interesting info on Android GUI GPU acceleration

[ITHURTSWHENIP]

https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/2FXDCz8x93s from the google team


What i made from that is: If a smooth UI is a requirement for you, dont expect ICS to be the savior you have been waiting for

 

[Bateluer]

"Full" hardware accelerated drawing within a window was added in Android 3.0. The implementation in Android 4.0 is not any more full than in 3.0. Starting with 3.0, if you set the flag in your app saying that hardware accelerated drawing is allowed, then all drawing to the application’s windows will be done with the GPU. The main change in this regard in Android 4.0 is that now apps that are explicitly targeting 4.0 or higher will have acceleration enabled by default rather than having to put android:handwareAccelerated="true" in their manifest.

Something I've posted about many times, and something thats been documented at various tech sites. And something that MD&G's iFans never remember.

Hardware accelerated drawing is not a magical silver bullet to butter-smooth UI. There are many different efforts that have been going on towards this, such as improved scheduling of foreground vs. background threads in 1.6, rewriting the input system in 2.3, strict mode, concurrent garbage collection, loaders, etc. If you want to achieve 60fps, you have 20 milliseconds to handle each frame. This is not a lot of time. Just touching the flash storage system in the thread that is running the UI can in some cases introduce a delay that puts you out of that timing window, especially if you are writing to storage.

Definitely a good post. GPU acceleration is the major buzzword right now.

 

[Mopetar]

There are some technical limitations due to the underlying approach that Google used, but I don't know how much it matters. Hardware has become a lot more powerful, reducing the problem. Software has also become better, reducing the problem.

A lot of forum users don't experience a lot of lag either. There may be a measurable difference between Android and other operating systems, but it's probably insignificant and doesn't produce a noticeable difference, especially if you're accustomed to it.

Interesting read, nonetheless.

 

[poofyhairguy]

What I made from it is- given the fragmentation of Android you need a large amount of raw power to come up with solutions and Tegra 2 isn't even in the ballpark.

 

[Cali3350]

When I used my fascinate for a long time I got used to it and didnt notice the lag. As soon as I switched back to a iPhone though I immediately noticed a large difference. Im hoping to get a Nexus this week, we will see what happens with that.

 

[pm]

Something I've posted about many times, and something thats been documented at various tech sites. And something that MD&G's iFans never remember.

I'm not sure that I constitute one of the "iFans", but I'm not sure that I'm understanding the significance of this. I personally read the blog post as bad news of a sort - that this change happened a while ago in Android and thus expecting ICS to be much more smooth - although I played with a Nexus running ICS and it was much more smooth than I'd seen Android before - is unrealistic because a lot of the changes happened in a previous release (how does "3.0" map into names? 3.0 is gingerbread?).

 

[Mopetar]

3.0 Is Honeycomb. Gingerbread is 2.3.

 

[Bateluer]

What I made from it is- given the fragmentation of Android you need a large amount of raw power to come up with solutions and Tegra 2 isn't even in the ballpark.

Fragmentation, also a buzzword that hasn't meant a thing in the real world and has only affected a very tiny percentage of people.

 

[Medu]

I'm not sure that I constitute one of the "iFans", but I'm not sure that I'm understanding the significance of this. I personally read the blog post as bad news of a sort - that this change happened a while ago in Android and thus expecting ICS to be much more smooth - although I played with a Nexus running ICS and it was much more smooth than I'd seen Android before - is unrealistic because a lot of the changes happened in a previous release (how does "3.0" map into names? 3.0 is gingerbread?).

It's an odd statement by Google. Yes Android has had it for a while, but only android tablet. This is the first time it's been on phones. The real test of how much of an improvement ICS is will be when it's released on the Nexus S as then it won't be just about great hardware making up for less than optimal software.

 

[MrX8503]

Finesse and smoothness hasn't really been Google's concern and I'm willing to bet its not really a concern for most Android users. My preference is a smooth UI, which is why I'm an iOS user. If I were to switch to another platform it'd be WP7. Android has its strengths, but after waiting for froyo/ginger/honeycomb and now ICS, I don't expect much change in smoothness.

 

[pm]

When I used my fascinate for a long time I got used to it and didnt notice the lag. As soon as I switched back to a iPhone though I immediately noticed a large difference. Im hoping to get a Nexus this week, we will see what happens with that.

I was super impressed with the Nexus and I'm using an iPhone 4S.

I actually listed my iPhone 4S on Ebay on Friday after I used the Nexus for a while and if/when my iPhone 4S sells, I'll pocket the money and I'll then go figure out how to get myself a Nexus on AT&T.

 

[Oyeve]

What I made from it is- given the fragmentation of Android you need a large amount of raw power to come up with solutions and Tegra 2 isn't even in the ballpark.

