LightBlog

vendredi 29 mai 2020

The Samsung Galaxy A71s 5G UW may launch on Verizon with support for the carrier’s Ultrawide Band network

Flagship smartphones have become really expensive this year, with many at or beyond the $1,000 mark. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 is apparently a really expensive chip because it doesn’t come with a modem and also 5G is just really complex. Fortunately, there’s the cheaper (but less powerful) Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 which includes an integrated 5G modem. We earlier found evidence that the U.S.-bound Galaxy A71 5G will feature this chipset when it lands on Verizon. There was some doubt about whether the Verizon model will support the carrier’s Ultrawide Band network when it launches, but now, we’ve spotted evidence that the device will indeed support Verizon’s mmWave network.

In some regulatory documents that were recently published, we spotted the marketing name of the device corresponding to model name SM-A716V. SM-A716V, if you’ll recall, is the model name we spotted last week on the Bluetooth SIG that appeared alongside the product name “Galaxy-A71-5g US VERIZON.” Today’s regulatory filing indicates this device may actually be marketed on Verizon as the Samsung Galaxy A71s 5G UW.

This name is important for a few reasons. First, it tells us that Verizon may carry the phone under the “Galaxy A71s 5G” branding which has yet to be announced. However, we expect the phone overall to be very similar to the other U.S. Galaxy A71 5G models. The “UW” part of the name tells us the phone will support connecting to Verizon’s Ultrawide Band network which operates in mmWave frequencies. Verizon has appended the “UW” branding to the name of several 5G devices they carry such as the OnePlus 8 5G UW, Galaxy S20 5G UW, LG V60 5G ThinQ UW, and more.

Samsung Galaxy A71s 5G UW

As we reported last week, the United States version of the Samsung Galaxy A71 5G should use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 chipset. The 765, 765G, and 768G are the only chipsets from Qualcomm with integrated 5G modems. That modem is the Snapdragon X52, and like the Snapdragon X55 modem paired with Snapdragon 865 devices, the X52 supports both mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G networks. While we’ve seen other Snapdragon 765-powered devices with support for sub-6GHz 5G, the Galaxy A71s 5G UW would be the first Snapdragon 765 device to support mmWave 5G. It would also be the first mid-range smartphone to support Verizon’s 5G network if you exclude the Moto Z3 and Moto Z4 which required a $350 Moto Mod.

While Verizon’s mmWave network has proven to be very fast, the coverage isn’t great. You would need an uninterrupted direct line of sight with the broadcast antenna. Verizon has claimed to be launching a low-band 5G network later this year but the carrier hasn’t given any specific locations yet. The Galaxy A71s 5G UW should support the current mmWave network and the upcoming low-band network when it launches.

Keep in mind that although the information in this article comes from an official regulatory filing from Samsung, there’s a possibility that there’s an error in the filing. We will have to wait for the official launch from Verizon for more information about the phone and network compatibility.

Featured image: Samsung Galaxy A71 in pink

The post The Samsung Galaxy A71s 5G UW may launch on Verizon with support for the carrier’s Ultrawide Band network appeared first on xda-developers.



from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2zM7lz0
via IFTTT

OnePlus 8 series camera updates will bring color filters to portrait mode, improved white balance, and more

The OnePlus 8 has been in the news recently for its camera, but not in the way you might expect. People discovered that the OnePlus 8 Pro’s camera could use the Photochrom filter to see through certain things, including thin clothing. OnePlus made the decision to disable the feature and rework it. But that’s just one part of the OnePlus 8 series’ camera capability, and the company is continuing to work on it.

