When android 4.4 is showing a video in full screen mode, we wish to temporary turn off mali to reduce device's power.
Once user touch screen, some video playing UI must be showed. so we must turn on mali quickly.
Is it possible to turn on/off mali dynamically?
Hi guanhb,
If the question is whether this is technically possible, the answer is yes. If you're an application developer asking if this is possible on devices in the wild, for applications installed from Google Play, then almost certainly no, as the Android API does not grant you this level of control over the hardware. Also I doubt that the kernel would give this level of control over power management to userspace applications (without sufficient privileges) as this would definitely invite abuse by malware.
Typically, if the GPU is not heavily loaded, it will clock down. If its idle, it may gate completely. This is all dealt with in the kernel layer by the DVFS/power management policies, and is transparent to userspace.
Hth,
Chris