What is mali adreno powervr. What video accelerator for Android? Are the graphics in games better?

A video accelerator is one of the most important components of a modern Android smartphone or tablet. After all, it depends on it how smooth and high-quality the picture in games will be. Many visitors to our site are interested in what video accelerator is installed in their device. Therefore, in this article we will talk about how to find out which video accelerator is on the Android device you are using.

When someone wants to know the technical characteristics of an Android device, they first look at the “About smartphone” section in the settings.

However, in most firmwares, it only reports about the software and no information about the hardware of your smartphone or tablet. In order to obtain this information, you will have to install special applications.

CPU-Z

CPU-Z is one of the most popular programs for viewing information about the hardware of a device. This program will allow you to find out the processor model, number of cores, technical process, processor clock speed, video accelerator model, amount of RAM, resolution and pixel density, file storage capacity, battery characteristics, as well as a lot of other information about your device.

Therefore, if you need to find out which video accelerator is on your Android device, then feel free to install CPU-Z. With its help you will get the information you need.

Droid Hardware Info

The Droid Hardware Info program will provide all possible information about your Android device. Using this application, you can find out the processor model and its characteristics, information about the device memory, characteristics of the front and rear cameras, battery characteristics and information from sensors.

If you want to find out which video accelerator is installed on Android, then you need to go to the “System” tab. Here in the “Graphics” section it will be indicated which video accelerator you are using.

System Info Droid

System Info Droid is a program for viewing information about the Android device. The main distinguishing feature of this program is its interface. It is a little ascetic, but nevertheless, the program is very convenient to use. All information available in the program is divided into several sections: Summary, System, Processor, Graphics processing unit, Memory, Display Screen, Camera, Temperature and Sensors. In these sections, the user can familiarize himself with all available information about his Android device.

A modern smartphone is built like a regular computer, only very small in size. It has a central processor, RAM, long-term non-volatile storage and, of course, a video accelerator. This is a chip that allows 3D games to have colorful and realistic graphics. In other words, this is a “video card” that is found in every smartphone. For those who are planning to buy a mobile gadget for gaming, it will be useful to know what video accelerators are installed in phones and what their performance is. The review of mobile graphics chips below will tell you about this.

The vast majority of mobile phones sold have video accelerators of one of three types. These are Mali, Adreno, PowerVR SGX and GeForce Ultra-Low Power (ULP).

The Mali graphics architecture is being developed by the British company ARM. These chips are components of various systems on a chip (SoC). This is the name for microcircuits, which are actually a whole computer and contain all the main elements. Mali is used in their products by Samsung, Gigabyte, Rockchip and others. For example, Mali-400 MP is part of the Samsung Exynos 421x SoC. It is used, for example, in the Samsung Galaxy SII and SIII.

PowerVR is the brainchild of Imagination Technologies, which previously developed video accelerators for desktop PCs. PowerVR chips are used in products from Samsung, Apple, Motorola and others. Thus, different generations of video accelerators from PowerVR are installed in all Apple iPhones.

Currently, Qualcomm owns the Adreno mobile graphics division. It bought this technology from AMD, which, in turn, acquired Adreno along with ATI's assets. The latter has been the owner of Adreno since 2006, when it bought the Finnish graphics developer BitBoys.

GeForce ULP is a mobile version of the NVIDIA video accelerator, which is part of the system on the Tegra chip of all generations. Tegra's main advantage over its competitors is specialized content that is intended only for devices based on this SoC. This is thanks to NVIDIA working closely with game developers to optimize games for GeForce graphics. All applications redesigned for Tegra are located in the special application store Tegra Zone.

To find out which video accelerator is in your smartphone, you need to know the exact marking of the model or its system on the chip. Owners of Android gadgets can do this using programs such as Quadrant, AnTuTu Benchmark, 3DRating Benchmark. Then look at the table below.

