Over the past few years, cellphones have also joined the trend of high refresh rate displays and monitors. It is also challenging to convert from phones with 90/120Hz refresh rates to ones with anything less. Thus, it is annoying when some applications are hesitant to connect to 90/120 Hz. With your Android device, we did, however, discover a workaround to force a high refresh rate.
Numerous online solutions call for rooting your phone or using a PC terminal to solve the problem. But we want to make this easier for you. We’ll demonstrate how to use a Play Store app to induce a high refresh rate. And it only requires a few taps, nothing more.
But, keep in mind that in the first place, you must have a device that supports a high refresh rate. Hence, verify your phone’s specifications or see whether the Settings app allows you to enable a fast refresh rate. If not, introducing the high refresh rate functionality for your phone’s display is sadly not possible.
High Refresh Rate on All Android Apps
HOW TO ENABLE A HIGH REFRESH RATE ON ANDROID
Here’s how to make your phone’s high refresh rate function operational. The Settings app will contain the toggle for it. You can set your phone’s display refresh rate to either 90Hz, 120Hz, or both, depending on its configuration.
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.
This will ideally make it possible for all applications to have a high refresh rate. Since smartphones don’t let you set a refresh rate for individual apps, all of your apps should use the chosen refresh rate.
A few apps, nevertheless, won’t operate at a fast refresh rate. Even when you choose a 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate, they still appear slow. If you too noticed this, let’s check the refresh rate on your phone to ascertain your suspicion.
CHECK WHICH APPS DON’T WORK WITH A HIGHER REFRESH RATE
In our experience, the 120Hz YouTube app felt sluggish and clumsy. Some applications, however, had a high refresh rate and performed as expected. We therefore tested the app’s refresh rate while using it. Here’s how to enable developer options, which is the first step.
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.
You will now see the value of the refresh rate in the top left corner of your screen.
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 looked into the YouTube app’s refresh rate after seeing that it was operating slowly. It turned out that the YouTube app was operating at 60 Hz, as we had predicted.
Fortunately, in our situation, it was occasionally just Snapchat and the YouTube app. But, if you experience this problem with multiple apps, it might be annoying. Given that a phone with a high refresh rate display costs more, you’d want to resolve the problem as quickly as you can. Let’s do that right away.
FORCE PEAK REFRESH RATE ON YOUR ANDROID DEVICE (WITHOUT ROOT)
An Android app called SetEdit lets you edit databases. By changing their settings, it assists in modifying a few configurations. So that apps operate at the maximum refresh rate, you can change the display refresh rate parameters. Without root or any other ostensibly complicated technique, this works.
Note: This entails making a few changes to your device’s settings that aren’t ordinarily possible through the Settings app. Take care and do so at your own risk. Before continuing, we suggest making a complete backup of your device.
Step 1: Download the SetEdit app from the Play Store.
Read warnings and cautionary notes mentioned by the app developer. Neither does the app developer nor we guarantee the safety of your device.
Step 2: Give necessary permissions and ignore any error message about the app’s incompatibility.
Step 3: On the app’s main screen, tap ‘Add New Setting’.
Step 4: Enter the below text in the field:
peak_refresh_rate
Step 5: Tap on Save Changes.
Step 6: Now, 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 advise using this approach because it was successful for us. See the screenshot below to see our YouTube app operating smoothly at a 120Hz frame rate.
That covers all there is to know about forcing all of your Android device’s apps to update quickly. But, if you have any additional queries, please see our FAQ 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 wish you luck in getting all of your phone’s applications to refresh quickly after reading this post. Although this functionality has been around for a while, we believe app developers have not yet fully tapped into the fast refresh rate.
Even with 90/120Hz enabled, we frequently notice some apps dropping to 60Hz. Although the adaptation may still take some time, we hope that problems like this can be resolved quickly.