Genshin Impact glitches on new Google Pixel 10 phones as graphics chip support dropped

Genshin Impact’s developers, MiHoYo (or HoYoVerse), announced in August 2024 that it would be culling some hardware from what it officially supports on mobile. It reiterated this back in August 2025, too. PowerVR graphics chips (GPUs) were part of this decision, as the hardware is typically found in the budget to mid-range end of phones, where the game might not work properly anyway.

So, Google, you’ve heard of them, right? Well, their latest and greatest phones, the Pixel 10 line, run a PowerVR chip. In fact, it was a cause for concern when the device’s performance appeared in early benchmarks. Now, even the Pixel 10 Pro XL, the search engine company’s flagship device, appears to be struggling with the gacha game.

In August, Imagination Tech, the company behind the PowerVR GPU, announced that it had released a new driver to fix some bugs. At the moment, it doesn’t appear that Google has made the move to update this. Some users are even struggling with video and audio support, noticing lag whenever they try to do two things at once.

In videos posted online, Genshin Impact appears to glitch out and become mostly unplayable. Full phone flickering, frame rate drops, and just general freakouts from the software are all on show, and it even carries over to HoYoVerse’s other game, Zenless Zone Zero.

Here, the action gacha game hitches up, freezes, and lacks any kind of stability on the Google flagship. While these have stemmed from the same user, Android Authority has actually secured a comment from Google around the Genshin Impact instability:

“Genshin Impact has not removed Pixel 10 GPU support. We partnered closely with miHoYo over the past year for Pixel 10.”

So that’s nothing. While Google might not have removed Genshin from Support, and HoYo have probably been working closely with the Android overlords, it’s clear the game isn’t working right because of a hardware issue. Also, how has Google managed to partner with a developer who was planning to cull support for its hardware without noticing? Did Gemini not drip this information into some executive’s brain fast enough?

Google Pixel 10 can still “play” Genshin Impact, we just don’t know how much

MiHoYo hasn’t said that the game won’t run on the hardware, just to not expect it to have the best support or even function as intended. They dropped support for it, but they can’t prevent an Android phone from installing the app in some capacity. Really, this appears to be more of a hardware manufacturer issue, as some critics of the Pixel 10 line are claiming it is merely a gussied-up midrange phone roster.

Android Authority has also done some of its own testing and found the game to run just fine. This also seems to be replicated in a video from a smaller tech content creator, Stan JB. However, one user on X (formerly Twitter) asked if they’d been to some of the later in-game areas, which are far harder to run on phones that might have been fine playing the game back when it launched.

As Genshin Impact gets larger and evolves, HoYoVerse has begun to cull support for older hardware. Its move to ditch PowerVR isn’t too far from the need to ditch the PlayStation 4, as the 12-year-old hardware presumably is running into issues with newly developed content. Expect to see more of this as the game continues on, and hardware becomes future landfill.