For non esports stuff, do you think high refresh rate monitors, 144Hz for example, make sense?
The difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS is titanic. Does that carry over to higher than 60 FPS or do you get diminishing returns?
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Just about any game with full-screen motion will be noticeably better at 120+ fps than 60. How much better will depend on the game, the screen size, and the viewing distance.
Bear in mind that higher frame rates will mean your GPU has to do more work, so it will use more power and generate more heat. (It might even induce coil whine.) I therefore set a frame rate limit in graphics-intensive games, to enjoy smoother motion without driving up my electricity bill in the land of diminishing returns. The sweet spot for me is usually somewhere in the 60-120 range, but I find that even 40 fps is enough for certain games, like Baldur’s Gate 3.
If you’re shopping for a monitor, I suggest looking for variable refresh rate support. It makes frame rate dips and peaks less jarring, and gives you more flexibility in setting frame rate limits.
Up to 120-150? Absolutely. Makes the computer feel way more snappy and smooth
Above 150? Don’t think so!
100%.
I got the first Korean 1440p “overclock” monitor, and 60-> 110hz was like night and day many years ago. Sometimes it’d reset from a driver update (as the graphics driver had to be patched to work with overclocked DVI back then), and I’d immediately notice even poking around the web.
Some with phones. I got a Razer phone 2, and 120hz was incredible. I went from that to an iPhone 16 plus (60hz), and it feels sluggish to me.
Another caveat is that 120hz is more “convenient” and less stuttery for most video. 24fps does not evenly divide into 60, but it does for 96 or 120. An once you start seeing choppiness in video, your eyes can’t unsee it.
I sit in front of a screen for a good chunk of the day and also like video games, a 144hz monitor has been an absolute necessity lest I get motion sickness by the time I get to the video games.
Up to 90-120hz is pretty nice. That’s the sweet spot for me. I’m not into esports and also I’m an environmentalist so 240hz and 360 hz monitors just seem really excessive to me since you need hundreds of watts of power to push those frame rates. I usually run like 75 hz on my steamdeck or other lower power devices.
Diminishing returns do come into effect, however they are proportional to the amount of additional frames. like another comment mentioned, going from 60 to 90 or 120 are big leaps that you absolutely will notice. Something you might not notice immediately is that some actions will just feel faster and more precise, even if theyre not particularly fast moving, like moving your cursor or scrolling a web page.
Personally after having a 120hz desktop i cant go back without it feeling slow and unpleasant.
My phone can also do 120hz but unfortunately it sucks the battery dry or i would use it there too.
Going back to 60 from 120, I can say that it’s very noticable. Even outside of games, in things like the window manager, just resizing or moving windows feels very choppy.
I have 2 monitor setup. Primary one is 165 Hz VA, the other is 60 Hz IPS as secondary screen for stuff like chat or background video. While the VA has some problems (it can’t catch some particular color changes in needed time-frame), it’s generally much smoother. Not just games, but in desktop workflow too. You suddenly feel your mouse is somehow smoother on one screen and feels choppy on the other. Ever since I got the 165 Hz monitor, I’m constantly thinking of upgrading the secondary one too, just for the smoothness. The only thing holding me back is it’s just more money spent when not needed, but man… the QOL surely is there and is so tempting.
So I’ve done research on what display traits work best for people for remote operation. An the answer is it varies a lot from person to person.
Everybody shows task improvement and likes it better as you increase to 30fps. From 30fps to 60fps most people improve and like the experience better but image quality starts to matter more. (we used different levels of compression for quality)
After 60fps most people benefit from better image quality and don’t get much from higher FPS . However there is a small group that shows a huge preference and improved preformance with higher fps even at the expense of much lower image quality.
The high FPS people responded instantly and vocally when we increased in the FPS during the test. So you may be in the high FPS group but you should be able to tell with a brief eyes on test of a high FPS system.
I switched from a 144Hz monitor that I used for years to a 240Hz monitor, and yes of course there are somewhat diminishing returns, but if I can run a game at 240 fps then I can absolutely tell the difference between the two. Not only is motion noticeably smoother but games just feel so much better to control (especially shooters) when you have faster visual feedback on your inputs, even outside of multiplayer games.
The game I’m playing most right now is Deadlock which I get between 140-170 fps on average in, and even just in that range it starts to feel comparatively sluggish when the framerate starts to dip.
I swear, games running at 240fps on a 240hz monitor have actual motion blur, no need for post processing
I’m not sure there ever has been 30hz monitors. Going from 60 to 120 is double, just like 30 to 60. Having just made that jump this year, I can say yes,it’s very nice.
Well, if your setup is right, there won’t be 30Hz monitors. Plugging in an old DVI cable you have laying around to a 4k monitor might just do it.
Didn’t most console games run at 30fps until recently, so effectively 30hz, right?
Yes. Someone pointed out that NTSC standard was 60hz with interlaced frames. Effectively 30fps like your talking about. But that ended with CRTs.
There have been 60hz interlaced displays, that displayed alternate fields and so did a complete refresh 30 times a second. Actually, I guess that’s what NTSC broadcast TV was. It looks like ass in every other application, though.
depends. high refresh rate is great if you play fast moving games. The difference is pretty much “same” as 30->60 when going from 60 to 120, for example. After seeing something at eg. 120 fps, “60 feels like 30, kinda” - just a personal observation.
For turn based 4x games, isometric rpg’s etc, probably won’t make much of a difference.
FPS, racing, etc fast? yea, it’s great.
edit: if you’re a movie enthusiast, 144 Hz screen might make sense if you watch a lot of stuff which is 24 fps. As 144 (and 120, for that matter) divide evenly with 24, making the tiny judder go away compared to 60 Hz screen.
