Qualcomm’s working on GPU drivers and optimisations tools for Android because “winning matters”

Mobile gaming is continuing to grow in popularity, and the creation of high refresh rate “gaming phones” has forced SOC makers to take performance a lot more seriously. Unoptimised software and drivers plague the mobile market, and Qualcomm’s taking the required steps to ensure that their devices deliver the best gaming performance, simply stating that “winning matters.”

In collaboration with Google, Qualcomm is helping to create a tool called the “Android GPU Inspector” and implement updatable GPU drivers into devices like the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Samsung Galaxy S10. In the future, these tools will be expanded to more devices, allowing Qualcomm to improve the performance of its Adreno graphics tech through the use of new drivers and game-specific optimisations. 

In a way, this will make Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs a lot more PC-like, allowing the company to deliver driver updates to support the latest games, fix bugs and deliver new features/performance optimisations. Adreno graphics drivers will update like an app, making the update process easy for end-users. 

While working with a game partner, Qualcomm was able to use Android’s GPU Inspector tool to discover an optimisation opportunity which saved 40% in GPU utilisation on a Snapdragon-powered Google Pixel 4 XL smartphone. This optimisation delivers faster framerates to gamers, smoother performance and longer battery life. 

Qualcomm is the first mobile SOC manufacturer to offer GPU drivers on Android, something which has the potential to transform Android gaming moving forward.   
 

  

You can join the discussion on Qualcomm’s work to deliver Snapdragon GPU drivers on Android on the OC3D Forums. 

Special Thanks to NeverBackDown for bringing this news to our attention.