[andywheels]

Has anyone managed to rid themselves of the black squares that appear in games on CM7? It's been talked about a while back- here in the JB thread and over at XDA but I can't find anything that pinpoints exactly what causes it.

I'm using the hybrid 3 kernel on the final version of CM7 for Malata devices. Install was easy and everything seemed stable and very fast. Then I loaded up a game and found the black squares... There's always something.

I was going to stick up a CM7 thread in the rom dev forum as it's a good alternative to ICS or JB and Chris's CM7 release is outdated with download links that aren't all that user friendly. I can't do that until I can sort out the graphical problem.

I've tried all sorts of nvflash shenanigans without any luck. Is it a kernel issue rather than a partition or bootloader issue? Hmmmmmm.

Any ideas are much appreciated.

This post has been edited by andywheels: 02 October 2012 - 05:27 AM

[Wongsky]

andywheels, on 01 October 2012 - 11:17 AM, said:

Has anyone managed to rid themselves of the black squares that appear in games on CM7? It's been talked about a while back- here in the JB thread and over at XDA but I can't find anything that pinpoints exactly what causes it.

I'm using the hybrid 3 kernel on the final version of CM7 for Malata devices. Install was easy and everything seemed stable and very fast. Then I loaded up a game and found the black squares... There's always something.

I was going to stick up a CM7 thread in the rom dev forum as it's a good alternative to ICS or JB and Chris's CM7 release is outdated with download links that aren't all that user friendly. I can't do that until I can sort out the graphical problem.

I've tried all sorts of nvflash shenanigans without any luck. Is it a kernel issue rather than a partition or bootloader issue? Hmmmmmm.

Any ideas are much appreciated.

I expect you've seen it already (with your mention of xda and nvflash) - but just for completeness, you have seen this thread on xda?

[andywheels]

Yes, that's the thread I was meaning. Graveen brought some good knowledge to it but I couldn't see a solution or final explanation of the problem and using different nvflash configs hasn't resulted in a fix.

[Graveen]

I spent time on this problem, and finally, for me, it was an incorrect BCT file. The Nvflash recovery Fards released - and nearly everyone had to use it on this forum - was messing my tab.

I think we should have nearly identical tablet (black boxes, SOD...), so i'm surprised NVFlashing the stock recovery with the BCT i provide ins't solving your issue.

Good luck

[andywheels]

Thanks Graveen. I've now got it sorted. It's definitely something to do with the bct but I can't work out how I fixed it as my version seemed to be exactly the same as yours (same size and creation date)- as was the partition config file. Yet, when I flashed your partition packages, I don't have any boxes.

I guess I need to do it again to make sure I know what's going on....

CM7 is really responsive to use when compared to ICS and JB. The big downside is the lack of hardware acceleration. Games seem to work well though and it's fine for viewing youtube links.

Looks like I've somehow broken my JB nvflash backup as it won't boot (syslinked cache problem maybe?) so I'm now wondering whether to reinstall JB or continue with CM7 to see what I can do with it.

[Graveen]

Glad to know it's ok. At the time i had this issue, i was surprized the few people impacted (as i'm often surprized with the SOD impact i'm experiencing with different roms, and the fact i'm nearly the one )

For CM7, i can play games smoothfully, i agree ICS hw accel for desktop sounds better, but i'm not able to really say it is slower. I definitively think it is something like 100 Fps to 50 Fps: you can feel it better, but it is not even a problem as you can't notice it.

[HannsRed]

@Graveen

Could you post a link to the mentioned nvflash file? I'd be interested to try if it fixes my moody wake-up problem.

Thanks.

This post has been edited by HannsRed: 02 October 2012 - 04:11 AM

[andywheels]

Graveen, on 02 October 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

Glad to know it's ok. At the time i had this issue, i was surprized the few people impacted (as i'm often surprized with the SOD impact i'm experiencing with different roms, and the fact i'm nearly the one )

For CM7, i can play games smoothfully, i agree ICS hw accel for desktop sounds better, but i'm not able to really say it is slower. I definitively think it is something like 100 Fps to 50 Fps: you can feel it better, but it is not even a problem as you can't notice it.

I'm feeling your pain about the SOD issue. My tablet dies on nearly every screen off event with ICS or JB and yet I've often felt that people just assume I've done something wrong with the install.

Interestingly, CM7 hasn't SOD'ed on me so far. However, it has a really odd wakeup procedure where I have to lightly touch the power button twice. First time the wifi light comes on and then a second press turns the screen on. If I don't press the second time the wifi light will go off after 2-3 seconds... Most odd.

With the holo launcher, CM7 can look very similar to ICS or JB. It's nowhere near as slick but, for general use, it just doesn't suffer from the stutters and pauses I've experienced with the latter two android versions.

HannsRed, on 02 October 2012 - 04:11 AM, said:

@Graveen

Could you post a link to the mentioned nvflash file? I'd be interested to try if it fixes my moody wake-up problem.

Thanks.

This is Graveen's nvflash package : http://www.mediafire...piyhg3h56ml15uu

His thread on XDA makes for interesting reading: http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1460511

This post has been edited by andywheels: 02 October 2012 - 04:25 AM

[andywheels]

One other thing I'm unsure about is installing CM7 with the larger system partition. 350mb is total overkill for CM7 and, if I've got this right, leaves very little room for the cache partition.

I changed the cfg in Graveen's nvflash setup so that the system partition is only 250mb. Was this worthwhile? It's going to mean a total nvflash yet again if I want to go back to the teamDRH JB rom. I'd much rather be able to just use CWM backups.

[Graveen]

Yes, i have no SODs with CM7. The double 'Power ON', with 1s pause between press, is something i'm used to live with; i don't even notice it

I don't believe going back to 250Mb is interesting. For me, i'll stick to 350Mb, because i can quickly restore a nandroid of CM7 with all my apps, or a nandroid of JB if i want to test something. As far as i remember, nandroid is not rebuilding /data and /system partitions, it uses them as they are, so pushing a jb nandroid on gb partition table is not working.

Plus the fact i have not a single issue with my actual /cache. My test app is Dead Trigger. Black Boxes compliant, heavy to run, as soon as it runs flawlessly, i consider it's ok.

[andywheels]

So you don't think any performance is gained for CM7 with the 250mb system partition. Interesting stuff.

I might well do a clean 350mb nvflash and start again. I certainly prefer the idea of being able to use cwm to switch between roms like you're doing.

Thanks for your help on this. It's always better to get another opinion.

This post has been edited by andywheels: 02 October 2012 - 11:56 AM

[Graveen]

Well, to be honest, i don't remember having 2 NAND chips on SN10T1, this is an unique moviNAND chip no ? So, the extra 150MB ( of the initial tap'n tap /system which in 200MB) can be taken from partition 13 (internal SDCard) without impact on cache.

But to be confirmed. In all cases, for me, there are no perf issues.