Mirror Framework: Computation Offloading for Sophisticated Mobile Games

Abstract

Mobile gaming is currently a huge and growing market with revenue values that are comparable to other gaming platforms like PCs and consoles. However, the low performance of mobile devices compared to these other platforms severely limit the complexity of the games that can be played on them. Moreover, the limited power supply of mobile devices also limit the duration at which games can be played. In this thesis, we examine the possibility of using computation offloading to increase the performance and reduce the power consumption of sophisticated mobile games, while minimizing the negative effects of offloading to keep the game playable. To do this we have created the Mirror Framework, which can perform computation offloading for mobile games using a combination of replication, lockstep and an intuitive method to allow for offline and online program partitioning. We demonstrate that the Mirror Framework can increase the performance or decrease the power consumption of sophisticated mobile games while keeping it playable by testing it for the game OpenTTD.