*I also didn't realize that the Renderscript Graphics API was 'experimental'.* * * *Let me preface this that right before Google IO 2012, I started researching Renderscript to see what could be done with it (in the expectation of compute on GPU in Jelly Bean - sadly nothing announced that I’m aware of).
I find it interesting (and humorous) that the Renderscript Graphics which was only introduced in Honeycomb and more fleshed out in Ice Cream Sandwich is already depreciated BUT is included in the ICS Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) in section 7.1.4. Given that Renderscript Graphics was created back in the 2.1 (Eclair) timeframe as an internal API for implementing multi-platform live wallpapers and throughout the 2.x series OpenGL 1.0 hardware acceleration was optional so perhaps CPU bound was okay(?). When ICS (and by extension HC) came out, the CDD pretty much requires hardware acceleration. And now that JB has deeper integration of hardware acceleration with the UI system (Project Butter/Jank Busting) I think Renderscript Graphics became the odd man out as it is one more path for Google/ODMs to regress beyond the standard Java and NDK APIs. So now we are back to Java if we want to write multi-platform code for graphics (as intended) but would need to write with NDK and compile multiple binaries if we want to squeeze out performance. Of course now that we have faster CPUs, bigger apk sizes, and multiple apk support so it may not be an issue anymore. If anything at least the compute part of Renderscript survives. I look forward to when the JB CDD is released as Google/ODMs will have to support to older HC/ICS path, but perhaps there may be more detailed specification for the compute part if not in JB then in K. Still it would be nice to get a blog post from Chet and/or Romain on the rational behind releasing Renderscript graphics API for about a year and half before dropping it (and with only a 10% device base). Frankly I liked the idea of being able to not deal with JNI if I wanted performant graphics. Hmm this is getting long and I apologize if you've gotten this far.* * tl;dr - Renderscript for compute will eventually get to the GPU, Renderscript graphics API has been sacrificed on the altar of support.* Morrison On Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:54:25 PM UTC-4, JP wrote: > > > > On Jun 30, 9:26 am, Rutton <rut...@web.de> wrote: > > > No one ever mentioned before, that it was "experimental". > > Huh, correct in my book. Although it was always supposed to be > understood that the underlying graphics engine today is running CPU > bound only, which makes it somewhat pointless in its actual > implementation. In the documentation, this goes easily overlooked. > > ----------- > > Just a few short months ago I've attended a presentation by Romain Guy > and one of his colleagues that praised Renderscript as *the* way > forward, in my impression anyways. It would probably be a good idea > for Google to clarify what deprecation of the graphics engine means > going forward. Perhaps a new graphics engine is in the works, that > actually utilizes the GPU. Perhaps using deprecation was just a poor > choice of word? > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
