[MCPE-220838] Vibrant visuals: lag spikes while switching through items

Anytime you switch between items with vibrant visuals enabled, it causes a lag spike to happen. This seems to only happen on mobile devices, and has been noted to have been fixed in another preview, but is still in effect in the vibrant visuals graphics.

Linked issues

is duplicated by 14

MCPE-223627 Holding item lag vibrant visuals Resolved

MCPE-226339 Switch items in the slots it freezes and lag sometime Resolved

MCPE-226370 When I switch items in the slots it freezes and lag. Resolved

MCPE-226487 Game freeze when switching items in hotbar Resolved

MCPE-237967 The game freeze when player pick items with Vibrant Visuals ON Resolved

9 more links

Attachments

Comments 15

[Mojang] Mega_Spud (Jay) 2025-05-29T09:27:02Z

This ticket has been temporarily resolved as Awaiting Response.

To make your bug report as effective as possible, please try and include the following steps to reproduce the problem:

Steps to Reproduce:
Observed Results:
(Briefly describe what happens)
Expected Results:
(Briefly describe what should happen)

Otherwise we may need to resolve the ticket as Cannot Reproduce.

This ticket will reopen when you reply.

Setsuka 2025-05-29T19:04:49Z

Switch graphics mode to vibrant visuals.
Get a block or an item (nothing specific) in your hotbar.
Switch through the items in your hotbar, it'll freeze the game for a second or two and seems to happen every few seconds after switching to said item.

ojng 2025-08-09T10:39:14Z

Especially Android and iOS(Pocket Edition)

Jim Bara 2026-04-08T17:32:47Z

this issue happened to me though my device is high enough with snapdragon 8s gen 3

Jim Bara 2026-04-08T17:38:10Z

and seems like they never fix it 🙂

5 more comments

Azmeel 2026-05-17T12:58:17Z

This issue also happened to me and I have additional technical information.

My Device: ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro
Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Elite (Adreno 830)
Android: 16
Versions tested: Multiple stable and beta versions including
1.26.30.21 - issue persists across all versions.

FPS data captured via in-game debug screen:

Normal gameplay (no item interaction):

FPS: 96.5
Render thread: 8.764 ms
Main thread: 8.044 ms
GPU Time: 8.120 ms

During item swap / block placement:

FPS: 1.4
Render thread: 32.692 ms
Main thread: 9.157 ms
GPU Time: 8.120 ms

GPU time remains completely constant during the stutter,
suggesting this is a CPU-side render thread issue rather
than a GPU or shader compilation problem.

Stutter pattern:

Walk for a few seconds, then swap item = stutter occurs
Immediately swap again = no stutter
Walk again for a few seconds, then swap = stutter returns

Screenshots attached.

dragonHzx95 2026-06-26T00:52:03Z

When the outdated OpenGL ES rendering pipeline encounters the new "Vibrant Visuals" feature, it tends to cause various performance issues. After enabling "Vibrant Visuals," on Android Bedrock Edition, when switching items to the hand or picking up dropped items for the first time in Survival mode, there is a probability of severe frame drops. When the outdated OpenGL ES rendering pipeline meets the "Vibrant Visuals" feature, it tends to trigger various performance problems.

dragonHzx95 2026-06-26T01:17:07Z

Every 1/20 of a second, the game runs a tick to update world logic: hunger, saturation, potion timers, mob AI, redstone signals, etc. When you eat food, the game must instantly recalculate the whole health/hunger/saturation value chain. If this recalculation blocks the main thread, the game will stutter (a brief "freeze"). In version 26.32, Mojang optimized this code path, so it now runs much faster. As a result, the eating‑related stutter is gone. The stutter when placing items or switching held items has also improved noticeably.

However, rendering frame drops still persist. These happen when you mine a block for the first time, pick up dropped items, or switch hotbar slots – because the GPU needs to load textures/models or change rendering states on the fly. This is a graphics pipeline issue (OpenGL ES) and is separate from the game logic.

In short, 26.32 fixed the "brain" (logic) bottleneck, so you feel snappier UI response. But the "drawing" (rendering) engine hasn't been touched, so minor frame hiccups remain. This is not a device problem; it's an old, well‑known Bedrock rendering engine quirk. We'll need a later update that specifically targets OpenGL rendering optimization.

dragonHzx95 2026-06-26T02:59:58Z

For your reference, this is the latest updated version, and it has been thoroughly tested. We’re treating it as the baseline for testing.

dragonHzx95 2026-06-26T03:00:22Z

dragonHzx95 2026-06-26T10:46:48Z

Peipol 2026-07-02T03:54:32Z

Platform

Android

Operating System Version

Affects versions

26.32

Description

When Vibrant Visuals is enabled, the game frequently freezes for approximately 2–3 seconds while interacting with the inventory or hotbar.

The freeze is most commonly triggered by:

Selecting a different hotbar item.
Selecting an empty inventory slot.
Consuming or placing the last item in a stack, causing the slot to become empty.

During the freeze:

The game world continues running normally.
Hostile mobs continue moving and attacking.
Other players connected to the same world are not affected.
Only the local client appears to stop responding temporarily.

After the freeze ends, gameplay resumes normally until another inventory interaction triggers the issue again.

Steps to Reproduce

Enable Vibrant Visuals.
Open or create any world (single-player or multiplayer).
Repeatedly switch between hotbar items.
Alternatively, place or consume the last item in a stack until the slot becomes empty.
Observe intermittent 2–3 second freezes.

Additional Information

The issue has been present since the first use of the device.

The following do not affect the problem:

Graphics quality settings.
Battery Saver mode.
High Performance/Game Mode.
Touch controls or a USB-C controller (tested with a GameSir X2).
Newly created worlds or worlds imported from another device.
Offline or multiplayer gameplay.

The issue completely disappears when switching from Vibrant Visuals back to Sophisticated Visuals, using the same worlds and the same device.

This strongly suggests the problem is related to the Vibrant Visuals rendering path rather than world data or device performance.

Thats Private 2026-10-12T07:05:16Z

Enabling “hide hands” in the video section fixes this bug.

It is clearly a coding fault rather than simply limited hardware.

S25 ultra, and im running the game at 60fps. My device isnt struggling to run the game.

I repeat, enabling “hide hands” fixes this bug. Please mojang, use this information to figure out the root cause.

GumDropolotl 2026-10-16T04:52:43Z

Can confirm on 26.70.20.

Azmeel 2026-10-16T08:34:55Z

Tested enabling hide hand as recommended in this comment. Confirm enabling hide hand fixes the bug. Pls mojang fix it.