Google I/O 2011: Accelerated Android Rendering

Romain Guy, Chet Haase

Android 3.0 introduced a new hardware accelerated 2D rendering pipeline. In this talk, you will be introduced to the overall graphics architecture of the Android platform and get acquainted with the various rendering APIs at your disposal. You will learn how to choose the one that best fits your application. This talk will also deliver tips and tricks on how to use the new hardware accelerated pipeline to its full potential.

[jasongao]

2020，and I am still watching this, too.

[RealShanShan]

To be honest even though Hardware Acceleration does help tremendously, the most important issue IMO with Android is that it does not prioritize user-interaction well enough over services that run in the background.

I have a Galaxy Nexus and have been an Android developer for more than 2 years now and I still don't understand why they're not considering the iOS approach where everything else is put on hold once the user starts interacting with the device to guarantee the best experience possible

[berbap]

2024 and I am still watching this where is 2023?

[BeerTower]

@KingKhain No, he only said that GPU acceleration is more important on tablets because, compared to phones, they have more pixels but not much more memory bandwidth.

[AdrianMeredith]

Do you people even watch the video, he was not at all saying that gpu acceleration is not requried. He was trying (admittedly badly) to say that the hardware should be able to keep up, but it doesnt'. It was meant as a question, Hence they showed the graph showing the speed of memcpy to pixels and therefore gpu acceleration IS requried.

Also the opt in is because the gpu acceleration is not completely finished, all canvas operations will be gpu accelerated in time for ICS.

[quekzhihao]

Please tell me ICS will enable GPU acceleration for the UI on smartphones!

[chrischoy]

@chrischoy9 Galaxy S's web browser is hardware accelerated.

[perennialEnglish]

4:50 Is there a whitepaper on GPUI? :*)

[AndyTurfer]

@lilmoe2002 I fully agree with you on everything except one point - ICS hasn't "fully" addressed this issue! Galaxy Nexus is much better, but the 'stuttering' and 'jitteriness' when panning around a web page is still very much alive. It's an awful experience, and if you're sensitive to fluidness (or lack thereof), then I suggest you think very carefully before buying a Galaxy Nexus.

[AndyTurfer]

@TheVNeto As the sad owner of a Galaxy Nexus running ICS 4.0.1, I can confirm that while things are better (i.e. transitions), scrolling still suffers and is not buttery smooth and fluid.

[pushvanjay]

Do you think they were expecting and Apple-like applause during the pause at 5:00?

[JayBomb]

@AndyTurfer Woah. I don't doubt your dissatisfaction with ICS and the GNexus, however, your experience seems to contradict the vast majority of reviews and hands-on demos I've seen. Can you elaborate a bit? Perhaps provide a video demonstration of the issues you are seeing?

I am very sensitive and easily annoyed by lag and stuttering. However, I have not seen or read anything to indicate that your experience is normal. Certainly not warranting your level of vitriol.

[saquibs]

i've used honeycomb on motorola xoom and some apps are very crappy. i don't know whose fault it is. don't they have a QC department?

[janis]

Ok, so they really think it s ok because CPUs on phones are getting faster? No, it is not because screen resolutions on phones are also getting bigger. So, it will always stay at this level which is just laggy sometimes.

[AchwaqKhalid]

@romainguy & @chethaase Hardware Acceleration is always welcomed whether the CPU is strong or not, think about the battery life, the CPU will always find something else to play with.

[AndyTurfer]

@TheVNeto I see a pattern emerging here, and am stunned these corporations cannot. HTC: no HW acceleration for basic UI, falling sales and financial difficulties. Samsung: HW acceleration for 'most' (but not all) standard apps (email, browser etc), sells more Android handsets that anyone else. Anyone else see the pattern?

[KingKhain]

Hopefully, we'll see hardware accelerated canvas in ICS's browser (WP7 will have it with Mango and IE9 for mobile) and also WebGL. I know Sony Ericsson has been showing it on a custom browser of theirs, and I think Mozilla has it in Firefox 4 mobile or will implement it soon. I wouldn't like the Android browser to remain behind compared to competitors or 3rd party browsers. The Android browser should track very closely what Chrome is implementing, with a 6 months delay at most.

[AnmAtAnm]

@KingKhain No, he posed the question, but answered no, multicore is not sufficient

[cowkmetyiu]

@AndyTurfer Samsung enabled HW acceleration for its handsets (i.e. phones not tablet e.g. Galaxy S..). OMG I understood why Galaxy S is damn smooth..

[KingKhain]

Did he just imply in the beginning that since multi-cores CPU's are coming we don't need GPU acceleration for phones, but just for tablets?

Just because the CPU can handle the UI now doesn't mean it can do it in an efficient way! The GPU can do it more efficiently, otherwise you wouldn't need it for tablets, either. And by the way, Android phones are not just in the high-end....There will be 600-1000 Mhz phones for years as they get into under $100 price ranges. Will they get laggy phones?