Sorta like gaming in windows. 🙂

 

[Bateluer]

It's an odd statement by Google. Yes Android has had it for a while, but only android tablet. This is the first time it's been on phones. The real test of how much of an improvement ICS is will be when it's released on the Nexus S as then it won't be just about great hardware making up for less than optimal software.

Oy!

Even when we get it straight from the horse's mouth, people still can't read. Each version of Android has added more GPU acceleration than the previous version.

I get tired of seeing so much misinformation posted and repeated all over the place about how graphics rendering works on Android. Here is some truth:

• Android has always used some hardware accelerated drawing. Since before 1.0 all window compositing to the display has been done with hardware.

 

[vshah]

What I made from it is- given the fragmentation of Android you need a large amount of raw power to come up with solutions and Tegra 2 isn't even in the ballpark.

pet peeve of mine when people mention fragmentation without referring to what KIND of fragmentation. I assume you're referring to hardware fragmentation here, but elsewhere people talk about android version fragmentation, and others still talk about manufacturer skin feature fragmentation.

imho any type of fragmentation other than android version fragmentation is simply a "glass half full" buzzword for "choice"

Oy!

Even when we get it straight from the horse's mouth, people still can't read. Each version of Android has added more GPU acceleration than the previous version.

correct. but 3.0+ is the first where hardware accel was used within windows. 3.0+ has never been on a phone, until now.

 

[ITHURTSWHENIP]

https://plus.google.com/100838276097451809262/posts/VDkV9XaJRGS

a follow up to Diannes post with some additional info *warning, should be taken with a grain of salt*

 

[NikolaeVarius]

https://plus.google.com/100838276097451809262/posts/VDkV9XaJRGS

a follow up to Diannes post with some additional info *warning, should be taken with a grain of salt*

I'm taking it with a grain of salt. There is so much back and forth YOU"RE WRONG, NO YOU"RE WRONG, NO YOU'RE WRONG, that there is no reason to believe anything anyone is saying.

 

[ITHURTSWHENIP]

Well i meant more the fact that he only worked on minor code since he was only an intern and is now interning for a competitor. But its an interesting read nonetheless

 

[soccerballtux]

all this is telling us is that Google has no idea what the different branches are doing and they have no clue how to execute.

 

[Mopetar]

all this is telling us is that Google has no idea what the different branches are doing and they have no clue how to execute.

Is that really any worse than a company such as Sony where the music and film group ends up crippling products in other divisions?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Fragmentation, also a buzzword that hasn't meant a thing in the real world and has only affected a very tiny percentage of people.

Uh, fragmentation has definitely affected a good part of Android. It's because of fragmentation you have developers split all over the place. There's plenty of wasted effort going into make things work just for say the AT&T Galaxy S II when it could've used say the international version. Wouldn't it be better to have combined brainpower working on a SINGLE device? Yes!

I'm not saying we should go to 1 device like Apple, but to deny that fragmentation has hurt Android is really ridiculous. Just because Android's doing "fine" doesn't mean fragmentation is meaningless. Look at all apps and tons of them have stupid revisions and things like "fixed problem on Droid Bionic" in their changelog. I remember doing stuff for the Motorola Milestone. The WVGA 800x480 resolution was used by practically every phone, but Moto decided to roll with 854x480 which screwed some apps over. It's these kinds of things developers need to waste time on that hurts the consumer.

Think of how long it took for Android apps to even catch up. Look at how the Facebook app is ages behind. There are plenty of other apps too. Why does angry birds require serious horsepower to run smoothly when it runs like butter on a 1st gen iPhone just like on an iPhone 4.

 

[Red Storm]

Uh, fragmentation has definitely affected a good part of Android. It's because of fragmentation you have developers split all over the place. There's plenty of wasted effort going into make things work just for say the AT&T Galaxy S II when it could've used say the international version. Wouldn't it be better to have combined brainpower working on a SINGLE device? Yes!

I'm not saying we should go to 1 device like Apple, but to deny that fragmentation has hurt Android is really ridiculous. Just because Android's doing "fine" doesn't mean fragmentation is meaningless. Look at all apps and tons of them have stupid revisions and things like "fixed problem on Droid Bionic" in their changelog. I remember doing stuff for the Motorola Milestone. The WVGA 800x480 resolution was used by practically every phone, but Moto decided to roll with 854x480 which screwed some apps over. It's these kinds of things developers need to waste time on that hurts the consumer.

Think of how long it took for Android apps to even catch up. Look at how the Facebook app is ages behind. There are plenty of other apps too. Why does angry birds require serious horsepower to run smoothly when it runs like butter on a 1st gen iPhone just like on an iPhone 4.

No! It would not be better. It would simply be more like Apple, and I greatly prefer the options Android gives me over Apple's strict one model at a time method.

Android fragmentation has yet to affect me, and I've owned 5 different Android phones (the Nexus will be my sixth). Then again, I don't have 200 apps on my phone.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

No! It would not be better. It would simply be more like Apple, and I greatly prefer the options Android gives me over Apple's strict one model at a time method.

