3D Mark is another cross-platform 3D graphics benchmark, and it gave my Fire OS devices fits.  It wouldn’t run without touch controls, so it wouldn’t run on my 1st gen Fire TV.  It also wouldn’t run on older OSes, so the 2013 Kindle Fire HDX was out.

Then, the tests running newer OpenGL ES 3.x APIs failed even on some hardware that should have been capable of running them.  This may have something to do with the fact that most Fire OS devices are running on an older Android 5.1.1 based operating system, or it may be related to some other issues.  It begs to be explored further.  If the issue is simply the older Android 5.1 code base that’s causing the issues, we can hope that Fire OS 6.x, based on Android 7.x, will improve compatibility, and that it will roll out for most devices running 5.x today.

Ice Storm is the lowest end test available in the current version of 3DMark.  It runs on OpenGL ES 2.0 and is the least taxing test.  The 2015 Fire TV runs 50-100 FPS on this test, which means it handles them easily.  The 2016 Fire HD 8 can’t achieve 30FPS on the test, which speaks to its anemic GPU’s lack of capability, and the 2017 Fire TV is a similar step backward.

Ice Storm extreme is a souped up version of Ice Storm, using bigger textures and more effects.  It is still a relatively low end test running on OpenGL ES 2.0.  The 2015 Fire TV runs it smoothly, between 30 and 50 FPS.  Meanwhile the 2016 Fire HD 8 and the 2017 Fire TV are producing framerates in the teens.

Update Notes

• 7/28/18 Updates
  • Added 2017 Fire TV and discussion

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Previous Page

• Page 1 – Introduction
• Page 2 – Geekbench
• Page 3 – GFX Bench
• Page 4 – 3D Mark
• Page 5 – Conclusions