Answering your top questions on Android Game Development Kit

Posted by Wayne Lu, Technical Lead Supervisor, Android DevRel

We launched the Android Sport Improvement Equipment (AGDK) in July, and have collected some prime questions from builders – starting from AGDK libraries and instruments, optimizing reminiscence in Android, and implementing graphics.

AGDK and sport engines

Firstly, we’ve heard questions from early, rising sport builders on the way to use our set of AGDK libraries and instruments. We now have the next suggestions relying in your setup:

1. For sport builders utilizing standard sport engines similar to Defold, Godot, Unity, or Unreal – you may observe our guides to learn to develop apps on Android. Utilizing these sport engines helps you to give attention to constructing gameplay as an alternative of all the know-how stack.
2. In the event you’re utilizing Unreal Engine and concentrating on a number of platforms similar to PC or consoles, Android Sport Improvement Extension (AGDE) could also be a fantastic addition to your workflow.
3. We additionally help builders who wish to customise and write their very own sport engine – you may study extra about this with our C or C++ documentation.

After selecting your sport engine and workflow, it’s best to look into our instruments such because the Android Studio Profiler to examine your sport, Android GPU Inspector to profile graphics and Android Efficiency Tuner to optimize body charges and loading instances.

Sport Mode API and Interventions

Following this, we’ve acquired questions on creating for Android 12. Whilst you don’t must do something particular in your sport to run on Android 12, we’ve launched Sport Mode API and interventions to assist gamers customise their gaming expertise.

1. Learn extra in regards to the Sport Mode API, and learn how to optimize your sport for one of the best efficiency or longest battery life when the consumer selects the corresponding sport mode.
2. Study in regards to the Sport Mode interventions – these are set by authentic tools producers (OEMs), to enhance the efficiency of video games which are not being up to date by builders. For instance: WindowManager backbuffer resize to cut back a tool’s GPU load.

Reminiscence Entry in Android

Secondly, you’ve requested us how reminiscence entry works in Android sport growth versus Home windows. In brief, listed here are a few pointers:

1. Video games have to share reminiscence with the system. Some units have much less obtainable reminiscence than others, so testing is required to verify for low reminiscence points on a variety of supported units. Testing must be completed on units with typical apps {that a} consumer would have put in (i.e. not a clear gadget).
2. The quantity of reminiscence a sport can allocate relies on numerous components similar to the quantity of bodily reminiscence, the variety of soiled pages, and the quantity of complete zRam (for compressed swapping)
3. Signs of low reminiscence will be: onTrimMemory() calls, reminiscence thrashing, or termination of the sport by the Low Reminiscence Killer. Use bugreport logs to verify if the sport was killed by the Low Reminiscence Killer, or on Android 11 and later verify the ApplicationExitInfo to see if the sport was terminated due to REASON_LOW_MEMORY.
4. Keep away from reminiscence thrashing: this happens when there’s low however inadequate reminiscence to kill the sport. You may detect this through system tracing, and may cut back the general reminiscence footprint to keep away from this situation.
5. Use the Android Profiler and different instruments to examine your reminiscence utilization.

Implementing Graphics in Android

Thirdly, we’ve acquired questions on implementing graphics in Android. You might have the next choices: OpenGL ES or Vulkan graphics APIs:

1. Learn to configure OpenGL ES graphics in your C++ sport engine by initializing variables, rendering with the sport loop, scenes and objects.
2. Learn our Vulkan guides to learn to draw a dice, compile shaders, setup validation layers, and different greatest practices.

Take a look at the Q&A video to view the highest questions on AGDK and go to g.co/android/AGDK for our newest sources for Android sport growth.