REFROM: Responsive, Energy-Efficient Frame Rendering for Mobile Devices
Journal
Proceedings of the International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design
Journal Volume
2023-August
ISBN
9798350311754
Date Issued
2023-01-01
Author(s)
Abstract
The increasing demand for high-quality graphics on mobile devices necessitates a high frame rate for display refresh. However, current process scheduling and memory management policies fail to consider the computation demands of frame rendering because they are optimized for saving energy and resource utilization. This leads to unresponsive displays for mobile users due to rendering delays. Accurately estimating computation demands is challenging for the mobile operating system, particularly under memory pressure, without display-specific semantics from user space. Moreover, the complexity of frame rendering makes it infeasible to schedule them with real-time policies. To address these issues, we propose a new framework called REFROM that utilizes a history-based frame time estimator to analyze frame time samples from UI threads and predict the computation requirements of upcoming frames. Experimental results demonstrate that REFROM reduces the number of delayed frames by up to 40% and improves up to 4% energy efficiency compared to the existing approaches.
Type
conference paper