OnePlus 8 XDA Forums || OnePlus 8 Pro XDA Forums

Last week, the folks at OnePlus had an online Open Ears Forum about the OnePlus 8’s camera technology. During the meeting, some new features for the OnePlus 8 series were floated to users for feedback. Those features haven’t been revealed yet, but the company has shared some actions they will be taking based on feedback:

  • Continue improving white balance consistency across all lenses
  • Reduce the haloing seen on some HDR portrait shots
  • Improve UX for AE lock
  • Add more color filters and bring them to portrait mode
  • Show visual cue when tripod mode is triggered
  • Keep optimizing post-processing strategy

These things seem like pretty basic camera functions, but they’re also things that generally can always use improvement in smartphone cameras. White balance consistency across lenses is especially important in the day and age of multi-camera devices. The visual cue for tripod mode is also a welcomed addition as there’s no way to manually enable it.

We have no idea when these changes will come to the OnePlus 8 series. We’ll keep an eye out for these changes in a future OxygenOS update.

Thanks for XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username for the tip!


Source: OnePlus

The post OnePlus 8 series camera updates will bring color filters to portrait mode, improved white balance, and more appeared first on xda-developers.



from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2XcTYRm
via IFTTT

Samsung Galaxy Book S announced with Intel Lakefield chipset and LTE

Last summer, Samsung launched the Galaxy Book S, its first laptop powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor. Samsung is back with the Galaxy Book S, only this time it’s powered by the Intel Lakefield chipset. This is essentially the same laptop as before, but now it has the shiny “Intel Inside” sticker. The Galaxy Book S is also the first laptop to use Intel’s Lakefield generation.

Lakefield is the first “hybrid” CPU from Intel. That means it combines the company’s Atom and Core CPU cores into a single unit. This is something we commonly see in ARM chips on smartphones, which offers high-performance and low-power cores to maximize efficiency. There’s a lot more going on, but the gist is this should help the new Galaxy Book S compete with the Snapdragon model in terms of battery life.

Samsung doesn’t give a ton of details about the CPU, other than “Intel Core processor with Intel Hybrid Technology.” The other big detail is LTE connectivity, which is also something the ARM model has. Other specifications include Intel UHD Graphics, 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and 256GB or 512GB of eUFS storage. There is also a microSD card slot for up to 1TB of extra storage.

The Galaxy Book S has a 13.3-inch FHD LCD display with touchscreen capabilities. There are 2 USB-C ports, a headphone jack, fingerprint scanner, quad stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos, and a 1MP camera. The battery is 42Wh and it has WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. Samsung ships the device with Windows 10 Home or Pro.

We don’t know how much the Intel Galaxy Book S will cost or when it will launch, but it will be available in Mercury Gray and Earthy Gold colors.

  Galaxy Book S
OS Windows 10 Home / Pro
Display 13.3″ FHD TFT LCD Display with Touch Screen Panel
Dimension 305.2 x 203.2 x 6.2 ~ 11.8 mm
Weight 950g
CPU Intel Core processor with Intel Hybrid Technology
Graphic Intel UHD Graphics
Memory 8GB RAM (LPDDR4x)
Storage 256/512GB eUFS, MicroSD slot (up to 1TB)
Camera 1MP
Battery 42Wh (typical)
Connectivity Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) 802.11 ax 2×2, LTE (Cat 16), Bluetooth v 5.0
Ports 2 USB-C, 1 Headphone out/Mic-in Combo, MicroSD Multi-media Card Reader
Sensors Fingerprint Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor (Keyboard Backlit on/off), Hall Sensor
Authentication Windows Hello sign in with fingerprint
Audio Quad Stereo Speakers: Sound by AKG
Immersive sound with Dolby Atmos technology

Source: Samsung | Via: SamMobile

The post Samsung Galaxy Book S announced with Intel Lakefield chipset and LTE appeared first on xda-developers.



from xda-developers https://ift.tt/3cjBZNn
via IFTTT

Samsung’s Exynos 850 is an 8nm chip for budget Android smartphones

Samsung has been designing its own Exynos chipsets for several years now. The Korean smartphone maker normally uses both Qualcomm Snapdragon and Exynos processors for their flagship and upper mid-range devices, but they usually use their own in-house Exynos chips for their budget smartphones. Samsung has recently (and quietly) published a product page for a new entry in their Exynos lineup of processors: the Exynos 850.

