VR performance drops on Google headset but not Quest 2. Profiling tips and possible CPU or GPU limits?

Hi everyone,

We’re working on a VR game called Eggscape and we’re running into some pretty confusing performance issues on Google’s headset. The same build runs smoothly on Meta Quest 2, but on Google’s device we’re seeing significant drops that we can’t seem to track down.

We’ve already tried a bunch of optimizations, but nothing seems to make a real difference:

Improved Addressables usage
Removed all complex materials and shaders (everything is basically gray now)
Tweaked graphics settings
Lowered rendering resolution to less than 50%
Disabled passthrough

One strange thing: even in a very simple “Home” scene (just UI, no networking or gameplay), if we look away so nothing is visible, FPS still drops. That made us think it might not be purely rendering-related.

During gameplay it gets worse:

Normal: ~58 FPS
Lobby: fluctuates between ~44–58 FPS
Active gameplay: drops to ~30 FPS, sometimes going up to ~48 FPS

This happens consistently over a full match.

At this point we’re a bit stuck. Are there any recommended tools, workflows, or profiling approaches (maybe something with Gemini or Android-level profiling) that could help isolate what’s actually causing this? Any tips for debugging performance specifically on Google’s headset would be super appreciated.

Second question: is there any way to push the device harder in terms of performance? For example, something like increasing thermal limits, CPU/GPU levels, or “overclocking”-like behavior, even if it means higher battery usage?

Thanks a lot!

No files, tests, or code entry points are identified. Reproduce the issue in the Home scene and during gameplay, then compare CPU, GPU, and thermal profiling on the Google headset and Quest 2; done means the limiting subsystem and a reproducible performance constraint are documented.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.