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Android performance in the future (and on older devices)

Development Discussion Android Development
#1

Hey guys,
I know, I know, I’m probably gonna **** everybody off by starting the same thing AGAIN (there are 1000 threads about how poor UE4 performs on mobile platforms) and I read them.
I’m pretty new to the mobile part of UE4 and so far I’ve basically heard that it’s got better already (overall). Yet I wasn’t satisfied on the first try (and after optimizations) and tried some other X-Platform Engines, but I was disappointed instantly, every time (not even by the performance of those engines, but interfaces and stuff, UE4 is just way more comfortable). I’m probably too much into UE4 right now and I would be so sad if I had to use another engine. But in order to keep using it for mobile development, I’d like to know if (and when) there are going to be more performance patches (targetted on mobile platforms). I’m pretty sure there are gonna be those patces, but is that a “let’s-see-about-it-in-2015-thing” on the priority list or more like “we-do-what-we-can-to-fix-that-asap”?
I would even be satisfied with smooth / high fps on an older device on a pure 2d project with billboards and only static lighting (like Tappy Chicken f.e.). I know UE4 is a next-gen-engine, but even then it should be able to do those “easy” things as efficient as older engines, right?
Or does Epic just wait for everybody to have a (for now) next-gen mobile phone that fits the requirements of the UE4? (Rhetorical question, of course they don’t just do that, but what sort of performance improvement can I expect for the “near” future (3 months?))
All I want to hear is that it’s gonna be done somewhat soon, I was so sad and disappointed when I deployed my first app (ever) on my phone and it was so laggy, but I really want to keep using UE4 :frowning:
Please tell me Epic is going to do something (or even better: a lot) about it, so I don’t have to feel like my work is for nothing … (as I feel unsatisfied if only people with high-end phones could use my app, as that would exclude me)

Thanks in advance,
Nano

PS: Sorry for the 1436384th post on this topic, just wanted to get it off my heart and even if it won’t work like I want to, I’ll still love the Unreal Engine!

#2

im in the same position as you, i love it, but i wont be able to seriously use UE4 until they support forward rendering, which will make it usable for old devices, but its not expected any time soon. :frowning:

#3

Edit: Spoke to soon, they are working on forward renderer, but its more on the back burner slowly progressing and not high priority https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?50419-Forward-rendering-path-(Translucency-Transparency-Alpha-Blending)&p=175365&viewfull=1#post175365 ]

Despite this i have still gotten UE4 to run on pretty low end hardware (Galaxy S1) Note this was on UE 4.2 and its gotten much better even from then https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?26819-Does-Unreal-Engine-4-scale-Well-see-for-yourself ], but yeah the performance and missing features for such low end hardware is not the best. With a lot of tuning and compromises it can still run decent. For super low end hardware/legacy android (pre 4.0) it would probably look at another engine.

With all that being said, I’m seeing fairly big improvements with each release, and getting closer to telling people prime time ready :slight_smile: .

#4

Hey guys; first i’d like to direct you here if you haven’t had a look:

What are the devices you are targeting? It’d be interesting to get some feedback: Android is a bit of the wild west as the devices don’t support all the extensions (or they do, but that specific carrier/model combination won’t and will not update the gpu driver), so the matrix of potential code paths is big, and we’d rather polish/fix bugs/add new features.

RE: Forward rendering, the mobile path is working, mobile preview on PC runs the same forward renderer as the mobile devices.

#5

if you dont mind me asking, how tf did you manage that?
an empty level with no assets crashes and closes for me on that phone, even with a heavily optimized android 4.4 (modified cyanogen), super fast kernel and stupidly overclocked cpu.
(btw im not interested in 2d, there are far more suitable engines for that)

#6

tegleg, you should try getting the adb console log (adb logcat -S UE4) and starting an answerhub thread so we can help you track why it’s crashing.

#7

thank you, the answerhub thread is here
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/131523/android-crash.html

#8

im targeting an OUYA, it means: tegra 3

i tried running a demo of my game and the performance was awfull, i was using unreal 4.1 at the time.

what do you mean by “the mobile path is working” ?

#9

I am targeting the OUYA as well - Try batching your game world that should help your performance :slight_smile:

#10

Oh, what you posted originally:

, just clarifying that UE4 runs using forward rendering in mobile.

#11

How I can batching my game world ?

#12

whaaaaat?
really???

omg!! then there is no hope :frowning: is there?

#13

Wait for Further optimization or you can try deploying to the Mad Catz Mojo (Tegra 4) or Wait for a Tegra K1 powered Micro console

#14

Is that bad? i’m new in this topics, but this comparation http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/RenderingPaths.html shows the Forward Rendering is the middle choise, and to me it´s good, im wrong?

Cheers!

#15

i just recently installed tadp 3.03(3.04 out now though) and got better results on my nexus 7 tab, lighting was better and higher fps…the official update for lollipop should be out soon so im keen to see if it improves even more…in the documentation for tadp 3.03 it mentions specific ue4 support called turnkey…however what i really need is splash screen support like ios has, as loading time for android is sometimes 20 seconds of blackness and without a splash screen during this time many users would think the app isnt loading and just uninstall it…im pretty happy with the progress epic is making with android though as it must be a waking nightmare for the devs with all the different hardware, then when they think it works the same model phone comes out in china with slightly different hardware but is sold all around the world thereby ruining support for specific models

#16

+1 for that! That is really required!

#17

Yes indeed splash screen support is crucial for androids , hopefully epic will work more on that front soon.

#18

maybe you could start the app and load only some menu level with small content to speed up the loading? boot time is pretty short in my game on a-lot-under-the-specs phone

#19

if I make a small menu level that will load much quicker but then when I open the main level from that the delay is even worse and sometimes doesnt even load at all, so having the menu in the main level works better …level streaming doesnt seem to work smoothly either but I will test more with that…I have only tested on new nexus 7 tab at this point though and sprite based games I have made loaded very quick

#20

UE4 now has support for OUYA. Check out the latest plugin and docs.

The OUYA fork is branched on 4.6. The documentation includes examples and the performance with Tappy Chicken is great!