When Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon 865 mobile platform last year, it noted that Android OEMs could update the GPU drivers of the Adreno 650 via the Google Play Store instead of firmware updates. It later clarified that it would be up to OEMs to update the GPU drivers on their devices.
Xiaomi is now the first Android OEM to have taken advantage of this feature to roll out a driver update for its Snapdragon 865-powered devices in China. The company uploaded the "GPU Driver Updater" app on its app store in China. The app is aimed at updating the GPU driver of the Adreno 650 GPU of the Snapdragon 865 that's found inside the Mi 10, Mi 10 Pro, and the Redmi K30 Pro. The updated GPU drivers bring optimizations for some popular games like PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, and Honkai Impact 3rd.
The new driver also contains improvements to OpenGL ES and Vulkan. While nothing major, the changes brought about by the updated driver should lead to better performance and resource utilization.
This is the first time that an Android OEM has updated the GPU drivers of their Android device via the Play Store. Hopefully, other OEMs also take a cue from Xiaomi and roll out GPU driver updates for their Snapdragon 865-powered devices. There have been reports of Samsung and Google working on driver updates for their flagship devices.
Via: XDA
