Delivered at Casual Connect Europe 2019. This talk highlights the greatest benefits you can get from using Vulkan in your mobile games and provides practical optimization advice based on AAA game experiences (Fortnite, PUBG mobile, etc.)

1. Next Level Mobile Graphics
Android game development support by Galaxy GameDev
Oleksii Vasylenko o.vasylenko@samsung.com
Munseong Kang moony.kang@samsung.com
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS

2. Overview
• Samsung Galaxy GameDev
• Game optimization best practices
• GPUWatch

3. Samsung Galaxy GameDev

4. Samsung Galaxy GameDev
• Game Engine Optimization
• Deliver custom engine for the game
• Device Loaner Program
• For supporting game dev and QA
• Workload Profiling Support
• To make balance between perf and quality
• Sharing analysis tool experience
• To improve development environment
• Remote / On-site Tech support
• Real tight co-work with game developer

5. Samsung Galaxy GameDev

6. Samsung Galaxy GameDev

7. Our partners

8. GameLoft, Asphalt 8
Cornfox&Bros, Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas
Deep Silver, Galaxy On Fire 3: Manticore!
Digital Legends Entertainment, Afterpulse
First Touch Games, Score! Hero / Dream League Soccer
Tencent, Honor of Kings (Unity5)
Pearl Abyss, BlackDesert Mobile (BDE)
Epic Games, Fortnite Battle Royal Mobile (UE4)
Netmarble, Seven Knights2 (UE4)
Moai Games, Traha (UE4)
NC Soft, Aion2 (UE4)
Tencent, PUBG Mobile(UE4)
Amazon Lumberyard, Bistro
Tencent, Call of Duty Mobile (Unity5)
Tencent, QQ Speed (Unity2017)
Collaboration history
Epic Games, ProtoStar Galaxy S7 Collaboration (UE4)
NetGames, HIT (UE4)
Super Evil MegaCorp, VainGlory (Inhouse)
HeroDC (Unity5)
Nexon, Kaiser (Unity5)
Netmarble, Lineage 2: Revolution (UE4)
Nexon, AxE (Unity5)
XL Games, Archeage: Begins (UE4)
Action Square, Blade II (UE4)
Hound13, HundredSoul (Unity5)
Netmarble, TeraM (Unity5)
Square Enix, FinalFantasy XV Pocket Edition (Unity5)
Croteam, Talos Principle (SeriousEngine)
Roblox Corporation, Roblox
Coatsink, Shu
Doragon Entertainment, Danmaku Unlimited 3
20162017
201720182019

9. Game optimization best
practices

10. High Fidelity Gaming Experience
★ High Quality Graphics
★ Immersive GamePlay
★ Ultra High Performance

11. Mobile GPU challenges
● Limited power budget
● Unified memory
● Thermal throttling

12. Mobile GPU challenges
● Limited power budget
● Unified memory
● Thermal throttling
Quality vs Performance

13. Mobile GPU challenges
● Limited power budget
● Unified memory
● Thermal throttling
Quality and Performance

14. Lower CPU overhead
• OpenGL ES is state-based API
• Vulkan is handle-based API
• In OpenGL ES uses runtime error checking
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
Submit
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
DrawCall
Submit
Processing budget

15. Balanced CPU/GPU usage
• OpenGL ES vs Vulkan
• Concept demo
• Snowball : FPS 11 -> 37, CPU usage 46% -> 26%
• Lego : FPS 11 -> 26, CPU usage 31% -> 27%
CPU GPU CPU GPU

16. Explicit control
• Interaction with SurfaceFlinger
Frame time : 54ms
Image acquire time : 23ms Pipeline creation time : 22ms
Frame time : 33ms
Pipeline creation time : 22ms
Acquire
Image
Draw Draw Draw Draw Submit Present
Draw Draw Draw Draw Submit Present
Acquire
Image for
Next frame
No wait!!

