Qualcomm has a new mobile platform coming, and it’s enriched with mobile gaming-related features.
While the company promises desktop-quality gaming, a more exciting prospect for the new mobile platform might be the ability to update the GPU drivers. According to Qualcomm this is a mobile gaming first, and will be allowing gamers to update the drivers on their own the moment they’re released by OEMs.
This puts a little more control in the hands of the user. More importantly though it’ll help push mobile gaming forward and continue to improve upon in ways which haven’t been done before.
Downloads will come from the Play Store
Similar to the way HTC made updates available for specific apps or features of its phones, updatable Adreno GPU drivers will be made available for download via the Play Store.
There are a few things to keep in mind though. OEMs will have to release these drivers before users will have access, obviously. And they won’t likely bring drastic improvements every single time. Rather, they’ll be incremental most of the time.
That being said it’s still a huge step forward as it’s never been possible prior to now. Qualcomm says this will let players have control over GPU settings for top games. So think about having more control over how games like Call of Duty Mobile or PUBG MOBILE look.
Again, Qualcomm doesn’t elaborate much on what exactly players will be able to adjust. But that’s more than likely because specifics will be decided by game developers and not Qualcomm.
Anyone that owns an NVIDIA GPU for their PC will be accustomed to these kinds of changes. So if you’re familiar with how those GPU driver updates work and how often they’re released, that should give you some idea of what to expect with mobile gaming and the Adreno GPU driver updates for the Snapdragon 865.
Expect new drivers any time a big game is released
It’s not clear how often these types of drivers will be released. It’s still right at the cusp of Qualcomm’s announcement, so there isn’t a lot of detail on how that will work.
It’s likely though that new drivers will be available to download whenever a big game is released. This is how it currently works with NVIDIA’s GPU drivers. In fact there was a new one that was just recently released on November 26 in preparation for the launch of Halo Reach on PC.
After the Snapdragon 865 mobile platform makes it to phones, the same thing could happen for big mobile game releases. Or big content updates for existing games, such as Call of Duty Mobile. One thing is certain, and it’s that there are exciting times ahead for the mobile gaming space thanks to Qualcomm.