Hardware acceleration

You can use OpenGL ES 1.1 hardware acceleration to enhance graphics performance in some applications. Games and other applications in which display objects are animated can benefit from hardware acceleration. Applications that use hardware acceleration can off-load some graphics processes to from the CPU to the iPhone GPU, which can greatly improve performance.

When designing an application to use the GPU it is important to follow rules that ensure the content is GPU-accelerated effectively.

To use the hardware acceleration, set the Rendering to GPU in the General tab of the iPhone Settings dialog box in Flash Professional CS5. You can also set the renderMode property to gpu in the application descriptor file:

<initialWindow> 
    <renderMode>gpu</renderMode> 
    ...

See Setting iPhone application properties in Flash Professional CS5 and Setting iPhone application properties in the application descriptor file .

There are four classes of display objects that can render quickly in hardware acceleration if their content changes infrequently:

  • Bitmap objects

  • 2D Display objects for which the cacheAsBitmap property is set to true , and optionally have their cacheAsBitmapMatrix property set (see below)

  • 3D Display objects (i.e. have their z property set)

  • Display objects that have a single solid-color rectangular fill and that have edges that align with the pixels on the screen.

Vector-based objects rerender whenever another sprite animates over or under them. So, any object serving as a backdrop or foreground to an animation should also belong to one of these categories.

For display objects that have cacheAsBitmap set to true , setting cacheAsBitmapMatrix causes the GPU to use the bitmap that results from the matrix transformation. The GPU uses the bitmap representation even if the object is rotated or scaled. The GPU can composite and animate this bitmap much more quickly than the CPU can redraw a vector-rendered object.

Setting cacheAsBitmap to true alone causes a display object (and any children) to be cached. The display object is not redrawn when new regions are exposed, or the whole combined graphic is translated.

When a display object’s cacheAsBitmapMatrix property is set, the application can build a representation of the display object even when it is not visible. The application builds a cached representation of the display object at the start of the next frame. Then when you add the display object to the stage, the application renders it quickly. Also, the application can quickly animate rotate or scale the object. For objects that rotate or scale, do not set the cacheAsBitmap property without also setting the cacheAsBitmapMatrix property.

The application can also quickly perform alpha transformations an object that is cached as a bitmap. However only alpha values between 0 and 1.0 are supported for hardware-accelerated alpha transformations. That corresponds to a colorTransform.alphaMultiplier setting between 0 to 256.

Do not set the cacheAsBitmap property to true for frequently updated objects, such as text fields.

Display objects that have frequently changing graphical content are generally poor candidates for GPU rendering. This is especially true on earlier devices with less powerful GPUs. The overhead of uploading the graphics to the GPU can make CPU rendering a better choice.

Restructure display objects that contain child display objects that move relative to the parent. Change them so that the child display objects become siblings of the parent. This ensures they will each have their own bitmap representation. Also, each display object will be able to move relative to the others without any need for new graphics to be uploaded to the GPU.

Set the cacheAsBitmap property to true at the highest level of the display list where child display objects do not animate. In other words, set it for display object containers that contain no moving parts. Do not set it on the child display objects. Do not set it for sprites containing other display objects that animate.

When you set the z property of a display object, the application always uses a cached bitmap representation. Also, after you set the z property of a display object, the application uses the cached bitmap representation, even if you rotate or scale the object. The application does not use the cacheAsBitmapMatrix property for display objects that have a set z property. The same rules apply when you set any three-dimensional display object properties, including the rotationX , rotationY , rotationZ , and transform.matrix3D properties.

Do not set the scrollRect or mask property of a display object container containing content for which you want to use hardware acceleration. Setting these properties disables hardware acceleration for the display object container and its child objects. As an alternative to setting the mask property, layer a mask display object over the display object being masked.

There are limits to the size of display objects available for hardware acceleration. On older devices, the limit is 1024 pixels or less in both width and height. On newer devices, the limit is 2048 pixels or less. You can use the GPU rendering diagnostic tool to test performance on a device.

The GPU also uses iPhone RAM to store bitmap images. It uses as least as much memory as is needed for the bitmap images.

The GPU uses memory allocations that are powers of 2 for each dimension of the bitmap image. For example, the GPU can reserve memory in 512 x 1024 or 8 x 32 sizes. So a 9 x 15-pixel image takes up the same amount of memory as a 16 x 16-pixel image. For cached display objects, you may want to use dimensions that are close to powers of 2 (but not more) in each direction. For example, it is more efficient to use a 32 x 16-pixel display object than a 33 x 17-pixel display object.

Do not rely on a resized Stage to scale down assets that were sized for other platforms (such as the desktop). Rather, use the cacheAsBitmapMatrix property, or resize the assets before publishing for the iPhone. 3D objects ignore the cacheAsBitmapMatrix property when caching a surface image. For this reason, it is better to resize display objects before publishing if they will be rendered on a 3D surface.

There is a trade-off between the benefits of hardware acceleration and RAM usage. As memory fills up, iPhone OS notifies other running, native iPhone applications to free up memory. As these applications process this notification and work to free memory, they may compete with your application for CPU cycles. This can momentarily degrade the performance of your application. Be sure to test your application on older devices, as they may have substantially less memory available for your running process.

When debugging the application on the iPhone, you can enable the GPU rendering diagnostics feature. This feature aids you in seeing how your application uses GPU rendering. For more information, see “Debugging with GPU rendering diagnostics” in Debugging an iPhone application .

For information on using the cacheAsBitmapMatrix property, see the “DisplayObject.cacheAsBitmapMatrix” section in ActionScript APIs specific to mobile AIR applications .

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