Samsung introduced the latest tool for analyzing the performance of mobile graphics processors called Sokatoa. The goal of this software is to help developers figure out why mobile games on Android phones sometimes suffer from frame rate drops, device overheating, or increased power consumption.
Unlike consoles, where the hardware is standardized, Android phones use a large number of different chipsets and graphics drivers. It is this diversity that often makes it difficult for developers to accurately identify the cause of performance problems.
Sokatoa enables detailed monitoring of GPU performance
Sokatoa works as an advanced GPU profiler that displays real-time detailed information about how the GPU handles tasks during game execution.
One of the key features of the tool is multi-frame GPU profiling. Instead of analyzing only one rendered frame, developers are enabled to analyze multiple frames simultaneously. That way, they can more easily spot patterns that lead to game crashes.
This method helps to accurately identify performance bottlenecks, whether caused by slow shader code, spikes in GPU load, or irregularities between consecutive frames.
The tool was developed by the Samsung Austin Research and Development Center and Advanced Computing Lab teams, which deal with GPU architecture development and system optimization.
Sokatoa also allows developers to change the shader code directly on the device and restart the rendering to see the result of the optimization immediately. This significantly speeds up the process of testing and tuning performance.
Although the tool is specifically optimized for Samsung graphics processors from the Xclipse GPU series, it also supports other Android GPU platforms including solutions from Qualcomm and Arm.
Samsung developed Sokat in collaboration with Google and LunarG to make the tool compatible with modern graphics API standards such as Vulkan.
The company states that Sokatoa is currently available for free download, while it is planned that the tool will become an open-source project later in the year, reports Android Authority.