These days, a lot of phones come with a high refresh rate display. The problem is, not all apps run in 90Hz or 120Hz, even when you have the option enabled. We will show you how to enable the screen refresh rate widget, temperature, memory usage monitors in MIUI.
If you’ve been using a high refresh rate for a while, you can easily notice the 60fps (or slower) speeds in certain apps, it will appear as if the phone is lagging. But the only way to say for sure, is by monitoring the refresh rate.
There are a few websites like this one that allow you to check the refresh rate, but that only works with your browser, and not your other apps. Did you know that MIUI comes with a built-in refresh rate? You can use this guide with any Xiaomi, Redmi or Poco phone that supports 90Hz or 120Hz modes.
How to enable the screen refresh rate widget in MIUI
1. Go to the Settings page, and navigate to the About Phone section.
2. Tap on the MIUI version section 7 times, to unlock the Developer Options. An on-screen message should appear when you’ve done it correctly.
3. Head to the previous page, i.e. Settings, and select Additional Settings. The Developer Options can be accessed from this page, tap on it.
4. Scroll down till you find a toggle for “Show Refresh Rate”, tap on it to enable the option.
That’s how to enable the screen refresh rate widget, the info will be displayed in every app that you open. The overlay is placed in the top left corner of the screen. The only issue with this is that you can’t change its position or colour. But this method works without the need of installing any third-party apps.
Now you can check whether your favorite app or game is running in 90Hz or 120Hz, or still stuck in the ancient 60Hz mode, like the YouTube app does. This is also an easy way to confirm if your phone is running in adaptive refresh rate mode, i.e. if it reduces the performance to 60hz whenever possible to save the battery life.
If you want to monitor the device’s temperature and memory usage along with the frame rate, there is another option that you can enable.
To disable the widget, simply go back to the Developer Options and turn the setting off.
How to enable the screen refresh rate, temperature, memory usage monitors in MIUI
A. Enable the Developer options as mentioned above.
B. Scroll down towards the end of the Developer Options page, until you find the Power Monitor section. Tap on it, and a new page will appear.
C. Tap the Start button under the frame rate monitor tools.
A widget will appear in the top left corner, that displays the screen resolution, refresh rate, temperature and memory usage. You will also see a graph that shows the usage details. This is a floating panel, so you can move the widget to any location on the screen. The widget is useful to find if your device is heating up while playing games.
You can close the widget by tapping on it, and then on the X that appears.
Note: Some content such as videos run at 24FPS, that’s normal and how the content is displayed on all devices.
We tested these methods on our Redmi Note 10 Pro running on MIUI 12.
