GPU Monitor

Android Monitor includes a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Monitor that gives you a quick visual representation of how much time it takes to render the frames of a UI window. It profiles the amount of time it takes for the render thread to prepare, process, and execute the draw commands. The GPU Monitor can help you to:

• Quickly see how a UI window performs.
• Identify whether any part of the rendering pipeline stands out in using processing time.
• Look for spikes in frame rendering time associated with user or program actions.

For example, if displaying a static photo continues to take GPU resources long after it has finished drawing on the screen, that’s a likely candidate for optimization.

Displaying a Running App in the GPU Monitor

To display an app running on a particular device or emulator in the GPU Monitor:

1. Meet the prerequisites and dependencies.
2. Open an app project.
3. Run the app on a hardware device or emulator.
4. Display Android Monitor.
5. Click the Monitors tab and display the GPU Monitor.
6. Enable the GPU Monitor by clicking Pause to deselect it.

Any GPU usage begins to appear in the GPU Monitor:



The y-axis is the amount of milliseconds it takes the GPU to execute the different stages of the rendering pipeline. The x-axis records the time elapsed; it starts with seconds, and then minutes and seconds, and so on. The green line indicates 60 frames per second (FPS), and the red line represents 30 FPS.

7. To stop the GPU Monitor, click Pause again to select it.

GPU Monitor provides a visual representation of the rendering pipeline. For more information about the stages of the rendering pipeline, see Stages and Their Meanings.