 |
| Photo by Pathum Danthanarayana on Unsplash |
Google is working on an Incremental file system that will let you play big games while you're waiting for them to fully download, XDA Developers have reported. The new file system may come to android in 2021 through Android 12, this file system is designed so that you can play games while its binary and resource files are still being downloaded.
XDA Developers says that Google submitted some patches to merge support for Incremental file system into Linux kernel, The document submitted by Google reads "Incremental FS is a special-purpose Linux virtual file system that allows execution of a program while its binary and resource files are still being lazily downloaded over the network, USB, etc.”
Google says "Incremental file system can frictionlessly wait for [temporarily] missing data," this means while you're downloading a large game on your mobile it will let you open and play the game, and the files of game will be downloaded in an order that will let you play the game freely, for example, the file for the Intro of the game will be downloaded first, later the file for main menu screen.
Likewise, the files that will be needed at the starting of the game will be downloaded first, however, if your internet is slow the game won't load in time and will wait for required files to be downloaded, but this will come in handy because large games will often take more time to download, now you don't have to wait to try the game even though you can't play it fully.
Google had discussions with multiple Linux kernel maintainers about the implementation and purpose of the Incremental file system. Google was criticized for creating a custom kernel filesystem instead of working on the existing Filesystem in Userspace (or) FUSE but Google argued that FUSE-based FS will take more energy to perform the task so much so that the battery charge will drop even though it was connected to the board.
Developers have to make their games supported for the Incremental file system that's why Google started to merge commits related to the Incremental File System to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP).