8.5. Consistent Performance

Performance can fluctuate dramatically for high-performance long-running apps, either because of the other apps running in the background or the CPU throttling due to temperature limits. Android includes programmatic interfaces so that when the device is capable, the top foreground application can request that the system optimize the allocation of the resources to address such fluctuations.

Device implementations SHOULD support Sustained Performance Mode which can provide the top foreground application a consistent level of performance for a prolonged amount of time when requested through the Window.setSustainedPerformanceMode() API method. A Device implementation MUST report the support of Sustained Performance Mode accurately through the PowerManager.isSustainedPerformanceModeSupported() API method.

Device implementations with two or more CPU cores SHOULD provide at least one exclusive core that can be reserved by the top foreground application. If provided, implementations MUST meet the following requirements:

• Implementations MUST report through the Process.getExclusiveCores() API method the id numbers of the exclusive cores that can be reserved by the top foreground application.
• Device implementations MUST not allow any user space processes except the device drivers used by the application to run on the exclusive cores, but MAY allow some kernel processes to run as necessary.

If a device implementation does not support an exclusive core, it MUST return an empty list through the Process.getExclusiveCores() API method.