SurfaceView shows black screen

I have also run into this issue. When my game view would start, I would see the SurfaceView area flash black, then my background graphics would render. I believe this due to the surface view initializing late, after the onSizeChanged() method being called by the system, then the surface view's canvas would be valid and able to be drawn too.

I addressed this issue in my layout file that held my SurfaceView. I put in a View with the same measurements as my surface view, so that it would show behind the SurfaceView. I also set the background color of the stand-in View widget to the most predominate color the surface view would initially show. So now upon game startup, the black flash is not shown, only the green color, followed shortly after by the background graphics that was mostly using the color in the View.

<View android:id="@+id/canvasStandin" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="0dp" android:visibility="visible" android:background="#FF005500" app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/dividerBottom" app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/controllerEdge" app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent" app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent" /> <com.mygames.gameview.MySurfaceView android:id="@+id/gameView" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="0dp" android:visibility="visible" app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/dividerBottom" app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/controllerEdge" app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent" app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent" /> 

Once the game starts, you can always reference the standin component and remove it or make the visibility invisible.

Hey so this is my loop it might need a few changes but it works for my game.

public class GameLoop extends Thread{ public static final double MAX_UPS = %1$s; private static final double UPS_PERIOD = 1E+3/MAX_UPS; public Game game; public final SurfaceHolder surfaceHolder; private boolean isRunning = false; public double averageFPS; public long startTime; public GameLoop(Game game, SurfaceHolder surfaceHolder) { this.game = game; this.surfaceHolder = surfaceHolder; } public double getAverageFPS() { return averageFPS; } public void startLoop() { isRunning = true; start(); } @Override public void run() { super.run(); // Declare time and cycle count variables int updateCount = 0; int frameCount = 0; long elapsedTime; long sleepTime; // Game loop Canvas canvas = null; startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); while(isRunning) { // Try to update and render game try { //canvas = surfaceHolder.lockCanvas(); canvas = surfaceHolder.lockHardwareCanvas(); synchronized (surfaceHolder) { game.update(); updateCount++; game.draw(canvas); } } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } finally { if(canvas != null) { try { surfaceHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(canvas); frameCount++; } catch(Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } // Pause game loop to not exceed target UPS elapsedTime = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime; sleepTime = (long) (updateCount*UPS_PERIOD - elapsedTime); if(sleepTime > 0) { try { sleep(sleepTime); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } // Skip frames to keep up with target UPS while(sleepTime < 0 && updateCount < MAX_UPS-1) { game.update(); updateCount++; elapsedTime = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime; sleepTime = (long) (updateCount*UPS_PERIOD - elapsedTime); } // Calculates and shows the FPS (slows down gameplay when active) //if (game.showFPS == false) { elapsedTime = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime; if (elapsedTime >= 1000) { averageFPS = frameCount / (1E-3 * elapsedTime); updateCount = 0; frameCount = 0; startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); } // } } } public void stopLoop() { isRunning = false; try { join(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } }