Category: Future of performance evaluation

Upping our game

on August 27, 2015

As we wrote last week, we’re releasing MobileXPRT 2015 to the public tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who helped make the community preview a success!

We’re working on the TouchXPRT 2016 design document and will make it available for the community to review soon.

As you know, we’re always investigating initiatives that could improve our game. We’re continuing to investigate creating experimental tests for future XPRTs. Experimental tests will allow us to maintain broad compatibility for each XPRT tool while providing testers with an opportunity to evaluate cutting-edge technologies.

Another initiative involves looking for new partnerships with people who are not yet part of the community, but could add valuable input to the development process. It’s too soon to say much more about this, but we’re having fruitful conversations and hoping that these partnerships will grow the community even more!

If you have ideas about experimental tests, improving the XPRTs, or expanding the community, please let us know.

Eric

Posted in Android, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, Future of performance evaluation, MobileXPRT, MobileXPRT 2015, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, What makes a good benchmark? |

Something old, something new

By Eric Hale

on June 25, 2015

Last week, we talked about porting TouchXPRT 2014 to be a Windows 10 universal app. This will let it run on devices running Windows 10 and those running Windows 10 mobile.

We won’t be retiring TouchXPRT 2014 when we release the Windows 10 universal app version. Windows 8 doesn’t support Windows 10 universal apps, but Windows 10 will be able to run Windows 8 applications. This means you’ll also be continue to be able to use TouchXPRT 2014 to test Windows 8 based systems, as well as to compare Windows 8 and Windows 10 performance.

The results from TouchXPRT 2014 and the universal app version of the benchmark won’t be compatible. Even though the test scenarios will be the same, the porting process means that we have to change the APIs the benchmark is using and rebuild the benchmark with different tools.

We’re currently debating changing the way we version the benchmarks. As the number of versions of each benchmark increases, it may make sense to move away from year-based versioning. This will obviously affect what we call the new Windows 10 version of TouchXPRT. If you have any thoughts on this, please let us know!

Eric

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2014, TouchXPRT release cycle, Windows 10, Windows 8 |

WebXPRT 2015

By Eric Hale

on May 7, 2015

Tomorrow we’ll be releasing WebXPRT 2015, with mirror site in Singapore to follow soon. We’ve been talking about it for a while and we’re delighted to finally make it available to the public.

As we’ve discussed over the past few weeks, the new WebXPRT is a big improvement over WebXPRT 2013. Some of the changes are

An improved UI. In addition to a cleaner, sleeker look, the UI now has a progress indicator and on-screen test descriptions. There is also a Simplified Chinese version of the UI.
Test automation. WebXPRT 2015 lets you automate testing, giving labs more flexibility and making it easier to test lots of devices.
New and improved tests. In addition to enhancing the existing tests, WebXPRT 2015 adds two new tests, Explore DNA Sequencing and Sales Graphs.

If you haven’t checked out the new WebXPRT, now is the time!

And remember the design document for the next generation of MobileXPRT should be out by the end of the month. If there are things you would like to see, it’s a great time to let us know.

Eric

Posted in Android, Automation, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, MobileXPRT, WebXPRT |

Time for a merger of equals?

By Eric Hale

on April 16, 2015

As I said last week, we’re working on the design document for the new version of MobileXPRT, and we expect to have it out in the next couple of weeks. We have several ideas we’re pretty excited about.

One of the ideas we’ve been considering is merging BatteryXPRT and MobileXPRT into a single benchmark. This would be similar to what we’ve done with CrXPRT, which has tests for both battery life and performance. As with CrXPRT, you’d be able to run either test, and you could get performance and battery life for a device in a single day using a single benchmark.

If we as the community do decide to merge the benchmarks, there will be a lot to think about. For example, MobileXPRT is unaware whether it’s connected to the Internet, while BatteryXPRT not only detects how it’s connected, but selects the appropriate Airplane mode or Network-Wifi Mode test. And, of course, we’d have to figure out what to call it.

What do you think about merging the two benchmarks? Would it make your life simpler? What other features would you like to see in the new MobileXPRT? This is the time to speak up!

Eric

Posted in Battery life, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, CrXPRT, Future of performance evaluation, MobileXPRT |

More power, more control

By Eric Hale

on March 19, 2015

As I said last week, the community preview for WebXPRT 2015 is coming up soon. One of the changes that will be exciting to anyone who does a lot of testing is that we made it simpler to automate WebXPRT tests.

WebXPRT 2015 will let you automatically select any set of tests you want to run. However, as always, you must run the entire suite of tests to get an overall score. Although the community preview will not include any experimental tests, the automation includes control for those future tests as well.

You may choose from several output formats: HTML table, XML, and CSV, or you can download the results as a text file.

Using the automation is simple: you just append the desired test parameters to the end of the URL. The format allows you to mix and match a lot of options, while still being very concise. The details will be in the release notes.

As people who test a lot of devices, we are very excited about this new capability.

Eric

Posted in Automation, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, Future of performance evaluation, Performance benchmarking, WebXPRT, What makes a good benchmark? |

More details to come

By Eric Hale

on July 10, 2014

As we’ve been saying the past couple of months, we’re working on a benchmark for Chrome OS. The experimentation phase is winding down, and we are starting to shape the code into a useable benchmark. The design plan will leverage existing WebXPRT tests, of course. However, we’ve gone far beyond that. The benchmark will include video playback, 3D modeling via WebGL, and even an HTML5 game. The test also uses Chrome OS’ native execution capability. The benchmark will actually use the Portable Native Client (PNaCl), as PNaCl is the recommended tool chain for native client. It also gives the benchmark the ability to run on more platforms.

As we mentioned before, we’re including a battery test as part of the new benchmark. So far, we haven’t found a way to remove the requirement to put the device in developer mode for the battery test.

Next week, we’ll publish a design document for the community to review. As always, the design document is based on the comments and suggestions we received combined with our own research and experimentation.

Eric

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Posted in Chrome OS, Future of performance evaluation, HTML5, Performance benchmarking, WebXPRT |

Category: Future of performance evaluation

Upping our game

Something old, something new

WebXPRT 2015

Time for a merger of equals?

More power, more control

More details to come

Check out the other XPRTs: