Announced at a recent Qualcomm event in Hawaii, PUBG Mobile 90Hz support is officially on its way. So if you were duped into buying a “gaming” smartphone like the Red Magic 3 for its silky-smooth 90Hz panel, you may finally be about to get some use out of the headlining tech — outside of just sliding through your home screen app icons. 10-bit HDR was confirmed, too, but if you choose more vibrant colors over that silky smooth 90FPS shooter satisfaction, expect the next wave of rich kids to stomp you on Erangel.
Beyond all the hackers and weekly missions failing to tick off, one big PUBG Mobile mystery has revolved around its graphics settings. They’re simple enough on first glace: you toggle between named presets in the menu and watch your in-game FPS counter tank. But the existence of a second menu underneath — which actually controls the game’s frame rate limit — complicates matters. If you need a crash course on those settings, we actually have a guide right here.
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In the current build of PUBG Mobile, certain graphical presets are locked out at higher FPS counts. It’s not because Tencent is afraid your phone will burn through your hands. It’s because they’re just not supported yet! But at a recent Qualcomm event in Hawaii, the makers of the new Snapdragon 865 mobile processor put to rest the idea that these settings would never actually make it into the game.
We don’t know exactly when PUBG Mobile 90Hz support will make it into the game, but at least it’s being talked about. Like anything in PUBG Mobile these days, it’s best to wait for the final release before getting your hopes up, too. The event took place to demonstrate the power of Qualcomm’s new flagship SoCs. With PUBG Mobile being used as context for its new silicon wizardry, there’s an obvious reason to believe only handsets rocking the upcoming Snapdragon 865 chip will be up to the job of driving Tencent’s title at its highest setting to date. But there’s a bit of speculation to pull from the finer details.
PUBG Mobile: 90Hz & 10-Bit HDR
The Snapdragon 865 processor will actually support refresh rates of up to 144Hz. That’s easily the most common form of high refresh rate gaming on the PC gaming circuit. So if these can handle 144Hz in average smartphone tasks, maybe last-gen chips can retroactively crank out the 90 frames per second needed to put 90Hz panels to use. After all, the current 90 FPS cap is imposed by individual games rather than Android or past Snapdragon chips themselves.
It’s still rare to find a 90Hz display in your average non-gaming handset, but with so many purpose-built gaming phones pioneering the use of these stepping-stone panels as soon as they were supported, it’s only a matter of time before newer models push the envelope even further. Though given how long it has taken PUBG Mobile to officially support 90Hz refresh rates, we wouldn’t expect it to make the 60 percent jump any time soon. It’s difficult for top-tier PCs to crank out the uninterrupted 144+ frames per second needed to make proper use of these kinds of displays in most titles, so the idea of a phone managing that same feat is probably still a while away yet.
But the news should make a lot of PUBG Mobile players happy. 90Hz phones were cleverly marketed as a competitive advantage players could herald over those with more average smartphones. Yet in practice, the smoother display was only noticeable in a handful of games due to developer-imposed frame rate caps. 90Hz doesn’t offer quite as smooth a gaming experience as future 144Hz support could, but it’s also recognized as the sweet spot for VR gaming – the point where developers say motion sickness is severely reduced. If it’s good enough to stop you from throwing up, it’s good enough to show “DaReaper” who’s boss. Whoever that is.
Disclaimer: Fanbyte is owned by Tencent, which also runs Tencent Games, developer and publisher of PUBG Mobile. Tencent also subsidizes much of Fanbyte’s PUBG Mobile coverage by covering freelancer budget costs. Those covering PUBG Mobile for the site have no contact with Tencent, however, and are given complete creative control to write whatever they wish.
