Samsung revealed today the launch of a new app for Android: GameDriver. By clicking here (Adreno/Qualcomm models) or here (Mali/Exynos models), you can find it on the Google Play Store.
The software doesn’t seem that noteworthy at the start. On a select few Samsung Android phones, it claims to deliver better gaming results. However at the moment, it supports just a handful of games and you have to play those games on a Galaxy S20 or Note 20 computer.
Samsung GameDriver: it could be a big deal
Samsung hopes that on more of its phones, the new software will eventually work and be compatible with more games. It only operates with two smartphone families and three games right now: Call of Duty: Mobile, Black Desert, and Fortnite. There are some enormous names, but they are still a very small choice.
However the big deal about GameDriver is that it will allow Samsung to issue hardware driver updates without a system-wide update having to be released. That means that the Play Store will come with GPU tweaks and upgrades. As slow operating system updates are typically partly the responsibility of carriers, who need to test and accept updates before pushing them to consumers, this knocks down a major barrier.
However, Play Store updates are much less stringent. Samsung could, potentially push an update in a matter of days or even hours to all of its GameDriver users. That is terrific news.
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Robert Haba is the founder and editor-in-chief of Droid Tools. A lifelong gadget enthusiast with over a decade following the Android ecosystem, he built this publication to cut through the noise and give readers honest, real-world coverage of the tech they actually use.
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