Does Game Mode Really Improve The Performance Of Games And Apps On Your Phone?

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For some time now, phones have been used for far more than communication. They've become small supercomputers that can fit in our pockets, giving us access to the world in different ways. Throughout the past decade-plus in particular, apps have become a serious hit with users. There are excellent apps for organizing your daily life, aiding in your work, and a whole lot more. Naturally, many apps are for entertainment, such as video streaming and gaming, and phone manufacturers have taken notice. Thus, most phones come with a gaming mode of some kind that users can switch on to optimize their entertainment experience.

Though it varies in name across devices — Android refers to it as Game Mode, while Samsung refers to it as Game Booster, for instance — all of its forms promise similar improvements. They filter out distractions like calls, texts, and app notifications, improve the frame rate for better visuals, and make adjustments to improve battery life, to name a few prominent features. 

This mode is typically activated by going into your phone's settings and simply turning it on, though on some devices, such as iPhones, it will turn on automatically when a game is launched. The question is, though, does it actually make much of a difference? Overall, mobile phone game modes promise a lot. As far as whether they actually deliver, those who've used them find them to be a bit of a mixed bag.

Though phone gaming modes offer a lot to mobile gamers, the fact is they don't always deliver. In a comparison of the game modes of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra — the predecessor to one of the top-rated Android phones for gamers — and the Xiaomi 12 Pro, Digital Trends found that the benefits were negligible at best. From game to game, aspects like GPU usage, phone temperature, and battery use were hardly any different from tests conducted with game mode turned off. Even with no background apps running, screen brightness, and quality cranked all the way up, and adaptive refresh rate enabled, game mode didn't offer much of an advantage over playing games without it.

With that said, some game modes on some devices might be worth activating. YouTuber FrozenVayne tested the iOS 18 game mode using an M4 iPad Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. While gaming mode did little to reduce the increased temperature generated while gaming, they did find the frame rate to be an improvement. On top of that, the games they played remained consistent in their performance over extended periods of time. 

Therefore, your mileage is likely to vary when it comes to gaming mode. Some may find it to be a welcome improvement, while others won't see it as a priority at all. If you don't find gaming mode to be worth the use, you don't have to use it alone. There are other things to try to get the best gaming performance out of your mobile device.

When game mode is active, it's said to do a lot, but might not actually benefit some key areas. As a result, some additional effort could be required to get your device where you want it to be. As previously covered, chances are game mode isn't going to do much by way of device temperature. Games and apps can and will cause a phone to run hot, so means of cooling are huge. Routine breaks, keeping the brightness turned down, and, if game mode hasn't done so already, closing background apps will put less stress on your phone's internals. If you so please, you could even invest in an attachable fan, like the Neveika clip-on phone cooler.

As most major mobile games are online these days, a solid internet connection is very much to your benefit if you want a smooth gaming experience. If your Wi-Fi network is lacking, you should be able to switch over to a mobile data connection with ease — just be mindful of how much data you're using if your phone plan isn't unlimited. You also want to turn off your battery saver, since in the name of conserving energy, it will throttle gaming performance. 

You could even try third-party game booster apps to increase overall performance. Much like built-in game mode settings, though, these can be more of a hassle than they're worth, so thorough research is essential. Just as there's debate over whether Android or iPhone devices are best for mobile gaming, there's no clear-cut answer to whether game mode is worth using. In some cases it may be a help, while in others it won't have much to offer.