contributing/development/compiling/compiling_for_android

[giscus[bot]]

contributing/development/compiling/compiling_for_android

Note: In most cases, using the built-in deployer and export templates is good enough. Compiling the Android APK manually is mostly useful for custom builds or custom packages for the deployer. Also...

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/contributing/development/compiling/compiling_for_android.html

[etherealxx]

This page should be updated with the addition of swappy=yes|no, also probably explains swappy a bit

[johnsmigel]

I would also like an update with swappy instructions. When compiling it gives a long yellow warning saying that swappy should be used, but only gives instructions for installing from unix with a bash window. If it can be installed from Windows, please show how and if it can't please say it is ok to use swappy=no and ignore the warning. If swappy should be used, can the source code be included as an engine module?

[Calinou]

You can compile with swappy=no, but it'll behave like Godot 4.3 and prior where there is no guarantee that frame pacing will be correct on Android. This can lead to stuttering even on a flagship device. Swappy is what makes it possible to achieve correct frame pacing on Android.

It's possible to install Swappy on any platform by extracting the godot-swappy.7z download from https://github.com/godotengine/godot-swappy/releases/tag/from-source-2025-01-31 (you will need 7-zip to extract it on Windows 10). Move the extracted library files to the following location in the Godot source repository:

 thirdparty/swappy-frame-pacing/arm64-v8a/libswappy_static.a
 thirdparty/swappy-frame-pacing/armeabi-v7a/libswappy_static.a
 thirdparty/swappy-frame-pacing/x86/libswappy_static.a
 thirdparty/swappy-frame-pacing/x86_64/libswappy_static.a

I've opened an issue about using ZIP for releases instead, which should make it possible to write a Python script that sets up Swappy automatically:

• Package official releases as ZIP godot-swappy#2

If swappy should be used, can the source code be included as an engine module?

This is the reason Swappy is not included in the engine source code: godotengine/godot#96439 (comment)

[ZaraLS]

Did the option change to generate_android_binaries ?

I could not generate the .apk s. I found this in the detect.py, set it from false default to true default. Then ran it again, and it generated the apks as expected.

[geekley]

• JDK 17 (either OpenJDK or Oracle JDK).

I feel like this needs clarifications (to avoid getting errors only after a 2h build).

1. If you have a more recent one like JDK 21 (e.g. from apt default-jdk or default-jre), make sure to set JAVA_HOME accordingly before running scons, or you'll get an error. E.g. on Ubuntu with OpenJDK from apt:

export JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-amd64"

2. And make sure to have the actual JDK too, not just the JRE, or else you may get an error like:

jlink executable /usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-amd64/bin/jlink does not exist.

On Ubuntu, you can install it with this:

sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk # also installs openjdk-17-jre as a dependency if it wasn't already installed

[Damglador]

Here it says to install "ndk;23.2.8568313", but scons for Godot 4.5 requires "ndk;28.1.13356709"