Performance and hardware

Quest headsets actively manage hardware resources to balance performance, thermals, and battery life. Understanding these systems helps you build apps that run smoothly across all supported devices.

Quest dynamically adjusts clock speeds and throttles workloads to stay within safe thermal limits. Apps that exceed the thermal envelope experience reduced frame rates and degraded performance. The runtime’s frame timing algorithm, FrameSync, is designed to absorb the variable frame cost that throttling produces.

Quest assigns discrete performance levels to the CPU and GPU. Higher levels provide more processing power but generate more heat and consume more battery. The system selects levels dynamically based on workload, but apps can request specific levels.

For short bursts of demanding work — loading screens, complex scene transitions, or physics-heavy moments — apps can request a temporary performance boost beyond the default levels.

Quest devices have limited memory shared between the system and your app. Understanding memory budgets, texture memory, and allocation patterns helps you avoid out-of-memory crashes and maintain stable performance.

When battery is low, Quest enters battery saver mode which reduces performance to extend session time. Apps should detect this state and adapt — for example, by reducing visual fidelity or disabling non-essential effects.