Can Android renderscript run on GPU?

Question

Are there any Android devices where renderscript executes on the GPU instead of the CPU, or is this something not yet implemented anywhere?

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 30 '12 at 10:27

9

As of JellyBean 4.2 there is a direct GPU integration for renderscript. See this and this.

answered Nov 30 '12 at 10:27

slezadav

6,104
7
40
61

More detailed information with performance comparison can be found here: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2013/01/evolution-of-renderscript-performance.html – keaukraine Mar 05 '13 at 09:18
To be specific, in Android 4.2 a new concept FilterScript was introduced. FilterScripts are more limited RenderScripts and can possibly run on GPU. However, whether it actually runs on the GPU will be decided by vendor support. – Sid Datta Jun 16 '13 at 03:26

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 11 '12 at 15:02

3

I cannot confirm with any official documentation for Google, but I work with RenderScript all day every day and each time I run it, I see the logcat report loading drivers for graphics chips in my devices, most notably Tegra 2. Google has really lagged in documenting RenderScript, and I would not at all be surprised if they simply havn't corrected this omission in their discussion.

answered Jun 11 '12 at 15:02

Jared

1,449
2
19
40

1

We have a Motorola Xoom (Tegra 2), a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0+ (Mali-400MP), Galaxy Nexus (SGX540) and a Galaxy S (Snapdragon) that we test the RenderScript code on, although The Xoom is what I most often test on because it is usually the limiting factor due to some point sprite issues with the Tegra 2. If you meant the project, it is a general purpose graphics engine for some of our in house projects. – Jared Jun 11 '12 at 16:36
No problem, happy to help when I can, especially with RenderScript. – Jared Jun 11 '12 at 17:53

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 12 '12 at 09:36

Currently the compute side of Renderscript will only run on the CPU:

For now, compute Renderscripts can only take advantage of CPU cores, but in the future, they can potentially run on other types of processors such as GPUs and DSPs.

Taken from Renderscript dev guide.

The graphics side of Renderscript sits on top of OpenGL ES so the shaders will run on the GPU.

ARM's Mali-T604 GPU will provide a target for the compute side of Renderscript (in a future Android release?) (see ARM Blog entry).

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 11 '12 at 15:12

1

The design of RenderScript is so that it runs on the GPU. This was the main purpose of adding the new language. I assume there are devices where it runs on the CPU due to lack of support, but on most devices it runs on the GPU

answered Jun 11 '12 at 15:12

yoah

7,180
2
30
30

This is incorrect. As of Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean, Renderscript runs only on CPU. Google has not added any GPU support. But yes, intention is to have Renderscript code executing on the GPU and CPU. – codetwiddler Aug 15 '12 at 21:56

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 11 '12 at 15:32

I think this may depend on whether you're doing graphics or compute operations. The graphics operations will likely get executed on the GPU but the compute operations won't as far as I understand.

When you use the forEach construct the computation will run in multiple threads on the CPU, not the GPU (you can see this in the ICS source code). In future releases this may change (see https://events.linuxfoundation.org/slides/2011/lfcs/lfcs2011_llvm_liao.pdf) but I haven't seen any announcements.

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 14 '13 at 15:35

1

Currently, only the Nexus 10 seems to support Renderscript GPU compute.

answered Feb 14 '13 at 15:35

lxgr

3,719
7
31
46

Can Android renderscript run on GPU?

6 Answers6

Linked