Game lag SPECIFIC to S25 and S24 standard - not S25+ or S25 Ultra

[Durosono]

Gaming performance is quite poor, specifically on the smallest, most recent Samsung phone models, such as S24 5G and S25 5G - particularly with scroll lag, scroll dragging, or scroll stopping/hitching.

Hello, I was wondering if anyone else was having the same issue as me, or, better, if they have a proposed solution?

Last year, I bought an S24 5G, upgrading from an S21 5G. However, I immediately noticed that gaming performance was substantially worse on the S24, compared to the S21. For example, in the game Fire Emblem Heroes, scrolling up and down in menus with a flick/swipe of your finger used to roll smoothly on the S21, but then on the S24, it would get "stuck" every time. The S24 seems incapable of allowing menus to roll naturally the way you'd expect.

I picked up an S25 5G hoping that it would rectify whatever the problem with the S24 was, but it turns out, I might have been a fool to give Samsung my money again. The problem is still present even 1 year later on an entirely new piece of hardware.

However, this problem is not present on the "Plus" or "Ultra" versions of those models. In other words, I've tested the S24 Ultra, the S25+, and the S25 Ultra, and none of them having the scroll-stopping issue in the same game.

I have tried changing basically every performance or display-related setting within the phone's Settings menu, and I've even tried resetting WebView, factory resetting the phone, and downloading extras like Game Booster and Good Guardians, configuring them in hopes that the game doesn't keep hitching this way, but absolutely nothing works.

Does anyone know how to get an S25 to scroll smoothly in games? Thanks.

[Joeeye]

That's quite an unusual observation but frustrating one for sure. Unfortunately I do not own an S24 or S25 to replicate your findings, however I would suggest asking anyone else you may know with these devices whether they see similar issues. In the past I've had scrolling issues on my device whether it be in YouTube or some other app. In fact I found it occurred when a charger was plugged in (at least in one app).

[Durosono]

Yeah, unfortunately I fall into an extremely narrow cohort; the bucket of people that have an S24 or S25 and play Fire Emblem Heroes seems to be very narrow, but other games are affected. Perhaps most people just don't really notice it? But it's definitely frustrating, especially since these phones aren't cheap.

The issue occurs whether or not it's charging unfortunately.

[Joeeye]

Do you notice these issues only with scrolling in games?

[Durosono]

Yep, it's specifically to do with scrolling through menus in games.

Say you open up a menu, and there's enough options to go off the bottom edge of the screen? Pressing your thumb on the screen and swiping up will make it roll up, so you can see the options, right? That's the sort of in-game thing that's affected.

I'm not having the same scrolling issue in things like BlueSky, TikTok, etc. It's just games.

[Anandsvn7]

I came here to share my experience with the S25 Ultra. I downloaded multiple games to test its performance, and unfortunately, I was really disappointed. The device lags a lot, with frequent frame drops.

The first game I installed was Battlegrounds Mobile India (PUBG’s Indian version) to play with my brother, and right away, I noticed something was off—the game was full of stuttering issues, making it unenjoyable. Hoping it was a software issue, I did a factory reset, set everything up from scratch, reinstalled PUBG, and downloaded all its content (over 25GB). However, the same lagging and stuttering persisted.

To check further, I installed Clash of Clans, and once again, I encountered stuttering and lag. At that point, I realized this could be a major issue. I searched online to see if others were facing the same problem and finally found this community.

[Haprog]

I just switched phones from S22 to S25 and noticed that Pokémon Go is occasionally very laggy on the S25 even though it always ran perfectly smooth on S22.

When I start Pokémon Go on S25 it seems like the framerate is maybe around 5-15 FPS for a minute or two and then it suddenly starts working better (at least for a while, I have not used it for long yet). This issue did not happen on S22. It makes catching Pokémon really hard when it's lagging during catching.

[Kozmik]

Mine won't catch anything. I tsp the intended Pokémon and the screen goes white... and just sits there

[Durosono]

Something weird is going on with the S25's gaming performance, despite it having near-identical hardware to the S25+. I think Samsung needs to investigate this. Paying almost $1000 for a phone that has worse gaming performance than a model of theirs from 3 years ago is pretty bad.

[Haprog]

I just noticed that in phone settings at "Settings / Advanced features / Game Booster settings" (which can also be opened when a game is running by tapping on the extra icon in nav bar next to back button on the bottom left corner of the screen) on S25 by default "Game optimization" is set to "Battery saver". I set this now to Balanced and will try Performance later also to see if that helps.

You can also set "Customizations for individual games" which in addition to overriding the overall "Game optimization" level also has some settings for FPS, Screen resolution and "Frame booster". I will also give these a try if setting the overall Game optimization to Balanced or Performance doesn't help enough.