Bitmaps in Android
Solution 1:
The memory that backs a Bitmap object is allocated using native code (malloc()), rather than the Java new keyword. This means that the memory is managed directly by the OS, rather than by Dalvik.
The only real difference between the native heap and Dalvik's heap is that Dalvik's heap is garbage collected, and the native one isn't.
For these purposes though, here's not much difference. When your Bitmap object gets garbage collected, it's destructor will recycle the associated memory in the native heap.
Source:
- http://osdir.com/ml/AndroidDevelopers/2009-03/msg00023.html
- android:platform/frameworks/base/graphics/java/android/graphics/Bitmap.java
- android:platform/frameworks/base/core/jni/android/graphics/Bitmap.cpp
Solution 2:
There is an important subtlety here: though Bitmap pixels are allocated in the native heap, some special tricks in Dalvik cause it to be accounted against the Java heap. This is done for two reasons:
(1) To control the amount of memory an application allocates this. Without the accounting, an application could allocate a huge amount of memory (since the Bitmap object itself is very small yet can hold on to an arbitrarily large amount of native memory), extending beyond the 16MB or 24MB heap limit.
(2) To help determine when to GC. Without the accounting, you could allocate and release references on say 100 Bitmap objects; the GC wouldn't run, because these objects are tiny, but they could in fact represent a large number of megabytes of actual allocations that is now not being GCed in a timely manner. By accounting these allocations against the Java heap, the garbage collector will run as it thinks memory is being used.
Note that in many ways this is an implementation detail; it is very likely that it could change in the future, though this basic behavior would remain in some form since these are both important characteristics for managing bitmap allocations.
Solution 3:
From deployments in the wild, I've found the following devices:
Devices that limit to 16 MiB of java heap (bitmaps are nearly unlimited).- Devices that limit to 16 MiB of (java heap + native bitmap storage)
Devices that limit to 24 MiB of java heap (bitmaps are nearly unlimited).- Devices that limit to 24 MiB of (java heap + native bitmap storage)
24 MiB tends to be the high res devices, and can be detected with Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory(). There's also 32MiB devices now, and some of the rooted phones have 64MiB by default. Previously, I confused my self several times trying to work out what was happening. I think all devices count bitmaps into the heap limit. But it's wildly difficult to make any sweeping generalizations about the android fleet.
This is a VERY nasty issue on Android, and very confusing. This limit and it's behaviors are poorly documented, complicated, and extremely non-intuitive. They also vary across devices and OS versions, and have several known bugs. Part of the problem is that the limits are not precise - due to heap fragmentation, you will hit OOM well before the actual limit and must conservatively leave a meg or two of buffer. Even worse, I've got several devices where there is a native segfault (100% a bug in Android itself) that occurs before you get the java OOM exception, making it doubly important to never reach the limit since you can't even catch the native crash. For more details on my investigations, check out this post. In the same post, I explain how to measure usage against the limit and avoid crashes.
The size of the java heap is Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory().
There is no easy way to measure the size of the native bitmap storage. The overall native heap can be measure with Debug.getNativeHeapAllocatedSize(), but only the bitmaps count toward the limit (i think).