5 ways to optimise your code for Android

When people play mobile games they expect a great experience, even if they’re using a relatively low powered device. There are a number of improvements in the latest Android runtime, but there are some coding tricks you can use to make your code run even faster on Android 5.0 Lollipop.

You might have heard some reports based on an early release of ART, claiming that Art isn’t as powerful as Dalvik. Now, it’s possible to get some real data for a fair comparison. The tips article includes some benchmark data that shows how ART outperforms Dalvik, sometimes significantly.

As well as the natural performance uplift you’d expect from the new runtime, there are a few things you can do to help the compiler optimise your code. For example, you can use local variables instead of public class fields, and use the ‘final’ keyword to hint that a value is a constant. Check out the article for all five Android optimisation examples, together with example code. They might just provide an easy way to supercharge your game!

How can you test the end result? One way is to use some of the testing services that can check how well your app performs on Intel processor-based Android devices. They enable you to test your software for free, without needing to clutter up your desk with multiple devices.

The optimisation article and the testing tools are both from the Intel Developer Zone, a website that helps developers to create great software for Android, Windows and other platforms.

• This blog post is written by Softtalkblog, and is sponsored by the Intel Developer Zone, which helps you to develop, market and sell software and apps for prominent platforms and emerging technologies powered by Intel Architecture.

For the latest Intel Developer Blogs, click here.