Samsung Galaxy S II Graphics Performance Locked at 60FPS, But Who Cares?
I don’t mean to sound condescending toward the folks at Nordic Hardware with my title. First, the story: the Samsung Galaxy S II’s GPU doesn’t allow users to run anything at refresh rates greater than 60 frames per second. Boohoo. Since when was 60 frames per second a bad thing? Any graphically demanding game running at 60 frames per second is great, and the overall feel of the OS benefits from it too. But do folks really want or need more?
The argument against 30 frames per second was justified. I experienced the limitation first hand on several HTC devices of yesteryear, including the HTC EVO 4G. Developers eventually got around that and delivered 60 frames of goodness per second to all. I was very pleased, impressed, and satisfied with how much snappier it made devices feel (even if actual device performance wasn’t getting a boost). To this day, I remain satisfied. Many others do, too.
What is the point of going further? In 2D and 3D graphics – especially for phone UIs – there is no real world advantage to pushing out as much as you can at the highest framerate. Overall performance can suffer the higher you try to go because your GPU and CPU have to work harder to display a moving image just a bit smoother than what is recognized as the industry standard. Yes, folks, the Mali 400 has a locked frame rate, but you’re likely still going to buy this phone the moment you get a chance. [Thanks Anton!]