When Qualcomm launched its latest Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 765/765G chipsets, the tech company also announced updateable GPU drivers via the app store. We got to see the first driver update on the Xiaomi Mi 10, Mi 10 Pro, and Redmi K30 Pro which all run on the Adreno 650 GPU. Now, we are seeing something similar from ARM as the company has announced similar support for its Mali GPUs.
Over the years, we have seen GPU driver updates get hindered as most brands usually take months to push these updates through OTA updates. This is why Qualcomm announced updateable GPU drivers via the default app store on the phone such as the Google Play Store.
This will enable users to access the latest features such as OpenGL or Vulkan API without having to wait for the manufacturers to release OTA system updates. This also helps to fix bugs and boost graphic performance.
Since ARM also saw benefits of this action by Qualcomm, the company also took action and has come up with something similar. However, there have been no details on which GPUs will support it. XDA Developers suggest that the support could be initially rolled out to the Mali-G78 GPU which was launched recently along with the Cortex-A78 chipset.
Also, there has been an announcement by ARM, that the company will introduce support for Android GPU Inspector on its upcoming GPUs. Android GPU Inspector is an open-source profiling tool that helps to boost graphic performance for game developers.
