Vulkan Early Access Testing (Android)

[louwers]

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We are looking for users interested in the upcoming Vulkan support for Android.

We will be releasing an 'early access' MapLibre Android version (a.k.a. pre-release) that will just support Vulkan in September 2024. This will give people an opportunity to test the new Vulkan backend on Android. Joining this effort will help the rendering team to ensure there are no regressions as well as with optimizing performance.

Edit: the first pre-release has been released!

Reporting Issues

When reporting an issue (here or in a separate issue), the following are required:

• Style: If your style is public or can be made available, that will help a lot.
• Lat / Long / Zoom: Where exactly does the issue occur?
• Screenshot
• Android version
• MapLibre Native version
• Device

When available:

• Stack Trace / Metal Error / Core Dump
• Minimal style: Can you provide a minimal style that reproduces the issue?

[westnordost]

I could create some alpha releases alongside the stable ones for StreetComplete (once the MapLibre migration has been stabilized in the first place) for people to try out.

Beyond detecting simple rendering issues, this only makes sense if there's a straightforward way for these users to make useful reports for crashes in native / Vulkan code. I understand that the logged crash trace is not that useful for you and digging out the tombstone seems to require root privileges on the phone and/or usage of developer tools (adb), plus some special build configuration (we haven't fully figured out yet) beforehand.

Also, how would you sell it to users so they want to be the first people to try it out? Is there anything to gain from that?

[louwers]

I could create some alpha releases alongside the stable ones for StreetComplete (once the MapLibre migration has been stabilized in the first place) for people to try out.

That would be amazing!

Also, how would you sell it to users so they want to be the first people to try it out? Is there anything to gain from that?

Being an early tester and testing it with your style and app means that any bugs or performance regressions you report will have the attention of the rendering team, and will probably be fixed by the time we make an official release.

[mtpdog]

I can take part too to test It in complex environment with many raster, vector and extruded layers.
Btw, the latest 2 versions (both 11.1.0 and 11.2.0) have a regression with vector layers rendering. There are many distortions in label rendering. 11.0.2-pre0 is the latest stable version for now.

[louwers]

@mtpdog Please create a separate issue for the regressions you are seeing.

[mtpdog]

@mtpdog Please create a separate issue for the regressions you are seeing.

Sure. It is already described here: #2788

[louwers]

Labels are jittery with this style.

video_2024-09-07_01-05-09.mp4

Style - https://tiles.versatiles.org/assets/styles/colorful.json
Lat / Long / Zoom - Try London
Android version - 11
MapLibre Native version - android-v11.3.0-vulkan-pre0
Device - Samsung S10

[mtpdog]

According to my tests, this version (android-v11.3.0-vulkan-pre0) works mostly fine except for:

• It currently works not so great in terms of speed/micro-lags compared to OpenGL version
• There is an issue with some tiles not rendered until zoom-in / zoom-out action (probably this issue exists in OpenGL versions as well starting from 11.2.0):
  

On the positive side it seems that this issue is fixed: #2788

[louwers]

@mtpdog I think the issue you are seeing may be fixed by #2842

[westnordost]

I tested android-v11.3.0-vulkan-pre0 with StreetComplete. I didn't find any issues. On the contrary, the following issues are not reproducible anymore with that version:

• fill-extrude layer is drawn above the next-above symbol layer #2259
• Text rendering issue in symbol layer when map is rotated/tilted #2788
• Android x86_64 emulator crashes (11.2.0) #2791
• Crash on rotating with Android Emulator #2371
• on Emulator: sometimes icons are rendered in all-black, seemingly taking the red? channel as alpha channel (never bothered to report as issue)
• Abysmal performance with x86_64 Android emulator #2370

I didn't compare performance, but I didn't feel any difference.

[louwers]

I ran some benchmarks on AWS Device Farm with various devices. The results can be found here and in the diagram below.

We are a bit suspicious that the Pixel 7 Pro is comparable to the Pixel 4a in terms of performance. The results look promising though.