[News] Samsung's Game Optimization Service might be throttling the performance of over 10,000 apps

[D.CraZy]

And yet phone benchmarking apps get a free pass. Don't get any bright ideas about your laptops, Samsung.

 

Twitter user GaryeonHan and a legion of Samsung smartphone users (thanks to Android Authority) have compiled a list of over 10,000 apps whose performance has been reduced or throttled when Samsung's game optimizing app, GOS, is running in the background. Though strangely no phone benchmarking apps appear in the list. Funny that.

What's allegedly happening is that Samsung's Game Optimizing Service (GOS) app, which optimizes game performance (to improve battery life and reduce heat) on Android phones, might be 'optimizing' things that aren't games. Users have complained that tons of apps and services, such as Netflix, Samsung Pay, and even the phone dialer have been running poorly whenever GOS is active. 

GOS seems to whitelist phone benchmarking apps like 3DMark and Geekbench from artificially limiting. So if you're running a benchmark, you might think there's nothing wrong or see any performance dip whatsoever unless, of course, you use an app that is affected. 

A Korean Youtuber found a way to trick GOS into seeing 3DMark as Genshin Impact and was, therefore, able to benchmark the throttling in action. It reduced its benchmark score by more than half when running on a Galaxy S22 Ultra. GOS is preinstalled on some Galaxy S21 and older phones, and there are reports that it is also preinstalled and non-removable on the new Galaxy S22, too.