Summary of the new HaiPad M701-R Firmware (1022)

[Matt262]

Unfortunately, my tab doesn't cooperate with 3D games so I don't really have any issues with my g-sensor...from a little googling, it looks like there are G-Sensor Calibration apps available in the Market...I would give that a try. Another site suggests to face the device up, flip it over, pat it twice like you would a kid, flip it back over, tap it again, then rotate it clockwise, then counter-clockwise as it may be stuck....? I've read somewhere, possibly on Slatedroid (I can't find any posts using 'inverted' as a keyword on this board), where other people were able to calibrate it, but I can't seem to find it again...all over it seems people have issues with g-sensors on their Android phones, so it would stand to reason it's a software problem which should be fixable. I would start by looking for a calibration app.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful than that...3D games are horrible on my tab, so I can't really hit this one with trial by fire and provide good advice Maybe Offworld will jump in -- she seems to play games on hers quite frequently without too many issues...

 

[strider_mt2k]

I haven't done anything with Clockwork Recovery yet, but that's mostly because slatedroid went down and took all the links with it. Can you re-post a working link to it?

After doing some fiddling I am VERY pleased with how mine is running.
Between the new firmware and Autokiller it seems to be faster, smoother, and more reliable. (no random restarts as of yet)

A couple of times now I've been using the tab sitting next to a laptop. That could be my "new toy fever" running it's course, but it speaks to the usefulness of the device as well.
The only "strangeness" I've seen is Gallery sometimes fails to start the first time. That's something I can live with!
I was hoping the updates would straighten out the graphics in games like Angry Birds, but no luck. (also no biggie, as the game is totally playable)

Icon spacing could be a little tighter on the desktop now that the icons are so small, but that is a quibble at best.

Overall I am quite pleased. I also could not have done this without this web site!!

Donation cometh.

 

[estate100]

but where firmware

 

[OffWorld]

Maybe Offworld will jump in -- she seems to play games on hers quite frequently without too many issues...

Well, most of the games I play are in emulators (Frodo, TigerArcade, SNES) and my control is the mini-USB keyboard/case I purchased separately.

For actual 3D games, though, the g-sensor IS a bit of a problem, and that problem is inconsistent even between games - but I've yet to find a single one that works "out of the box." Here's what I mean:

"Grand Prix Live" is a 3D racing game that actually runs ok, but you have to "steer the world" rather than the car because the short-sides axis is reversed.

"Pac Ball" also plays in landscape mode, but thinks the long-side axis is reversed (so top becomes bottom and vice-versa).

"aTitle Labyrinth" with the default settings thinks the short-side axis is reversed. Thankfully it is one game I've found that has FULL options in it's settings to "swap x axis," "swap y axis," and "swap x/y" ("swap y axis" is what works to fix it).

If more - actually ALL - Android game apps had complete sensor setting options like that every game would work no matter what device you had it on, because you could always get the game to recognize "up" and "left" etc. But most games don't offer ANY such settings, and at best just give you a "calibration" setting (where you're supposed to set the tablet on a flat surface and hit the "calibrate" button). This is pointless because it does NOTHING to tell the game which direction is which on each axis. I can't figure out why they insist on getting data directly from the sensor when it would make more sense to get the INTERPRETED data from the OS (which, if I've understood what I've been reading over at the Android Dev site, would tell the game which end is up).

Another issue is that most of these tablets are set to default in landscape view when you boot them, while phones default to portrait view. What you'd *think* was the X axis on the tablet is actually the Y axis, because it's a phone OS that's expecting portrait view to be the norm (apparently, at least according to a Google diagram I found, the short-sides are *supposed* to be the top/up and bottom/down). Specifically +Y is the top, -Y is the bottom, +X is right and -X is left, +Z is toward the screen, -Z is toward the back.

I can't get the "reversed g-sensor fix" to work because this tablet doesn't seem to take the "setenv" command. But I'm guessing that would fix the orientation for the games but screw it up for the OS anyway. Speaking of which, has anyone anywhere ever found definitive documentation on the "gsensor_axis" parameters? Where did this info originate? After nearly 3 hours of searching the 'net the best I turned up was that the number sequence refers to axis [ -z,-y,-x,x,y,z ] and that the first number is usually a zero because that's the tablet/phone laying on it's back for calibration, but there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to the "1" and "-1" values and absolutely no reference to why "y" appears to be universally set at a value of "2" - but I'm guessing that indicates it is the "preferred" orientation (since it would reference the "top" of a portrait phone screen). The most common tablet values appear to be [ 0,-1,1,1,2,1 ] and [ 0,1,1,-1,2,1 ] apparently found by trial and error of people trying to fix axis issues. However, as I said, I haven't been able to even play with these values myself because my tablet won't recognize the "setenv" command (not even as su, or through an ADB shell command - which probably means the shell that uses "setenv" isn't installed?).

There are some of tablets (I think the Flytouch is one) that have an g-sensor option in their system Settings for "Game Mode" that I believe changes the sensor orientation for game compatibility, but that option isn't available on the Haipad tablets.

The only solace I have in all of this is these g-sensor reversion issues don't seem limited to the cheap China pads. All the more reason game devs should give users full swap options for all axis rather than some useless "calibration" utility. If "aTilt" games can do it, everyone can. They just don't.