Bitmap Size Exceeds VM Budget Error On Android

I'm loading 100 images from Asset folder to an array object. The pictures are quite small (png ~20k each), and im using this code do to it, and to prevent memory leak & optimiz

Solution 1:

Bitmaps aren't compressed so they are stored in width * height * 4 bytes. It means that every image uses about 225 KB of memory. 100 images require about 22 MB of memory. The minimal heap size is 16 MB, but devices usually have 24+ MB heap. And this heap is used not only for data but also for activities, view and so on. That means you can't load 100 bitmaps of this size.

Solution 2:

As a rule of thumb you should only ever need to show what the user can actually see. Holding anything else (graphics) in memory is just icing on the cake. This is why devices with higher resolution screens will have larger heap sizes available.

For example, on a 320x480 screen, you would only need as a minimum, 320x480x4=614400 (600kb).

Taking this concept into mind, you need to consider whether you need to hold 100 Bitmaps in memory. Is the user looking at 100 Bitmaps at one time? In that case you can reduce the quality of the images without degrading the user experience (there are only so many pixels on the screen). Is the user scrolling through 100 Bitmaps? Then dump and load images dynamically as appropriate (with a bit of caching for smoothness).

There is always a workaround.