FIXED: Advanced Textures Not Showing on MIUI/HyperOS

Xiaomi’s ‘revamped’ HyperOS came with more than one visual change, but the design roots remained largely intact. The UI continues to give off a subtly light and airy feel with heavy reliance on blur effects. In some ways, MIUI’s successor didn’t shy away from establishing iOS as its paragon but failed to establish the same level of consistency across its entire lineup.

This is why, within HyperOS’ more obscure options, you’ll find Advanced Textures, which are allegedly not available on a particular set of Xiaomi phones. This guide will try to delve into why that is, isolate the issue, and find potential alternatives and fixes to bring back the functionality.

What are Advanced Textures?

Advanced Textures is a display setting on Xiaomi devices that lets users choose a subtly darker, blurrier interface with more dynamic animations intended to feel light and fluid. Xiaomi’s recent design philosophy has largely been Apple-esque, which is why MIUI and, subsequently, HyperOS’ iconography and UI have closely tried to mimic iOS’ aesthetic.

The feature “improves rendering effects” and adds subtle blurriness throughout the interface, including an improved dark mode within the Notification Shade, Control Center, Volume Panel, and Recent Screens. However, the changes are so minor that it’s almost surprising that Xiaomi dedicated a specific display setting for this feature.

Some proprietary apps like Mi File Manager, Gallery, and Security support matching background blur when Advanced Textures is enabled. In other apps, the background color blends with the wallpaper, somewhat reminiscent of Google’s “Material You” design philosophy, but with an added touch of blur.

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Why are Advanced Textures Not Showing Up?

HyperOS came with the second version of Advanced Textures, which is when many users noticed the feature missing from this device. Xiaomi hasn’t published a lot of information publicly on how its device support criteria works, but for unsupported devices, here’s what may be happening.

1) Hardware

With the number of phones Xiaomi pushes out each year, coming in with huge price and hardware discrepancies, it’s obvious that some functionality may be pulled from certain devices due to hardware limitations.

Advanced Textures is a hardware-intensive feature that may not have the best value-to-performance ratio in phones targeted at the budget or mid-range segment. This is why Xiaomi has categorically and deliberately opted out of offering the feature on select devices.

Some custom HyperOS ROMs do offer the same functionality for phones that don’t support it natively, but as for the official build, if you don’t see the toggle for Advanced Textures under “Display & brightness” settings on your device, know that Xiaomi has chosen not to support the said hardware.

2) Software Support

HyperOS’s main highlight was how much better it was optimized than its predecessor. With more juice to work with, it is possible some devices that weren’t previously supported were included to work with Advanced Textures 2.0.

To make sure your phone is supported, update your device to the latest version of HyperOS or make the switch from MIUI if you still need to do so. In the same way, it is possible that the updated version that introduces support is yet to be released for your region. Some regions receive HyperOS updates sooner than others.

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Alternatives to Advanced Textures

If your device is off of the support list for Advanced Textures, it is time to look at potential alternatives. The feature added subtle depth to the whole UI, and for that to happen, you may need to experiment a bit to see what suits your use.

↪ Control Center Transparency

Over the past few iterations of its mobile operating system, Xiaomi has experimented with adding different levels of blur to the Control Center. In MIUI 13, the company added a blurred background but removed it in MIUI 14, replacing it with an opaque background.

1) Use the Built-In Dark Mode

If you wish to mimic the same functionality, try looking into HyperOS’ proprietary Dark Mode. This may provide a more comfortable and fluid look than the normal theme, be easy on the eyes, and somewhat mimic what Advanced Textures aims to do.

Sure, with the Dark Mode itself, you won’t get the same level of subtle blur, but even if you do, you would be sacrificing a lot of performance, especially on a device that isn’t supported natively.

2) Themes

Within HyperOS or MIUI, you could use a selection of themes to fine-tune your phone’s look and overall UI to your liking. You can choose to use a darker theme or (as a hack) one that enables a transparent background within the Control Center. This way, you can get the most out of the desired feature without having to tinker around with your phone too much.

It is important to understand that some of these themes that introduce blur within the Control Center may not sync with your device’s background and are merely blurred placeholder backgrounds for the specific theme itself.

3) Custom ROMs

If you’re looking to root and flash a separate module to enable Advanced Textures on your device, try looking into third-party custom ROMs that are not only reliable but also offer the Advanced Textures’ functionality.

Most ROMs based on HyperOS typically come with features that are supported on only the top-end Xiaomi devices and are pulled out of the official builds for the rest of the pack.

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Conclusion

Advanced Textures are available for a very minimal selection of Xiaomi devices that can support them. For the rest, the functionality can’t be individually turned off from within the official build. Either you can make do with the built-in dark mode or will have to flash a custom ROM offering all the benefits of a device that falls in a more premium price bracket.