Unfortunately, the new frame rate override feature in Android 15 doesn’t work for most games.

Android smartphones with high refresh rate displays are now ubiquitous, but there are still many games available for the platform that don’t support running at speeds above 60 fps. There are various good reasons behind some developers limiting their Android games to his 60fps, but all It doesn’t break the game or make it run slower. This is the idea behind a new Android 15 developer feature that allows you to override the game’s default 60fps frame rate limit.

With the release of Android 15 Developer Preview 2, the Android Developer Options page now has Disable the game’s default frame rate “Disable” setting[s] Limits the game’s maximum frame rate to 60Hz. “When he saw this switch, Android gamers were excited about the possibility of finally being able to play their favorite games at the device’s native refresh rate. Unfortunately, this feature only works in a fairly small number of games.

Under the hood, Disable the game’s default frame rate Toggling developer options toggles system properties persist.graphics.game_default_frame_rate.enabled between “true” and “false”. Searching for this property on AOSP, I was able to find multiple references to the “game default frame rate override” feature in Android’s graphics stack. For example, one reference mentions how feature availability is determined by the value of the system property mentioned above, but states that the actual frame rate override value is determined by another system property. Masu. ro.surface_flinger.game_default_frame_rate_override.

According to the code comments, ro.surface_flinger.game_default_frame_rate_override As stated in the system properties, this feature is intended to cover scenarios where the game does not set its own desired frame rate. setFrameRate() API. In other words, Disable the game’s default frame rate toggle On Android 15, it only works for games that don’t explicitly set their own maximum frame rate. Most games specify a frame rate to ensure a stable and consistent experience, so this feature probably won’t work in many games.

Additionally, this new override has lower priority than any game mode intervention set by the OEM. For example, Android 13 added FPS throttling as an intervention available in Android’s Game Mode API. If an OEM chooses to use this intervention to throttle his FPS for a particular game, the new Android 15 features will not work for that game on his OEM’s device.

Since then, ro.surface_flinger.game_default_frame_rate_override The setting was removed on Pixel 8 Pro running the latest Android 15 developer preview. I had to manually set the properties to test this functionality. Otherwise it just defaults to 60. However, I haven’t found any games where this feature actually works. During my quick test. With this feature enabled, I was able to run Minecraft: Pocket Edition on the Pixel 8 Pro at 120fps, but the game strangely locked at 60fps on the two Pixels I tested, even though it runs fine at 120fps. Because it looks like it is. On every other device I’ve tried.

There are hints in the Android source code that this feature is used by Android’s Game Manager service, an underlying system service used by Android’s Game Mode API, so the more visible user-facing toggle is now available in Android. It may be added to your game dashboard. future. However, for now, this feature is hidden behind developer options. This is because it’s not really user-facing at this point. Still, if you can find a game where this feature works, you might have a more enjoyable gaming experience.