Android graphics optimization

I've been working on my game for quite some time with a targeted Windows platform release.  I have kept mobile in mind though, and made my UI both mobile and PC friendly.  So, I tested my game for the first time in a year on a Note 4 Andrpid device...and it runs HORRIBLY.  Specifically my cut scenes that involve dialogue, faux particle generation, and a lot of opacity functions on ny actors.  On a windows build it runs flawlessly, but android is choking on it.  My game is a 1x scale with no filtering, and I try to keep actor scales from 32x32 to 64x64.  What can I do to improve performance?  I have a theory that 1x scale and no filtering is not taking advantage of hardware graphics rendering, and it is purely rendered from cpu.  Is that possible?  Should I scale smaller actors (maybe 8x8 pixels or smaller) for particles? 

Search for my tutorial on Stencyl scaling to have a better understanding. It will take some work to make it more optimized tho, because you probabky need libraries.

Are your particles actors? That's probably a major source of the slowdown. Use images rather than actors.

Search for my tutorial on Stencyl scaling to have a better understanding. It will take some work to make it more optimized tho, because you probabky need libraries.

What do you mean with libraries?

Yes, I'm very interested in what libraries you are referring to as well.

And Jeffrey, that makes total sense.  I'm definitely going to have to do some research to get images to perform the same behaviors as actors.  I've struggled with using images so far. 

Thank you both