Quality of Service-Aware Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling for Mobile 3D Graphics Applications

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel Quality of Service (QoS)-aware Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) algorithm for mobile graphics workloads. By combining accurate frame render tracking, while considering QoS-requirements for each context, our proposed solution improves the DVFS responsiveness, resulting in more precise DVFS throttling. We can both reduce energy consumption, and meet QoS guarantees. Our proposed solution supports optimizations tailored to meet an individual application’s QoS requirements. We evaluate our DVFS algorithm while running eight OpenGL ES applications/games on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 mobile System on a Chip (SoC) hardware platform, using a full OpenGL ES software stack on the Android M operating system. We compare our results against two fixed frequencies, as well as Qualcomm’s proprietary DVFS algorithm. Our proposed solution improves the Energy-DeadlineViolationSquare-Product (EV2 P)* compared to Qualcomm’s proprietary algorithm by as much as 84%, and by 19% on average. Our solution also outperforms both fixed frequency configurations.