# Force GPU rendering - what does this do?



## dpaine88 (Jul 21, 2011)

I am talking about this option in Developer settings, underneath it says "use 2d hardware acceleration in applications".

Anyone care to explain what it does in layman's terms and how it will affect performance?

Thanks in advance

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using RootzWiki


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## Joel S (Dec 20, 2011)

dpaine88 said:


> I am talking about this option in Developer settings, underneath it says "use 2d hardware acceleration in applications".
> 
> Anyone care to explain what it does in layman's terms and how it will affect performance?
> 
> ...


Graphics are handled in one of two ways, "software", which means the primary CPU does the heavy lifting, and "hardware" which means the GPU does the lifting. Hardware rendering is better because it frees up CPU clock cycles for other stuff, so the phone moves faster/smoother (plus GPUs are designed to excel at the types of calculations graphic intensive applications do). This feature supposedly forces programs to use the GPU to paint 2D objects on the screen (2D was previously unsupported, so most apps and the base UI were software accelerated, 3D should be hardware by default), but it can cause crashing, bugginess.

Devs have the option to enable hardware acceleration with a simple line of code (according to Google at least.) If they choose to enable it, the app will be hardware accelerated regardless of what you set in there.

For the record, mine is off... for now.


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

What he said ^^ But I'll add that I've heard that it can cause problems with apps that don't yet support this. That's why it's in the developer settings. Although, I have not had any problems with any apps I use.


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## Joel S (Dec 20, 2011)

brkshr said:


> What he said ^^ But I'll add that I've heard that it can cause problems with apps that don't yet support this. That's why it's in the developer settings. Although, I have not had any problems with any apps I use.


Thanks, I should've specified that... turning it on doesn't cause bugginess all over the place, but like you said, it can be an issue in certain apps.

Do you use the official Twitter app? I like it's look, but it's dog slow. The released an update the other day, which of course did nothing to better support ICS... slackers.


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

Joel S said:


> Thanks, I should've specified that... turning it on doesn't cause bugginess all over the place, but like you said, it can be an issue in certain apps.
> 
> Do you use the official Twitter app? I like it's look, but it's dog slow. The released an update the other day, which of course did nothing to better support ICS... slackers.


I use tweetdeck... running ultra smooth on GummyNex with franco's kernel


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## MFD00M (Aug 31, 2011)

Kind of OT, but I enabled that option on my gf's OG evo (I also turned off animations under the dev section) that is running a beta build of ICS 4.0.3, it actually helped a lot on that phone. It's really impressed me and makes me want to dust of my og evo just for kicks


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## iphone_quiter (Dec 20, 2011)

I've got force gpu rendering enabled and I've seen zero ill effects in Liquid Smooth's ROM :thumbup:


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## crookedview (Dec 20, 2011)

I would think enabling the option would increase battery use - has anyone found this to be the case, or otherwise?


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

crookedview said:


> I would think enabling the option would increase battery use - has anyone found this to be the case, or otherwise?


It's the opposite... Using the GPU for graphics is supposed to use less battery than having to use the CPU to render graphics. GPUs are made to render graphics.


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