Android Emulator on a 120 Hz Mac: Why the Device Stays at 30 or 60 Hz

Your MacBook Pro shows up to 120 Hz, or your monitor 144 Hz, and yet the Android device in MACOS EMULATOR runs at 30 or 60 Hz. It is neither a bug nor a forgotten setting: the Mac’s display and the device’s screen each have their own refresh rate. Here is what a fast display changes, what it does not, and how to choose yours.

Two screens, two refresh rates

When you play, two frequencies count. The Mac display’s: up to 120 Hz on the ProMotion display of the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro, or your external monitor’s. And the Android device screen’s: the Refresh row of the “RENDER” card, on the launcher’s home screen. The second one decides how many frames the device can show per second.

They do not talk to each other. The clock that paces the device’s screen runs on its own, at its own frequency, without locking onto the Mac display’s. The launcher does not even read your display’s refresh rate: the value it picks at the start depends on the Mac’s memory, 30 Hz on 8 GB and 60 Hz from 24 GB. Plugging in a 120 Hz display therefore changes nothing for the device.

Why not 90 or 120 Hz

The Refresh row only has two settings, 30 Hz and 60 Hz, on the “RENDER” card as in Settings. The launcher never sends more than 60 Hz to the engine, whatever display is plugged in.

Going higher would not make the match smoother anyway. The launcher says so itself, under the “Refresh rate” row of its Settings: “60 Hz aims higher but stutters on Macs that can’t hold it”.

A 90 or 120 frames-per-second option in a game does not change that either. The target frame rate is the lower of two limits: the device’s, 30 or 60 Hz, and the game’s. The guide to frames per second in an emulator explains how to read it without getting it wrong.

What the 120 Hz display still brings

The launcher does not touch your display’s refresh rate: macOS, the pointer and the launcher window benefit from it as before. Only the device’s picture, in its window, refreshes 30 or 60 times per second at most. Nothing in the launcher depends on the display’s refresh rate: you do not have to change it to play.

One precaution: the engine’s maker does not guarantee how a device behaves when it runs faster than the Mac’s display. At 120 Hz, you are far from that. But if you have fixed your display below 60 Hz in macOS settings, a device at 60 Hz runs faster than it, a case nobody has measured on our side: put the display back to 60 Hz or more, or switch the device to 30 Hz.

On an external monitor it works the same way, and the rest is worked out from the main display: the guide to an emulator on an external monitor explains which one to choose.

60 Hz does not mean smooth

At 60 Hz, each frame has 16.7 milliseconds to arrive. If it misses its window, it is not shown a little later: it waits for the whole next one, and so stays on screen twice as long. A match at 60 Hz that the Mac cannot hold thus alternates frames on time and doubled frames: that jump is what the eye sees, not the number.

At 30 Hz, each frame gets 33.3 milliseconds. Half as many frames, but they arrive on time: measured on an 8 GB M1 at 30 Hz, 100% of frames on time and 38 milliseconds at the worst interval. Hence the name the launcher gives this setting in its Settings: “30 Hz, steady”.

60 Hz keeps a real advantage: a frame that is ready waits at most 16.7 milliseconds before it is shown, against 33.3 at 30 Hz. If your Mac holds 60, keep it. If the match stutters, go back down to 30.

Choosing your refresh rate, in order

1. 1Start from the value the launcher picked. In Settings, the “Refresh rate (restarts the device)” row marks your Mac’s value with “(default)”.
2. 2If the match stutters, look at the Mac first: macOS Low Power Mode off, the display on “Default” rather than “More Space”, browser and screen share closed. The guide to a slow Android emulator goes through these settings one by one.
3. 3Then the refresh rate: switch to 30 Hz if you were at 60, on the “RENDER” card or in Settings. Do it between sessions: the engine only reads the refresh rate at startup, changing it powers off the device if it is on, and the next start is a cold one, so a longer one.
4. 4Then the performance report, taken from the toolbar in the middle of a match: it records the device’s refresh rate, and support reads it for you.

Always judge on a real match, by steadiness, never by the number shown. The guide to an emulator’s graphics covers the rest of the “RENDER” card, including the Balanced quality to keep.

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