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Specify Android Player command-line arguments

Specify startup command-line arguments to pass to Unity.
Read time 3 minutesLast updated 13 days ago
You can extend the custom Unity activity to pass command-line arguments when you launch the Android Player. For information on the available command-line arguments, refer to Command-line arguments.

Specify arguments in a custom activity

To specify startup command-line arguments in a custom activity:
  1. Create a custom activity and set it as the application entry point.
  2. In the custom activity, override the 
    String UnityPlayerActivity.updateUnityCommandLineArguments(String cmdLine)
    method.
  3. In the method, concatenate the 
    cmdLine
    argument with your own startup arguments, then return the result.
    Important
    The 
    cmdLine
    argument can be an empty string or null. Make sure your code handles these possible values.
The following example shows how to specify startup arguments to select the graphics API based on the current device:
package com.company.product;import com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerActivity;import android.os.Bundle;import android.os.Build;public class OverrideExample extends UnityPlayerActivity {    private boolean preferVulkan() {        // Use Vulkan on Google Pixel devices        if (Build.MANUFACTURER.equals("Google") && Build.MODEL.startsWith("Pixel"))            return true;        else            return false;    }    private String appendCommandLineArgument(String cmdLine, String arg) {        if (arg == null || arg.isEmpty())            return cmdLine;        else if (cmdLine == null || cmdLine.isEmpty())            return arg;        else            return cmdLine + " " + arg;     }     @Override protected String updateUnityCommandLineArguments(String cmdLine)    {        if (preferVulkan())            return appendCommandLineArgument(cmdLine, "-force-vulkan");        else            return cmdLine; // let Unity pick the Graphics API based on PlayerSettings    }    @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)    {        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);    }}
The following example shows how to pass custom startup parameters from a native Android app to the Unity app:
package com.company.product;import com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerActivity;import android.os.Bundle;import android.content.Intent;public class CustomParameterExample extends UnityPlayerActivity {    private String appendCommandLineArgument(String cmdLine, String arg) {        if (arg == null || arg.isEmpty())            return cmdLine;        else if (cmdLine == null || cmdLine.isEmpty())            return arg;        else            return cmdLine + " " + arg;     }    @Override protected String updateUnityCommandLineArguments(String cmdLine)    {        // Get custom parameters passed from the native Android application        Intent intent = getIntent();        Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();                if (extras != null && extras.containsKey("startLevel")) {            int level = extras.getInt("startLevel");            cmdLine = appendCommandLineArgument(cmdLine, "-level " + level);        }                return cmdLine;    }    @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)    {        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);    }}

Specify command-line arguments in other ways

Apart from the custom activity, you can specify command-line arguments in the following ways:
  • In Android Studio: If you open your project in Android Studio, you can pass startup command-line arguments to Unity through Launch Flags in Run/Debug Configurations dialog.
  • Via Android Debug Bridge (adb): You can pass command-line arguments by launching an Android application via adb using the following code.
adb shell am start -n "<package_name>/<activity_name>" -e unity \"<command_line_arguments>\"
Use the following code example to pass 
-systemallocator
command-line argument to your application.
adb shell am start -n "com.Company.MyGame/com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerActivity" -e unity \"-systemallocator\"
Use the following code example to pass 
-platform-android-jobworker-affinity
command-line argument with value 
little
to run the Unity job worker threads on little cores. For more information, refer to Android thread configuration.
adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n "com.Company.MyGame/com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerActivity" -e unity \"-platform-android-jobworker-affinity little\"

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