Profile an Android application with Arm Performance Studio
Introduction
Set up Arm Performance Studio
Set up an Android application for profiling
Interpret an example Arm Streamline report
Use Arm Streamline to capture data for your application
View an example Performance Advisor report
Create a Performance Advisor report for your application
Analyze your application with Frame Advisor
Debug your application with RenderDoc for Arm GPUs
Analyze shader program performance with Mali Offline Compiler
Next Steps

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Before you begin

Complete the following prerequisites:

  1. Install Android Debug Bridge (adb) . adb is available with the Android SDK platform tools, which are installed as part of Android Studio.
  2. Performance Advisor uses a Python script to connect to your device. To run this script, you’ll need Python 3.8 or later installed.

Build your application

Compile the application with debug enabled, as well as additional options to facilitate call stack unwinding by Streamline.

  • To set Unity applications to be debuggable, enable Development Build in Build settings.
  • In Android Studio, use a build variant that includes debuggable true (isDebuggable = true in Kotlin scripts) in the build configuration.
  • In Unreal Engine, open Project Settings > Project > Packaging > Project, and ensure that the For Distribution checkbox isn’t set.
  • For instructions to compile your C++ or Java applications with the right options, see the Target setup guide for Android .
Tip

To assist with readability and add context, you can optionally include annotations in your code, which are then displayed in Streamline.

Set up the Android device

To set up your Android device, follow these steps:

  1. On the device, ensure that Developer Mode is enabled.

  2. Enable USB Debugging under Settings > Developer options. If your device asks you to authorize connection to your computer, confirm the connection.

  3. Connect the device to the host through USB and approve the debug connection on the device when prompted.

  4. To test the connection, run the adb devices command in a terminal. If successful, this returns the ID of your device:

        

        
        
adb devices
List of devices attached
ce12345abcdf1a1234       device

    If you see that the device is listed as unauthorized, try disabling and re-enabling USB Debugging on the device, and accept the authorization prompt to enable connection to the computer.

  5. Install the debuggable application on the device.

What you’ve accomplished and what’s next

You’ve now set up your Android device and built the application you’ll use for profiling.

Next, you’ll look at an example Arm Streamline report to understand the Streamline component of Arm Performance Studio.

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