In the last few years, smartphones have joined displays and monitors that have a high refresh rate. And once you’ve used a phone with a refresh rate of 90 or 120Hz, it’s hard to go back to a lower rate. Because of this, it’s frustrating when some apps don’t want to work with 90/120 Hz. But we found a way around that so you can force your Android device to have a high refresh rate.
Many of the solutions on the Internet require you to “root” your phone or use a terminal on your PC. But we want to make it easy for you to understand. We’ll show you how to use an app from the Play Store to force a high refresh rate. And all you have to do is tap a few times.
But remember that you need a device that can handle a high refresh rate to begin with. So, look at your phone’s specs or use the Settings app to see if you can turn on a high refresh rate. If not, there is no way to add the high refresh rate feature to your phone’s display.
Force High Refresh Rate on All Android Apps
HOW TO ENABLE A HIGH REFRESH RATE ON ANDROID
Here’s how to set up your phone to use a high refresh rate. The switch to turn it on or off will be in the Settings app. Depending on how your phone is set up, you can set the refresh rate of your screen to 90Hz, 120Hz, or both.
Step 1: Open the Settings app.
Step 2: Tap on Display & brightness.
Step 3: Tap on ‘Screen refresh rate’. You’ll find options to select a high refresh rate in this window. Check the box for the same.
In an ideal world, this will let all applications use the high refresh rate. Smartphones don’t let you choose a different refresh rate for each app, so all of your apps will run at the same rate.
But some apps won’t work with a high refresh rate. Even if you choose a 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate, they seem slow. If you noticed the same thing, let’s confirm your suspicion by checking the refresh rate on your phone while you use it.
CHECK WHICH APPS DON’T WORK WITH A HIGHER REFRESH RATE
At 120Hz, the YouTube app felt slow and jerky to us. Other applications, on the other hand, worked as expected and had a high refresh rate. So, we did a test and looked at how often the app refreshed. First, we have to turn on developer options. Here’s how to do that.
Note: These are experimental features meant for the purposes of development. Proceed with caution and at your own risk.
Step 1: Open the Settings app and tap on About Device.
Step 2: Tap on Version.
Step 3: Tap several times on the Build number until you get a message saying ‘You are now a developer’.
Step 4: We now need to open developer options. Open the ‘Additional Settings’ menu in the settings app.
Step 5: Tap on Developer options.
Step 6: Scroll down to find and turn on the toggle for ‘Show refresh rate’. It will be present under the Display settings.
In the top left corner of your screen, you can now see the refresh rate.
Take a look at the two images below – the first screenshot was taken when we were navigating around our home screen, it said 120Hz which is what we opted for.
We noticed that the YouTube app was running slowly, so we checked how often the app refreshed. We were right to think that the YouTube app was running at 60 Hz.
Luckily in our case, it was just the YouTube app and Snapchat at times. However, it can be frustrating if you’re facing this issue with more apps. Given the fact that you pay a premium for a phone with a high refresh rate display, you’d want to fix the issue as soon as you can. Let’s get to that now.
FORCE PEAK REFRESH RATE ON YOUR ANDROID DEVICE (WITHOUT ROOT)
SetEdit is an app for your Android device that lets you edit database files. It lets you change the values of a few configurations. So, you can change the values for the refresh rate of the display so that apps run at the highest refresh rate. This works without root or any other seemingly complicated process. All you need to do is download the app and follow the steps we’ve given.
This works without root or any other seemingly complex process – all you need to do is to download the app and follow the steps we’ve outlined.
Note: To do this, you’ll need to change a few settings on your phone that you can’t do through the Settings app. Carefully move forward, and do so at your own risk. Before you move on, we suggest making a full backup of your device.
Step 1: Download the SetEdit app from the Play Store.
Read the app developer’s notes about warnings and things to be careful of. Neither does the app developer nor we, as publishers of this article, guarantee the safety of your device.
Step 2: Give access to all the necessary options and ignore if there is any error message that says the app was not built for your device version.
Step 3: On the app’s main screen, tap ‘Add New Setting’.
Step 4: Enter the text below in the field provided:
peak_refresh_rate
Step 5: Tap on Save Changes.
Step 6: You now need to add the value in the Edit Setting pop-up box. Remove the text ‘SETTING_VALUE’ and enter ‘1’.
Step 7: Tap on Save Changes.
Step 8: Repeat the same procedure (starting with step three) to add two more settings with values as ‘1’.
user_refresh_rate min_refresh_rate
Step 9: Once you complete the above steps, all apps should run on 120Hz.
We think this method is good because it worked for us. Look at the screenshot below to see that our YouTube app is working well at a 120Hz refresh rate.
That’s everything you need to know about how to force all apps on your Android device to have a high refresh rate. But if you have more questions about the same thing, check out our Frequently Asked Questions section below.
FAQS ON FORCING HIGH REFRESH RATE
No. Since it is a hardware feature, you cannot add a high refresh rate display through any modifications of your own.
Yes, a high refresh rate drains the battery slightly more in comparison to using the standard 60Hz refresh rate.
No, you cannot increase the refresh rate on your phone beyond the maximum limit.
ENJOY A HIGH REFRESH RATE ON ALL APPLICATIONS
We hope that this article helped you get all of the apps on your phone back to a high refresh rate. Even though this feature has been around for a few years, we don’t think app developers have made the most of the high refresh rate.
Even when we have 90/120Hz turned on, a few apps always drop to 60Hz. The adaptation might still need more time, but we hope problems like this get fixed soon.