During the presentation of the flagship mobile chipset Snapdragon 865 in December 2019, Qualcomm also announced its intention to allow updating drivers for the graphics subsystem of devices based on its processors via Google Play. Today, at the Google and Qualcomm game developers summit, they reported on the progress made in this direction and announced that the Pixel 4 smartphone will be one of the first devices to receive a GPU driver update through Google Play.
Also today, Google revealed the Android GPU Inspector tool, designed to simplify game development and optimization for its mobile operating system. The tool provides information about the stages of game rendering and the load on the graphics processor that was previously unavailable. Data obtained from the Android GPU Inspector can be used by application developers for optimizations: increasing frame rates and reducing power consumption.
Google shared an example of how working with the Android GPU Inspector helped improve a certain game for the Pixel 4 XL, making it 40% more efficient in utilizing the graphics processor's resources.
Qualcomm worked on the tool together with Google, which is explained by the prevalence of Adreno family graphics processors. It is stated that by using the Android GPU Inspector, application developers will be able to propose driver fixes directly to the chip manufacturer. The updated drivers, taking these fixes into account, will be compiled and released as an update available on Google Play. Just like on PCs, such updates will bring new features and enhance the performance of the graphics subsystem.
During today's event, it was also announced that Qualcomm and Google are currently actively collaborating on updated graphics drivers for devices based on the Snapdragon 855 processor, such as the Pixel 4, Samsung Galaxy S10, and Note 10. Other devices will receive the updated software later.
Source: 3dnews.ru
