Learning resources for Arm Mobile Studio

Arm Mobile Studio is our free-to-use performance analysis tool suite for developers to performance test their Android apps on Mali-based GPUs. It comprises of 4 easy-to-use tools that show you how well your game or app performs on off-the-shelf devices, so that you can identify problems that might cause slow performance, overheat the device, or drain the battery. 

• Streamline - capture a performance profile that shows all the performance counter activity from the device. 
• Performance Advisor - generate an easy-to-read performance summary from an annotated Streamline capture, and get actionable advice about where you should optimize. 
• Graphics Analyzer - debug Open GL ES and Vulkan API calls in your application, to identify rendering defects and investigate problem scenes. 

• Mali Offline Compiler - check how your shader programs would perform on a range of Mali GPUs. 

You do not have to be a CPU or GPU expert to use Arm Mobile Studio to analyze game performance. However, if you want to get the best out of using the tools, you might need to refer to some of our learning resources.

Streamline learning resources 

Follow the getting started tutorial to learn how to use Streamline to capture information from your game running on an unrooted Android device. There is also the Target setup guide for Android to give further details about device connection.

Once you have found your feet, work through the Android performance triage with Streamline tutorial to help you interpret the charts. There is also the Streamline user guide to help you learn about the different views and features in Streamline. 

Mali GPUs implement a comprehensive range of performance counters, that enable you to closely monitor GPU activity as your application runs. The charts in Streamline visualize this performance counter activity, to help you identify the cause of heavy rendering loads or workload inefficiencies that cause poor GPU performance. For detailed descriptions of all the performance counters available for each Mali GPU, refer to the Mali performance counter reference. 

The Mali family of mobile GPUs has evolved over time, as we have added new features and increased capabilities. Each new generation behaves slightly differently, so here is a handy datasheet that lists all the key statistics. Different generations of Mali architectures have different shader core capacities, with different warp widths, thread counts and texture filtering capabilities. So, remember to interpret the charts in Streamline according to the GPU in the device.

Graphics Analyzer learning resources 

In a similar way to Streamline, Graphics Analyzer collects information from your application running on an unrooted Android device, and presents it in a way that makes it easy for you to interrogate your game. Follow the getting started instructions to capture and analyze a trace.

Refer to the Graphics Analyzer user guide for full details on all the different views and functionality available within Graphics Analyzer. 

Performance Advisor learning resources 

To generate an easy-to-read performance summary with Performance Advisor, you need to capture data with Streamline in a slightly different way, so that it can also capture frame data. Then you can generate an HTML report with the key performance data and advice on where performance can be improved. Follow the getting started instructions for details on how to do this. 

Like the other tools, there is also a user guide for Performance Advisor, to describe the workflows in more detail.  

The Professional Edition of Arm Mobile Studio enables you to generate Performance Advisor reports as part of a continuous integration workflow, so here is a handy tutorial and script to help you set that up. 

Mali Offline Compiler learning resources 

Run Mali Offline Compiler on your shader programs to generate a performance report. Here is how to get started. Refer to the Mali Offline Compiler user guide for full details and watch this video to see the recent feature enhancements we have made. 

Optimization advice and best practises 

Okay, so you have discovered where your game performs poorly, but what can you do about it? If you are an experienced optimization expert, you may know where to start, but if you are not, here are some resources to help you: 

• Optimization advice – quick reference to help you avoid common problems.  
• Developer guides such as those for Technical artists, covering best practices for geometry, textures, materials, and shaders. 
• Mali best practices guide – comprehensive guide describing in detail how to ensure your content runs well on Mali GPUs. 

• Arm guide for Unity developers – If you are a Unity user, we have a dedicated guide for you, to help you get the best out of Unity when developing for mobile. 

Try Arm Mobile Studio today 

So, what are you waiting for? If you do not already have it, download Arm Mobile Studio for free, and start discovering opportunities to make your game run faster on a wide range of devices, without dropping frames or draining battery. 

Download Arm Mobile Studio