How Xiaomi 12 Series tame the Snapdragon 8 Gen1
From Xiaomi’s first generation of high-end flagship products Xiaomi 10 series to the just-released Xiaomi 12 series, three years, the performance of the flagship platform has improved extremely rapidly, to AnTuTu comprehensive test results, Xiaomi 12 series compared to Xiaomi 10 series running score has improved 57%, running score also exceeded the million mark in one fell swoop.
Flagship chips have high-performance output, but always maintaining the highest performance will also bring a significant increase in heat and power consumption, but affect the user experience. Want to let users always experience fast response, need to do in the performance tuning to relax, in the user is not easy to perceive the scene, limit the performance output, only in the real need for performance to leave a margin of heat and power.
However, behind the refined performance release is an extremely complex judgment condition, and the scheduling corresponding to it is naturally equally complex.
Real-time analysis and prediction: Performance tuning in a measured manner:
Refined scheduling strategy is a complex and huge project, not only involving hardware capability and third-party applications but also closely related to users’ behavior and usage scenarios.
Strategies on cell phone performance release vary. Some are considered rough economy, direct horsepower at full power, regardless of temperature rise or user needs, almost no tuning. Some are more conservative, despite the high ceiling of the platform, but the scheduling itself is not aggressive, despite doing some restrictive countermeasures, but it is not considered fine, the experience is still a big regret.
The self-developed dynamic performance scheduling technology on Xiaomi’s 12 series is a different way of thinking. In Xiaomi’s logic, the external judgment factors for performance release are attributed to three types of behavior, scene, and interface.
By inputting external conditions through behavior, scene, and interface, and then using dynamic performance scheduling technology to analyze and judge, and even further predicting the user’s next action, the scheduling strategy of different cores, core frequency, and screen refresh rate, which are the three most targeted performance and power-saving parts, are adjusted to achieve a balance between high performance and lasting output and energy saving.
Multi-scene millisecond scheduling: The highest power consumption of “Honor of King” is reduced by 20%.
Specifically, taking one of the most popular handheld games “Honor of King” as an example, during the game, the dynamic performance scheduling technology can analyze the game progress in real-time and dynamically reduce the frequency at lower loads, while in high-pressure scenarios, it can make an advance prediction and schedule the frequency of all cores within 1ms to ensure a stable and smooth frame rate. Xiaomi has divided several different scenarios during the link from the beginning of loading to the end of the game and adjusted each scenario according to the actual needs and perceptions of users.
For example, when launching the game, the user’s demand is very direct and clear, so the faster the launch speed and the shorter the time, the better. At this time, the phone will be Snapdragon 8 Gen1 X2 super core and three A710 cores on full power, directly to the top of the high-frequency operation, to shorten the loading time. At the same time, the user has no need for screen manipulation at this time, only some fixed animations, so the user does not force the need for 120Hz at this time, by lowering the refresh rate to 60Hz, it can achieve the effect of saving power.
When entering the game lobby and selecting the hero. At this point, the screen does not change drastically, so the mega-core and large-core can be freed from the pressure of rendering and run at a low to medium frequency to maintain smoothness. At the same time, the screen does not need to top 120Hz, only running at 60Hz can meet the user’s needs.
When the user enters the game and starts to play solo, the screen refresh rate will quickly switch to 120Hz, while the super core and large core start to raise to the medium frequency to maintain the smooth operation experience of the solo pair.
When the system recognizes the start of a large-scale team battle, the number of characters on the screen becomes more, the special effects increase, and the rendering pressure increases steeply. This is when the mega-core and large-core will run at high frequency, with 120Hz and continuous stable high-performance output to let users experience the most stable and smooth group battle experience.
To achieve such a fine solution, it is not only necessary to have deep enough insight into the user’s needs, but also requires the ability to understand the platform deeply so that the whole scheduling change can be done quickly between two frames of rendering, to allow the user to make a combination of different strategies of scheduling without feeling. In 120 full-frame running “Honor of King”, the rendering time between two frames is only 8.3ms, and the dynamic performance scheduling technology can complete the scheduling within 1ms to ensure the game screen is always rendered stably. Xiaomi and Qualcomm’s years of experience in joint tuning can greatly reduce the scheduling time.
Ultimately, through rapid and refined performance scheduling, Xiaomi 12 series can save up to 20% of power consumption for game scenarios like “Honor of King”, which not only extends the game time but also ensures that the gaming experience can remain stable and smooth, which is probably the best overall experience for users. This is Xiaomi’s dynamic performance scheduling technology, to tame the Snapdragon 8 Gen1, to provide users with the best combination of power consumption and performance.