dont know if its through the patches but its enough for proper communication and or music playback.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Hmm sry bro experience from my past tells me that should wait and make sure the script is safe....enabling stereo widening runs the cpu up to 90-100% sometimes, it's why I didn't bother doing it again...besides it doesn't sound all that great when it's enabled :/, also increasing the bass any further makes the music sound....how should I put this this....dimmer and lower


To enable stereo widening you simply open these files using a text editor like leafpad. :

Ihf.parameters (controls the speakers)

Ihfandheadsets.parameters (controls the headphones)

They are in the BoostN900 Patches folder. Now Look for this line in both files

x-maemo.stereo-widening = "false"

Change it to:

x-maemo.stereo-widening = "true"

Safe the file and re-run the BoostN900 script....

@Viny

Yea I also changed the sound quality through the bluetooth headsets....although I may not own one I know which values to change.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

thnx man, btw what bout bass, any way to change it on the fly or by myself, i couldnt care for the volume.. m a bassophobiac / bassophile :D

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

This line in the ihf files controls the bass:

x-maemo.ear_ref_padding = "-5555"

Lowering the value to say 1000

x-maemo.ear_ref_padding = "1000"

Increases the bass but lowers sound quality and vice versa. I won't recommend playing with those values too much though.

In the case of my patches I had to do some additional stuff so that sound quality would not be lost when I increased the bass....

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

ah that was quick, apparantely i remember in one of your older patches thr was a substantial increase in earpiece volume, now it doesnt seem to be the case, can you point out a way to do so..

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

Lol there's too many things to change so can't explain that here......at this point I'll probably start letting the user have options one or two again, so they'll choose between having sound quality or speed.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

he he, btw just tested my music quality via enabling stereo widening and than later bass effect

result
Although stereo widening tremendously enhanced the sound quality, the increase in bass was very artificial,,basically it diminished the qualitative output just as you said..btw i checked cpu levels with stereo widening enabled and CPU hovered around 33-34% @ 250 mhz which seems to be k i guess.. isnt it? i guess high cpu usage might happen once in a while.

p.s. earpiece badly needs some boost, i can compromise a lill on speed but the terrible output of earpiece volume even at top notch annoys the hell outta me.. it seems its time for a gui which decides quality vs speed or medium of both.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

The reason it's at 33%-34% is because of the other files in my patch disables most of the thing thats not needed by pulse audio, thus reducing the cpu load. :)

If you were to enable stereo widening without the boost patches the cpu would shoot up to near full capacity.

About gui...I would try to team up with the swappolube creator, but haven't done so yet because I constantly change the pulse audio files to change performance....whenever I think it's completely ready I'll go bother the swappolube creator.

Re: Boost N900! :)
 

I thought the bass was artificially dampened because the speakers would blow if it was allowed to come out pure.....