Mobile gadget model name	The name of the system on a chip used in a mobile gadget	Name of mobile video accelerator
Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy Note 10.1	Samsung Exynos 4412	Mali-400 MP4
Samsung Chromebook XE303C12, Nexus 10	Samsung Exynos 5250	Mali-T604 MP4
Samsung Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note, Tab 7.7, Galaxy Tab 7 Plus	Samsung Exynos 4210	Mali-400 MP4
Samsung Galaxy S, Wave, Wave II, Nexus S, Galaxy Tab, Meizu M9	Samsung Exynos 3110	PowerVR SGX540
Apple iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3gen	Samsung S5PC100	PowerVR SGX535
LG Optimus G, Nexus 4	Qualcomm APQ8064	Adreno 320
HTC One XL, Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 820, Motorola RAZR HD, Razr M, Sony Xperia V	Qualcomm MSM8960	Adreno 225
HTC One S, Windows Phone 8x, Sony Xperia TX/T	Qualcomm MSM8260A	Adreno 220
HTC Desire S, Incredible S, Desire HD, SonyEricsson Xperia Arc, Nokia Lumia 800, Lumia 710	Qualcomm MSM8255	Adreno 205
Nokia Lumia 610, LG P500	Qualcomm MSM7227A	Adreno 200
Motorola Milestone, Samsung i8910, Nokia N900	TI OMAP3430	PowerVR SGX530
Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Huawei Ascend P1, Ascend D1, Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7?	TI OMAP4460	PowerVR SGX540
RIM BlackBerry Playbook, LG Optimus 3D P920, Motorola ATRIX 2, Milestone 3, RAZR, Amazon Kindle Fire 1 and 2	TI OMAP4430	PowerVR SGX540
Motorola Defy, Milestone 2, Cliq 2, Defy+, Droid X, Nokia N9, N950, LG Optimus Black, Samsung Galaxy S scLCD	TI OMAP3630	PowerVR SGX530
Acer Iconia Tab A210/A211/A700/ A701/A510, ASUS Transformer Pad, Google Nexus 7, Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Transformer Pad Infinity, Microsoft Surface, Sony Xperia Tablet S, HTC One X/X+, LG Optimus 4X HD, Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga	nVidia Tegra 3	GeForce ULP
Acer Iconia Tab A500, Iconia Tab A501, Iconia Tab A100, ASUS Eee Pad Slider, Eee Pad Transformer, HTC Sensatoin/XE/XL/4G, Lenovo IdeaPad K1, ThinkPad Tablet, LG Optimus Pad, Optimus 2X, Motorola Atrix 4G, Electrify , Photon 4G, Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Sony Tablet P, Tablet S	nVidia Tegra 2	GeForce ULP
Apple iPhone 5	Apple A6	PowerVR SGX543MP3
Apple iPad 2, iPhone 4S, iPod touch 5gen, iPad mini	Apple A5	PowerVR SGX543MP2
Apple iPad, iPhone 4, iPod touch 4gen	Apple A4	PowerVR SGX535

The Techivian resource tested the most popular video chip models and received the following performance rating:

In other words, if you need a smartphone that can work with “heavy” 3D games even a year after release, then you need to buy a gadget with a top-end video accelerator. These are Mali 400, Adreno 225 and Adreno 320. For casual and two-dimensional games, a smartphone with a mid-class video accelerator will be enough. These are Adreno 200 and 205, PowerVR SGX543, and Mali 300. They provide Sony PSP-level graphics.

But very soon, mobile chips will move from graphics level of portable consoles to the quality of desktop consoles. For example, the Mali-T658 chip, which will appear this year, promises a performance increase of up to 10 times compared to the Mali-400.

Since a smartphone is essentially a small personal computer, it is physically designed according to the same principle, including a processor, RAM, cache memory, and so on. Among the components of a smartphone (usually called a “video accelerator”). In order to evaluate the capabilities of your smartphone, you need to know its resolution. But how to find out your video accelerator on Android?

Read a detailed review to understand how to find out your video accelerator on Android

For this purpose, special technical utilities are used, called benchmarks. To test the device, their . Once launched, these programs determine the device architecture, test memory, properties, permissions and other parameters. And at the end of the process, the collected data is provided in a summary table.

Let's look at the most common benchmarks for this purpose.

AnTuTu Benchmark today is not only the most common, but also a fairly advanced test. In addition to the general (comprehensive) test, utilities have also been developed for testing individual components of a smartphone: for the monitor (including one that detects dead pixels), a test for the battery, for the CPU, etc.

You can also use a separate Antutu Video Tester to test the video accelerator.

The developer has installed an additional convenient function in the program that allows you to compare the results of checking any two devices and displaying a detailed comparison table.