This Exynos 850 processor can already be found in the recently-announced Samsung Galaxy A21s, a smartphone on the lower-end of Samsung’s Galaxy A lineup. Thus, we already expected this processor to be geared towards decidedly-budget smartphones. According to the specifications listed on the product page, the Exynos 850 has an octa-core CPU comprised of two clusters of ARM Cortex-A55 cores which are clocked at up to 2.0GHz. The SoC also features ARM’s Mali-G52 GPU. It also supports LPDDR4X RAM, eMMC 5.1 storage, Cat.7 LTE, Full HD+ (1080p) display panels, and more. The chipset is fabricated using Samsung’s fairly modern 8nm LPP process.

For imaging, the Exynos 850 apparently supports up to 1080p60 video recording, 21.7MP image processing from a single camera or 16MP + 5MP from dual cameras (presumably with ZSL), and encoding in HEVC/h.265.

As we said before, the Galaxy A21s is the first smartphone to sport this processor, and we know it has a 48MP quad rear camera setup, an HD+ Infinity-O panel, up to 6GB of RAM, and up to 64GB of storage, so we already knew those are things this processor supports. It is possible that we’ll see this SoC on other Samsung budget Android smartphones soon. Budget smartphones are improving at a surprising rate, and we can thank the incredible competition in markets like India and China for that.

h/t @kuma_sleepy

The post Samsung’s Exynos 850 is an 8nm chip for budget Android smartphones appeared first on xda-developers.



from xda-developers https://ift.tt/3dhxYub
via IFTTT

StrandHogg 2.0 Exploit Explained – Why Users and Android App Developers should care

It’s 10:00 PM. Do you know where your Activities are? There’s a new vulnerability that can be exploited on millions of Android devices, and it’s a pretty nasty one, too. In a nutshell, this design flaw allows an attacker to present their own Activity (page) on top of another app’s, potentially confusing the user into giving away their private data. The vulnerability has been dubbed StrandHogg 2.0 and was recently disclosed by Promon, a Norwegian security firm.

The StrandHogg 2.0 vulnerability theoretically affects all Android devices running Android versions as old as Honeycomb (3.0) and up to Android 9 Pie (9.0). Based on the latest Android version distribution statistics, that means that approximately 91.8% of all Android devices are vulnerable to StrandHogg 2.0. The vulnerability was assigned CVE-2020-0096 and was given a severity level of “critical.” It doesn’t require any special permissions to work and can function almost entirely without user interaction. All a user has to do is open an app with malicious code hidden away in it, and then they’re vulnerable to exploitation.

Promon was kind enough to send us their proof of concept app and its source code so we could best explain how the exploit works, why it matters to users, and how developers can protect their apps against it.


How It Works

Say you’re using Gmail and you click a web link. If you go to your recent apps screen, you may notice that the web page appears to be “inside” Gmail. The preview shows the website, but the app icon and name are still from Gmail. This is something that happens when an app/Activity launches another app/Activity in the same task. Now imagine that you didn’t purposely open that link. To you, it looks like it’s just part of the Gmail app. This is the behavior that StrandHogg 2.0 exploits.

We’re going to have to leave out some details here, but here’s roughly how this exploit works. For the following, let’s assume the attacker wants to get the user’s Gmail login.

  1. The user downloads a malicious app (of course, without knowing it’s malicious) and opens it.
  2. In the background, the app opens Gmail, puts a look-alike login Activity on top of it, and then launches another Activity.
  3. The user opens Gmail and sees what looks like Gmail’s login screen but is actually the attacker’s phishing Activity.

The final Activity launched in step 2 can be anything that avoids suspicion. The app could fake a crash and go back to the home screen, or it could just open to its main Activity as if nothing happened. The only suspicious thing the user might see is a bunch of opening animations as all the Activities launch. The worst part: It won’t even look like Gmail was opened.

StrandHogg 2.0 password hijack example

Source: Promon

Of course, an attacker can do more than just showing a fake login screen. A malicious app could present a permissions prompt instead, tricking the user into granting unwanted permissions. While requesting any special permissions like Accessibility might make the user suspicious, it’s possible to do a lot of damage with something like Storage Access.


