Myriad Dalvik Turbo hands-on: Android apps just got fast
By Chris Ziegler 
posted February 17th 2010 3:39PM
posted February 17th 2010 3:39PM
Myriad has demonstrated the appropriately-named Dalvik Turbo engine for us here at MWC, claiming performance improvements of up to two or three times depending on the app -- and from the spinning 3D cube we saw running on a pair of Android Dev Phone 2s, we don't doubt it. Of course, the ADP2 is an ARM11-based phone, which means that the new runtime could effectively breathe new life into low- to midrange chipsets and let them enjoy some of the spoils usually reserved for high-end devices. Unfortunately, you won't be able to buy, download, and install Dalvik Pro yourself; Myriad is instead positioning it as a differentiator for carriers and manufacturers -- not unlike Sense or TouchWiz -- that would allow them to tout improved app performance across their Android lineup versus competitors'. The runtime is apparently 100 percent compatible with Google's stock Dalvik implementation, so you would be able to run any app... just a little faster than you'd otherwise be doing. We're told there's reason to believe we'll see this on production retail devices before the year's out, so these guys are definitely worth keeping an eye on.
@b0rndead
Agreed.
@b0rndead
Agreed, Google Please buy that Dalvik Turbo like for =====>YESTERDAY
@Beatnik As several others have pointed out Google is already building a JIT for android. It's in the 2.0 and up sources but isn't enabled by default because it's still under heavy development and not yet ready.
Google's developers have rightly pointed out a JIT isn't high on their priority list for a few reasons:
-the native development kit allows for speed in performance critical sections of apps
-JITs require more memory which means less multitasking
-mobile devices have limited resources so compiling and then executing code can be inefficient. On your desktop it doesn't matter as you have thousands of CPU cycles to spare but embedded is a whole other story
-there are a lot of other areas of android that need more work and their development team is limited
@b0rndead That would be nice, but the way it's being marketed makes me think it's likely to be proprietary, and not able to be merged back in.
HTC Hero on sprint: not the fastest phone ever. How can I get dalvik turbo?!!!
"Before the year's out"?! Heck, yo' mama will be able to run Android apps 2-3x faster by then. I just find it sad that potentially highly popular and beneficial products like this are intentionally restricted to a subset of the potential clientele, all in the name of their business model. I understand that they're trying to maximize profit and all, and they think that this is the way to go about it, but it still makes those of us with previous generation hardware who feel they would benefit the most from this feel left out. Heck, it's not like the G1 is puny hardware by any stretch--at 528MHz CPU would have been the bee's knees not that long ago--but it's been excessively hampered by some of the choices Google made.
@patsy The 528MHz ARM CPU of Dream/Magic/Hero is actually just running at 400MHz. Also, the developer experience is so much better on Android than say iPhone. Google choose to optimize for this as well as appealing to the huge share of developers who already knows Java. Moore's law offers predictable and cheap performance scaling, unlike developer time.
@casperbang Well, my OpenEclair build (1.2.1) actually overclocks it to 580 I believe, but a few extra MHz provide nowhere near the performance improvement that a more efficient VM would.
HTC should buy this company and implement Turbo it into their new version of Sense (or the one after the one they just announced).
I would agree a good music and video player would be nice. I never tried the Samsung Galaxy or the other Samsung device that is using a custom Samsung music player, but I have heard positive about that.
On on topic, I would love to get something like this running on my Eris if even if it only speeds up my eris 1.25 times or something.
Gawd, it's like 1996 all over again. They take a decent, general purpose language (Java) and nearly cripple it with a piss-poor VM that basically ignores a decade or more of VM R&D. Sun did the same thing when they invented Java.
If your future is based on run anywhere, then make sure it runs *fast* everywhere, OK?
@Spiny Norman What is fast?
@Spiny Norman
Sorry but where is Java a decent language? It's not anywhere near decent.
No! No! No!
Let's throw a 2.0GHz processor, more RAM and possibly even some kind of other specialized chips into the next batches of phones instead! Sure that will add cost, produce more heat and eat more battery life but more is better, right?!? Yeah! Lets do that instead of simply using faster code.
:rolleyes:
@Hazdaz Actually, let's do both. More power, faster code= heaven for mobile device fans. It's not an either or situation.
@Air Force One
You conveniently forgot about the battery-life (and heat) issues. You prepared to have a phone that's maybe 50% larger to accommodate a larger battery pack?? Seems that there have been a decent number of people complaining about Android's energy usage already and simply throwing more CPU-cycles at a problem would make it worse. Also let's not forget that this would increase the cost of the device - possibly by a considerable amount.
We are CLEARLY not using the current hardware to it's fullest potential now, why the heck would be want to throw even more at it?
