Vulkan Early Access Testing (Android)

[louwers]

---

We are looking for users interested in the upcoming Vulkan support for Android.

We will be releasing an 'early access' MapLibre Android version (a.k.a. pre-release) that will just support Vulkan in September 2024. This will give people an opportunity to test the new Vulkan backend on Android. Joining this effort will help the rendering team to ensure there are no regressions as well as with optimizing performance.

Edit: the first pre-release has been released!

Reporting Issues

When reporting an issue (here or in a separate issue), the following are required:

• Style: If your style is public or can be made available, that will help a lot.
• Lat / Long / Zoom: Where exactly does the issue occur?
• Screenshot
• Android version
• MapLibre Native version
• Device

When available:

• Stack Trace / Vulkan Error / Core Dump
• Minimal style: Can you provide a minimal style that reproduces the issue?

[westnordost]

I could create some alpha releases alongside the stable ones for StreetComplete (once the MapLibre migration has been stabilized in the first place) for people to try out.

Beyond detecting simple rendering issues, this only makes sense if there's a straightforward way for these users to make useful reports for crashes in native / Vulkan code. I understand that the logged crash trace is not that useful for you and digging out the tombstone seems to require root privileges on the phone and/or usage of developer tools (adb), plus some special build configuration (we haven't fully figured out yet) beforehand.

Also, how would you sell it to users so they want to be the first people to try it out? Is there anything to gain from that?

[louwers]

I could create some alpha releases alongside the stable ones for StreetComplete (once the MapLibre migration has been stabilized in the first place) for people to try out.

That would be amazing!

Also, how would you sell it to users so they want to be the first people to try it out? Is there anything to gain from that?

Being an early tester and testing it with your style and app means that any bugs or performance regressions you report will have the attention of the rendering team, and will probably be fixed by the time we make an official release.

[mtpdog]

I can take part too to test It in complex environment with many raster, vector and extruded layers.
Btw, the latest 2 versions (both 11.1.0 and 11.2.0) have a regression with vector layers rendering. There are many distortions in label rendering. 11.0.2-pre0 is the latest stable version for now.

[louwers]

@mtpdog Please create a separate issue for the regressions you are seeing.

[mtpdog]

@mtpdog Please create a separate issue for the regressions you are seeing.

Sure. It is already described here: #2788

[louwers]

Labels are jittery with this style.

video_2024-09-07_01-05-09.mp4

Style - https://tiles.versatiles.org/assets/styles/colorful.json
Lat / Long / Zoom - Try London
Android version - 11
MapLibre Native version - android-v11.3.0-vulkan-pre0
Device - Samsung S10

[mtpdog]

According to my tests, this version (android-v11.3.0-vulkan-pre0) works mostly fine except for:

• It currently works not so great in terms of speed/micro-lags compared to OpenGL version
• There is an issue with some tiles not rendered until zoom-in / zoom-out action (probably this issue exists in OpenGL versions as well starting from 11.2.0):
  

On the positive side it seems that this issue is fixed: #2788

[louwers]

@mtpdog I think the issue you are seeing may be fixed by #2842

[westnordost]

I tested android-v11.3.0-vulkan-pre0 with StreetComplete. I didn't find any issues. On the contrary, the following issues are not reproducible anymore with that version:

• fill-extrude layer is drawn above the next-above symbol layer #2259
• Text rendering issue in symbol layer when map is rotated/tilted #2788
• Android x86_64 emulator crashes (11.2.0) #2791
• Crash on rotating with Android Emulator #2371
• on Emulator: sometimes icons are rendered in all-black, seemingly taking the red? channel as alpha channel (never bothered to report as issue)
• Abysmal performance with x86_64 Android emulator #2370

I didn't compare performance, but I didn't feel any difference.

[louwers]

I ran some benchmarks on AWS Device Farm with various devices. The results can be found here and in the diagram below.

Graph: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3260933c-fc85-45ac-a38d-29856b32d07e

We are a bit suspicious that the Pixel 7 Pro is comparable to the Pixel 4a in terms of performance. The results look promising though.

[louwers]

We did another extensive benchmark run comparing OpenGL (here indicated as Drawable) and Vulkan!

Note the y-axis on the plot below here is a version with equal y-axis range for all devices, but since there is quite a big difference in FPS between devices the differences can be hard to see on some devices.

Graph: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/b2157018-6652-4877-b4bf-d96477203137

Raw data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1roKpT7BrLFErZE8r_-hd4uMk74znVbB-7Eo3JvPj8zE/edit?usp=sharing

[louwers]

We did a new run last week which moved slower from location to location. This is too prevent the situation where no data is loaded and the map is not rendering anything (resulting in very high but meaningless FPS in some runs). I think we can improve the benchmark by running it completely offline and starting the benchmark with a pre-loaded cache.

