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As someone who has written a lot of code (including driver level) in the DirectX realm, that line (about not unlocking surfaces) gave me a minor aneurysm though I admittedly do not know enough about the Android ashmem internals to know if the reaction is actually warranted or not on the Android platform.

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Well allocating on ashmen does reduce the UI lag since its just a memory pool and espaces GC reprimand but it's definitely not safe. Such operations are better handled at Gralloc/HWComposer Layer where you have a better handle on what's going on. Someone's gotta unlock that surface!

I have written my fair share of code in the Android realm and that line gave my an aneurysm as well. To be fair, I think that Bitmap handling is one of Android's weaknesses and that it is far too easy to fragment or overflow your heap with Bitmaps.

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