Asus Rog Phone 2 - Refresh rate issue

[kris_reynolds77]

Ive had this phone now for a couple of weeks and for all round daily stuff, the phone is brilliant.

However, I have one issue with it that I cannot seem to solve with firmware updates or anything. Refresh rates, or rather, the fact that they aren't what they say they are when you can select 60, 90 or 120.
I love old school emulation like retroarch and other emulators and they absolutely rely on a 60hz lock in order to function without micro skipping etc in video. This phone, when set to 60hz simply doesnt do that, it slightly out. This isnt a common issue with gaming phones as I also have a Black Shark 2 which is a total lock on 60hz at all times and doesnt have any of the skip on emaultors like Retroarch, PPSSPP etc.
Firstly I suppose, I want to rule out that its not just my device. I guess it could be defective. Does anyone else have this issue? Its just tiny microskipping that results from the refresh not being exact to what it should be.

Easy way to find out is to use an emulated game where the skipping is easy to spot.

Snes9xEX is also a good way to tell. As in that emulator you can have the program auto detect the framerate which gives you a true indication of what it actually is. Mine says its 59.73hz, which is why games skip. Having an emulator wanting to send 60 images a second, but a device thats only allowing 59.73 means skipped frames every couple of seconds which is distracting.
Obviously, for a gaming phone, something like this should be a given out of the box!!

[kris_reynolds77]

The 60hz lag is purely because of the mistake of it not being 60hz.
If the refresh rate is actually 60 instead of 59.8, then the stutters and lag at 60hz will simply vanish because everything will match up. I hope Asus can fix this because as a gaming phone, this is pretty much the only thing they need to put right.

[Anders_ASUS]

I tried vsynctester.com on about 10 devices of different brands and I can say that most of them were between 59.5 to 59.9. Only two of the devices were spot on 60hz. One ran iOS and the other one couldn't show any fps. The interesting thing is that another and more expensive model from the same brand had a fps of 40-42 and no detectable Hz whatsoever 🙂
There will be a difference between panels. My own early sample of ROG Phone II runs at 59.5 hz but in 120 hz it's spot on. Another newer ROG Phone 2 that I also tested ran at 59.92 in 60hz and 119.7 in 120hz
This is mostly due to hardware and there's not much we can do. I'm really sorry that you experience frame drops but even though it's a gaming phone, we didn't have emulators in mind. Modern mobile games doesn't work in the same way so it's not a problem.
Maybe Black Shark managed to find panels with very even quality when it comes to the refresh rate or maybe you were just very lucky to find one that was spot on 60hz. I'm sure you can find a ROG Phone II that does 60 Hz perfectly but it's normally not a must have requirement for phones.

[kris_reynolds77]

Anders_ASUS

I tried vsynctester.com on about 10 devices of different brands and I can say that most of them were between 59.5 to 59.9. Only two of the devices were spot on 60hz. One ran iOS and the other one couldn't show any fps. The interesting thing is that another and more expensive model from the same brand had a fps of 40-42 and no detectable Hz whatsoever 🙂

There will be a difference between panels. My own early sample of ROG Phone II runs at 59.5 hz but in 120 hz it's spot on. Another newer ROG Phone 2 that I also tested ran at 59.92 in 60hz and 119.7 in 120hz

This is mostly due to hardware and there's not much we can do. I'm really sorry that you experience frame drops but even though it's a gaming phone, we didn't have emulators in mind. Modern mobile games doesn't work in the same way so it's not a problem.

Maybe Black Shark managed to find panels with very even quality when it comes to the refresh rate or maybe you were just very lucky to find one that was spot on 60hz. I'm sure you can find a ROG Phone II that does 60 Hz perfectly but it's normally not a must have requirement for phones.

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This doesn't make sense to me though because it's been an issue on other phones and tablets that has been corrected via updates. The black shark 2 wasn't locked to 60 either but was after an update.
Its also been an issue for Samsung tablets and gpd tablets which was also corrected over time (fixed via developers over on XDA for some of them .
If you are saying that this cannot be resolved then that is also fine, I've only had the rog 2 for a matter of days so I'll return it back to where I purchased it from in the UK.
Also, the refresh is absolutely locked on other handhelds like the switch, vita etc despite different manufacturers supplying panels so how do they do it?
There is definitely something a miss here, and whilst I'm not overly knowledgeable as to why it's happening, I have seen it fixed on a number of occasions on different devices.

[SHEIKH_AZHARUDD]

Why 60Hz is too slow and laggy as compared to any other branded or sub branded phones? For example yesterday my friend had shown me his new phone redmi note 7 pro...it was buttery smooth compared to my 60Hz mode

[kris_reynolds77]

Also as a footnote, whilst I understand that other devices that have been tested might be sub 60 Hz or even over 60 on tests, my guess would be that none of them are gaming phones. Asus should be playing to the strength of the audience they are trying to hit with this phone.
The Asus phone has a sub standard camera compared to other phones in the same price bracket, but it's a gaming phone so things like that can slide.
It's alright saying that using the rog phone 2 isn't really for emulators, but your selling it as a gaming phone, so people wanting to use it for that is going to be considerably higher than other brands of phones.
I can link to other websites if needed to show that it can be fixed in software. I've personally applied these fixes on devices before and seen the instant improvement.