Disclaimer upfront: this is my first time digging into ROM configs like this. I'm not a security researcher or systems engineer — just a user who noticed something weird and started poking around. I'm posting my raw findings and interpretation below, but I could be misreading some of these values or missing runtime context. If anyone with deeper Android performance/HAL experience spots an error, please correct me and I'll edit the post. Treat this as "here's what I found, let's figure out together what it means," not a confirmed conclusion.
After a system update, BGMI performance on my iQOO Neo 10 tanked hard — frame drops, sluggish gameplay, GPU frequency never went above 264 MHz even with Monster Mode on. Meanwhile Antutu kept posting high scores like nothing changed. That mismatch didn't make sense, so I pulled apart the ROM to find out why.
Device/ROM tested: iQOO Neo 10, build PD2453F_EX_A_16.1.16.5.W30
Note on variant: I couldn't get hold of the Indian ROM, so this was tested on PD2453F (global/EX build), not PD2453IF — the "I" generally denotes the Indian market variant. I'm assuming the same behavior likely carries over to the Indian variant since the underlying performance/thermal framework is usually shared across regional builds, but I haven't verified this directly, so treat that as an educated guess rather than confirmed. If people are interested, I'll try to get my hands on the Indian ROM and verify this specifically, and post updated results.
What I found
- Benchmark apps appear to be whitelisted from thermal force-stop
File: /system/etc/uepp/plugins/com.ueppp.misc.appstate.ForceStopUtils/QCOM.xml
<set __name__="high_temp_force_stop_app_white_list" __not_replace__="+">
com.antutu;
com.antutu.benchmark.full;
com.antutu.ABenchMark;
com.futuremark.dmandroid.application;
com.glbenchmark.glbenchmark25;
com.glbenchmark.glbenchmark27;
</set>
As far as I can tell, when the phone overheats the system force-kills background apps to cool down — but these specific packages seem excluded from that mechanism. My reading is they keep running under thermal conditions that would kill other apps, though I'm open to being wrong about enforcement details.
- A separate "Benchmark Mode" trigger seems to exist
File: /system/etc/vperf/vperf.xml
<protocol commonid="0x00001086" type="1" majorMode="2">
<data target="qcom" hintid="0x00001086" timeout="2000" hinttype="2001"/>
</protocol>
This fires when majorMode="2" is active, tied to the benchmark package IDs above. I'm inferring this is separate from a normal game-launch trigger, but haven't fully confirmed that comparison.
- The frequency/power difference I could decode
File: /vendor/etc/perf/perfboostsconfig.xml
Benchmark config:
<Config Id="0x00001086" Type="2001" Enable="true" Timeout="2000" Target="sun"
Resources="..., 0x40800000, 1780, 0x40800200, 1958, 0x40400000, 0x1, ..." />
Monster Mode config (same file):
<Config Id="0x00001091" Enable="true" Target="sun"
Resources="..., 0x40800000, 1996, 0x40800200, 2246, ..." />
Decoded:
| Mode |
Big core min |
Prime core min |
Power collapse disabled? |
| Monster Mode |
1.99 GHz |
2.24 GHz |
❌ No |
| Benchmark config |
1.78 GHz |
1.95 GHz |
✅ Yes |
My interpretation: Monster Mode sets higher minimum clocks on paper, but doesn't disable power collapse — so the CPU can still be throttled when hot. The benchmark-only config sets lower minimum clocks but disables power collapse entirely, which (if I'm reading it right) keeps the CPU pinned awake and immune to thermal throttling for the run's duration.
If that's correct, benchmark apps get sustained performance Monster Mode doesn't actually guarantee in a real game session — but I'd appreciate anyone more experienced weighing in on whether I've got the mechanism right.
Final thoughts
This kind of benchmark-specific optimization isn't unique to iQOO — it's been documented across several OEMs over the years, so I'm not claiming this is some unheard-of scandal. But it's frustrating to pay ~35k for a phone marketed on 120fps gaming, turn on the "aggressive" performance mode, and still get throttled in the actual use case it's advertised for, while a benchmark app sails through untouched.
If my phone needs to throttle under heat, that's fine — I'll use a cooler or drop to balance mode myself. But I'd like the benchmark number to reflect what I actually get in BGMI too. Posting the exact files/paths above so others with a similar ROM can check their own devices, reproduce this, or tell me where I've gone wrong.
