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GDC Festival of Gaming
March 9-13, 2026
Moscone CenterSan Francisco, CA
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Maximize Performance: Porting, Profiling, and 16KB Page Size Innovations for Android Games (Presented by Google Play)

Val O'Donnell  (Developer Relations Engineer, Google Play)
Simon Cooke  (Developer Programs Engineering, Android Games Google, Google Play)
Steven Moreland  (Google + Staff Software Engineer, Google Play)
Mark Dochtermann  (Engineering Lead for Android Games & Graphics, Google)
Emil Kjæhr  (Head of Product, Funday Games)
Location: Room 2009, West Hall
Date: Wednesday, March 11
Time: 10:10 am - 11:10 am
Pass Type: Festival Pass, Game Changer Pass - Get your pass now!
Audience Level: All
Track: Game & Production Technology
Format: Panel
Vault Recording: Video
Audience Level: All
Val O'Donnell
Simon Cooke
Steven Moreland
Mark Dochtermann
Emil Kjæhr
Google Play

Ready to bring your PC game to Android? Need to optimize a demanding game for Android? In this session, Google’s Android team and Emil Kjæhr from Funday Games (creator of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor) share real-world lessons on porting, profiling, and performance optimization. From navigating common pitfalls to leveraging the latest Android features and tools, this session offers practical strategies for developers looking to optimize their games to run well on Android.

Topics include:

  • State of Vulkan on Android: A quick recap of how Vulkan is gaining adoption by high performance games, and what to expect for future devices.
  • Porting PC Games: Case studies, essential steps, and how to avoid the mistakes that slow down your launch.
  • New Game Profiler: An exclusive first look at Google’s upcoming system and GPU profiler for improving performance across diverse architectures.
  • 16 KB Page Size: How Android’s memory page size support boosts performance, now enabled through Unity (since 2021) and Unreal (since 5.6).

Takeaway

Attendees will leave with insights on porting strategies, new tools to diagnose performance issues, and a clear understanding of how to optimize for Android’s latest features.

Intended Audience

This session is intended for game developers, engineers, and technical leads working on or considering high performance graphically demanding games like PC to mobile ports. Familiarity with game engines like Unity or Unreal is helpful but not required.