When Razer debuted their first phone with a whopping 120Hz display, gamers were thrilled as they could enjoy the same crispy tearfree gameplay experience as consoles or PC. OnePlus 7 Pro made this trend more of a household subject with their 90Hz display panel.

oneplus_7_pro_screen_refresh_rate_90hz_selected
OxygenOS also allows OnePlus 7 Pro users to control the refresh rate manually

Interestingly, not all apps support greater than 60Hz (i.e. the typical value) refresh rate. We saw these reports in case of browsers, but games like Pokemon Go experienced some weird glitches as well.

Although players can enjoy the smooth rendering in most part of the Pokemon catching adventure, throwing a curveball feels noticeably dizzy. In fact, this issue is prevalent on Asus ROG phone and Razer Phone family as well.

Hello!

Yesterday I got my new phone (yay!) and while visually speaking Pokémon Go looks amazingly smooth, I’ve found that it’s harder to throw curve balls. It’s like the game or the Phone’s interpolation is eating my inputs.

Has anyone felt that behavior?

(Source)

Rather than fixing that part, Niantic apparently took a drastic measure. The latest version of Pokemon Go Android app (version 0.153.0) reportedly introduced an artificial restriction, so that the whole game can no longer utilize the greater than normal refresh rates.

Pokémon GO 0.153.0 blocked 90Hz/120Hz and uncapped FPS

I just noticed that my framerate in-game is now locked to 30FPS instead of 90FPS (OnePlus 7 Pro) / 120FPS (Razer Phone) I tried to install 0.151.0 again and it works fine there. This is a dick move from Niantic to just lock us from ever using 90FPS/120FPS mode.

(Source)

pokemon_go_90hz_cap_twitter
Click/Tap to zoom (Source)

Pokemon go latest update broke 90hz on OP7 Pro

I was wondering if anybody else noticed this? I went to go start up my game this morning and I noticed it’s not running as smooth as it used to.

(Source)

We are not sure how much hardcoded the clampdown is, as you can manually force an app to be rendered with 90Hz refresh rate on OnePlus 7 Pro. It could be possible that Niantic engineers ‘accidentally’ broke this one, but there is no official word from them till now.

auto90_app_list
Auto90 can help you to force 90Hz with OnePlus 7 Pro on a per-app basis

At this moment, users can sideload the older (v0.151.0 is confirmed working with 90/120Hz display) version of the game from trusted source, e.g. APKMirror. However, Niantic eventually made them deprecated so this is not a long term solution.

Do you prefer the 90/120Hz refresh rate while playing Pokemon Go (stylized as Pokémon Go)? Comment below.

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Pokemon Go

Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

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