High CPU usage when playing GIFs

[edrobap]

I am displaying GIFs in a RecyclerView. Code:

Glide.with(acitivity)
    .load(url)
    .placeholder(R.drawable.image_placeholder)
    .diskCacheStrategy(DiskCacheStrategy.SOURCE)
    .listener(listener)
    .into(viewHolder.imageView);

If I keep the Fragment containing this RecyclerView open, very high amount of CPU (~40%) is used by the app. And the phone heats up if I use the Fragment for 1-2 minutes. Is it normal for GIFs? Am I doing anything wrong here?

[TWiStErRob]

You're saying you're displaying a list of images that are animated, I think it's normal to use some CPU power this case, especially if you have a GridLayoutManager. Glide decodes frames on the fly and this way it saves a lot of memory and also reuses the frames so no need for constant GC-ing.

If you were to pre-load all Bitmaps of all frames (spike in CPU) and then use those memory-cached frames (low CPU) you would likely run into OOM. Consider displaying static images (.asBitmap()) and play the GIF animation on tap (reload same model into same image but without asBitmap.

Alternatively stop playing GIFs after 10 seconds of no user interaction by doing setting a flag on the adapter (that the user didn't move) and calling notifyDataSetChanged and use asBitmap is the flag is on.

[edrobap]

I checked with LinearLayoutManager and 2 GIFs visible at a time the CPU usage is 30-40%. With GridLayoutManager and 10 GIFs visible (skips lot of frames but that okay) at a time it is 60-70%.

I like your suggestion of playing GIF on tap and stop playing after some timeout. Should save some battery. Thanks

[TWiStErRob]

This is really a game of compromise, CPU/battery or memory... both are scarce resources in Android.

You should be able to call setLoopCount on GlideDrawable/GifDrawable so it only plays a few times, instead of counting seconds, use .into(new GlideDrawableImageViewTarget(imageView, 3)) to repeat 3 times, note that as a side effect you'll need to explicitly add .centerCrop() or .fitCenter(). (#860)

[edrobap]

Thanks a lot for your helpful suggestions.