hw-acceleration.md

🦾 Hardware Acceleration in Termux

Important

One thing to note: hardware acceleration in Termux is still experimental, so it may or may not work on your device.

When setting up hardware acceleration in Termux, follow these steps for optimal configuration:

Select your device GPU

• During the Installation the script will first try to auto detect your gpu and if it failed then it will ask you to chose your device gpu

Tip

If you don't know what gpu you have , then follow this:-

Use CPU-Z to identify your GPU.

• Like in my case i can see i have a Mali GPU

Select Driver

• In this next step you need to chose which driver you want to use.
• In the First step you need to chose the driver You want to use for Vulkan

  Vulkan is the modern and the best Api for Linux but compared to OpenGL it's new so not apps still support Vulkan But using something like Zink you can get OpenGL to work on your device but it is depend no your device

• For most of the device No.1 vulkan-wrapper-android will work
• But if you have Mali and no.1 didn't work well for you then try No.3 the pipetto-crypto's fork
• And for Adreno devices NO.4 freedreno is better Chose Also if you want freedreno to also Give you access to OpenGL then try 6.mesa-vulkan-icd-freedreno (Kgsl) But it's experimental and unmaintained
• If you opt for a distro container, select the hardware acceleration method for the distro as well.

  For Adreno GPU, you don't need to choose; it will automatically use turnip

• Once selected, everything will be configured automatically.

Using Hardware Acceleration in Termux

• Start Termux Desktop via Termux:X11 (recommended) or VNC (In VNC, some drivers might not work)
• And it should just work if the selected driver supports your GPU.

Using Hardware Acceleration in Proot Distro (Distro Container)

Method 1: Terminal Commands (pdrun)

Remember, you should always run pdrun from Termux's shell; never run it from inside a proot-distro.

1. Launch Termux Desktop.

2. Run programs in Termux terminal:

   ```bash
   pdrun program
   ```
   
   - By default pdrun runs programs with GPU acceleration.
   - To run program without GPU acceleration, Use:-
   
   ```bash
   pdrun --nogpu program
   ```
   

   

Method 2: Termux Menu

1. Add the desired program to the Termux menu.
2. Launch the program directly from the Termux menu.

Note

To know more on how to add a program from proot-distro to Termux, check this: HERE

Changing Hardware Acceleration Drivers

Manual Configuration

1. Install required packages: pkg install mesa virglrenderer vulkan-loader-generic angle-android virglrenderer-android

2. Navigate to $PREFIX/bin and edit the following files using nano or vim:

   • vncstart
   • tx11start
   • pdrun

3. Look for the line at the bottom of tx11start, you will find lines similar to these:

   export MESA_NO_ERROR=1 MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=4.1COMPAT MESA_GLES_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.2 MESA_GLSL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=410 LIBGL_DRI3_DISABLE=1 EPOXY_USE_ANGLE=1 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/opt/angle-android/vulkan
   virgl_test_server --use-egl-surfaceless --use-gles &
   sleep 1
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=${TMPDIR} termux-x11 :0 &
   sleep 1
   am start --user 0 -n com.termux.x11/com.termux.x11.MainActivity > /dev/null 2>&1 &
   sleep 1
   env DISPLAY=:0 XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/etc/xdg VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/wrapper_icd.aarch64.json MESA_VK_WSI_PRESENT_MODE=mailbox MESA_VK_WSI_DEBUG=blit MESA_SHADER_CACHE=512MB MESA_SHADER_CACHE_DISABLE=false vblank_mode=0 GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe dbus-launch --exit-with-session xfce4-session > /dev/null 2>&1 &

• You need to change the export, virgl_test_server --use-egl-surfaceless --use-gles &, and the GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe values.

• How to get these values:

• See this function

• Here, the value under set_to_export= replaces the word after export in the tx11start file

• Here, the value under hw_method= replaces the GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe text

• Here, the value under initialize_server_method= replaces the virgl_test_server --use-egl-surfaceless --use-gles &

• Then save and exit

• For file pdrun:

• At the top, there will be selected_pd_hw_method="GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=4.0"

• Change the GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=4.0 with the value under hw_method=

• Then save and exit

Automatic Configuration

Run the following command to change drivers:

setup-termux-desktop --change hw

---

📈 Performance Results

Experimental Driver Performance

Adreno with mesa-vulkan-icd-wrapper and Turnip

Mali with mesa-vulkan-icd-wrapper

Test Environment

These tests and results were conducted by LinuxDroidMaster.

• Device: Lenovo Legion Y700 (Snapdragon 870, Adreno 650)
• Distro: Debian in Proot with XFCE4 Desktop
• GLMark2: Used to evaluate GPU performance.

GLMark2 Scores: Proot Distro

Run	LLVMPIPE	VIRGL	VIRGL ZINK	TURNIP	ZINK
1	93	70	66	198	Error
2	93	77	66	198	Error
3	72	70	71	198	Error
4	94	76	66	197	Error
5	93	75	67	198	Error

Commands Used:

Driver	Command
LLVMPIPE	glmark2
VIRGL	GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=4.0 glmark2
VIRGL ZINK	GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=4.0 glmark2
TURNIP	MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=zink TU_DEBUG=noconform glmark2
ZINK	GALLIUM_DRIVER=zink MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=4.0 glmark2

---

GLMark2 Scores: Termux (No Proot)

Run	LLVMPIPE	VIRGL	VIRGL ZINK	ZINK	TURNIP
1	69	Error	92	121	N/A
2	70	Error	92	122	N/A
3	69	Error	93	121	N/A
4	69	Error	93	124	N/A
5	69	Error	93	123	N/A

---

Firefox Aquarium WebGL Benchmark

Proot Distro Results (Firefox-ESR WebGL Aquarium FPS)

LLVMPIPE	VIRGL	VIRGL ZINK	TURNIP
4	20	17	Web page crash

Termux Results (Firefox-ESR WebGL Aquarium FPS)

LLVMPIPE	VIRGL	VIRGL ZINK	ZINK	TURNIP
2	Error	24	40	N/A

---

Additional Testing

• SuperTuxKart: Benchmarked over 30 seconds.