Why is this tablet so slow and no one seems to notice

[Hans Sprungfeld]

There is definitely something wrong with this tablet and I want to find out whats causing it. I own the c-version / rev2, and I am really annoyed, how slow all Windows 10 animations are but also in Android it is noticeable (fast switching the app drawer back and forth for example, you’ll notice it’s not 60fps). Seeing this thread: http://techtablets.com/forum/topic/windows-is-very-laggy/ I am not alone on this and I asked my friend too, who owns the c-version, he has the same behavior. Fast switch win-key on/off on/off, opening an app, swipe animations, window swap animations… Or just go into desktop mode under Windows, and tap a Windows and move it as fast as possible in a circle, it’s totally lagging, that’s not normal.

On paper the x5-z8300 should be strong enough to handle it. My old tablet, a Venue 8 Pro which the previous Atom CPU z3740 is silky smooth. So whats the cause of these problems? Windows GUI is hardware accelerated so I think it must be related to the GPU of the x5-z8300. Maybe there is some kind of bios mis-configuration or the CPU is undervolted, I dont have other explanation for this.

The issue of that the RAM is running just at 1066MHz cant be the reason behind it because putting it on 1600MHz, even if that means my tablet becomes unable, doesnt solve these animation freezes/fps drops.

[J]

I dont find it particularly slow, especially in android. Occasional noticeably reduced FPS in the Windows animations don’t really bother me at all. You say no one seems to notice, but its a minor issue, so I doubt many people even care. If I wanted a high performance tablet I would have paid more for one. Yeah the Windows UI is hardware accelerated. Is the GPU underclocked? Could it be the GPU drivers? Could it be that your Dell tablet’s Windows has been tweaked to get smoother animations?

 

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

What you said is EXACTLY what bothers me. You have no idea how many people already said the same to me. “If you want better performance buy more expensive tablet”, “it doesn’t bother me too much”, bla bla bla. There is a difference between “not bothering me” and “what is normal”. And no, it’s not normal for this CPU, it should handle this perfectly fine. And when there is a problem, I want to fix it. For Android I found the issue btw already or at least a workaround:

Go to developer options and you will see, that the option “Disable HW overlays” was enabled by Cube as default. I googled about the option, and actually turning it on should give you better performance, but somehow on this device it’s the opposite around. I turned it off and now Android animations are WAY more fluid and smooth. I wonder if there is a problem with the GPU unit of the z8300 or on this specific tablet. Maybe there are some options wrongly set in the bios for the GPU unit, too aggressive battery saving throttling maybe. This would explain slow Windows 10 animations too, because they are hardware (GPU) accelerated.

I also found these settings give performance improvements:

Windows animation scale set to: 0.5x

Transition animation scale set to: 0.5x

Animation duration scale set to: 0.5x

The option “Force GPU rendering” also seems to boost a bit, strangely conflicting with the things I’ve mentioned above.

[Tmon]

I have noticed sluggish performance too, compared to the Hibook which seems ‘snappier’ with general use.

[Author]

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