Network Latency on Android

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Network Latency on Android

(20 posts) (5 voices)

Started 1 year ago by Jazari
Latest reply from didima

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Jazari
Member

Hi Everyone,

Charlie, it was good to meet you at ICMC last week, and congrats on a very impressive presentation!

I'm just getting started with setting up my Asus Transformer, and while it's working, network latency and jitter are terrible--latency is often several seconds. I'm sending OSC from Control via a wireless router to OSCulator, which passes messages to MAX. Messages are often dropped as well.

I tried to setup an ad hoc network, but the Transformer doesn't recognize it. I wonder if it's even possible to create an adhoc network between a Mac and an Android device.

I'm curious to hear if there are any other options or tips for improving network performance. Cheers,

Patrick

Posted 1 year ago #
admin
Key Master

Hi Patrick,

Hmmm... I didn't do rigorous testing with latency on Android but it seems like that level of jitter would have been pretty obvious. Unfortunately I'm still traveling around in England and don't have my Transformer on me to do any tests.

I found this thread on connecting to ad-hoc:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1932150/can-android-do-peer-to-peer-ad-hoc-networking

It looks like some research is going to be required to figure this out, as even in the best scenario ad-hoc is really needed to avoid jitter. I'll look at it when I get home (a couple of weeks) but if you figure anything out in the meantime please let me know.

- Charlie

Posted 1 year ago #
Jazari
Member

Hi Charlie,

Ultimately, I'll need ad-hoc anyway for performance because I don't want to set up a wireless AP for every show. Unfortunately, Android doesn't support adhoc networks (see http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82), which is surprising and extremely disappointing. If I had known that, I would have gotten an iPad. There are hacks available that require rooting the device, which I don't want to do, or creating a fake AP with Connectify, but that's Windows only and I'm use a Mac. Until Android supports ad hoc, I don't think I can use Control. Any plans for Bluetooth?

Patrick

Posted 1 year ago #
admin
Key Master

Yeah, I could look into Bluetooth I guess. Even better would be using hardwired MIDI over the USB cable which I think is supported by the library I'm planning to use. Well, even better for MIDI.

I'm also wondering if using a usb adapter would be a cheap solution. I have one of these that I usually use with my iPad:

http://www.amazon.com/AirLink101-AWLL5088-Wireless-Ultra-Adapter/dp/B003X26PMO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1312788959&sr=8-2

... so it can always have the same IP address and not interfere with me checking my email etc. I'll try it when I get home and see if I have any luck.

Posted 1 year ago #
Epic Jefferson
Member

I suppose Midi is still necessary for use with almost all of today's music apps, but I would opt for hardwired OSC funcionality instead, given what I think are clear advantages over midi. Let me know if I'm off base here.

Posted 1 year ago #
admin
Key Master

I would love hardwired OSC. There just isn't a way to implement it in iOS yet.

Posted 1 year ago #
Epic Jefferson
Member

dang. why not? Is it not in the interest of apple and it's users? what about android?

Posted 1 year ago #
admin
Key Master

I think it's possible on Android but I don't have any info on how to do it.

Posted 1 year ago #
Epic Jefferson
Member

I did a quick search on OSC via USB on android with no results. I'll check again alter and let you know.

Posted 1 year ago #
admin
Key Master

FYI, The USB adapter I have shows up as an adhoc network and isn't recognizable by Android... lame. Semi-interestingly ad-hoc networking is not available in webos either...

Posted 1 year ago #
admin
Key Master

Patrick, I'm playing around with my Transformer and I'm getting much better jitter / latency than what you describe, even bouncing through a wifi router. Have you tried out using different wifi channels? Maybe use some type of wifi sniffing program to see what the least crowded channel is (wherever your router is) and then set the router to use that.

Of course, this isn't ideal for gigs. Not ideal (and kind of ridiculous), but you could bring a cheap older router to shows and just plug it in. Or a nicer small one that can be usb powered:

http://www.amazon.com/CNet-CQR-980-Wireless-Broadband-Router/dp/B0045TLF10/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315158524&sr=8-1

That particular one also has an ethernet port which should help with latency and give similar results to an adhoc network. But I would do some research first...

Posted 1 year ago #
fermicirrus
Member

Re-posted this from the OSC-to-Midi thread.

"As it turns out, ad-hoc is available in the latest custom rom for the a500: http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/install-android-3-2-custom-rom-on-acer-iconia-a500-honeycomb-tablet/

also used this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1069569

with the root explorer method. (not adb) Ad-Hoc is 100% functional now.

For some reason ad-hoc wasn't working with the custom rom, even though the feature list said it should. "

This method should work on most tablets with honeycomb.

Posted 1 year ago #
didima
Member

Hi,

I'm not sure if it has been discussed somewhere here, but could the sending of 'alive' messages fix the latency over (non ad hoc) wifi problem?

I was doing some testing with tuiopad http://code.google.com/p/tuiopad/ and tuiodroid http://code.google.com/p/tuiodroid/ and their performance in terms of latency, using a regular wifi is comparable to using control over ad hoc (on an iPad).

Both tuiopad and tuiodroid send out 'alive' messages at regular interval. And the frequency at which they send out the messages seemed to play a role in the performance as well (tuiodroid sends out alive messages aprx. 2-3 times more frequently and performs more reliably).

Could this be the case? And what are the downsides of using this? battery life? ..?

Posted 10 months ago #
admin
Key Master

Hmmm... I've read about this previously but haven't implemented anything. It's pretty easy to implement in Control..., just add something like the following to at the top of an interface:

alive = setInterval(function() { oscManager.sendOSC("/alive", "i", 1); }, 50);

Yeah, I suspect the battery life would suffer a little bit with this one, but I doubt it would be crippling. - Charlie

Posted 10 months ago #
didima
Member

Thanks, I'll try it out.

I tested touchOsc and mrmr as well and the results seem to be the same - with non ad hoc connection only tuiodroid and tuiopad (only one's that send out alive messages) perform acceptable for something like triggering samples 'live' with pads.

the ad hoc performance is ok and somewhat the same for all of the above, including control.

Posted 10 months ago #
didima
Member

Can't get it working. is it supposed to work just by copying the line to the beginning of an interface js file? (not really a programmer here)

cheers.

Posted 10 months ago #
admin
Key Master

Yes, is that what you tried? Make sure you select an output destination before launching the interface... - Charlie

Posted 10 months ago #
didima
Member

Yes. Sorry I did not test it on IOS - it works, but not on android, only in ios version (exactly same interface). But the good news is that the performance with alive messages on, (over a regular, non ad hoc connection) is significantly better than w/o alive messages resulting nearly the performance on an ad hoc connection.

Any idea why its not sending out the messages on android part? (the interface itself works, just not sending out alives)

Posted 10 months ago #
admin
Key Master

Sorry, I'm forgetting what's what in what version... in Android the arguments are passed as an array, so:

alive = setInterval(function() { oscManager.sendOSC( ["/alive", "i", 1] ); }, 50);

... should work. Glad to hear the performance is so much better! I'd heard that keeping the wifi connection active helped but had never bothered to test since ad-hoc was available for me... anyways, thanks for the info... seems like there's a chance it would help ad-hoc as well. - Charlie

Posted 10 months ago #
didima
Member

yep, it works. thanks.

Posted 10 months ago #

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