ProMotion not always 120 Hz

Submitted by tunkor t3_120sax9 in iphone

Hey. I just switched from a Pixel 7 Pro to the iPhone 14 Pro because I wanted a compact phone which still has flagship specs. The experience and device have been really nice device. I have some gripes with the camera and how the notifications work, but for any gripe I have on iOS I'd have one on the Pixel too.

Anyway, the reason I'm making this post is about how ProMotion doesn't always seem to run at 120 Hz, and I just wanna confirm if I'm not going insane. The most obvious place I noticed this is on the lockscreen/notifcation center; swiping around the music player and/or notifications will look as if the framerate is somewhere between 60 to 90 Hz at times. Then there are certain 3rd apps which seem to run basically 120 Hz constant in animations and scrolling, like Twitter. But then scrolling through WhatsApp chats, animations in YouTube etc. looks noticeably more choppy compared to on my Pixel 7 Pro.

Am I going insane, or is Apple/are devs applying some adaptive refresh rate even in motion? Is there a setting for this? Animations in notification center definitely look more smooth on my iPad Pro comparing them side to side, like swiping the notification from side to side. It almost feels this is a measure to preserve battery life by only selectively running animations at 120 Hz? It's just been slightly annoying since the framerate hasn't been constant, I'd almost rather take a constant 90 Hz than a 120 Hz which then occasionally runs at 60 - 90 Hz.

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nrron t1_jdirjmn wrote

It’s ProMotion not 120hz. The whole point of ProMotion is to be adaptive with the content on the screen. It’s not a 120hz locked frame rate. For third party apps they have to support the higher frame rate on their end or the phone won’t use the highest frame rate in the app.

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tunkor OP t1_jditth0 wrote

Replying to nrron (#2,339,577)

Yeah I get that. But it's just odd to me that other animations in the UI do run at 120 Hz and others clearly do not. Running animations – especially ones interacted by finger input – should fall under high priority even in an adaptive setup in my opinion. I'd like to have an option for it to be adaptive to the point where in case the screen is static it lowers the framerate, but anytime there is motion going on it clocks to 120 Hz again. That's how it was on my Pixel atleast, and seems to be the case on the iPad too. Maybe it's allowed on the iPad since the battery can take more of a hit, I guess.

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ZEEN0j t1_jdivc9o wrote

Generally UI should be 120hz. At first third party apps had issues running some elements at 120 and Apple released some updated APIs. I’m not entirely sure but I believe, depending on how the app is made it’s not as simple as flipping a switch for 120hz.

As for your example with the Lock Screen. I’m sure Apple would like to run it at 120 but it’s a buggy mess right now.

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nrron t1_jdiw8ml wrote

Replying to tunkor (#2,339,832)

Apple cares more about battery efficiency than a consistent 120hz refresh rate. Which is why it is more aggressive on iPhone than iPad when it comes to varying frame rates.

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ZEEN0j t1_jdj9b6r wrote

Replying to nrron (#2,341,371)

You mentioned Lock Screen specifically does it to save battery. The phone will change hz all the time depending on what you are doing. If you are doing something on the Lock Screen that needs to be smooth (scrolling) it might reach 120. I honestly I no idea often the screen actually reaches 120. It might be 90-120 most of the time when scrolling

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