Google has revealed an updated API that should allow Android devices to leverage much more performance out of the internal hardware.
Low -level gaming API’s are nothing new in the development world. We’ve seen the likes of AMD releasing Mantle for PC users which aims to optimise hardware use for better performance, though it’s only recently that it has started to become commonplace within the smartphone gaming sector.
Last year, Apple debuted Metal, a new API which reduced CPU usage by up to 40%. This allowed the boffins over at Unreal to demonstrate an impressive “Zen Garden” tech demo using the newest Unreal Engine 4. Everybody wondered how Google would respond, with the likely answer being that they would develop an API of their own.
Today, the company has revealed the Vulkan API, an open graphics standard that aims to reduce computing overheads and improve performance across the Android platform. The API will allow developers to work at a lower level than the current OpenGL language, meaning they can leverage more power from your device. This carries the caveat of making coding more difficult, though it’s negligible for the performance boost such tools provide. It’s not like we’re talking about machine code.
Vulkan is still in production and won’t be out for quite some time. Still, it paints a pretty picture for the future of Android gaming. Especially on lower-end hardware.
For more on Android, visit What Mobile’s dedicated Android page.
