One of the problems with implementing hardware acceleration on the Android runtime is that the graphics driver assumes it’s running closer to the hardware than it actually is; the player must know of a method of uploading its compositor’s data directly to the hardware. Normally this can be done via a method like glTexImage2D, which is actually implemented as a fallback method in Android. For optimal performance however, the compositing architecture would have to make use of direct buffer access through its gralloc module. The trick is in giving Android the right hooks into the Mesa3D driver that allows it to go around the regular conventions. With a bit of finesse and a lot of work, the BlackBerry 10 simulator now has a fully hardware accelerated Android runtime.

How To: Enabling hardware graphics acceleration

Current simulators have 3D acceleration enabled by default. To check whether acceleration is enabled, open your Virtual Machine Settings in VMWare Player and in the Display tab check “Accelerate 3D graphics” as seen here:

Demonstration

In the following video, you’ll see the difference hardware acceleration can make in the Android runtime:

Before we talk about what’s new in BlackBerry 10, let us recap what is available for the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps for BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1. There were three major enhancements added to the Android Runtime in 2.1:

• Each Android app will now run in its own window. This greatly improves the user experience and consistency among the other application runtimes.
• Access to the cameras is now supported for Android apps, allowing many more application types to work on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
• In-App Payments are now supported through the BlackBerry App World™ storefront, so Android applications can include virtual items for sale in their applications.

Building on this fantastic set of features, there is now support for telephony APIs for the Android Runtime in the BlackBerry 10 Beta. This includes support for cell location, and access to information about the network services on the device. For additional information, head on over to our API support page. We have completely revamped our Documentation and API Support page to make it easier to find the information you need! Let us know what you think.

All these features are now available for the Android Runtime on the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device and simulator. How do you start using these great new features? Jump to the newly updated Runtime for Android Apps microsite. There is an updated 1.2 Beta release for the BlackBerry Eclipse™ Plug-in for Android Development Tools and Command-line tools to get starting using all these new Android Runtime features for the BlackBerry 10 Beta. For the Eclipse users, point your update site to https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/android/downloads/eclipseplugin/beta/