Does OS 3.5 throttle down the CPU speed when the battery gets to a certain
voltage?
On Red Mercury's Palm IIIc, the frame rate for Atom Smash dies when the
battery meter shows 50% remaining. Popping the IIIc back on the charger and
charging it all the way up makes Atom Smash run at full frame rate again.
(the development version of Atom Smash displays the frame rate numerically,
so the speed differences are quantifiable).
The rest of the UI is noticeably slower when this happens, too.
The test performed was:
Run Atom Smash on IIIc with 50% or less battery power remaining
Note frame rate in various areas of Atom Smash
Note speed of normal Palm UI in various areas
Soft-reset
Note frame rate again
Note UI speed again
Pop IIIc in charger, wait for charge light to go out
Run same version of Atom Smash on IIIc with 100% battery power remaining
Note frame rate in various areas of Atom Smash
Note speed of normal Palm UI in various areas
The results were that Atom Smash and the normal UI both seem sluggish at
below-50% power. Charging the device made everything run normal speed again.
(The soft reset in the test had no effect).
If such a CPU throttle exists in the OS, is there a friendly way to disable
it for the sake of a game that expects to be able to run at a certain speed?
This can be nice & friendly with an appropriate warning to the user, or an
option to enable "steady frame rate" mode.
I would like to do it in an OS-legal way, of course.
Any info would be appreciated,
Scott Corley
Red Mercury, LLC
http://www.red-mercury.com
"If you don't enjoy it, do something else."
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