The Technical Bits

This next section is a high-level overview of how StrandHogg 2.0 works. Promon won’t release the full details for another few months, so we can’t share exactly how this exploit is implemented. There are some technical details that we can talk about, though.

In a nutshell, StrandHogg 2.0 hijacks Android’s Context.startActivities() API method, using three Intents.

  • The first Intent is the one that launches, in our example’s case, Gmail. It’s flagged with Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK.
  • The second Intent is the malicious one. In our example, it’s for the look-alike login Activity. This Intent has no flags.
  • The third Intent is the distraction. It makes sure the user isn’t suspicious of Gmail just randomly opening instead of the app they tapped (i.e. the one launching the attack). It’s flagged with Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK.

All of these Intents are then passed in an array to the startActivities() method.

The second Intent’s lack of flags is the key here. By doing so, we’ve basically just replicated the Gmail example from above. The task is technically Gmail’s, but the topmost Activity is the attacker’s. When the user then clicks Gmail’s home screen icon, the attacker’s Activity displays instead of Gmail’s.


Proof of Concept

With the information that Promon sent us, we were able to replicate their proof of concept. Here’s a screen recording from a Samsung Galaxy Note8 running Android 9 Pie showing it in action.


Mitigation Techniques and Issues

Now, simply replicating the above in code won’t actually work. It’s not a complete example, and there are a few other things that an attacker has to do to make it work, which we can’t share. But they’re not particularly hard to guess on your own, and that’s part of what makes this attack so dangerous. StrandHogg 2.0 is a relatively easy exploit to implement, and difficult to mitigate.

Mitigation can’t just involve blacklisting all apps that use startActivities(), since there are plenty of legitimate uses for it. It’s also really difficult to automate a detection algorithm for it. Malicious developers can employ all sorts of tricks to make their implementation of StrandHogg 2.0 effectively invisible to services like Google Play Protect. StrandHogg 1.0 required the attacker to add an attribute in the malicious app’s AndroidManifest.xml, which was relatively easy to detect. StrandHogg 2.0, on the other hand, functions entirely in Java/Kotlin.

Taking into account obfuscation, reflection, and even just different coding styles, it seems impractical to automatically properly detect an app making use of this exploit. What’s more is that if a user is the subject of a StrandHogg 2.0 attack, they may not even know. If you open Gmail and you see its login screen, you might just think your session expired and enter your login details without a second thought.

When we contacted Google for a response, a spokesperson offered the following statement:

“We appreciate the work of the researchers, and have released a fix for the issue they identified. Additionally, Google Play Protect detects and blocks malicious apps, including ones using this technique.”

This sounds good, and hopefully it has at least some effect against StrandHogg 2.0 attacks. It’s worth noting, though, that Google Play Protect did not detect our proof of concept app as malicious, even after performing a manual scan.

Promon says that they “have not observed any real-life malware utilizing the StrandHogg 2.0 vulnerability,” but there’s no guarantee that this is the first time the exploit has been discovered. For that reason, Promon recommends that developers go ahead and protect their apps by setting their launcher Activity’s launchMode flag to either singleTask or singleInstance. Either of these flags will prevent task injection, which is what StrandHogg 2.0 relies on. However, having your Activity use one of these flags can cause issues with certain app flows, so it’s not always desirable.

Promon is also promoting its own “In-App Protection by Promon SHIELD” product which sounds like a library that app developers can implement to monitor the tasks in your app’s process to check for irregular insertions. Because there’s no truly effective developer or user mitigation strategy, it’s pretty important that manufacturers implement the patch to fix this ASAP.

