HTC provides explanation for 30FPS limitation of the HTC EVO 4G

By on Jul 7, 2010 at 2:42 PM
Rumor July 7, 2010

fps30evo-60

An HTC represesntative in attendance at the HTC Aria event in Chicago last night, reportedly provided some insight into the 30FPS limitation that has been reported on the HTC EVO 4G. As was suspected, the 30FPS limit is imposed via software, but it is a hardware limitation that lies at the heart of this issue. Though the smartphone is capable of much more than 30FPS — as shown above — the EVO 4G is throttled down to support the 30FPS limitation of the HDMI hardware that is included on the handset. EVO 4G owners will be stuck with 30FPS on all their games until HTC decides to throw in some code to dynamically adjust the FPS based upon the presence or absence of an HDMI cable.  Of course, there is always the folks at xda-developers who have already been working on this limitation and most likely have some hackery already on-hand that will give you both 30FPS HDMI out and 60FPS gaming.

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  • jawman

    This really sucks. Damn you HTC, I wanted to buy this phone. Now what am I gonna do?

    • Get Android Enjoy Freedom

      You should still get the phone, cause the fix will come out. If you are lucky enough to find out there. And regardless of this issue it is awesome phone.

      • MikeD

        You make an interesting point.

    • Thablackguy

      you’d seriously not buy the phone cause it has this cap ? even after you know its android os so you know ppl are gonna be working on it and making it even better ?

    • Steve

      Droid X … much better IMO if you can bare with the size. Beside Sprints 4G network is not worth it…

      • Matt

        Encrypted bootloader! No thanks!

      • Sprints 4g Rocks if it is in your location.

        Keep in mind that sprint can keep expanding there 4g from the 30 Mhz of spectrum to over 150 Mhz in most areas. Show me another carrier that has over 100 Mhz total spectrum. There is one. Sprint has their spectrum all in one band. You are welcome to go and have metered bandwidth with another carrier.

      • haha

        I can also show you a company on the decline as far as layoffs and store closures… yeah thats Sprint. =]

      • sprint4life

        And if you do research, you’ll also see that Sprint has been getting better with customer service and other areas. And you’ll see that other carriers are declining. Now you don’t see it in numbers just yet, but we’ll see what happens when next quarter and the next after that come in. Especially after the CDMA version of the iPhone comes out.

      • Celz

        What does that have to do with how your phone works?? I missed the story about how Palm phones stopped working when HP bought them..

        I don’t want to see anyone lose their job but If everyone in Sprint was laid off whoever buys Sprint would be forced to have the same tech and the same pricing structure..

        If all you can say bad about Sprint is it’s financials, then you blew it..

    • ChocoTaco

      You realize that movies are shot slightly under 30fps, right? I believe the number is 29.97fps. Do movies look choppy to you, or are you just looking for something pointless to complain about?

      Personally, my eyes do not notice 30 still frames in one second of video. I can’t see that fast. Perhaps you should consider a career in crimefighting since you can actually see bullets.

      • jawman

        I do know that, but you are comparing 2 different types of frame rates. The 30fps is clearly noticeable. Go play a game that’s capped at 30fps, and then play it while it’s running at 60-120fps. BS if you don’t notice a difference. Anyone who’s ever played a computer game knows this.

      • Dan Hesse

        The number you’re looking for is 24 FPS…

      • jamesbuckey

        theater movies are incredibly choppy, this is why i have not been to a theater is 10 years. It is horrid!!

  • Matt

    You don’t limit your flagship phone to 30fps for some stupid HDMI port that what maybe 1% of users use?

    MORONS!!

    • axeyrcat

      You think there’s a significant number of users who’d take advantage of the higher framerate?

      For what?

  • Tomas

    Seems silly considering most EVO owners will never use the HDMI out cable anyway.

  • Thablackguy

    The XDA Boys are awesome at what they do !!

    • Thablackguy

      Sorry the XDA PEOPLE are good at what they do ! just don’t wanna be sexist about it lol

      • axeyrcat

        Why the crap did a comment wanting to include the female devs at XDA get voted down?

  • Get Android Enjoy Freedom

    Why not just unlock the fps when no HDMI cable is plugged in, it is not that hard to write few lines of code for this function. Come on HTC do this. I still love the phone and I dont notice the fps issue, I dont play ton of games on it. But they should still unlock for the people who do. Everyone should email HTC to tell them to send out update with this fix.

    Jawman you should still get the phone you wont regret it, if you are luck enough to find one out there.

    • Matt

      They are lazy..

    • jawman

      Yeah, you’d think it would only take one of the top software engineers at HTC could fix this in a week, tops. Put a small team of 5 or less software engineers and the code could be rewritten in a day’s work.

      • Get Android Enjoy Freedom

        Week are you kidding me, all you have to do is write code with if statement. takes 2 days work max with there top guys. SImple if statement, if{hdmi_cable present then blah blah} else{unlock 30pfs, blah blah}

        simple not complicated.

