Android 13 may reduce the loading times of video games
Android 13 could bring among many other things, also a significant one reduced loading times of video games: Esper’s Mishaal Rahman discovered a new method called setGameState in the GameManager API which, as the name indicates, allows the game to communicate its status to the operating system; some examples include:
- indication if it is in the foreground or not, and consequently if it can be interrupted
- indication if resources need to be loaded
Based on this information, the operating system can send the HAL that takes care of energy management a rough indication of the loading times, and so the HAL can activate the new profile called GAME_LOADING which, among other things, allows the CPU to reach the maximum performance level (the various parameters of the profile can be customized by the various manufacturers).
In a nutshell: as mentioned, the user should spend less time looking at loading screens – or reading the “useful tips”, in the most fortunate cases.
At this stage it appears that Google is still considering whether or not to make the new GAME_LOADING profile a fundamental requirement of all new native Android 13 smartphones. However, it is worth noting that due to the initiative known as GRF (Google Requirement Freeze), the imposition of the new standard cannot be retroactive. In other words, for all devices that have arrived on the market with older versions of Android, the implementation will be solely at the discretion of the manufacturers. In the meantime, it is worth remembering that by now we should be very, very close to the launch of the first Beta of the operating system, which is scheduled for mid-April, after the first two Developer Preview.