Thankfully, Promon followed responsible disclosure guidelines before making this exploit public (and it’s still not fully public—Promon is waiting 90 days before fully disclosing how StrandHogg 2.0 works). Google has since backported patches for this exploit to Android 8.0 Oreo, Android 8.1 Oreo, and Android 9 Pie with the May 2020 Android Security Patch Level (SPL). Users on Android 10 and above aren’t vulnerable, though we’re not entirely sure why that’s the case. It likely has something to do with Android 10’s new restrictions concerning launching Activities and how Google integrated that into the task stack. Promon says that “on Android 10 the attack is entirely ineffective, and the activities are split into different tasks and into separate task stacks according to adb shell dumpsys activity activities.”

If your device manufacturer is still providing security updates (you can read more about how the security patch process works here), you should pester them for an update as soon as possible. Otherwise, you’ll just need to be careful about which apps you download and run (although you should be doing that anyway).

For more details and use-cases of StrandHogg 2.0, check out the official announcement on Promon’s website. For custom ROM developers, you can find the relevant AOSP commits for preventing StrandHogg 2.0 attacks here and here.


Disclosure Timeline

Here is the disclosure timeline that Promon shared in its StandHogg 2.0 document:

  • Dec 4, 2019 – Reported issue to Google
  • Dec 4, 2019 – Shared a PoC «malicious app» and video with Google
  • Dec 4, 2019 – Google confirmed receiving the report
  • Dec 9, 2019 – Google set the severity of the finding as «Critical»
  • Dec 9, 2019 – Google confirms that they are able to reproduce the issue
  • Feb 14, 2020 – We inform Google the 90-day disclosure is nearing in the beginning of March, and ask for status on their side
  • Feb 14, 2020 – Google responds that April is the soonest they can roll out a fix
  • Feb 14, 2020 – We inform Google we are working on mitigations
  • Feb 14, 2020 – Google responds. They are working on remediations, and ask if we can share what mitigations we are recommending
  • Feb 17, 2020 – We inform Google that we can hold back the disclosure until April. We request the CVE number
  • Feb 17, 2020 – We share our mitigation strategies, as well as how we envisage a platform mitigation
  • Mar 23, 2020 – Google responds with the CVE ID (CVE-2020-0096)
  • Mar 23, 2020 – Google responds that general availability of the fix for Android will be available in May
  • Mar 23, 2020 – Google asks if we will consider delaying disclosure to May
  • Mar 27, 2020 – We respond that we will delay disclosure until May
  • Apr 22, 2020 – Google informs us that the May Security Bulletin is scheduled to contain a patch for the vulnerability

The post StrandHogg 2.0 Exploit Explained – Why Users and Android App Developers should care appeared first on xda-developers.



from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2ZOZRpR
via IFTTT

Nintendo 3DS emulation: Official Citra for Android performance testing on the Snapdragon 865, 855, and 845

Citra, the most popular Nintendo 3DS emulator, was officially released for Android onto the Google Play Store last week, and its performance has been at the forefront of the conversation. I’m sure anybody who saw its release wondered whether they could play their favorite Nintendo 3DS games on their Android smartphone or tablet, so I’ve spent the past few days playing games on various different devices powered by multiple different SoCs to see what kind of performance you can expect to get from your device.

I tested the following popular Nintendo 3DS games:

  • Animal Crossing: New Leaf
  • Mario Kart 8
  • Pokemon X/Y
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
  • Fire Emblem: Fates
  • Super Mario 3D Land

…on the following Android smartphones:

…and the results were rather mixed. I tested each of these 3DS games with the unofficial Citra MMJ version as well as the official Citra 3DS emulator that was just released on the Google Play Store. Some of the results were surprising. Note that all of these tests were done with audio stretching disabled as I found that it had a pretty significant performance hit for little benefit when enabled. Keep in mind that different GPU driver versions may also affect performance, and so one device with a particular chipset may not perform the same as another device with the same chipset.

Citra for Android Nintendo 3DS emulator

Nintendo 3DS emulation using the official Citra for Android port. Left to right: OnePlus 8 Pro, OnePlus 6, Realme 6 Pro.

Note: You can legally acquire 3DS ROMs for your smartphone by dumping and decrypting your own Nintendo 3DS games. For this, you will need a hacked Nintendo 3DS and a legally purchased copy of the 3DS game that you want to play.