This seemingly "simple" software update could theoretically give your N1 the speed as if it had a 2 or even 3 GHz processor instead of it's current 1Ghz chip. (and yes I realize that I am generalizing and not all apps would see the theoretical 2-3x speed increase that this Swiss company is claiming)
@Hazdaz No I expect advancements to deal with these issues, not the least of which is the lack of battery technology advancement.
This is the way it has always been. Advancement is the key to this game and more and better hardware is a priority. Hardware advancements need to stay on par with software or else you end up with a device that cannot handle newer software.
@FrankJ From what I've heard, the Acer Liquid's media player is supposed to be good. Haven't tried it, but there's a version available on xda-developers for the Nexus One.
CANNOT WAIT
This is just gross. That's why Maemo and Symbian lovers using fully open systems won't leave for Android or an iPhone. How could you make an improvement to the VM and not share it, when it is "open source"? Because it ain't open source for real, just open to the partners and OEMs.
Pay attention to stuff like this. Had Dalvik been truly open, it could've been optimized and contributed, like the open standards and practices of Maemo/MeeGo. Now you have learned a big lesson. Android will nickel and dime you for performance, and force you into a carrier relationship for optimal performance. If you intend to buy unlocked, unbranded models, or use SIM free with a personal hot spot and VOIP, you'll be punished with lower app performance. Is this what you want from your OS? Or do you want an OS made by someone intent on giving you the best experience possible, committing money, research, and man hours to contribute to the cause?
MeeGo/Symbian, thanks for being open for REAL...
As an user of iphone 2G for more than a year in the pass. Having ton of friend with iphone 3G and a current user of G1, I might say that what iphone smooth performance they are talking about. In what world people of engadget live. If one thing iphone 2g and 3g are not is smooth at least not more than my G1. I am using a Hero Eclair ROM in my G1, so that means a beta stage ROM that blow the performance that my old iphone 2g ever had and most my friends 3G. and let not talk if I dare to put Cyanogen ROMs in it, not even the 3GS will match the opening and performance of my G1. So please Engadget cut the BS with the iphone, you have here real phone user that know better than that.
I can't even imagine how the performance of people with Droid and Nexus one will have.
No iphone OS is faster than Android OS and beyond that I take multitasking over iphone one app at the time even if my phone get slow.
@stevlr I find the iPhone 3GS to be a lot "smoother" than the Droid, which is probably what Engadget is talking about. I haven't compared side by side with a Nexus One, but swiping icons or a web page on the iPhone gives the impression I'm sliding a physical object underneath my finger. Swiping on the Droid feels more like I'm giving a phone an instruction, and a split second later it's following that instruction, if you know what I mean. I know the Droid is probably doing more in the background and is also pushing around a lot more pixels so it definitely "beats" the iPhone here, but the cost to the UI in terms of smoothness is pretty obvious.
@stevlr Sorry, I'm using a 32B Magic running the lastest CyanogenMod (4.2.14.1 IIRC), the 10 MB hack, a nice swap file etc., and the performance is awful to say the least, as soon as I start to multitask. I got rid of a few programs (that are actually very useful, like sipdroid), and the performance increased. But fast? Even my UIQ based Motorola A925 is faster.
I have a droid and only after I overclocked it to 800Mhz and above did it really speed up. I now have it at 1Ghz using Sholes team rom, bitchin baegal. Its way faster than any iPhone I've seen now. The phone really gets the extra kick it needs with overclock and I would recommend it to all.
plz show fps next time on something like this. us powerusers like numbers.
I just want them to bake this into existing 1.6 builds for less fortunate phones like the G1.
I played around with a friend's Droid a month ago... my iPhone 3GS has got to be at least 10X faster in UI responsiveness and a world of difference in scrolling smoothness. The UI in the 3GS is so fast, I could care less about having faster hardware. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Android is great but if speed is still an issue, it has a long way to go to catch up with the iPhone's speed. 3D graphics are much faster on the iPhone as well. That cube would be spinning butter smooth on Open GL ES2.0. Call me when you get that.
@AshanPro
This test uses software rendering specifically to test the cpu. It'd also spin a lot faster on a N1 with hardware rendering.
According to the FPS readings in the screenshot, this provides a 64.636752136752136752136752136752% performance boost over the stock android java run-time.
Why oh why does engadget use viddler for videos? Don't you know that those of us on mobile phones can't see these viddler videos at all? Why not just put them on YouTube which is far more widely compatible with all sorts of platforms???
@FrankJ Judging by the fact that there exist very complex open source Android apps yet we still don't have a good music player, it must not be considered a sexy app to write by developers. Can't think of any other reasons. Video players are another thing, the codec support on Android is still very limited so maybe devs don't find it very worthwhile to build a fancy app around two video formats.