Did you know you can tweak some options on your Android phone to make your games run even smoother? These are some easy-to-make changes, and you don’t even need root access for most of these gaming optimization tips for Android.
Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to make your Android phone more game-friendly.
1. Change the Screen Refresh Rate
The higher the screen refresh rate, the better visual feel you get out of your games, with much smoother animations. Switching to a high screen refresh rate is one of the easiest ways on how to increase gaming performance on Android without root.
Many Android devices—including flagship models from the likes of Samsung and OnePlus—allow you to change your screen refresh rate. If you change this to whatever the highest that your phone offers, you can greatly improve the visuals of your games.
On the phones that support this feature (not all the phones do), here’s how you can increase the refresh rate:
- Launch the Settings app on your phone and tap Display.
- Select Advanced on the resulting screen.
- Tap Refresh rate.
- Select the highest possible refresh rate from the options on your screen.
Since there are different flavors of Android, precise steps will vary from one device to another. Check your exact phone model online if you can’t find the option and are sure your device has a high display refresh rate.
2. Switch to a Fast Internet Connection
If you play online games on your Android phone, the speed of your internet connection affects your gaming performance. This is because your games need to constantly send and receive data. If your internet connection is poor, this data transfer takes longer. In turn, your gaming experience gets spoiled.
Therefore, to ensure your online games play as smoothly and lag-free as your offline games, consider using a fast internet connection when you play your games.
You can use any connection that’s fast enough. It could be a Wi-Fi connection or even a mobile data connection, especially if you have access to 5G.
3. Turn On Force 4x
Force 4x MSAA (multisample anti-aliasing) is an option found on some Android phones that greatly enhances the quality of your games. It’s by far the best Developer options setting for improving gaming performance on Android.
Force 4x MSAA improves your performance and graphics in OpenGL 2.0 apps and games.
This feature comes disabled on most phones as it drains the battery pretty quickly. If you aren’t too concerned about the battery life and you want the best possible gaming experience on your phone, you can turn this feature on.
Keep in mind not all the phones out there support Force 4x. If yours does, here’s how to enable it:
- Open the Settings app, tap About phone, and tap Build number seven times. Your phone should say you’re a developer.
- Head back to the main settings menu and tap System.
- Tap Developer options.
- Find the option that says Force 4x MSAA and toggle it on.
If these steps don’t work for you, quickly search for Force 4x using the top search bar in the Settings app. Remember, Developer options must be enabled first.
4. Remove the Junk From Your Phone
The more files you store on your phone, the slower your phone gets.
If you’ve saved any files on your phone that you don’t intend to use anymore, you should get rid of those files to improve your phone’s performance. This improved performance will positively affect your gaming sessions.
Your Android phone collects junk content from many sources. Your uninstalled apps’ leftovers, old media files, and unused documents are all part of this junk.
You can actually use a built-in feature on many Android phones to find the unused files and to safely delete them from the phone. Here’s how you find and use this feature:
- Access Settings on your phone, and tap Storage.
- Tap the Free Up Space button.
- Select the items that you don’t use anymore, and tap Free Up in the bottom-right.
Alternatively, take a look at the apps that will clean up junk files on your Android device.
5. Enable Dolby Atmos Sound
Dolby Atmos’ sound greatly enhances the audio quality of your games. If you have an Android phone that supports this, you can turn this feature on and enjoy better quality sounds in your games.
Most Samsung Galaxy phones have this feature, and you can turn this on and off from the Settings menu. Here’s how:
- Open the Settings app on your phone, and tap Sounds and vibration.
- Tap Sound quality and effects on the following screen.
- Turn Dolby Atmos on.
6. Use a Game Booster App
With more and more people playing games on their Android phones, there are now apps to optimize your Android device for gaming.
These game booster apps tweak various options on your phone to ensure your phone can play games smoothly, and they’ll also shut off notifications, so you don’t get interrupted while playing. You don’t need to manually optimize each option as the app does that for you with a single tap.
Game Booster is a free game optimization app you can use to make your Android device game-friendly. There are a few other game launchers for Android as well that you can use. And if your Android phone has a gaming mode, ensure you have it enabled every time you want to play.
7. Use a Phone Gaming Accessory
In addition to the software, you can make changes to your hardware to improve gaming on your Android device.
For example, you can get an external game controller to play games on your phone. This controller will help you better control your moves in your games.
Most of these gaming accessory items are easy to install. You simply plug them into your phone, and they start working.
8. Overclock the Phone CPU
Finally, something more hands-on for the real mobile gaming enthusiast. Overclocking the CPU of your phone lets you extract more power out of the same processor. This lets your games process more items at once, and this results in an improved gaming environment.
You can overclock the CPU on most Android phones out there. However, keep in mind you’ll need to root your phone before you can overclock it. If you aren’t sure what root it is, it might be best that you don’t do this or you risk bricking your device.
To overclock an Android phone, you need to first install a custom kernel. Then you can use an app like the popular Franco Kernel Manager to overclock your CPU. Overclocking will make your phone run hotter and shorten your battery life, but it can squeeze every drop of power out of your device.
Optimize Android for Gaming
If your Android device is your primary gaming machine, the tips above will help you improve the performance of your games on your phone. A few tweaks here and there will make your device better handle all your favorite games.
Android has loads of games to choose from, and there are even games that don’t require an internet connection at all.
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