List of functions:

Memory performance test;
Checking the efficiency of processor operations;
Quality control of 2D/3D graphics
Diagnostics of SD card read/write speed
Study of efficiency when working with databases

Link to download the AnTuTu Benchmark program: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.antutu.ABenchMark

CPU-Z

The CPU-Z utility from the developer CPUID includes the following components and functionality:

System-on-a-chip identification (brand, core architecture and clock frequency);
Recognition of system components (device brand and model, monitor resolution, amount of different types of memory);
Collection of data on battery characteristics (its level, temperature, power and condition);
Search for sensor data.

The utility is installed on Android from version 2.2.

After testing, the program allows you to store the received specifications for the device in the device database. In addition, after the test is completed, you can optionally enter your email in the browser window that opens and a report will be sent to it (as a reminder).

Download link "CPU-Z": https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cpuid.cpu_z

This application is for viewing the characteristics of the processor, motherboard, video card, RAM

Vellamo

The Vellamo benchmark was developed by Qualcomm, a leader in the creation of processors for mobile devices. Designed for OS Android 2.1 and higher.

It seems to be an extremely easy-to-use, but comprehensive method for obtaining a detailed report on assessing the potential of a smartphone (tablet) as a result of:

JavaScript operation checks;
Calculation of load on RAM and central processor;
Image rendering;
Graphics core diagnostics;
Controlling the processing of 3D and 2D scripts on HTML5.

Link to download the “Vellamo” program: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quicinc.vellamo

Basemark OS II Free

The feature of this application is the possibility of cross-platform analysis of the device (that is, comparison of its performance in Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8), as well as conducting “quick” tests.

Basemark OS II Free performs comprehensive diagnostics of characteristics by running a powerful load on all channels; test tasks to check all types of memory (including cards); control the speed of writing and reading on them; testing the passage of 3D and 2D graphics scripts with Open GL ES 2.0 processing.

Performance assessment takes place in the areas of the system - memory, page views, graphics and camera.

The disadvantage of the application is the lack of ability to compare indicators of different devices.

Link to download the program “Basemark OS II Free”: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rightware.BasemarkOSII&hl=ru

GFXBench

The GFXBench benchmark is presented as a diagnostic solution for specifically. But it is advisable to test this powerful set of tools only on high-level devices, the tests for which are truly sophisticated. Get the most out of anyone!

Great attention is paid not only to 3D, but also to 2D graphics.

The toast package includes (not exclusively):

A suite of FPS calculations with Open GL ES 2.0 and 3.0 processing;
Passing scenes of basic monitor resolution and Full HD;
Shader performance;
Testing texturing performance;
Diagnostics of compensation for frame loss by Open GL drivers.

The free app provides a full set of tools and access to the resulting data table.

The premium package provides advanced features to developers.

Download link "GFXBench": https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glbenchmark.glbenchmark27&hl=ru

3D Mark

3D Mark utility from the Finnish company Futuremark (formerly MadOnion.com), a famous creator of benchmarks.

The programs of this company show repeatability of test results that is different from others. Even competitors comment on the “honesty” of 3D Mark’s results. Both users and manufacturers use it in their work.

With the development of technology, Futuremark periodically supplements the program set with new subtests.

3DMark is a performance test for gamers

Free Basic Edition;
Advanced Edition costing $24.99;
Professional Edition priced at $995.

The free Basic Edition gives the user access to all tests. But only standard settings will be available. Also, Extreme mode for the Fire Strike test will not be supported. The results will be visible on a special HTML page when the Internet is active.

The Advanced version makes Extreme mode active, provides the ability to change settings and run them individually. The most important addition to the Advanced version is the saving and output of the received data in 3D Mark itself. Their good news: a mode for displaying summary data in the form of graphs has appeared.

The expensive Professional version is mainly purchased by companies. It is intended for commercial use.

3D Mark consists of three tests: Ice Storm, Cloud Gate and Fire Strike. Of these, Ice Storm is a graphics test based on the use of DirectX 9 level hardware solutions for Android, Windows RT and iOS.

This test is cross-platform. One hundred percent suitable for comparing 3D scenarios of smartphones and tablets, it consists of two graphics subtests, which determine the performance of graphics cores (GPU). Plus another physical test using a universal processor (CPU).

Professionals say that there is no perfect 3D test, but 3D Mark has been approaching this ideal for a long time.

Download link “3D Mark”: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.futuremark.dmandroid.application&hl=ru

The Quadrant Standard Edition technical utility is installed free of charge on the Android platform.

The developer is Aurora Softworks. The program (English/Russian) not only can carry out diagnostics, but also reflects the characteristics of the hardware of the device.

