all know that people of all ages spend a crazy amount of time playing games on their phones. Samsung has recognized that by positioning the Galaxy S7 ( S7 ge) as premiere gaming devices, building some nifty software into the operating system that mobile gamers will appreciate. 

Game Hub

It starts with the Game Hub, a special games folder of sorts that could serve as a launcher for running games with special conditions. You can choose to disabled notifications when running a game (useful), or reduce frame rate resolution to save battery life (even more useful). For a basic puzzle or strategy game, you won’t notice a degraded experience by running at a lower res locking the frame rate to a maximum of 30fps, but frame rate limiting has proven to be a very effective way to limit battery drain.

Once you’re in a game, a little floating menu gives you additional options. Record your gameplay at a resolution up to 720p, with options to record the front camera in a little floating circle if you like, or record either the microphone or game audio. st the thing for YouTubers looking to post some quick gameplay videos from their phone without a bunch of editing. This menu also lets you toggle notifications, turn off the capacitive back recents buttons (so you don’t leave your game by accident), or take a screenshot.

This isn’t totally new stuff. If you have a recent high-end Samsung phone, you can download Game Recorder+ or Game Tuner today get the same features. They just won’t be directly integrated into the OS the way they are on the Galaxy S7.

First with Vulkan

Samsung claims that the Galaxy S7 is the first phone to ship with Vulkan, the graphics A from the Kronos Group that aims to do for OpenGwhat DirectX 12 did for DirectX—it gets out of the way provides more direct access to the hardware for greater efficiency. Samsung brought Epic Games graphics guru Sweeney on stage to give a quick demonstration of an Unreal Engine tech demo that uses the Vulkan A. It’s pretty impressive stuff for a smartphone, showing far more objects higher fidelity than would be possible with OpenG

It’s an impressive graphics demo, but it’s only that—a demo. Mobile games makers aren’t expected to embrace Vulkan until there are millions of phones on the market that support the technology, but it’s good to see that it’s coming quickly that Samsung’s leading the charge.