Current performance issues with Nintendo 3DS emulation via Citra for Android (and potential fixes)

Before going into detail of the performance of the aforementioned Nintendo 3DS games on various Android smartphones, it’s worth mentioning that currently, the Citra 3DS emulator port for Android does not support a shader cache. A shader cache is simply a cache of files that keeps track of compiled shaders that are shown in-game, and having one greatly reduces CPU and GPU load. When new shaders are encountered in Citra, they are then compiled and aren’t saved to the storage. This means that they can’t be cached, and instead must be recompiled once encountered every time. This is why currently, Citra on Android can be quite stuttery when playing some 3DS games. Citra on PC supports a shader cache, and it’s quite common for users to want to download a precompiled shader cache to avoid slowly and painstakingly generating their own. Also, I found that disabling audio stretching helped performance a little bit.


Nintendo 3DS Emulation Performance – Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, 855, 845, 720G, and Kirin 980

Qualcomm Snapdragon 865

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – OnePlus 8 Pro

Official Citra

  • Mostly 60 FPS
  • Drops frames frequently, particularly when shaking trees to drop fruit
  • Audio hangs for a second or so often, and when audio hangs, the game hangs for a second too

MMJ/Unofficial Citra

  • 30 FPS to 45 FPS with occasional spikes to 60 FPS
  • No audio hangs
  • More consistent experience overall, though slower
  • Attempting to sell items will freeze the game, which does not happen on the official Citra build

Mario Kart 7 – OnePlus 8 Pro

  • Runs perfectly at 60 FPS
  • Occasional audio cues cause slight stuttering
  • No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

Pokemon X/Y – OnePlus 8 Pro

  • Not a very intensive game, runs perfectly at 30 FPS (this game runs at 30 FPS in the overworld)
  • Battles run perfectly
  • Audio sounds great, music is in AAC format and can now be decoded
  • No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

Note: The flickering as seen in the above video only occurred when I was screen recording.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – OPPO Find X2 Pro/OnePlus 8 Pro

  • Runs perfectly, no slowdowns
  • Audio is great
  • Occasional stutters in combat
  • Cutscenes work
  • No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

Fire Emblem Fates – OPPO Find X2 Pro

  • Some slowdowns when entering combat
  • Some audio stuttering in battles
  • Audio works great
  • Cutscenes work
  • The game mostly runs at full speed, which it didn’t on the MMJ build

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – OPPO Reno 10x Zoom

Official Citra

  • Runs nearly flawlessly
  • Very few stutters
  • Virtually no audio lag

MMJ/Unofficial Citra

  • Anywhere from 30 to 60 FPS, though mostly towards the higher-end
  • Very few stutters
  • Virtually no audio lag
  • Attempting to sell items will freeze the game, which does not happen on the official Citra build

Mario Kart 7 – OPPO Reno 10x Zoom/OnePlus 7 Pro

  • Runs nearly flawlessly
  • Pretty much no audio lag
  • Pretty much no stutters
  • No performance difference between Official and MMJ build

Pokemon X/Y – OPPO Reno 10x Zoom

  • Not a very intensive game, runs perfectly at 30 FPS (this game runs at 30 FPS in the overworld)
  • Battles run perfectly
  • Audio sounds great, music is in AAC format and can now be decoded
  • No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – OPPO Reno 10x Zoom

  • Runs nearly flawlessly
  • Pretty much no audio lag
  • Occasional stutters in combat
  • No performance difference between Official and MMJ build

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – OnePlus 6

Official Citra

  • Mostly 50-60 FPS
  • Drops frames very frequently, particularly when shaking trees to drop fruit, but also in many other situations too
  • Audio hangs for a second or so often, and when audio hangs, the game hangs for a second too

MMJ/Unofficial Citra

  • Around 30-60 FPS, sticking somewhere around 45 FPS for most of the time
  • Drops frames less frequently
  • Audio stutters occasionally

