Preferences menu on BlueStacks for macOS

How will this help?

There are a variety of settings in BlueStacks that you can customize through the Preferences menu. This article will acquaint you with these settings and show you how to use them.


What are the different settings?

To explore the various settings in the Preferences menu, click on the links below, which will then redirect you to the relevant information.

  • Display - This allows you to customize the screen resolution and DPI for BlueStacks.
  • Engine - Here, you can explore various performance settings for BlueStacks, depending on your PC/Laptop's configuration. 
  • Notification - This allows you to choose which notifications and what type of notifications you would like to see.
  • Preferences - From this tab, you can customize your language settings and platform settings and select the Media folder for saving screenshots. 
  • User data - This primarily contains the disk cleanup tool, which allows you to free up space on BlueStacks.
  • Advanced - From here, you can select your device profile and mobile network provider.
  • Game Settings - This allows you to customize and optimize various game settings.

You can gain access to the BlueStacks Preferences menu by clicking on the BlueStacks tab and selecting Preferences, as shown below.

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Display settings

1. You can customize the resolution and DPI for BlueStacks through the Display settings tab, to enhance your viewing and gaming experiencing on BlueStacks. Please close and restart BlueStacks to make your resolution and DPI settings effective.

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Engine settings

Within this section, you will find all the settings that allow you to customize the performance of BlueStacks

1. First, you will find the option which lets you allocate the desired CPU cores to BlueStacks.  

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2. Next, you can select the RAM assigned to BlueStacks by adjusting the slider next to Memory (MB) according to your preference.

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3. Beneath it, you have the option to switch the graphics mode on BlueStacks. To do so, tick the box next to Advanced graphics engine mode.

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4. Then comes the ABI settings. With the ability to switch between the ABI, you will be able to play the games which require ARM libraries to run. This article will tell you all about selecting the right ABI settings for BlueStacks.

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5. Upon scrolling down, you can select the graphics texture compression decoding method for games that use ASTC textures. You can choose from the following options:

  • Disabled: This option allows you turn off ASTC textures for games within BlueStacks. You may choose this if software decoding is introducing a lag during your gameplay. 
  • Software decoding: This option allows you to decompress ASTC textures for games within BlueStacks. Software decoding lets the CPU in your Mac directly compose and render images in a game, thus improving graphics quality.
  • Enable caching: This option will improve the response time for software decoding, but it will take some additional disk space.

Refer to this article to learn how ASTC can affect the visual experience in a game. 

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Lastly, you will find the Frame rate settings. Here, you can customize the FPS by adjusting the slider or increase the FPS limit by selecting the Enable high frame rates option. 

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You will also find the Display FPS during gameplay option. Upon selecting it, an FPS meter will appear at the bottom of your screen.

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Notification settings

1. Within this section, you will find all the different settings which allow you to control and customize the notifications you will get for your apps on BlueStacks.

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Preferences settings

1. Within the Preferences settings tab, you have the option to choose the language you would prefer using on BlueStacks. Refer to this article to learn how to do that.

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2. Next, you will find the Platform settings which will allow you to enable the Android Debug Bridge (ADB). 

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3. Lastly, you can select the Media Folder on your Mac, where you would like to save the screenshots taken while using BlueStacks.

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User Data

1. In the User Data section, you will find the Disk cleanup tool, which frees up the space an app occupies on your PC, after it's been uninstalled.

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Advanced settings

1. Here, you get the option to change the Device profile for BlueStacks. This allows you to use applications that are more compatible with a certain device.

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2. You can also choose a Mobile network provider to run apps that need your device to be connected to a certain network.

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Game settings

1. Within the Game settings section you can customize the resolution, graphics quality, etc., for games such as Garena Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile and The Seven Deadly Sins. 

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Thank you for choosing BlueStacks. We hope you enjoy using it. If you have any further questions, please contact us at support@bluestacks.com. Happy Gaming!

Last updated on October 26, 2020.

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