Category: Community Preview

A new model

on November 20, 2014

Today we released a new community preview for CrXPRT (CP2). It contains several enhancements and UI changes. It also fixes the problem we discussed in last week’s blog, so CP2 will now correctly execute a rundown test on a system using Chinese language settings.

The most exciting enhancement is that CP2 will let you test battery life without having to put the device into developer mode. The new Battery Status API, which became available with Chrome 38, makes this possible.

Another enhancement is that results submission is now integrated into the benchmark UI. CrXPRT follows the WebXPRT model, with you having opt-in control over whether the results are published on the PT Web site. However, CrXPRT goes further by allowing you the option to upload more extensive disclosure information, and the option to download results as a text file.

These and other enhancements are covered in more detail in the CrXPRT forum and the user manual. Because this is a community preview, you have to be a community member to download it. However, joining is very easy.

We hope you like the new features in CrXPRT. Let us know what you think!

Eric

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Posted in Chrome OS, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, CrXPRT |

CrXPRT is here!

By Eric Hale

on October 15, 2014

Today we are releasing the CrXPRT 2014 Community Preview (CP1). As mentioned in a previous post, CrXPRT contains performance and battery life tests. The performance suite includes five scenarios utilizing Web browsing and JavaScript workloads, plus Portable Native Client (PNaCl) and WebGL-based scenarios. The battery life test incorporates all of the performance workloads and adds video playback, audio playback, and HTML5 gaming scenarios.

The battery life test in CP1 builds on the lessons we learned from developing BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android. In fact, we’ve been able to improve on the testing time. BatteryXPRT 2014 requires 5.5 hours to estimate battery life; CP1 can estimate battery life in only 3.5 hours. The battery test in CP1 still requires the device be put in developer mode, so we’re investigating the new Chrome OS battery status APIs. We hope these will make it possible to remove this restriction in a future release.

The estimates for battery life are generally pretty accurate. However, we have seen runs where the battery life results were much higher than expected. We are continuing to investigate this. If you see an anomalous result, please let us know. It is worth noting that the performance scores have been very consistent.

Because this is a community preview, you have to be a community member to download it. However, joining is very easy.

Check out the new CrXPRT, and let us know what you think!

Eric

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Posted in Battery life, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chrome OS, Community Preview, CrXPRT, Performance benchmarking |

News from the factory floor

By Eric Hale

on October 9, 2014

As we mentioned last week, we have BatteryXPRT and MobileXPRT news:

Today, we’re releasing a new build of MobileXPRT 2013 at MobileXPRT.com and the Google Play store. This build addresses issues we saw when testing MobileXPRT on the beta build of Android L and the experimental ART runtime. The tests have not changed, and the scores are comparable with previous MobileXPRT 2013 scores.

Also, the BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android APKs are now available at BatteryXPRT.com. Up to now, only the full installer, including the content for the tests, was available on our Web site. The APKs are much smaller and allow you to download the test content during installation. For users who have trouble accessing the Google Play store, these APKs may make it easier to download the benchmark.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Don’t forget: we’re releasing the community preview of CrXPRT next week!

Eric

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Posted in Android, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chrome OS, Community Preview, CrXPRT, MobileXPRT |

Activity all around

By Justin Greene

on October 2, 2014

It’s a busy time in XPRT land, and we wanted to share some news about upcoming events.

The first bit is an update about the CrXPRT 2014 Community Preview. We’ve been busy refining the benchmark, and feel like the current candidate build under test is likely to ship as our Community Preview. We’ll publish more details about the app and its workloads soon, but don’t be surprised to see a Community Preview announcement in the near future.

In Patching and future proofing, we discussed two potential problems while running MobileXPRT 2013 on some versions of Android 4.4 and the developer’s preview of Android L. The first problem involves the benchmark not showing scores when running on a Nexus 5 with the ART runtime enabled. The second problem was a failure of the Create Slideshow workload on Android L. In order to address the underlying cause of both problems, we’ll soon be issuing a patched MobileXPRT 2013 build. We’re still wrapping up our testing, but expect to release the patch at some point next week.

We’ll also be posting BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android APKs directly on the BatteryXPRT.com site. For users who have low bandwidth or trouble accessing the Google Play store, these APKs will make it easier to download the benchmark.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Justin

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Posted in Android, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Community Preview, CrXPRT, MobileXPRT |

Time to get creative

By Justin Greene

on September 4, 2014

The CrXPRT Community Preview is right around the corner, and there’s no sign of things slowing down. We’re exploring new opportunities on a number of fronts, and we’d love to hear what you think! We’re considering possible changes to WebXPRT and MobileXPRT, and since the mobile device market is changing all the time, we’re looking for the next great benchmark opportunity. In both cases, the development community is a rich source of ideas, so we’d like to tap into it one more time.

A while back, we added a new Web form in the members’ area for submitting benchmark ideas. Some of the ideas we have so far include:

A benchmark to evaluate camera features and photo quality on phones and tablets
A benchmark for measuring the performance of cloud services
A benchmark for measuring the performance and battery life of iOS-based devices

So, what would you like to see? Any of these, or do you have ideas we haven’t mentioned? Also, we’d love to hear your feedback on ways we can improve, both with the XPRTs themselves and with community life. Either way, send a message to BenchmarkXPRTSupport@principledtechnologies.com and let us know what you think!

Justin

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Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, CrXPRT, MobileXPRT, WebXPRT, What makes a good benchmark? |

HDXPRT 2014 source code coming soon

By Justin Greene

on August 28, 2014

We’ve really been enjoying the smaller size and quicker install and runtimes of HDXPRT 2014, and we encourage you to give the benchmark a try if you haven’t already! Within the next week or so, we’ll make the HDXPRT 2014 source code available to BenchmarkXPRT Development Community members. Part of what makes the XPRT community work is the feedback we get from members, whether it comes in the form of new benchmark ideas, suggestions for improvement, or questions raised during community preview testing. Having members comb through the code is another aspect of that community model. We welcome any members with programming skills to comment on our code and submit their own code for review.

If you decide to submit code, please read the XPRT commenting conventions, which are simply brief descriptions of a few practices that will make it easier for us to read your code.

We’ll also post detailed build instructions for HDXPRT 2014 in the Members Area. When the source code is available, check it out and let us know what you think. If you have code to share, please post on the forums or send us a message. If you haven’t yet joined the community, we’d love for you to join now.

Justin

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Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 2014, HDXPRT source code, Source code |

Category: Community Preview

A new model

CrXPRT is here!

News from the factory floor

Activity all around

Time to get creative

HDXPRT 2014 source code coming soon

Check out the other XPRTs: