this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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Other than games, what are the benefits of variable refresh rate?
Adjusting the refresh rate to the performance of the desktop is one.
I also heard it would make it easier to manage multiple monitors sporting different refresh rates, although I haven't had issues with that personally.
That's the definition, isn't it? Why is this better than a fixed refresh rate? Can the monitor scale the rate down to consume less power or something?
I heard that too and got similarly confused. I work with two monitors with different refresh rates (75 and 60) on Mint and it seems fine. Is X downgrading my 75 Hz monitor to 60 silently? I don't know how to check that.
To avoid having to skip frames to make the desktop look more fluid, thus matching the refresh rate of the monitor.
I think the whole desktop runs at the higher refresh rate when you have mismatched monitors? Not sure. Wayland and X11 might differ as well on how they handle this.
X11 runs the whole desktop on the lowest refresh rate and Wayland can run each monitor at a different refresh rate
In theory, yes. However, I have never seen it used that way. The only widely used applications for VRR are games and video playback.
Would be interesting to do some power measurements though.
Yes, X does not support different refresh rates. Wayland does.
Maybe it could be integrated into other difficult to run 3D graphics workloads, like CAD or 3D design work?
But yeah pretty much just games tbh
I guess, but you're usually not rapidly rotating models while you're designing it. At least the workloads I'm familiar with, movements are much more deliberate and even a fixed 50 Hz laptop monitor can handle.
It's mainly for games of course.
It's also good for video, as it can play videos at the highest possible Hz multiple of the video's FPS. So for example 24 FPS video could be played back with 144 Hz, 25 FPS with 125 Hz etc. VRR isn't technically required for this as many non-VRR monitors support different video modes with different fixed Hz as well, but the transition between Hz is seamless (no need to change video mode).
You lost me here now. Why would want to repeat the same frame four or five times in video? Is that to add post processing effects like motion blur between them?
It's not redrawing the frame, it's more related to aligning the monitors refresh rate to the frame rate of the content being displayed. Alignment means your monitor doesn't refresh the screen when the frame is only partially rendered (aka screen tearing).
Right, it doesn't need to be multiples then, it could be the exact same refresh rate as the movie. Even those weird 25.xx refresh rates some are distributed in. Thanks for answering.
Sure could be, but with most VRR displays the VRR range starts at around 48 Hz, so 24 FPS content would play at least at 48 Hz for example.
The lowest multiple is likely what's being used though (I'd have to check), so the numbers in my previous comment are probably off.
Why does my desire for knowledge offend you?