The Pixel 10 is going viral for struggling with a major Android game

Videos showing the Pixel 10 Pro XL glitching while running one of the most popular Android games — Genshin Impact — have been circulating on social media over the weekend. In these clips, textures flicker, controls misbehave, and the screen tears apart after the latest update to the game, giving people another reason to heavily criticize Google’s choice of GPU this year. But are things really as bad as they appear?

The issue evidently stems from Genshin Impact dropping support for PowerVR GPUs with its August update (v5.0, which introduced the Natlan region in the game). Google switched from ARM’s Mali GPUs to Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR series for the Pixel 10 lineup, specifically the PowerVR DXT-48-1536. This connection has fueled speculation that the Pixel 10 series is completely incompatible with the game.

However, in our early testing, PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile, Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Diablo Immortal all installed and ran correctly on the Pixel 10 Pro XL. Android Authority’s Robert Triggs played each title without noticing any performance or graphical issues similar to those appearing in the videos circulating online.

To check if the issue with Genshin Impact is recent, we also installed the game, complete with its latest update on our Pixel 10 Pro XL, and it seems to run just fine.

Does that mean the videos are fake? Not really. The glitches could be caused by specific game builds, certain regions or content/gameplay elements, or outdated drivers. Still, the contrast between those clips and our testing suggests that the problem may not be as widespread as it seems online.

It is, however, a warning sign for Google. Many users have criticized the Pixel 10’s GPU performance on forums like Reddit. The issues may be related to the phone shipping with an older driver (v24.3) for the PowerVR DXT-48-1536 GPU. Imagination Technologies released an updated driver (v25.1) in August, which adds Android 16 compatibility, Vulkan 1.4 support, and more. However, Google hasn’t rolled it out to the Pixel 10 series yet.

The company usually updates GPU drivers for Tensor chips when it rolls out new software versions. A similar update for the Pixel 10’s PowerVR GPU could arrive in future Pixel Drops, possibly even the next one, which is scheduled to roll out in December.

For now, our early testing shows that the Pixel 10 Pro XL can handle some of Android’s most demanding games without major issues. However, if developers continue to drop PowerVR support, Google may need to reconsider its GPU strategy for future Pixel phones.