I have made a PR with some scripts to automate running the benchmarks, as well as for collecting and plotting the results. #2991

The results of the last run:

benchmark.csv

Plot:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4ff47faa-2c5a-4786-bace-8df5ee560028

[louwers]

We now have a new version up with the name 11.6.1-vulkan-pre0. Please give it a spin!

We're very eager to know if your feedback, also if it just works. We can include your name in the official release post (if you want).

[westnordost]

I can reproduce this issue (screen rotate doesn't re-create the activity in my app), but as you see, only every 5th or so time it produces the issue:

Screen-20241120-135912.mp4

[westnordost]

Still reproducible with pre1.

Also, I get these error messages on each rotate (always):

2024-11-20 19:33:22.247 10509-10698 GraphicBufferAllocator  de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  Failed to allocate (4 x 4) layerCount 1 format 56 usage b00: 5
2024-11-20 19:33:22.247 10509-10698 AHardwareBuffer         de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  GraphicBuffer(w=4, h=4, lc=1) failed (Unknown error -5), handle=0x0
2024-11-20 19:33:22.247 10509-10698 GraphicBufferAllocator  de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  Failed to allocate (4 x 4) layerCount 1 format 56 usage b00: 5
2024-11-20 19:33:22.248 10509-10698 AHardwareBuffer         de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  GraphicBuffer(w=4, h=4, lc=1) failed (Unknown error -5), handle=0x0
2024-11-20 19:33:22.306 10509-10644 OpenGLRenderer          de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  Unable to match the desired swap behavior.
2024-11-20 19:33:22.309 10509-10698 GraphicBufferAllocator  de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  Failed to allocate (4 x 4) layerCount 1 format 56 usage b00: 5
2024-11-20 19:33:22.309 10509-10698 AHardwareBuffer         de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  GraphicBuffer(w=4, h=4, lc=1) failed (Unknown error -5), handle=0x0
2024-11-20 19:33:22.309 10509-10698 GraphicBufferAllocator  de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  Failed to allocate (4 x 4) layerCount 1 format 56 usage b00: 5
2024-11-20 19:33:22.309 10509-10698 AHardwareBuffer         de.westnordost.streetcomplete.debug  E  GraphicBuffer(w=4, h=4, lc=1) failed (Unknown error -5), handle=0x0

[mtpdog]

11.6.1-vulkan-pre1 works very well in our case! Now it definitely works faster than OpenGL. Great job!

P.S. Can we try to increase map tilt limits on this new engine? #1909

[louwers]

Thanks for trying it out! W.r.t. your comment, that's off-topic here since it's unrelated to Vulkan. But I replied there.

[mtpdog]

The only small issue I've noticed so far with 11.6.1-vulkan-pre1 is that all vector elements (vector maps, annotations) do not "stick" firmly to the raster background on quick camera movements. They kind of floating around their normal positions. Probably the vector and raster parts of rendering are not synchronized perfectly. Would be great if this is fixed as well.

[mtpdog]

Another possible issue (need further analysis). The vulkan map does not scale properly. Put it into a composable surface and try to change the bounds - the map content is not scaled.

[louwers]

@mtpdog Oh that sounds like something that needs fixing. Could you open separate issues for these problems, ideally with some screenshots to show the problem?

[sargunv]

Seeing some odd shaking with labels on pre1:

Screen_Recording_20241202_170357_maplibre-compose-demo.mp4

Also some white artifacts (noticeable in the water) when zooming in and out very quickly:

Screen_Recording_20241202_170424_maplibre-compose-demo.mp4

Otherwise, looks good! This is with the OpenFreeMap "bright" style and this branch of maplibre-compose.

[ianthetechie]

Somewhat similar to the white artifact reported above, there seem to be some issues with the emulator. I've reproduced it with the MapLibre demo tiles:

To repro, check out the maplibre-11 branch here: https://github.com/Rallista/maplibre-compose-playground/tree/maplibre-11. Then run the demo app. The Map Callback example is the most trivially reproducible, but most examples exhibit the behavior in the initial viewport; for others it will invariably show up with some zooming or panning and doesn't go away until you move the map.

[louwers]

@ianthetechie Did you mean to upload a video?

cc @adrian-cojocaru

[ianthetechie]

No, I just uploaded a screenshot on purpose, but I can upload a video too if it's helpful ;) (Yes, it's an ugly demo, but its sole function was to show how to manipulate the camera haha).

Screen_recording_20241203_201818.webm

[louwers]

@ianthetechie Ahh I thought the two lines were part of the UI. Understood!

[louwers]

Thanks for testing everyone! Please open a new issue if you encounter any other problems.