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Category: TouchXPRT 2014

A bit of house cleaning at BenchmarkXPRT.com

When we’ve released a new version of an XPRT benchmark app, it’s been our practice for many years to maintain a link to the previous version on the benchmark’s main page. For example, visitors can start on the WebXPRT 4 homepage at WebXPRT.com and follow links to access WebXPRT 3, WebXPRT 2015, and WebXPRT 2013. Historically, we’ve maintained these links because labs and tech reviewers usually take a while to introduce a new benchmark to their testing suite. Continued access to the older benchmarks also allows users to quickly compare new devices to old devices without retesting everything.

That being said, several of the XPRT pages currently contain links to benchmarks that we no longer actively support. Some of those benchmarks still function correctly, and testers occasionally use them, but a few no longer work on the latest versions of the operating systems or browsers that we designed them to test. While we want to continue to provide a way for longtime XPRT users to access legacy XPRTs,  we also want to avoid potential confusion for new users. We believe our best way forward is to archive older tests in a separate part of the site.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be moving several legacy XPRT benchmarks to an archive section of the site. Once the new section is ready, we’ll link to it from the Extras drop-down menu at the top of BenchmarkXPRT.com. The benchmarks will still be available in the archive, but we will not actively support them or directly link to them from the homepages of active XPRTs.

During this process, we’ll move the following benchmarks to the archive section:

  • WebXPRT 2015 and 2013
  • CrXPRT 2015
  • HDXPRT 2014
  • TouchXPRT 2014
  • MobileXPRT 2015 and 2013

If you have any questions or concerns about the archive process or access to legacy XPRTs, please let us know

Justin

News about TouchXPRT

Some community members reported that, on some systems, the TouchXPRT Create Slideshow from Photos workload was taking a long time to complete.  We found that the output video does not correctly render when this happens. This affects both TouchXPRT 2014 and TouchXPRT 2016.

So far we have only seen this problem on systems with some of the newer AMD graphics drivers. It appears that older AMD drivers and drivers from other vendors do not trigger this behavior.

We are still working to identify the root cause but, in the interim, we are updating the workload to verify its output. This would allow TouchXPRT to detect this problem when it occurs and report an error. We expect to have new CP of TouchXPRT 2016 with this fix next week.

For those in the US, I hope you enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. Among the many things I’m thankful for this year is all the help and support from the community. We could not do it without you.

Eric

One now, one later

Windows 10 has been on our mind this week.

Last week, we explained why the Notes test in WebXPRT would not complete when running in Edge on Windows 10. We’ve implemented the fix we discussed and have finished testing the updated versions of WebXPRT 2013 and WebXPRT 2015. We’ll release them by the end of the week. Results from the new versions are comparable with results from the existing versions.

In the current Windows 10 Mobile Beta, WebXPRT 2015 does not scroll correctly in portrait mode. It does scroll correctly in landscape mode, so, as a workaround, one can run it that way on the Windows 10 Mobile Beta.

Speaking of Windows 10 Mobile, we’ve talked before about TouchXPRT 2016 and how its purpose is to compare Windows 10 across different device types. However, Microsoft has said that Windows 10 Mobile won’t be available until after the release of Windows 10 on PCs. More importantly, the APIs and development tools won’t be final until July 29. Once Microsoft releases those tools, we’ll do our builds and tests and release a community preview.

That being said, TouchXPRT 2014 is the tool to use for comparing Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. By the time mobile devices running Windows 10 are available, TouchXPRT 2016 will be available.

Eric

Something old, something new

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

Back to Barcelona

It’s time for one of Bill’s favorite shows of the year. Mobile World Congress (MWC) starts Monday in Barcelona. Talking about technology in Barcelona, now that’s a plum assignment!

Bill’s got a lot to talk about. Since last year’s MWC, here’s some of what’s happened:

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The busiest year ever!

As 2014 winds down, it’s a good time to look back at the year. And what a year it has been! This is the year that the XPRTs really went global. The benchmarks are in wider use than ever. The community continues to grow.

Here are a few of the big things that happened this year:

 

It’s going to be hard to top this year, but we are certainly going to try! There’s another video coming soon. We’re already working on WebXPRT 2015. (If you haven’t commented on the WebXPRT 2015 design document yet, it’s not too late.) We’re making plans for MWC 2015. And there’s a lot more in the works!

Whatever your traditions are, we hope you have a wonderful holiday season. See you in 2015.

Eric

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