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How to Improve Your Gaming Refresh Rate

Gaming monitor

When it comes to fast-paced PC gaming, having the best quality image is of the utmost importance. A lot of the time, that means investing in a high-end graphics card. But if you’ve already taken this step and you still aren’t seeing the quality you’d expect, the answer might lie with your monitor’s refresh rate.

What’s a refresh rate? Continue reading to learn how it works and what you can do to improve its speed.

A refresh rate is one of your monitor’s display measurements

The refresh rate of a computer monitor is the number of times per second that the image on the screen is refreshed. The rate is expressed in Hertz (Hz). Most standard monitors have a refresh rate of 60 Hz, meaning they display 60 images every second.

While that may be fast enough for viewing basic videos that play at 30 frames per second (fps), it’s a different matter for video games. This is because a lot of gamers like to play action games with graphics that are optimal at settings well above 60 fps. In this case, they often choose to upgrade to a gaming monitor with a refresh rate above 60 Hz.

Using more frames per second creates a smoother experience and enables the feeling of being fully immersed in the game’s environment. However, this is only possible if the monitor can keep up with the speed of the frames. Avid gamers or those who professionally stream their play tend to choose monitors capable of 144 Hz and up.

Choose your monitor with care

The first step to getting a high refresh rate is choosing a monitor that supports faster graphics. When shopping, be sure to check the product specifications before you buy. 144 Hz is becoming more common, but keep in mind that as the amount of Hz goes up, so does the price. This is especially true of luxury options that have much higher resolutions, like QHD gaming monitors or 4K UHD gaming monitors.

If you’re confused about the difference between resolution and refresh rate, just remember that resolution refers to the number of pixels that a display can show in each image, while refresh rate is the number of images displayed per second. Increasing quantity in each of these categories will also increase monitor cost.

Check your settings

Once you've bought a monitor that can handle a higher refresh rate, make sure you check your display settings in order to take advantage of the elevated technology. Oftentimes, monitors don’t come out of the box set to their highest refresh rate. But don’t worry, you can easily fix this by opening the display settings, going to the advanced menu, and selecting the highest refresh rate available. Be aware that higher refresh rates require significantly more energy usage that will be reflected on your utility bill.

The next step is configuring your PC games and the settings on your graphic processing unit (GPU) to take advantage of your new monitor’s refresh rate. 240 fps on a 240 Hz display might seem like a perfect fit, but sometimes fps settings and refresh rates do not pair as nicely because the frame rate does not divide evenly into the refresh rate, meaning you sacrifice some quality.

Vertical sync (VSync) technology was designed as one way to help avoid problems that can occur, like screen tearing (a horizontal split in the screen image). VSync prevents the graphics cards from sending more information than the monitor is ready to display. However, there are other tweaks you can work through if you are still experiencing issues. Plus, many gamers who have computer cases that house their hand-picked components prefer to make individual tweaks rather than relying on VSync.

Be careful about what you try to change

Some gamers choose to improve display quality by doing something to their monitor called overclocking. Overclocking is the act of running the monitor at a higher frequency than that for which it was designed.

While this can give you a boost in performance, it can also damage your monitor. Therefore, make sure you know what you're doing before you try this and be prepared to replace your monitor if something goes wrong.

You can pair monitors with different refresh rates

It’s often handy to use more than one monitor while gaming to increase your visual landscape, especially if you’re playing on a gaming laptop. If you’re considering this, you might wonder if both monitors must have equal Hz capacity. Fortunately, the good news is that you don’t. You can have displays with different refresh rates operating simultaneously.

That said, it is best to devote each screen to a different task. Images can get warped when moving between each monitor and some NVIDIA graphics cards might downgrade your image to the lower refresh rate when two monitors are paired. Also, keep in mind that running two monitors at once will tax your gaming computer and graphics card more, making them run hotter. To help protect all your computer components, consider investing in a computer fan to cool things off.

Game on

After you’ve taken all the necessary steps to improve your gaming refresh rate, you’ll likely have a much better PC gaming experience. Now that your monitor can sync up with the graphic designs within the game, you have a better chance at being victorious in your adventures.