Apparently, Samsung’s Game Optimizing Service might be throttling the performance of Android apps on your Samsung smartphone. That means you might not be getting the performance you’re paying for.
Update, 3/4/22 9:47 am Eastern: Samsung addressed the issue and said that a fix is on the way, though it didn’t provide a timeline.
According to Android Authority, approximately 10,000 apps suffer from performance throttling on Samsung phones. Some popular apps experiencing issues are Instagram, Netflix, TikTok, Genshin Impact, Secure Folder, Samsung Cloud, Samsung Pay, and plenty of others. These are apps you likely use every single day, so having them suffer from performance issues is a big deal.
While testing, Android Authority found that the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S20 FE, and Galaxy S21 all had the Game Optimizing Service running. It’s not clear exactly which phones are having the issue, but it seems that all of the newer Samsung phones are on the list.
A Korean YouTuber tested the issue and found a severe drop in performance when running benchmarks. The YouTuber renamed the 3DMark benchmarking app, which wouldn’t be throttled, to Genshin Impact, a throttled game. They found that the benchmark score decreased from 2618 to 1141. That’s a massive decrease in performance and one that will be noticeable.
According to information circulation on Naver, Samsung is investigating the problem and is taking it seriously. Hopefully, it has a good explanation and a fix because users not getting the full performance they’re spending upwards of $1,000 on is unacceptable.
