Android Force GPU Rendering How to enable and disable?

android canvas gpu hardware-acceleration
xiaowoo picture xiaowoo · Mar 3, 2013 · Viewed 10.9k times · Source

I am building an app that requires a lot of drawing on the canvas. I notice that the app is a bit laggy in devices with high resolution (nexus 7 for example). I saw there is a Force GPU option in the developer option. When Force GPU is enabled, my app runs absolutely smooth.

I have read that this Force GPU option is called Hardware Acceleration and it is available only for Android 3.0 and above.

My app is targeting Android 2.3 and above.

Is it possible to programmatically enable Hardware Accelerated (or Force GPU--whatever the magic is called) on any Android 3.0 or above devices?

Something like:

if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB){

    Turn On Hardware Accelerate HERE but How can i do this?
    any code snippet would be welcome/helpful/thanks

}

Answer

ianhanniballake picture ianhanniballake · Mar 3, 2013

I assume you've already added android:hardwareAccelerated to your Manifest file?

<application android:hardwareAccelerated="true" ...>

That is what enables hardware acceleration within your application per the guide on hardware acceleration and should do exactly what forcing GPU does at a system level.

Related questions

How to draw text on canvas?

i'm trying to develop a simple pie chart class for android. For now, it can take a map of labels and values and draw the pie chart. I'm yet to add the legends for the pie, which is where i …

Read More
How to set paint.setColor(R.color.white)

I have a custom View that uses Paint and Canvas to draw objects. My question is how to set: int color = R.color.white; paint.setColor(color); from my /res/valuse/color.xml which includes resources like <?xml version="1.0" …

Read More
How to erase previous drawing on Canvas?

I have a background image (a map) on which I need to regularly draw the you-are-here icon. I use Canvas to draw the icon on top of the map. Assuming that the drawing process is triggered on button click (see …

Read More