Testing by the program is carried out according to the following scenario:

Twelve CPU tests;
One test diagnoses memory;
Four tests: input/output system (write/read);
One test for 2D graphics;
Three tests for 3D graphics.

The program carries out diagnostics and reflects the characteristics of the device’s hardware

After diagnostics, to determine the video accelerator, you need to go to the “System Information” tab to the tab for displaying media information. In the “GPU (OpenGL)” section, in the “Chip” paragraph, you can find the video accelerator.

Download link for “Quadrant Standard Edition”: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aurorasoftworks.quadrant.ui.standard&hl=en

AIDA64

The AIDA64 program is based on the development of the AIDA64 hardware application for Windows and is intended for various test procedures in relation to smartphones and tablets based on Android, iOS and Windows Phone systems.

Easy to use even for those users who are unfamiliar with the PC version of the AIDA64 feature set.

Basic AIDA64 tools for Android:

Determination of the processor, core clock speed;
Monitor dimensions, pixel density, camera information;
Monitoring temperature and battery charge;
Wi-Fi detection and cellular network availability;
Android OS platform properties;
Identification of the SoC and the device itself;
Identifying memory types and sizes;
OpenGL ES GPU support information;
Sensor polling;
List of downloaded applications, installed codecs and system directories.

Download link "AIDA64": https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.finalwire.aida64&hl=ru

Now you know how to find out the video accelerator on Android. Its definition is not a problem at all. In addition, along the way you can solve other problems related to determining the characteristics of your device.

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Sometimes there is a need to find out what kind of video accelerator is built into the user’s Android gadget. To determine the type of integrated graphics on mobile devices (GPU), there are several applications, as well as web resources that detail the characteristics of smartphones and tablets. Next, we will consider the procedure for using all of the listed tools to obtain the necessary information.

Diagnostic utilities for gadgets

Complete data about the hardware of an Android smartphone can be seen from the results of the work of special small diagnostic utilities presented in the Google Play store. In the list of data presented, these programs also show which GPU is integrated into the gadget’s motherboard.

CPU-Z

This is one of the most popular applications that provides comprehensive information about the characteristics of any gadget. It is well known to users of desktop computers and laptops, and is now available for Android devices. Let's describe how to use CPU-Z to find out which model of video accelerator is used in the device:

After installing and launching the utility, the main CPU-Z window will open, and the program will test the device.
To see graphics chip details, scroll to the bottom of the application window.
The bottom lines contain information about the GPU. The chip manufacturer (Vendor), the clock speed of the graphics processor (Clock Speed), the percentage of its current use (Load), as well as the main information for us about the integrated graphics model (Renderer) are indicated.

Using CPU-Z, if necessary, you can obtain any additional information about the built-in components - processor model and clock speed, number of cores, display characteristics, memory, Android version, battery type and capacity, and various device sensors.

This mobile application is also well known to PC users. For Android it is available in the Google store. Working with AIDA64 is also easy:

After installation, a menu immediately opens, from which you can easily go to various sections with system information. Since we are interested in information about which graphics chip is built into the gadget, we need to go to the “Display” section.
Here, in addition to the display characteristics, there is also all the data about the GPU. You can get information not only about the chip model, but also about the current frequency of the video processor, the range of frequencies available to it, the current load and the manufacturer.

AnTuTu Benchmark

This is a popular application not only for getting help about the system components of the gadget, but also for testing its real performance. To find out, using AnTuTu Benchmark, what kind of video accelerator is in your Android device, do the following:

Install, run the utility and at the bottom of the display click on the “Info” menu item.
In the basic information section opposite the line “Graphics CPU” the chip model will be indicated.

More detailed information can be found by scrolling down the same window to the “Display” section. If you are interested in the real performance of your GPU and the system as a whole, start testing your gadget with Android. After it, you can compare the results obtained with the performance of modern flagships and get acquainted with where your gadget currently stands.

For users who do not want to install additional applications on their gadget to obtain information about the video chip, a manual search for the necessary information in the available databases is suitable. One of the most extensive on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices can be found at http://4pda.ru/devdb/.

Most smartphones use ARM processor architecture. It was created by the company of the same name, and it also supports it. In the process of creating the bulk of chipsets that are used in mobile devices, its developments are used.

However, the approach may vary. Some companies license ready-made solutions, while others create their own, using the company's developments as a basis. For this reason, there is a confrontation in the market between basic and custom architectures of graphics and central processors.

Which is better Qualcomm or ARM?

