Google’s Pixel 10 was supposed to mark a new era for the company’s in-house chips. With the Tensor G5 now built by TSMC and featuring Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR GPU instead of Arm’s Mali, expectations were high. But the results haven’t matched the hype. The phone’s GPU performance has fallen behind not only its rivals but even last year’s Pixel 9.
According to reports, the Tensor G5’s PowerVR DXT-48-1536 GPU supports Vulkan 1.3, tile-based deferred rendering, and 1.5TFLOPS FP32 performance, on paper making it a capable chip. Yet, in real-world tests, users are seeing frame drops, stuttering, and lower benchmark scores compared to older Pixel models.
Outdated GPU Drivers for Pixel 10 Likely to Blame
Frustrated users on Reddit started digging into the issue and discovered the Pixel 10 ships with an outdated GPU driver (v24.3) that doesn’t even support Android 16. Around the same time the phone launched, Imagination Technologies released a newer driver (v25.1) with Android 16 and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility, but Google didn’t include it.
This outdated driver is widely believed to be the reason behind the Pixel 10’s underwhelming gaming performance. Despite expectations that Google would fix this in a monthly Pixel update, the company hasn’t done so yet.
In a statement to Android Authority, a Google spokesperson confirmed:
“We are continuing to improve driver quality in our monthly and quarterly system updates. For example, the most recent September and October patch releases included driver improvements. In future releases we are planning further GPU driver updates.”
Interestingly, Google claims the recent September and October updates already included some GPU driver tweaks, but users haven’t seen any real performance gains from them.
Google Has Fixed GPU Drivers Before
This isn’t the first time Google has had to fix GPU drivers on its Pixel phones. Past updates for older Pixel models improved gaming performance and stability significantly after driver refreshes. That’s why users are puzzled by how long it’s taking to roll out an updated build for the Pixel 10, especially given the phone’s premium positioning.
Even the latest Android 16 QPR2 Beta 3.1 still includes the same old GPU driver, suggesting the fix hasn’t arrived yet. For now, Pixel 10 owners will have to wait a bit longer for Google to push the promised update and unlock the GPU’s full potential.
Source from Gizchina
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