12 Tips to Boost Gaming Performance on Android

Nothing kills your gaming experience faster than a laggy, stuttering Android phone. Whether dropping into a battle royale in PUBG Mobile or drifting through corners in Asphalt 9, performance issues can ruin your gaming sessions. You don’t need technical expertise to boost the gaming performance on Android devices. With our basic and advanced optimization tips, you can combat lag and frame drops while gaming like a pro.

Even the best Android phones with flagship processors can perform poorly without proper optimization. The good news is that you don’t need technical expertise to improve your Android phone’s gaming performance significantly. With the following tweaks, your premium phone will deliver better baseline performance, while budget and mid-range devices will benefit the most.

Advanced users can also try ADB commands to boost performance on their Android devices.

1. Use Game Mode to Boost Performance

Most Android phones now include a dedicated Game Mode feature that automatically optimizes your device for gaming. This setting prioritizes your games by allocating more system resources and limiting background activities.

The location of Game Mode varies depending on your phone manufacturer:

• Samsung: Go to Settings > Advanced Features > Game Booster Settings
• Xiaomi: Look in the Security App > Game Turbo
• OnePlus: Find it under Settings > Utilities > Gaming Mode
• Nothing Phone: Access through Settings > System > Game mode

Once you turn on Game Mode, your phone automatically kills unnecessary background processes, improves network performance for online games, and enhances touch response for better control. Many phones offer different performance profiles within Game Mode – Standard for balanced performance, Performance for maximum frame rates, and Battery Saver for longer gaming sessions.

You can even customize Game Booster Settings for each game individually.

2. Turn off Battery Saver When Gaming

Battery Saver mode might extend your phone’s battery life, but it severely limits gaming performance. When active, this feature throttles your CPU, dims your screen, and restricts background processes – all things that hurt gaming performance.

To disable Battery Saver before launching your games:

1. Open Settings
2. Tap Battery
3. Toggle off the Power saving option.

You can also quickly disable Battery Saver by swiping down from the top of your screen to access Quick Settings and tapping the Battery Saver icon.

3. Keep Your Phone and Games Updated

OEMs and game developers regularly release patches that improve efficiency and fix performance bugs. By keeping your Android device and apps updated, you can ensure optimal performance.

Check for system updates by:

1. Opening Settings
2. Scrolling to System or About Phone
3. Tapping Software Update or System Update
4. Selecting Check for Updates and installing if available

For game updates, open the Play Store, tap your profile picture in the top right, select Manage apps and device, and update any pending games.

4. Close Background Apps before Gaming

Background apps consume system resources that your games could use instead. Manually closing resource-hungry apps before launching games ensures maximum available power for smooth gameplay.

To manually close background apps:

1. Tap the Recents button.
2. Swipe up on individual app cards to close them or tap Close all to close all apps at once.

Closing unnecessary background apps can dramatically reduce stuttering in graphically intensive games like Genshin Impact or Call of Duty Mobile.

5. Restrict Background Processes

For more control over what runs in the background, Developer Options offers powerful settings that most users never touch:

1. Enable Developer Options by tapping Build Number seven times in Settings > About phone
2. Go to Settings > Developer Options
3. Find Background process limit under the Apps section.
4. Select a lower limit like ‘At most 3 processes’ or ‘At most 4 processes’.

This setting forces your phone to shut down excess background processes, saving resources for your games.

6. Clean Up Storage Space

If your phone’s storage is nearly full, games are more likely to stutter and lag during intense gameplay. To clean things up:

• Go to Settings > Storage > Clean Up Storage (or use your phone’s built-in cleaning tool).
• Uninstall games and apps you no longer use..
• Clear app and system caches regularly on your Android device. To delete app cache, navigate to Settings > Apps > [Select App] > Storage and select Clear Cache.

The Files by Google app makes cleaning up junk files even easier – just download it from the Play Store and let it identify unnecessary files you can safely remove.

