Header Banner
gadgethacks.mark.png
Gadget Hacks Shop Apple Guides Android Guides iPhone Guides Mac Guides Pixel Guides Samsung Guides Tweaks & Hacks Privacy & Security Productivity Hacks Movies & TV Smartphone Gaming Music & Audio Travel Tips Videography Tips Chat Apps
Home
Nexus

How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5

May 29, 2014 11:58 PM
Mobile device displaying a video game in action.

Aside from the newer HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5, the Nexus 5 still has one of the fastest processors on the market today. However, despite its superpowers, some graphically intensive games can still have a bit of lag to them during gameplay.

This lag is mostly due to inefficient coding by game developers. On Android, many different devices with many different processors and screens have to be supported, meaning games aren't exactly cut to fit the Nexus 5.

With help from developer h0rn3t and his Performance Profile module for Xposed, we can alleviate these in-game hiccups on our devices. By boosting the performance of your Nexus 5 only while playing these problematic games, battery life won't take much of a hit either.

What You'll Need

Install BusyBox

Because the Performance Profile module utilizes custom commands, you'll need to make sure that BusyBox is installed on your device, which can be found on Google Play.

BusyBox app on Android with options to open or uninstall.

This app only serves as an installer for the custom commands that Performance Profile uses, so you'll have to do a tiny bit of setup. Open the app, then close the popup window. From the next screen, tap Install. When that process is finished, you can move on to the next step.

How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5
How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5
How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5
How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5

Install Performance Profile

From the Xposed Installer app, head to the Download section. From here, search Performance Profile and tap the top result. Swipe over to the Versions tab and hit Download on the newest result.

You can also download the module directly here.

Performance profile search interface on a mobile device.
How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5
How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5
Performance profile search interface on a mobile device.
How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5
How to Reduce Lag & Boost Performance for Games on Your Nexus 5

The install process should launch automatically at this point. When it does, tap Install. When that's finished, a notification will appear—tap Activate and Reboot to finish installation.

Application installation permissions interface on a smartphone.
Notification screen indicating a performance-related issue with the "Road module."
Application installation permissions interface on a smartphone.
Notification screen indicating a performance-related issue with the "Road module."

Select Games That Present Laggy Gameplay

When you first open the app, you'll be asked to give it root privileges. Tap Grant to get things going.

Performance Profile permissions request screen for app access and storage.

There are other aspects to this app, but today we're mainly focusing on the per-app performance settings it offers. To start on that, hit the three-dot menu button at the top, then select Packages. Next, scroll through this list and tap the game that you want to speed up.

Performance profile menu showing options for screen profiles, lockscreen settings, and application management.
Performance profile view of an Android device showing various app packages and their statuses.
Performance profile menu showing options for screen profiles, lockscreen settings, and application management.
Performance profile view of an Android device showing various app packages and their statuses.

Next, hit your phone's back button to head to the app's main screen. From here, tap the app that you just added to configure its performance profile.

Configure Performance Profile

Do not adjust CPU or GPU Frequency values here; these settings can lead to a crash if you're not familiar with them. Instead, tap Governor, and select performance.

Performance profile settings menu on a mobile device.
Performance profile of the Flappy48 app displaying CPU and GPU specifications.
Performance profile settings showing governor options: Interactive, On-demand, Performance.
Performance profile settings menu on a mobile device.
Performance profile of the Flappy48 app displaying CPU and GPU specifications.
Performance profile settings showing governor options: Interactive, On-demand, Performance.

By default, the CPU governor is set to interactive. This means that when a high demand is sensed, the CPU will ramp things up. But this can happen too late in the case of some games, causing the minor hiccups. Setting this value to performance means that any time you open this app, the CPU will immediately begin operating at full speed.

You can now back out of Performance Profile and your changes will have already taken effect. Just open the game in question, and Performance Profile will take care of the rest. When you exit the game, Performance Profile will put things back to normal.

What games has this softMod fixed for you? Are all games now free of hiccups, or do some still have minor blips? Let us know in the comments section below.

Cover image via Phandroid

The next big software update for iPhone is coming sometime in April and will include a Food section in Apple News+, an easy-to-miss new Ambient Music app, Priority Notifications thanks to Apple Intelligence, and updates to apps like Mail, Photos, Podcasts, and Safari. See what else is coming to your iPhone with the iOS 18.4 update.

Related Articles

Comments

No Comments Exist

Be the first, drop a comment!