Increase battery life/performance by lowering screen resolution to 1080p

Shawn5162 · Aug 30, 2015

Here is a little tutorial I have put together for the upcoming Motorola Moto X Style (Pure Edition). The new Moto X comes with a Q-HD display. Though a higher resolution might be nice it does use more battery as well. With this simple guide you can force the GPU to render the OS and everything in it, in 1080p instead of Q-HD. The display will still be Q-HD but everything on the phone, including the full Android OS, will be displayed in 1080p. This will increase S.O.T and battery life noticeably.

Prerequisites:

1) A rooted device running stock/stock based ROM.

Step 1:

Install the Terminal Emulator app from the Play Store. Download from HERE

Step 2:

Code:
Open the app and type the following:

Code:

su

Grant terminal Emulator super su access.

Step 3:

Code:
Next type the following:

Code:

wm size 1080x1920

Step 4:

Code:
After that, type:

Code:

wm density 420

Step 5:

Code:
Finally to re-render all the un-changed drawables and pre-loaded system components type:

Code:

stop && start

Your phone will now reboot.

That's it! Now you can get some extra juice out of your new Moto X.

To Revert to Stock Settings:

Step 1:

Code:
Code:

wm size reset

Step 2:

Code:
Code:

wm density reset

Step 3:

Code:
Code:

stop && start

buggerritt · Aug 31, 2015

Are there even any QHD videos or games available? What would make use of the QHD screen?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

Shawn5162 · Aug 31, 2015

buggerritt said:
Are there even any QHD videos or games available? What would make use of the QHD screen?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

My point exactly...If you go the the Google developer stats website you can see on 4.7% of apps on Google Play take advantage of QHD. Also almost 89% of youtube videos are max 1080p. Knowing this I put together this guide. So at least Q-HD won't drain my battery.

cerobles1 · Aug 31, 2015

Interesting to see if it makes a diference. So, could this be made also to work on a 1080P display and lower it to 720p you know to save even more battery???

joshhud · Aug 31, 2015

Shawn5162 said:
My point exactly...If you go the the Google developer stats website you can see on 4.7% of apps on Google Play take advantage of QHD. Also almost 89% of youtube videos are max 1080p. Knowing this I put together this guide. So at least Q-HD won't drain my battery.

Pretty nice.. I'm going to bookmark this.. It's it easy to change back?

Sent from my SPH-L900 using XDA Free mobile app

Shawn5162 · Aug 31, 2015

joshhud said:
Pretty nice.. I'm going to bookmark this.. It's it easy to change back?

Sent from my SPH-L900 using XDA Free mobile app

Yes...I will add a guide on how to revert...Acutlly reverting requires less steps that lowering the resolution.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Shawn5162 · Aug 31, 2015

cerobles1 said:
Interesting to see if it makes a diference. So, could this be made also to work on a 1080P display and lower it to 720p you know to save even more battery???

You could...What device do u have. I could PM u the steps to lower its res.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

dmb219 · Aug 31, 2015

If this phone comes out as scheduled or somewhere near that and I buy one, I'm going to avoid any tweaks or hacks for a while but I appreciate your info. Thanks for posting it.

buggerritt · Aug 31, 2015

This might just end up being a big battery saver.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

joshuadjohnson22 · Aug 31, 2015

This could be awesome or a complete fail. I know with other phones I have tried this on some stock apps like camera completely stop working and a lot of the FYI isn't working. However I didn't do this exactly so it may have been the wrong ethod. I'm excited to hear results. ☺

NotFatMan · Aug 31, 2015

Can't you just paste this into the terminal in one take?

Code:

su
wm size 1080x1920
wm density 420
stop && start

cerobles1 · Aug 31, 2015

Shawn5162 said:
You could...What device do u have. I could PM u the steps to lower its res.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Currently I have the Galaxy S5 (SM-G900A) AT&T variant, but I'm running an International ROM. I would definitely like to try it and be a ginnie pig. But more than likely I would do it at the end of this week since I have a 4-day weekend coming up, giving me plenty of time in case things go bananas and have to revert back to stock. But please do let me know what the steps are for my current phone.