7. Bump Up Your Screen Refresh Rate

If you own a newer Android phone, it probably supports higher refresh rates than the standard 60Hz. Refresh rate measures how many times your screen updates per second – the higher the number, the smoother everything looks. Modern flagship phones often support 90Hz, 120Hz, or even 144Hz, which makes fast-paced games look significantly more fluid.

To maximize your refresh rate:

1. Open Settings and tap Display.
2. Look for Refresh Rate or Motion Smoothness (the name varies by manufacturer).
3. Select the highest available option (typically 120Hz on high-end devices).

On an older Android phone, you can use the Shizuku app named 90 FPS + 120 FPS to enable 90-120 FPS. Keep in mind that higher refresh rates drain your battery faster. Many phones offer an “Adaptive” setting that automatically adjusts the refresh rate based on the current activity.

8. Fine-tune in-game Graphics Settings

Nearly all popular mobile games include their own graphics settings that let you balance visual quality with performance. Don’t just accept the default settings – take a few minutes to:

• Lower the resolution slightly if your game stutters during intense action
• Reduce shadow quality before touching texture detail (shadows are processing-intensive)
• Turn down particle effects, which often cause frame drops during explosions or combat

Finding the sweet spot between graphics quality and performance takes some experimentation. Start by lowering one setting at a time and testing how the game runs until you find a smooth experience that still looks good.

9. Try 3rd-party Game Booster Apps

Game booster apps offer one-tap optimization for gaming sessions. The results can vary depending on your phone’s hardware. While they aren’t magic solutions, they do combine several useful functions:

• They automatically clear RAM and minimize background processes
• They block notifications during gameplay to prevent distractions
• Some track device temperature and performance in real-time
• Many create custom profiles for different games

Popular options include Game Booster, GFX Tool, LagoFast Mobile, and Game Booster 4x Faster Pro. Many phone manufacturers now include built-in game boosting tools that can reduce CPU throttling and minimize network latency.

10. Increase Transition Animation Scale

Developer Options hides some powerful performance features, including Transition Animation Scale. This setting forces the GPU to make the animations smoother for a better gaming experience. To enable it:

1. Go to Settings > About Phone > Software Information, and tap Build Number seven times.
2. Go back to Settings and find the new Developer Options entry.
3. Scroll down, look for Transition Animation Scale, and increase it to 2x.

Be aware that this setting typically reduces battery life by 5-15% since GPU processing usually consumes more power than CPU rendering. The performance gain is often worth it for gaming sessions, but you might want to disable it when you’re not playing games.

11. Toggle Force 4x MSAA and HW Overlays

Enabling Force 4x MSAA on Android can improve the visual quality of games and apps using OpenGL ES 2.0 by enabling Multisample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA). This makes graphics smoother, reducing jagged edges, but may also increase power consumption and heat, especially on mid- or low-end devices.

Hardware overlays allow the system to display multiple layers (apps, UI elements, videos) by offloading some of the compositing work to a dedicated hardware component, instead of the GPU. When you Disable HW Overlays, the system forces everything to be rendered through the GPU. Doing so reduces graphical glitches, improves responsiveness, and increases GPU load.

1. Go to Settings > System > Developer options (may vary slightly by brand).
2. Scroll down to the Hardware accelerated rendering section.
3. Toggle Force 4x MSAA on.
4. Next, tap the toggle next to Disable HW Overlays.

12. Consider Overclocking (rooted devices)

Overclocking represents the most extreme performance optimization – pushing your processor beyond factory speed limits. This technique gets maximum performance from your hardware but requires:

• Root access to your device
• Installation of a custom kernel
• Flashing a custom ROM

Overclocking isn’t for casual users. It voids your warranty, generates extra heat, and significantly shortens battery life. Your device might also become unstable or randomly restart if pushed too far. Only attempt this if you’re comfortable with these risks and have experience with custom ROMs and kernels.

That’s it! The above tips will help you boost the gaming performance on your Android phone or tablet. However, remember that more aggressive optimizations often come with battery life tradeoffs.

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