17. Explicit control
Buffer raw data
VkBuffer /
VkDevice Memory
VkUpdate
DescriptorSets
vkCmdBind
DescriptorSets
(offset = null)
Draw
Buffer raw data
VkBuffer / VkDevice Memory
DEVICE LOCAL / HOST VISIBLE / COHERENT
VkUpdate
DescriptorSets
Draw
Buffer raw data
VkUpdate
DescriptorSets
Draw
... Buffer raw data
VkBuffer / VkDevice Memory
DEVICE LOCAL / HOST VISIBLE / COHERENT
Draw
Buffer raw data
Draw
...
vkCmdBind
DescriptorSets
(offset = null)
vkCmdBind
DescriptorSets
(offset = null)
vkCmdBind
DescriptorSets
(offset = [offset data])
vkCmdBind
DescriptorSets
(offset = [offset data])
Use huge buffer to save
buffer creation time
Reuse descriptorSet by using
dynamic offset
• Memory management

18. ● Each feature may affect each GPU differently
● Consider VkPhysicalDeviceLimits first!
Explicit control

19. • Load/Store is very expensive
• Memory bandwidth
Carefully Load & Store
VkAttachmentDescription desc = {};
desc.loadOp = VK_ATTACHMENT_LOAD_OP_*;
desc.storeOp = VK_ATTACHMENT_STORE_OP_*;
typedef enum VkAttachmentLoadOp {
VK_ATTACHMENT_LOAD_OP_LOAD = 0,
VK_ATTACHMENT_LOAD_OP_CLEAR = 1,
VK_ATTACHMENT_LOAD_OP_DONT_CARE = 2,
VK_ATTACHMENT_LOAD_OP_MAX_ENUM = 0x7FFFFFFF
} VkAttachmentLoadOp;
typedef enum VkAttachmentStoreOp {
VK_ATTACHMENT_STORE_OP_STORE = 0,
VK_ATTACHMENT_STORE_OP_DONT_CARE = 1,
VK_ATTACHMENT_STORE_OP_MAX_ENUM = 0x7FFFFFFF
} VkAttachmentStoreOp;

20. Power budget
CPU GPU
CPU bounding
CPU GPU
Normal case
CPU GPU
GPU bounding

21. Limitation of Vulkan
CPU GPU CPU GPU CPU GPU
NO CPU bounding Normal case GPU bounding

22. Content related advices
• Shader optimization
• Early-Z improves performance by removing overdrawn fragments
• But in some cases, Early-Z algorithm is not executed to preserve correctness
• In UE4, if r.AllowGlobalClipPlane is turned on, every draws have discard()
(https://developer.arm.com/docs/100140/latest/advanced-graphics-techniques/using-early-z)
void main()
{
highp float f0 = _15.pu_h[31].x;
highp vec4 v1 = gl_FragCoord;
v1.w = 1.0 / gl_FragCoord.w;
if (in_OUTCLIPDIST < 0.0)
{
discard;
}

23. • Choose performance target carefully
CPU GPU
HD, 30 FPS
CPU GPU
FHD, 30 FPS
CPU GPU
FHD, 60 FPS
Quality settings

24. Let’s go!
• Unity and UE4 both support Vulkan

26. GPUWatch

27. Common tools in market
Renderdoc
- Vulkan / GLES structure information
analysis tool
https://renderdoc.org/
GameBench
- Performance check tool
https://www.gamebench.net/

28. GPUWatch
28
Installation
PC connection
Display on PC
Not real-time
No full support
w/o root permission
Server

29. GPUWatch
29
No Installation
No PC connection
Display on Device
Real-time
Fully support
w/o root permission

30. GPUWatch
CPU / GPU
utilization
1. Current FPS
2. Average FPS
3. FPS graph
Frame count /
Elapsed time of
one frame
Vertex activity
Fragment activity
Renderpass number /
draw call count /
payload count

31. • How to enable GPUWatch
GPUWatch
Run Game !!
with
GPUWatch

32. GPUWatch - example
● Base project

33. GPUWatch - example
Pipeline barrier
optimization
Multipass optimization

34. Thank You!
For more information please contact gamedev@samsung.com