Android inline ad performance

[jjliu15]

There have been a number of complaints about performance of inline banner and native ads on Android:

• 🐛Reported framerate issues with BannerAd on some Android devices #167
• 🐛 Native ad performance on android in listview.builder is painful #75
• 🐛 Low performance when using AdWidget #80
• Severe performance issues (significant drop in FPS) when using the plugin #231
• Ads are missing frames inside a listview builder. #239

As mentioned in #80 (comment), performance is noticeably worse on Android 9 and below. This is related to use of hybrid composition, which is a requirement due to technical constraints.

Currentworkarounds are to constrict inline ads to android 10 and above, or only to only use fixed position banner/native ads.

[svprdga]

Not show inline ads to android < 10 is a disaster from a business perspective, we are talking of thousands of users.

@jjliu15 does this same plugin support the fixed position banners you are talking about (just like the deprecated plugin did)?

[jjliu15]

Fixed position banners are supported, but the implementation is different than before. Now you need to align the flutter widget that displays the banner ad to a fixed position. You can see the example app for a reference

[svprdga]

Thanks @jjliu15

I have tried the solution proposed here and it works perfect. I don't know the implementation details that this user did but, but maybe here we have a possible solution to the problem.

[colbymaloy]

Sadly this doesnt do much for me. Using A stack with InteractiveViewer and a bottom aligned banner ad, my frame time is 1000ms on an IpadPro 12.9inch.

[blasten]

We have added a flag to the Flutter master channel that helps improve the performance.

It's not a perfect fix since the Ad may be a few frames behind the Flutter frame, but depending on the layout you use, it could be useful.

Please try it out, and let us know if the performance is improved.

To use this flag, set PlatformViewsService.synchronizeToNativeViewHierarchy(false). For example:

import 'package:flutter/services.dart';

void main() {
   PlatformViewsService.synchronizeToNativeViewHierarchy(false);
   runApp(MyApp());
}

[sleepingkit]

We have added a flag to the Flutter master channel that helps improve the performance.

It's not a perfect fix since the Ad may be a few frames behind the Flutter frame, but depending on the layout you use, it could be useful.

Please try it out, and let us know if the performance is improved.

To use this flag, set PlatformViewsService.synchronizeToNativeViewHierarchy(false). For example:

import 'package:flutter/services.dart';

void main() {
   PlatformViewsService.synchronizeToNativeViewHierarchy(false);
   runApp(MyApp());
}

I am in master branch but didn't see this method.
The method 'synchronizeToNativeViewHierarchy' isn't defined for the type 'PlatformViewsService'.

Doctor summary (to see all details, run flutter doctor -v):
[✓] Flutter (Channel master, 2.4.0-5.0.pre.140, on macOS 11.4 20F71 darwin-arm, locale zh-HK)
[!] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 30.0.3)
✗ cmdline-tools component is missing
Run path/to/sdkmanager --install "cmdline-tools;latest"
See https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line for more details.
✗ Android license status unknown.
Run flutter doctor --android-licenses to accept the SDK licenses.
See https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/install/macos#android-setup for more details.
[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS
[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
[✓] Android Studio (version 4.2)
[✓] VS Code (version 1.57.1)
[✓] Connected device (3 available)

! Doctor found issues in 1 category.

[blasten]

@sleepingkit You may need to run flutter upgrade after changing the channel.

https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/e82a69a95e8ea3a4617d6fb3f89b21ee227cb96b/packages/flutter/lib/src/services/platform_views.dart#L192