Android fragmentation has yet to affect me, and I've owned 5 different Android phones (the Nexus will be my sixth). Then again, I don't have 200 apps on my phone.

You didn't read my next point. I didn't mean that we should have one Android device like Apple.

I was referring to the SGS2 dev work splitting between the international one and the AT&T one. The same goes with other devices like how we split development work on the 5 different SGS1 models. That split for the AT&T SGS2 alone splits development work. Would there be a need to use Hellraiser to convert International ROMs to work on the ATT SGS2? Would we need to spend effort developing Hellraiser? Etc etc.

How many countless hours have we wasted trying to bypass the Motorola bootloader checks? I used to follow Milestone Development because that was the first locked Android device by Moto that people spent thousands of hours over.

I welcome devices, but at the same time, we have to reinvent the wheel with each new device. There's tradeoffs, but to say that fragmentation hasn't had much effect is completely wrong.

If fragmentation weren't an issue, then just like PC building, you could use ANY motherboard and Windows would install fine. Imagine if we could install CyanogenMod on ANY rooted phone. Now how many hours do people spend bitching and moaning about CM nightlies, and how many hours do people spend developing CM on each of the dozens of phones? Yeah. If you could just install CM like Windows, I'm pretty sure they would be developing something way better as resources are spent improving CM rather than to make it just compatible.

 

[soccerballtux]

Is that really any worse than a company such as Sony where the music and film group ends up crippling products in other divisions?

no, it's not.
that's not my point at all though, my point is many here have better ideas for how to execute google's plans than google does, and google just seems to be fumbling the ball over and over. First Android's architecture, then Google+, now this. They flubbed their chance to design Android right, no biggie they're still competing better than ever; they flubbed the launching of their Google+, their only chance at competing with Facebook lost for eternity; and they've flubbed their chance at replacing MasterCard/Visa and getting 1% of all purchases made. These aren't the mistakes of a $200B company. They're the mistakes of a $2M company.

 

[QueBert]

You didn't read my next point. I didn't mean that we should have one Android device like Apple.

I was referring to the SGS2 dev work splitting between the international one and the AT&T one. The same goes with other devices like how we split development work on the 5 different SGS1 models. That split for the AT&T SGS2 alone splits development work. Would there be a need to use Hellraiser to convert International ROMs to work on the ATT SGS2? Would we need to spend effort developing Hellraiser? Etc etc.

How many countless hours have we wasted trying to bypass the Motorola bootloader checks? I used to follow Milestone Development because that was the first locked Android device by Moto that people spent thousands of hours over.

I welcome devices, but at the same time, we have to reinvent the wheel with each new device. There's tradeoffs, but to say that fragmentation hasn't had much effect is completely wrong.

If fragmentation weren't an issue, then just like PC building, you could use ANY motherboard and Windows would install fine. Imagine if we could install CyanogenMod on ANY rooted phone. Now how many hours do people spend bitching and moaning about CM nightlies, and how many hours do people spend developing CM on each of the dozens of phones? Yeah. If you could just install CM like Windows, I'm pretty sure they would be developing something way better as resources are spent improving CM rather than to make it just compatible.

Part of what makes Fandroids happy is the fact they can spend months hacking on their device and how insanely hard changing what should be simple things can be. What you suggested about being able to install CM7 on any device is great, but I honestly think a lot of the Fandroids would frown upon it. I chat with many who like to brag about how much skills they have, if they could pull off a custom rom on any phone with no effort they'd be unhappy. I truly believe what the average person would see as a pita is the average Fandroids pleasure. I spent the better part of 4 weeks hacking on my EVO to hell to squeeze every second of battery life out of it I could. So I guess I fall in the Fandroid category lol.

 

[Mopetar]

No! It would not be better. It would simply be more like Apple, and I greatly prefer the options Android gives me over Apple's strict one model at a time method.

Regardless of why you prefer it, from the strict viewpoint of having different options available, it's good for Android to take this approach. If Android were to become more like Apple, eventually it gets to the point where it's functionally the same as Apple. Having the ability to select from a myriad of devices of different sizes and feature sets is a good thing, just as much as having a single device that has an incredibly solid and unified experience.

Neither Android, nor iOS is going to suit everyone's needs, and it's likely that not even both considered together will satisfy every customer. It's like having several different flavors of ice cream available. You may not prefer Chocolate, but there's probably someone else who does.

no, it's not.
that's not my point at all though, my point is many here have better ideas for how to execute google's plans than google does, and google just seems to be fumbling the ball over and over.

Many here couldn't run a lemonade stand let alone a large company. Playing armchair quarterback is easy, but executing perfectly, or even close to it, is difficult. Simply saying, "Let's fix some part of Android!" isn't going to make it so. I strongly doubt that many of the better ideas presented here are actually feasible, and assuming they are, fail to account for a large number of disadvantages or other issues that implementing them would cause.