Know Your Overclocking Options Part Three

Well my journey through the world of overclocking has been really busy in the last two weeks. As a direct result of this rapid development I have been busy beyond all belief. Every day it seems there is a new kernel out there to test or one that’s being updated. Not to mention all the information I have read about each and every one of these new kernels.

If you are new to the series, don’t forget to check out our other articles:

Part One

Part Two

Before I get started here I have to tell you that all the kernels you will be reading about are experimental. Every one of them is in alpha testing and not readily available for the public. As a matter of fact none of these kernels will probably ever see a public release. Therefore, for the typical webOS user it would be wisest to stick with UberKernel as the guys at webOS Internals have made sure that it is the safest way to overclock your webOS device. Furthermore, if you do plan to find these experimental kernels and install them on your device it is expected that you are prepared to doctor your device at the drop of a hat and be able to provide detailed bug reports. So if you are not comfortable with doctoring your webOS device or logging into the command line of your device then please do not play with these kernels! The reason for this is because they are all experiments for things that will eventually make it into UberKernel in future updates.

So with all the warnings out of the way let me get on with the good news.

As I write this there are eight experimental kernels out there and yes I have tested every single one of them except the kernels that are for the Pixi. That’s right all you Pixi owners out there: soon you will be able to enjoy all this overclocking goodness!

First up there are the F102A Delta Dagger and the F104 Starfighter kernels. Yes it sounds like it’s straight out of Star Wars but these kernels are very special as they have brought compcache support to the game. Compcache has been available for Android devices for a while and you can get a descent explanation of how it works for them here. For the sake of my not-so-tech-savvy readers out there, compcache gives you more bang for your buck on your available RAM. These two kernels are pushing the limits of what is possible in that arena. With either of these you will never see a “too many cards” (or TMC) error as they have removed the safeguards that create it. I myself have loaded 30 cards (3 of which were 3D games) before my phone locked up. It makes it nice for us non-Pre Plus owners out there as we are normally hard pressed just to load one 3D game. Why are there two of these kernels you may ask? Well that’s because the F102 only scales from 500MHz to 800MHz while the F104 scales as low as 125MHz. The reason for that is because some CPUs don’t take to underclocking very well.

Next up we have a kernel not many have played with, yet I feel that it’s a very important experiment. The kernel is known as the SBromwich Kernel. This kernel is kind of a self experiment by SBromwich that focuses on pushing battery performance to the edge. It does this by removing various debug settings and all kinds of other hackery that I honestly do not understand but it seems to be working as I noticed a pretty fair sized improvement to my battery life. It is a little rough to play with because it can take a couple seconds to respond to activities but I hope some of its battery saving goodness makes its way to UberKernel in the near future.

Moving on we come to what has become my personal favorite: the Warthog Kernel. This particular kernel is focusing on stability, which is what we all want on our device when pushing the limits of what our little CPU is capable of. No, it’s not pushing the bleeding edge of performance like the other kernels are, however it is important what is being learned here. This particular kernel will be the closest you will get to using UberKernel but it’s rapidly evolving and seems to be getting better by the day. I have been testing this kernel and my experience has been pretty great thus far. That’s not to say there hasn’t been a hiccup along the way but the guys at webOS Internals have been swift in fixing issues that I have brought up. There is also a Pixi incarnation of this kernel that needs testing, so if you own a Pixi and are up to the task please help out your homebrew community and give this kernel a shot.

Out of all the kernels the one that will feel more like what you are used to is UberKernel Alpha. Little by little the improvements from the above mentioned kernels are being implemented into Uber-Alpha. As of right now it has compcache support that can be turned on and controlled via Govnah. The others support compcache as well but I felt it proper to mention it here as an example of UberKernel moving forward. Unlike the F102 and the F104 kernels, UberKernel still has the TMC safeguards set in place. By changing your compcache memory limit you can change when you will hit the TMC error however performance will be sacrificed as you start to load the cards up. UberKernel Alpha has also implemented some performance improvements from the Warthog experiment. So, as you can see, the findings from these various test kernels are making their way into UberKernel Alpha and in return the features added and tested in Uber-Alpha will make it to the normal UberKernel. I like to think of all these kernels as being pieces of Voltron with UberKernel being the heart; Yes I’m a geek! ;-) There is a Pixi build for this kernel as well so all you Pixi owners get out there and experiment!

I saved the most exciting news for last, which is the F105 Thunderchief. This bad boy is pushing the limit of CPU speed as it allows you to bump it up to 1.05GHz! This is the first time we have been able to go past the 800MHz threshold on our phone. This particular kernel only comes with the screen state governor and only scales as low as 500MHz. I ran this kernel for a day and can say that the speed is definitely noticeable. Believe it or not I didn’t take a huge hit to my battery either. It has been said that you should keep an eye on your temperature but I personally never ran really hot, I had a steady 37 to 42 degree temperature on my Pre. Lets all hope this is a feature that will make it to UberKernel as it is just straight up cool!

Before I end this I have to say that all of these kernels are OTA safe when installed with Preware to the best of my knowledge. Therefore, when our next official update comes we all should be safe. This has not been tested live yet so it has been said that it is best to wait 24hrs to allow the guys at WebOS Internals to get feedback. I myself am going for it as I am not afraid to visit the doctor if needed. ;-)

So on that note I will end this for now and I hope that I have shed a little light on all this talk of kernels that is sweeping through the net. Till my next post have fun and continue to support our homebrew community.