With Android 12, Google introduced several new features for mobile gamers and developers to take the Android gaming experience to the next level. Select smartphones, such as the Pixel 6 series, have a new Game Dashboard utility, which provides access to useful tools like a screenshot shortcut, a screen recorder, a DND toggle, and more while you’re gaming. Meanwhile, the new Game Mode API allows developers to optimize their game for the best performance or better battery life based on the performance profile selected by the user. Android 13 is continuing the push for improving mobile gaming with some new additions.
As reported by Esper’s Mishaal Rahman, Android 13 adds a new method called setGameState to the GameManager API, allowing games to communicate their current state to the system. This enables games to pass the top-level state of the game and indicate whether it can be interrupted or not. In addition, Games can also use the setGameState to tell the platform if the game is loading assets/resources/compiling/etc. The platform then can send a loading time hint to the power HAL to activate the new GAME_LOADING mode and boost CPU performance. However, it will be up to OEMs to specify the CPU performance tuning they want to enforce when the GAME_LOADING mode is active.
In theory, this should mean you’ll have to stare less at the initial game loading screen. Many Android OEMs already implement various optimizations — such as allocating more CPU and GPU resources — to improve game loading.
iQOO’s Multi Turbo engine prioritizes CPU/GPU and other resources to speed up game loading.
Esper reports that Google is considering adding a test to Vendor Test Suite (VTS) to mandate GAME_LOADING mode for all devices launching with Android 13 and later. However, it’s unclear at this point if this requirement has been finalized. It’s also possible that devices upgrading to Android 13 may not include the new power HAL version and the GAME_LOADING mode.
Source: Esper