Loading bitmaps into memory in compressed form in Android

Question

I've programmed an Android game in the past and had always run into memory issues because my images have been quite large ~(1000x400 px each). I'm now wondering if it is necessary to load images into memory solely as bitmaps. Is there any reason for not loading bitmaps in some loss-less compressed format?

I don't know much at all about image compression/decompression efficiency, but I assume that there would be performance issues. But I feel as though "simple" compression algorithms can't be too processor intensive, even if they only cut down the image to half of it's uncompressed memory footprint.

Answer 1

The problem is that at some level you must have pixel by pixel representation of the image, hence you must have a bitmap.

Answer 2

The best solution to this is to switch to a compressed graphics type that can be used by OpenGL, as answered on gamedev.stackexchange.com at thsi question:

https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/28463/8126

Unfortunately for me I have no experience in OpenGL.