This is a sample project for Unity engine (2021 LTS and 2022 LTS), demonstrating best practices for maximizing energy efficiency and reducing power consumption on Android.
You will need to import one prerequisite package in Unity before the demo will run. See the Prerequisties section for instructions.
Some features have minimum Android version requirements and will not be in effect on earlier versions of Android.
A summary of included features, see the details section of each for more information:
- Vulkan graphics API with VkQuality plugin integration
- Adaptive performance plugin with Android adapter
- Android Game Mode API query for retrieving user performance/battery preferences
- Adjusting display panel refresh rate to match game frame rate target
The VkQuality .aar library file could not be directly included in the project as it contains binary runtime library files. To install it, perform the following steps:
- Download the latest .unitypackage from the VkQuality GitHub releases page
- Open the demo project in the Unity editor
- Import the downloaded .unitypackage, but when doing so only import the VkQuality aar file. Importing other files such as the Activity java file or the sample scene from the unitypackage will break the demo!
Changing the Game Mode at runtime using the default demo package name may not be possible. See the Game Mode section for details.
Vulkan is a more efficient API than OpenGL ES. Use of Vulkan can reduce the CPU overhead of graphics rendering in your game, and save power. This demo integrates the VkQuality plugin, which restricts Vulkan to a smaller set of modern devices with recent drivers, falling back to OpenGL ES on all other devices. VkQuality allows you to take advantage of Vulkan within a constrained testing and support space.
Note: For maximum efficiency when using Vulkan, you must have the
Apply display rotation during rendering option enabled in the Android player settings.
Compatibility with this feature may require changes to certain custom shaders. See the
Unity documentation
of this feature for more details. Without the feature enabled, you may experience negative
performance effects.
Unity offers a Adaptive performance plugin for the Unity engine that works with 'providers' of platform specific adaptive performance features. An Android provider is available that exposes Android specific adaptive performance functionality through the adaptive performance plugin.
This demo demonstrates including a later version of the Adaptive performance plugin (5.1.0) and
the Android provider (1.3.1) than are available through the Package Manager in Unity 2021 and
Unity 2022. They are references directly from the packages/manifest.json file:
"dependencies": {
"com.unity.adaptiveperformance": "5.1.0",
"com.unity.adaptiveperformance.google.android": "1.3.1",
The demo does not demonstrate the dynamic features available from the plugin and Android provider. However, having the plugin active on Android 13 or higher will enable it to use the Performance Hint Manager to help optimize the Unity engine CPU performnace at runtime, which can make your game run more efficiently.
The Android Game Mode API is a method for querying performance preferences the user may have for your game. The user can set the Game Mode using vendor specific tools like the Game Dashboard on Pixel or the Gaming Hub/Game Booster on Samsung devices. The demo will query for the current game state and adjust the game frame rate and display panel refresh rate depending on whether the game mode is set to a battery optimized, neutral, or performance optimized preference.
Game Mode API is available on Android 13 and higher. Identifying that your game supports Game
Mode requires adding some metadata to your application bundle. The custom manifest file
located in Assets/Plugins/Android/AndroidManifest.xml references this metadata, which is
contained in an XML file stored in the
Assets/Plugins/Android/game-mode-xml.aar archive file.
The Game Dashboard or Game Booster may not recognize a game and show Game Mode setting options if it is not recognized as a game downloaded through the Play Store. You may need to upload to the Google Play Console, create an internal test track, and install it via the Play Store.
If you already have a game on the Play Store, you could also rename the package name of the demo to one of your existing games and 'spoof' it to enable the Game Mode settings. You can use a debug signing key for this, it does not need to be signed for upload to the Play Store.
Premium Android devices include display panels that can operate at high refresh rates, often of 120Hz or more. Operating at a high display refresh rate consumes additional power. If your game is designed to run at 30 or 60 frames per second, running the display panel at a higher refresh rate wastes power.
One method for changing the display panel rate to a more optimal match to the game frame rate
is enabling the Optimize Frame Pacing option in the Android player settings. In Unity 2021 LTS
and higher this option will change the display panel rate.
Some developers have observed frame rate reductions or other undesriable behavior when Optimize Frame Pacing is enabled. This demo includes an alternate method of changing the display panel refresh rate, by directly calling the Android setFraneRate API. This API is only available on API 30 (Android 11) and higher, it will have no effect on earlier versions of Android.
Some features of this demo are integrated into Unity 6. In Unity 6 you can directly access the Game Mode API through the Android Adaptive Performance provider. Unity 6 also has its own customizable Vulkan allow-list system that is similar to VkQuality but does not require the addition of a custom Activity.
Report any problems using the GitHub issues page of the games-samples repository. This demo is not an officially supported Google product.
1.0.0 - (20240719) - Initial release, derived from VkQuality sample project