Ganondroid · Sep 1, 2015

Would this really make a huge impact on the battery life?

I'm curious to know, does the screen actually not turn on each pixel with these options? From what I understand, with LCD screens it's either all or nothing.

If I'm correct about the all or nothing this trick would lower the batter consumption by a bit, but not much. The only thing it would do is lower the tax on the CPU.

nags92 · Sep 1, 2015

From my understanding it will have to render less pixels therefore less power consumption as the GPU will not have to work as hard

jaseman · Sep 1, 2015

If LCD's on cell phones work the same as on computer screens, then this will not have any affect but to change how things look on the screen. The same number of pixels will still be activated. Only some will do double duty. If you can, go ahead and lower the resolution on your computer screen and things will look larger but all the pixels are still being used. I cannot imagine this will have much, if any effect on battery life. Maybe I'm wrong??

Ganondroid · Sep 1, 2015

jaseman said:
If LCD's on cell phones work the same as on computer screens, then this will not have any affect but to change how things look on the screen. The same number of pixels will still be activated. Only some will do double duty. If you can, go ahead and lower the resolution on your computer screen and things will look larger but all the pixels are still being used. I cannot imagine this will have much, if any effect on battery life. Maybe I'm wrong??

This is exactly what I was expecting. There's no way it would have much effect if any.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

joshuadjohnson22 · Sep 1, 2015

Ganondroid said:
This is exactly what I was expecting. There's no way it would have much effect if any.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

People did this on the LG G3 and their battery life had a massive jump in SOT. Not sure how it works but it is worth trying for sure. Of anything it will make the phone faster because it isn't pushing so many pixels. Only time will tell use the phone normal for a week to let the battery set in and get a good idea. Then drop it and compare. If it is the same you have yoru answer, if it does what the G3 did and almost doubles the SOT then we will have a party.

Ganondroid · Sep 1, 2015

joshuadjohnson22 said:
People did this on the LG G3 and their battery life had a massive jump in SOT. Not sure how it works but it is worth trying for sure. Of anything it will make the phone faster because it isn't pushing so many pixels. Only time will tell use the phone normal for a week to let the battery set in and get a good idea. Then drop it and compare. If it is the same you have yoru answer, if it does what the G3 did and almost doubles the SOT then we will have a party.

The G3 never saw massive battery life jumps. All lowering the resolution did was boost the performance. There was a slight increase in battery life due to lower strain on the CPU/GPU, but that was it. The only way this style of mod would help battery life would be on an OLED screen and it would have to actually turn off some pixels instead of duplicating them.

If you want better battery life from the screen resolution you would have to turn your device into a frankenphone by taking a lower resolution screen from something else, which is essentially impossible at this time.

joshuadjohnson22 · Sep 1, 2015

Ganondroid said:
The G3 never saw massive battery life jumps. All lowering the resolution did was boost the performance. There was a slight increase in battery life due to lower strain on the CPU/GPU, but that was it. The only way this style of mod would help battery life would be on an OLED screen and it would have to actually turn off some pixels instead of duplicating them.

If you want better battery life from the screen resolution you would have to turn your device into a frankenphone by taking a lower resolution screen from something else, which is essentially impossible at this time.

even so, not pushing that many pixels on the CPU/GPU may make a pretty noticeable difference. For those who do not mind a fuzzier screen it could be a good solution. I still think it would be worth testing but we will have to come across that bridge when the phones are here. Who knows, maybe it wont be bad to begin with

simacca · Sep 1, 2015

Would not like 1080p stretched out over a Qhd screen. Too fuzzy for my liking. Always stick to native resolution on amoled/lcd.

Increase battery life/performance by lowering screen resolution to 1080p

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