Pau Baiget
ABSTRACT
The increasing traction of high-fidelity games on mobile devices is highlighting the challenges game developers have to face in order to optimize their content within the Android ecosystem.
In this talk, we'll explain our understanding of these challenges through the lens of how Android's graphics stack works today. If you've ever wondered:
• Are Android graphics drivers as buggy as I've heard?
• Why is there so much difference from device to device?
• Why aren't there great profilers like on console?
• Why can't I just measure draw call timings like on desktop?
• Why aren't graphics drivers updatable?
... then this talk is for you! We'll cover the way the hardware ecosystem for Android works, including the quirks of SOC vs. OEM vs. IP makers and how that translates to unique challenges. Then we will cover how software flows through this ecosystem and out through carriers, and the challenges that brings. We will talk about how the unique architecture features on mobile translate to new types of tooling challenges. Finally, we will talk about parallels between these combined challenges and other more traditional driver models from Windows or Mac, and discuss some of the implications thereof.
- Apple. {n.d.}. iOS. Retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://www.apple.com/ios/homeGoogle Scholar
- Arm. 2016. Tile-based Rendering. Retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://developer.arm.com/graphics/developer-guides/tile-based-renderingGoogle Scholar
- ImgTec. 2015. A look at the PowerVR graphics architecture: Tile-based rendering. Retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://www.imgtec.com/blog/a-look-at-the-powervr-graphics-architecture-tile-based-renderingGoogle Scholar
- Khronos. {n.d.}. EGL: Native Platform Interface. Retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://www.khronos.org/eglGoogle Scholar
- Microsoft. {n.d.}a. SwapBuffers function. Retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/api/wingdi/nf-wingdi-swapbuffersGoogle Scholar
- Microsoft. {n.d.}b. Windows. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windowsGoogle Scholar
- Microsoft. {n.d.}c. Windows Display Driver Model. Retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/displayGoogle Scholar
Index Terms
Architecture challenges in the Android 3D graphics stack
Recommendations
Android: Changing the Mobile Landscape
The mobile phone landscape changed last year with the introduction of smart phones running Android, a platform marketed by Google. Android phones are the first credible threat to the iPhone market. Not only did Google target the same consumers as iPhone,...
Binary compatible graphics support in Android for running iOS apps
Middleware '17: Proceedings of the 18th ACM/IFIP/USENIX Middleware ConferenceMobile apps make extensive use of GPUs on smartphones and tablets to access Web content. To support pervasive Web content, we introduce three key OS techniques for binary graphics compatibility necessary to build a real-world system to run iOS and ...
Inter-app communication between Android apps developed in app-inventor and Android studio
MOBILESoft '16: Proceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and SystemsCommunications between mobile apps are an important aspect of mobile platforms. Android is specifically designed with inter-app communication in mind and depends on this to provide different platform specific functionalities. Android Apps can either be ...
Comments