To the basic solutions that have been created ARM, include processor cores and Mali graphics. They are used, for example, by chipmakers such as: Spreadtrum, Nvidia, Samsung, MediaTek.

Whereas Qualcomm has a different approach. For top-end chipsets, it practices the use of custom cores Kryo, and Snapdragon chips are equipped with Adreno graphics. It was developed by company specialists. The presence of different architectures raises the question of whether Who should be preferred - Qualcomm or ARM?

It is very difficult to give a definite answer to this question. As well as deciding whose graphics chips should be given the palm. It must be said that not only the situation matters here, but also the specific tasks assigned. And depending on this, the scales may tip in one direction or the other. This article is intended to help those who want to fully understand this issue.

Pros and cons of Adreno

Let's start with the pros:

High performance rate. Theoretical calculations indicate higher maximum graphics performance Adreno relatively Mali. They are valid if they are used in chipsets of the same class. So, for the Snapdragon 625, the computing power of Adreno 506 is about 130 GFLOPS (we are talking about billions of calculations in one second with floating point). Its competitor MTK Helio P10, which has a Mali T860 Mp2 GPU, has an indicator of 47 GFLOPS.

More advanced APIs supported. The latest generation of Adreno chips have a larger set of APIs (software development tools), and their versions are newer. For example, a year has passed since Adreno released its 500th version. And it supports Open GL ES 3.2, DirectX12, OpenCL 2.0 and Vulkan. While Mali is not supported by DirectX12, and OpenCL is only available for the G 2016 series, which appeared relatively recently.

They overheat less. Adreno GPUs are not as prone to overheating as Mali. It must be said that Qualcomm had some processors that were prone to throttling. But these were processors that were distinguished by increased power, and accordingly, the central processor cores had a hot temper. They worked almost at the same level as their competitors when the reduced productivity regime was observed.

Now about the cons:

Quite a high cost. Qualcomm has to spend more money developing its graphics compared to what it costs competitors to license ARM Mali. For this reason, the cost of chipsets from an American manufacturer is higher than, say, MTK.

Software is less optimized. It's okay, but they use Mali graphics. Huawei also uses stock GPUs from ARM in Kirin models. And MediaTek prefer to use ARM graphics without using any other. The result of this is Mali's large share of the global market. That’s why game developers give preference to Mali when optimizing their products. We can say that having fewer GFLOPS, Mali in chips belonging to the mid-range and budget level is slightly worse in games than Adreno.

Fillrate is lower in rendering. Adreno chips have a relatively weak texturing domain, which is responsible for the process of forming the final image. Adreno 530 can render about six hundred million triangles that form a 3D picture in one second. And Mali G71 - 850,000,000.

Positive and negative sides of Mali

And in this case, let's start with the positive:

High prevalence rate. Due to the standard of Mali graphics for smartphone chipsets, games are optimized for it better than for Adreno.

Low price threshold. The cost of a license to produce chipsets with Mali is quite cheap. This allows even small companies that do not have the ability to make millions of investments to produce chips from Mali. And this provokes competition and helps stimulate the ARM company, pushing it to develop new solutions. In addition, Mali graphics users end up spending less money.

High clock speeds. The frequencies used in Mali GPUs are 1 GHz. And among competitors this figure does not exceed 650 MHz. The higher frequency on Mali chips allows for better performance of games that do not support multi-threaded 3D processing well.

Rendering Domain Power. The top-end Mali G71 GPU is capable of rendering about eight hundred and fifty triangles in one second, which is identical to twenty-seven billion pixels. And this despite the fact that Adreno 530 is only able to process 8 billion. This means that it is better to use it when working with graphics of HD textures with high resolution.

Fewer shader cores. Mali GPUs have fewer shader cores than competing products. Mali is also worse in terms of maximum performance in GFLOPS. In addition, they are less adaptable to games that are capable of efficiently parallelizing GPU workloads.

Configurations are limited. Actually, the lag between Mali GPUs and Adreno is insignificant. However, in real life, manufacturers prefer to use ready-made solutions that are not very complex and have a not very large number of computing clusters. Thus, the Mali T720 contains about eight blocks, but the most widely used is the Mali T720 MP2, which has only two clusters.

Susceptibility to overheating. Mali's high clock speed solutions are more versatile, however, as a side effect, they have the ability to overheat. It is for this reason that it is not possible to integrate a significant number of graphics clusters into the chipset.