Adaptive buffer latching to reduce display janks caused by variable buffer allocation time

Abstract

A device may allocate one or more frame buffers. In response to a command to open an application after allocating the one or more frame buffers, the device may reassign one or more of the frame buffers to the application. Furthermore, the device may store, based on instructions of the application, content data in the one or more reassigned frame buffers. The device may output, for display on a display screen, content based on the content data in the one or more reassigned frame buffers.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]This disclosure relates to devices and techniques for display processing.BACKGROUND[0002]Modern mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers enable users to quickly switch between multiple applications. For example, a user may switch back and forth between a video sharing application and a social media application. When an application running on a device becomes active (i.e., when the device displays an interface of the application), the application is said to be in the “foreground.” Otherwise, the application is said to be in the “background.” When an application is in the foreground, application manager of the device typically allocates three frame buffers in a memory to the application.[0003]A display device updates displayed content according to a synchronization cycle (i.e., a sync cycle). For each sync cycle while an application is active, a device writes updated content data to a different one of the frame buffers allocated to the application. ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent text describes a technique for reassigning memory space from one application to another without deallocating and reallocating the space. This helps to save time and improve efficiency. However, if there is a possibility of the first application being relaunched quickly, it may be faster to keep the content data in the frame buffers allocated to the first application in order to avoid delays.

Problems solved by technology

That is, there may no longer be ranges of consecutive memory locations large enough to fit any of the frame buffers.

However, the time required for performing the memory allocation process may increase non-linearly as space in memory becomes increasingly fragmented.

Because of the amount of time required by the memory allocation process to allocate a buffer may increase as memory becomes increasingly fragmented, an application may not be able to fill the buffer with content data by the time the content data in the buffer to schedule for display.

The result is user-noticeable delays and / or discontinuities, which are commonly referred to as “janks.”

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