Over the years, displays – especially gaming monitors – have appeared with increasingly high refresh rates. Recently, Asus introduced a screen with an amazing 500Hz refresh rate – faster than most people can comprehend. But that’s the only thing – sometimes you don’t need a crazy high refresh rate, and enabling it can use a lot more power than necessary. Fortunately, Windows 11 makes it easy to change the refresh rate on your monitor or built-in display.
Before getting into it, it might be helpful to clarify the screen refresh rate. The refresh rate, usually measured in Hertz (Hz), is the number of times the monitor refreshes the image it is displaying. Even with a static image, monitors constantly update the information they display. One Hz means that the screen refreshes once per second, so with a 500 Hz screen, it refreshes 500 times per second. A higher refresh rate means movement and animation look natural and smooth, while a lower refresh rate can make things look choppy. Most displays, especially non-gaming ones, have a refresh rate of 60Hz, which is good enough for most users. But for gaming monitors, those numbers keep rising.
The thing is that a higher refresh rate means that the screen has to use more power to refresh as quickly as possible. It might not make much difference when you attach a monitor to a wall, but if you have a laptop that is constantly running at a high refresh rate, it will eat up the battery more quickly. Some laptops can automatically switch refresh rates when they’re not plugged into the charger, but if you can’t, here’s how to change your screen’s refresh rate on Windows 11.
How to change your refresh rate on Windows 11
Changing the refresh rate of your screen on Windows 11 is actually a very straightforward process, and you can do it in the Settings app. You may also be able to do this within the driver settings or using an app from your PC manufacturer, but these will vary depending on your PC. This method is universal, here’s how it works:
- Open the Start menu and then the Settings app.
- In the System Section (which opens by default), choose Show.
- click advanced view See information about connected monitors.
- At the top, you can choose which screen you want to configure. If you have more than one, be sure to change the correct option.
- Under Display information, click the dropdown menu next to Choose refresh rate. In this example, our monitor supports a wide range of options between 50Hz and 144Hz, but it will vary depending on your monitor.
Some displays may also support dynamic refresh rate, which means that it runs faster when there is a lot of movement, and slower when displaying a still image, so it only uses more power when it needs to. - Choose the option you want to use, and it will be applied automatically.
- Windows will ask you to confirm the change, so if you notice any problems, you can easily undo it. click Saving changes If you want to confirm the new refresh rate, or it will return automatically after 15 seconds.
And that’s all you have to do to change the refresh rate of your screen on Windows 11. If you want to change it again, you can always repeat these steps to change it again. You may also need to change the refresh rate for multiple monitors if you want them all to give you the same experience.
If you have a gaming laptop or desktop with a gaming monitor, you may also be able to use an adaptive refresh rate in games with AMD FreeSync or Nvidia G-Sync. The adaptive refresh rates settings are located in the Nvidia Control Panel or AMD Radeon software, so you’ll have to check there if you want to see these options. In general, monitors that support adaptive refresh rates will be automatically set up in this way.
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