      • jawman

        exactly my point, they should fix this! BS if they don’t!!

    • axeyrcat

      If it’s just a matter of a few lines of code, it’s such a simple fix, and Android is Freedom®, I don’t understand why you haven’t already edited accordingly and released a version of your own…

  • macsmister

    Good luck getting 60 FPS for gaming. Unfortunately the Snapdragon architecture blows big time for games. I know this from personal experience being a Droid Incredible owner. I’m moving to the Droid X for this very reason. 60 FPS gaming is way more likely to happen with a dedicated PowerVR GPU. (especially considering half the 3D games out there are direct ports from the iOS platform which uses PowerVR GPUs). And no I’m not holding my breath on Android game devs to optimize their games for the “alien” Snapdragon architecture.

  • zack

    Yeah this is utter laziness. It may not seem like a big deal but it actually detracts from the entire experience. Input noticeably lags behind, and it just doesn’t feel as smooth as it should.

  • haha

    Hey look another smartphone with a problem… well besides the whole screen thing.

    Man… How about people stop claiming every smart phone that comes out the best…until one actually does everything and is built to perfection.

  • Get Android Enjoy Freedom

    I just emailed HTC support with all the above comments to let them know what people are saying about them.

    • macsmister

      LOL

    • webby

      The truth is HTC prolly doesn’t give a rat’s ass. They figure we are a tiny minority.

      • 652059

        Because you are a tiny minority. I can’t think of a more insignificant “limitation” to whinge and moan about. You’d never know it unless you were told about it, now you’re all filled with teen angst over it.

        You bought a phone on Sprint; you didn’t expect to be able to USE it for anything did you?

      • bahaha

        I have sprint. I have the evo. And i’ve been able to use it anywhere. So tell me what you mean by that?

  • cite your source

    Since you got this info from an android blog, how about citing the name of your source? The article is written as if you got the info directly from the HTC rep and then you put a “read” link instead of naming the source. Weak.

  • Dara

    60 fps casual gaming?

    LOL.

    There is no way you need anything over 30 fps for some touchscreen “click here now!” BS.

    You can’t even see the full screen because your fingers are in the way, so its funny to think that imperceptible unrendered frames would degrade your visual experience.

    Even if you were a half-hummingbird and could actually make out those frames (without first person shooter style fast world panning which can actually show the difference), any game that the hardware could render at 60 fps would be farmville quality anyway.

    • macsmister

      I understand games on mobile phones are nowhere near the quality of console of pc games but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when I played Assassin’s Creed on my Droid Incredible. It’s got a very long campaign for a mobile phone game, great 2D/3D platformer graphics and very good on screen controls. If only the Incredible could keep the framerates above 20fps at all times… Can’t wait for my Droid X!!!!!

      • Brandon

        Hell if you don’t want your Incredible I’ll take it

      • macsmister

        You can take it for $500! =)

    • jawman

      Did you see the video of the guy playing the air hockey game? He kept getting scored on because the 30fps was too slow. Perfect example of why you need more than 30fps. And 30fps is nothing. A 600mhz processor can do over 30fps, there’s no reason why a 1ghz processor with 512mb ram can’t.

  • T DOT

    WHERE IS THE GODDAMN EVO REVIEW?

  • drksilenc

    that is there scriped answer and is bs it still works and tvs go beyond 30 fps all the time so there talkin out there you know what

    • jawman

      what the fuck?

      • drksilenc

        i got the same canned response emailed to me and so did about 100 others over at xda

  • eddie b

    Evo review

  • jawman

    BGR have you contacted HTC to try and get an official response about this? Any word when/if they will be issuing a fix?

  • Rob

    This phone is complete garbage. I played with it in the store the other day…it’s ugly, heavy, screen freezes up, touch screen is not very responsive and not fliud and it doesn’t look classy.

    • mtsunami

      Dont buy it then, keep ur Classy Moto Razr v3. What is this world coming to since when do men care about how “classy” a phone looks, U have a lower back tattoo dont u ?

  • Swagger

    Still waiting on EVO review….

  • Justin

    Hmmm i get 47 FPS using evo switch with newest damage rom, newest radio & wimax. And thats with the 002 Novatech.

  • Ken

    I get 56 fps on my evo…im helpimg remove the cap..comimg along nicely

  • BOB

    THIS IS DIRECTED TO sprint4life …. SPRINT SERVICE HAS NOT NOR HAS EVER BEEN GOOD…SPRINT IS THIRD IN TERMS OF THE FOUR MAIN CARRIERS.. AND SORRY TO BURST YOUR BUBBLE BUT SPRINT WILL NOT.. REPEAT NOT GET THE IPHONE BEFORE VERIZON… YOUR SADLY MISTAKEN AND MISINFORMED IF YOU THINK DIFFERENT .. KEEP IT REAL. VERIZON ROCKS.. SPRINT IS A HAS BEEN PROVIDER…

  • http://alghienkad06.student.ipb.ac.id/ thea

    Sadly

  • Lionel

    2.2

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