I tested the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s driver upgrade — here are the real winners and losers

After months of waiting, Google is fulfilling its promise to bring a GPU driver update to the Pixel 10 series. As part of the Android 16 QPR3 Beta 1 update, the Pixel 10 now runs Imagination’s 1.634.2906 driver version, bringing with it Vulkan 1.4 support and a selection of other improvements.

So why does this matter? We previously noted that the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s gaming performance was fine but certainly not on the cutting edge, as you might expect from a $1,199 flagship. In fact, last year’s Pixel 9 Pro XL easily outperformed it in a series of emulation tests, suggesting that Google’s choice of a DXT-48-1536 GPU inside the Tensor G5 chip might have backfired.

Still, gradual performance improvements and a new driver have now arrived. While a driver update isn’t a cure-all for dubious performance, it might help improve frame rates in some titles. I’ll be interested to see if there’s a bigger boost for any games that can take advantage of new Vulkan 1.4 features, such as Host Image Copy. That said, many games and emulators continue to prefer OpenGL, so I set out to test both.

Testing the best Android games

For today’s Android game tests, I’ve selected Genshin Impact at maximum graphics and 60fps, as well as Asphalt Legends and COD Mobile’s Battle Royale with Medium graphics and a maximum frame rate of up to 90fps (120fps on other phones), to provide a good mix of performance targets and graphics techniques.

Let’s get straight into the results.

Good news: There’s a pretty consistent trend with the move to Android 16 QPR3 Beta 1. Worst-case frame times are up slightly, resulting in less judder and shorter slowdowns. There’s a pretty significant average frame rate boost to Asphalt Legends (up 8.6%) and Genshin Impact (up 17.9%), resulting in smoother performance. There are slight differences in what’s rendered in each of our playthroughs, so take these figures as a rough ballpark. Still, it’s good news.

COD Mobile’s Battle Royale test hasn’t improved as much post-update; the 2-3% gain is within the margin of error. This might be because the higher frame rate is already more demanding, as the game was posting pretty close to 90fps, which is the maximum it can achieve. Still, there’s a slight boost to its worst-case frame rate, which again translates into a marginally smoother experience.

Android gamers rejoice: Google’s Android 16 QPR3 Beta 1 for the Pixel 10 series offers some significant performance improvements, although it’s not quite enough to achieve a locked 60fps in these games. But what, if anything, does the update have in store for emulator fans?

Even more demanding emmulator tests

Based on our previous emulation performance test of the Pixel 10 series, OpenGL was clearly the better performer, so that’s where I started my comparison between QPR3 Beta 1 and the QPR2 update. I grabbed my usual assortment of games: Mario Kart Wii and F-Zero GX running on Dolphin, and the highly demanding Need for Speed: Most Wanted on the PlayStation 2 emulator NetherSX2.

Just as with our Android games, there’s a consistent improvement in average and worst-case frames, resulting in smoother gameplay and fewer janks.

The performance uplift when running under OpenGL is notable, with a 6.6% gain while playing Mario Kart Wii on the Dolphin emulator, and a slightly better 9.5% gain for Need for Speed: Most Wanted on NetherSX2 —both very welcome improvements, but we’re still nowhere near locking down 60fps constantly.

The exception is F-Zero GX running on the Dolphin emulator, which sees a huge 27% boost in performance. However, this is almost certainly on the upper end of what anyone should expect; a rate below 10% seems far more typical.

Vulkan performance was previously quite poor in our prior testing on the Tensor G5, so I ran the same tests under this graphics API to see how things have improved.

As before, F-Zero GX, running on the Dolphin emulator, is one of our three titles that performs better under Vulkan. The graphics API’s performance remains really underwhelming on this chip, while the Pixel 9 series and its Arm Mali graphics setup saw a significant performance boost. The driver update still improves performance here, but it’s clear that Vulkan still performs very poorly on this GPU compared to OpenGL.

Mario Kart Wii is essentially unchanged, while F-Zero GX sees a 5.4% boost, and NFS MW ends up with a slightly better 10.8% gain. However, that larger gain doesn’t translate into a more meaningfully smooth experience when you’re running at such a low frame rate anyway. Under Vulkan, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is still often stuck with completely unplayable frame rates.

How much better is Android 16 QPR3 Beta 1?

As is typical for driver updates, it’s difficult to pinpoint precisely how much any specific title will benefit. We’ve observed some scenarios that show no meaningful improvement, while the best cases can experience a performance uplift of 15-25%. Typically, however, it appears that games and emulators are likely to gain around a 9% increase in average frame rate with the transition to QPR3 Beta 1.

That’s a healthy performance gain, but it’s not going to suddenly transform the Pixel 10’s Tensor G5 into a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 competitor. Driver updates can only do so much. However, if you already own a Pixel 10, Google’s upcoming QPR3 update appears to offer a significant gaming performance boost essentially for free, and who can really complain about that?

That said, as welcome as the driver update is, I unfortunately conclude that the move to Imagination still makes the Pixel 10 series a poor choice for classic game emulation. Despite some performance improvements, the latest driver update in QPR3 Beta 1 doesn’t resolve this issue, especially for Vulkan performance, which remains significantly behind that of last year’s model.

If you haven’t enlisted in Google’s beta program yet, we have a handy guide on how to download the Android 16 QPR3 Beta 1 right here.