Android APK build size

News & General Discussion
1

Hi everyone, I just got my first game finished and the android apk file came out a whopping 23Mb. I understand that the Unity engine takes up around 6Mb or so. The target device is FAT Armv7 + x86.

When building for this target device the build size difference (compared to just Armv7) is around 6Mb. Can your average user’s x86 device run armv7 native software by default, or is it only if they go ahead and download emulation software? I mean, is building for both really necessary?

Also, how come a lot of game apps apk files come out to around 5Mb? Do they just do away with the physics engine and script everything manually?

Thanks for any input, William

2

Those game apps below 8MB simply don’t use Unity. :wink:

3

@Xaron I figured that but it sounds like a lot of hard work to script all the physics manually! Unless there are wildly smaller 3D engines out there.

4

There are quite some wildly smaller 3d engines out there.

5

Might be an idea to get one for simple, not-too-realistic games… although Unity’s is stellar, but some ppl might not have too much data.

6

I would think the APK size is generally a non-issue unless it exceeds 50MB, the current maximum APK size for Google Play.

7

@boolfone true, but some people might be on prepaid data and anyway, 23Mb for the apk seems a waste for a game where the assets only come out to around 7Mb

8

hi,

anyone?

I’m also getting better performance when building for armv7 only on old devices. Which now I’m thinking it maybe a memory thing (?)

9

I tested some Unity games and my own builds on a Samsung tablet based on Atom before the x86 build option existed, and they worked fine. As far as I can tell, the Houdini binary translator is still in Android.

Getting different performance when building only for armv7 doesn’t make sense though! Binaries are not loaded in full. Even the armv7 code is only loaded partially, and further sections are loaded as needed. Memory should be an issue, so it could be some other weirdness.

10

Thanks orb, guess I’ll be just building for Armv7.
And yeah, the performance issue is weird.

11

Build ARM 7, not work Samsung Tab 3, :frowning: