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Android 11 update reduced Nvidia Shield's CPU & GPU performance

26 Oct 2022 | Rasmus Larsen |

CPU performance of the 2019 Shield has dropped 12% while both CPU and GPU performance of the 2017 Shield has dropped roughly 5%, according to AFTVnews.

Nvidia released Android 11 for Shield TV earlier this year. Besides a plethora of bugs, the update has seemingly reduced CPU and GPU performance. Similarly, Chromecast with Google TV (4K) has reduced GPU performance following the recent update to Android 12.

This is according to AFTVnews who decided to retest various devices following OS updates. The testing methodology is described in the table at the bottom.

- "As I retested the streaming devices in my arsenal, it became clear that the scores that dropped the most were the ones from devices that updated from Android 9 and 10 to Android 11 and 12, like the Nvidia Shield TV and the Google Chromecast 4K. The performance hit, from software updates alone, was as much as 12% in one case," wrote AFTVnews.


Shield performance

Why is this happening? Elias Saba of AFTVnews, who previously worked as a Product Manager for Amazon developing Fire TV devices that also run Android (forked), offers an explanation: - "It’s pretty common knowledge among enthusiasts that devices, especially those running Android for some reason, tend to slow down over time. This is usually due to new features being added that push the hardware closer to its limits. While that slowdown is easily felt in real-world use, software changing over time tends to not affect benchmark scores much because benchmarks, by design, already push the hardware to its limits from the beginning. Major OS updates, like Android version changes, have the most potential to move a benchmark score up or down due to how much of the OS has changed." Also read: Review: Nvidia Shield 2019

AFTVnews' testing methodology

The devices themselves are the identical units that were previously tested, so hardware revisions, if they exist, aren’t a factor. For the CPU benchmark using Geekbench 4, the exact same app version was used for both old and new tests, down to the same APK file. For the GPU benchmark using GFXBench, the old test used v5.0.0 of the app and the new test used v5.0.5. This is because GFXBench prevents old versions of the app from running when a new version has been released, however, the app changes seem to be minor and shouldn’t affect the score achieved between app versions. In both old and new cases, I used the same testing methodology I always use, which is to run each test 3 times and average the top 2 runs for the final score. I also factory reset all devices and make sure the OS and all system apps are fully updated before running my benchmarks. With the hardware, the benchmarking apps, and the testing methods all being the same, the only factor that should be affecting the score is the operating system.
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