Mario Kart 7 – OnePlus 6

  • Stuttering when navigating menus
  • 50-60 FPS in races, though fluctuates wildly and sometimes dips as low as 30 FPS
  • Occasional audio stutters

Pokemon X/Y – OnePlus 6

  • Not a very intensive game, runs perfectly at 30 FPS (this game runs at 30 FPS in the overworld)
  • Battles run perfectly
  • Audio sounds great, music is in AAC format and can now be decoded
  • No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – OnePlus 6

  • Consistent in the 40-60 FPS range
  • Lots of stutters in combat
  • Marginally better performance in the MMJ build over the Official build

Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Realme 6 Pro

Official Citra

  • Mostly 50-60 FPS
  • Drops frames occasionally, particularly when shaking trees to drop fruit, but also in many other situations too
  • Audio hangs for a second or so often, and when audio hangs, the game hangs for a second too
  • MMJ and Official build more or less perform the same here

Pokemon X/Y – Realme 6 Pro

  • Runs mostly perfectly at 30 FPS, though occasionally dips in performance
  • Battles run perfectly
  • Audio sounds great, music is in AAC format and can now be decoded, minimal stuttering
  • No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – OnePlus 6

  • Consistent in the 40-60 FPS range
  • Lots of stutters in combat
  • Marginally better performance in the MMJ build over the Official build

Kirin 980

The Honor 20 Pro with its HiSilicon Kirin 980 was unable to run any of the Nintendo 3DS games that I tested at any playable framerate. The official and unofficial Citra 3DS emulators don’t really support devices with non-Snapdragon chipsets due to driver issues, and as such, this means that Samsung smartphones with Exynos processors will also likely face issues playing any of the 3DS games listed here.


Conclusion – Nintendo 3DS Emulation is very viable (for most flagships)

Oddly enough, I found the best performance to be not with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 but rather with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855. It’s possible that Citra was developed primarily on Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 devices as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 is a relatively recent release, but this is only speculation on my part. The Snapdragon 855 found in both the OnePlus 7T Pro and the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom handled pretty much all Nintendo 3DS games I threw at it perfectly, which greatly impressed me, and the games themselves were very much playable. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G also fared incredibly well, with more or less identical results to the Snapdragon 845.

Citra (Nintendo 3DS emulator) website

Citra Emulator (Free+, Google Play) →

The post Nintendo 3DS emulation: Official Citra for Android performance testing on the Snapdragon 865, 855, and 845 appeared first on xda-developers.



from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2M8fgcv
via IFTTT

Prepare for 9 Top IT Certification Exams With This $39 Training Bundle

In the current financial climate, finding a secure job has become the top priority for many of us. While some industries are struggling, there are still many vacancies in IT. If you would like to break into this lucrative sector, make The Complete 2020 IT Certification Exam Prep Mega Bundle your starting point. This learning library includes all the prep you need to ace nine top exams, with insight from top instructors. You can get it now for just $1,800 at the XDA Developers Depot. 

You don’t need an amazing academic record to land a good job in IT. However, recruiters do look for certifications. If you can pass the exams, the rewards are pretty great — AWS-certified IT professionals earn $129,868 on average.

This bundle helps you prep for nine top exams, with extensive video training. Through concise lessons, you learn about cloud computing with AWS and Microsoft Azure, and work towards Cisco networking exams. In addition the training helps you earn the all-important CompTIA Security+ certification. With lifetime access to all the courses, you can study at your own pace.

You learn from a roster of top instructors, including Scott Duffy. This certified Enterprise Architect has helped over 343,000 students, earning a rating of 4.4/5 stars on Udemy. 

They’re worth $1,800 in total, but you can get these courses now for just $39.

 
The Complete 2020 IT Certification Exam Prep Mega Bundle – $39

See Deal

Prices subject to change 

More from the XDA Developers Depot

The post Prepare for 9 Top IT Certification Exams With This $39 Training Bundle appeared first on xda-developers.



from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2TPYBP8
via IFTTT