What refresh rate does PC video games have?

[DethNade]

Is there a list on PC games that will show you what refresh rate it can run on your Monitor? Like if some games can only run 120hz on some at 240hz. I don't want to buy a new monitor that has 240hz and the game only runs in 144hz.

[porina]

Most games are unlimited. A small number might have a built in fps cap for whatever reason. Just look up a few of the games you're interested in to check. BTW unless you are playing games at a high level that can benefit from 240 Hz (competitive first person shooters?), 144 Hz is plenty.

[Levent]

How fast you can run a game depends on your hardware. Some games also dont need to run at 240hz thus developer locks the framerate but those games are usually not graphically intense.

[DethNade]

4 minutes ago, Levent said:

How fast you can run a game depends on your hardware. Some games also dont need to run at 240hz thus developer locks the framerate but those games are usually not graphically intense.

 

I have a AMD RYZEN 7 3700X 8-Core 3.6 GHz. SUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB GDDR6 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card ROG-STRIX-RTX2080TI-11G-GAMING and G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Intel XMP 2.0 Desktop Memory Model F4-3600C16D-16GVKC - DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Timing 16-19-19-39. 

 

Where would the info for the refresh rate info be on each game?

[Levent]

Just now, DethNade said:

Where would the info for the refresh rate info be on each game?

There is no such thing. Expect most if not all 3D games to have no fps limit and expect some 2D games to have it.

[Eigenvektor]

7 minutes ago, DethNade said:

Where would the info for the refresh rate info be on each game?

Just a minor technical nitpick:

• Monitors have a refresh rate. It tells you how often (per second) a monitor is able to refresh the image it displays.
• Games have a (maximum) frame rate. It tells you how often (per second) a game is able to render a new image.

You may have more luck finding results when you use the proper search term.

 

In most cases the frame rate of a game has no upper limit, other than your hardware's capabilities. In some cases developers do impose an artificial limit. I'm not aware of any lists that track this. You may be able to find it mentioned in reviews for the games you're interested in. In some cases you may be able to use mods to remove it.

 

I know for example that Doom 2016 has a maximum limit of 200 fps, because the game engine runs into issues once you go beyond that. So removing the limit may not be a good idea.

[DethNade]

7 minutes ago, porina said:

Most games are unlimited. A small number might have a built in fps cap for whatever reason. Just look up a few of the games you're interested in to check. BTW unless you are playing games at a high level that can benefit from 240 Hz (competitive first person shooters?), 144 Hz is plenty.

 

I play Halo Master Chief Collection, Halo Infinite, Fortnite, PUBG, Quake Champions, sea of thieves and may get into Battlefield 2042. I

 

Way I've made this post. I been watching YouTube videos and I've run into one that someone said some games Cap on 120hz or 144hz. So, I would like to know where i would find that info.

[minibois]

This website has many games listed and often their fps cap (if applicable) listed too: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home

Games with a capped fps are uncommon, unless you turn on vsync; in which case it's limited to the refresh rate of your monitor (the way vsync caps fps is undesirable though, so it's not recommended to use).

[Chris Pratt]

4 minutes ago, DethNade said:

Way I've made this post. I been watching YouTube videos and I've run into one that someone said some games Cap on 120hz or 144hz. So, I would like to know where i would find that info.

Frame caps, at least those imposed by the developer, are exceedingly rare on PC. This is most common on consoles, because the hardware is a known quantity, and therefore the dev can optimize for a particular resolution and level of quality at a set framerate.

 

On PC, games will generally just render as many frames as the hardware will allow. In any case, there's no master list or something for this, because PC hardware varies too wildly. There's no feasible way to say definitely how much FPS any given game is capable of across all possible hardware. 

[DethNade]

3 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Just a minor technical nitpick:

• Monitors have a refresh rate. It tells you how often (per second) a monitor is able to refresh the image it displays.
• Games have a (maximum) frame rate. It tells you how often (per second) a game is able to render a new image.

You may have more luck finding results when you use the proper search term.

 

In most cases the frame rate of a game has no upper limit, other than your hardware's capabilities. In some cases developers do impose an artificial limit. I'm not aware of any lists that track this. You may be able to find it mentioned in reviews for the games you're interested in. In some cases you may be able to use mods to remove it.

 

I know for example that Doom 2016 has a maximum limit of 200 fps, because the game engine runs into issues once you go beyond that. So removing the limit may not be a good idea.

Thanks for the info. So, if I get a 240hz monitor and play Halo Master Chief Collection, Halo Infinite, Fortnite, PUBG, Quake Champions, sea of thieves and may get into Battlefield 2042 that would benefit me then a 144hz monitor right?

 

My PC specs.

 

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 3700X 8-Core 3.6 GHz. 

 

Video Card: SUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB GDDR6 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card ROG-STRIX-RTX2080TI-11G-GAMING and G.SKILL

 

Ram: Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) - Timing 16-19-19-39. 

 

 

[Eigenvektor]

39 minutes ago, DethNade said:

Thanks for the info. So, if I get a 240hz monitor and play Halo Master Chief Collection, Halo Infinite, Fortnite, PUBG, Quake Champions, sea of thieves and may get into Battlefield 2042 that would benefit me then a 144hz monitor right?

I would suggest you search for benchmarks for systems that are equal/similar to yours that include these games and/or benchmarks/reviews of those games in particular. This should give you and idea of what kind of performance you can expect to get on your hardware. If those benchmarks show performance above 144 fps, you'll know whether these games have a limit and whether you would get any benefit from a 240 Hz monitor.

[DethNade]

7 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

I would suggest you search for benchmarks for systems that are equal/similar to yours that include these games and/or benchmarks/reviews of those games in particular. This should give you an idea of what kind of performance you can expect to get on your hardware. If those benchmarks show performance above 144 fps, you'll know whether these games have a limit and whether you would get any benefit from a 240 Hz monitor.

So, if I can't get over 144FPS in games then the 240Hz monitors wouldn't matter? I'm not understanding. 

[DethNade]

8 hours ago, minibois said:

This website has many games listed and often their fps cap (if applicable) listed too: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home

Games with a capped fps are uncommon, unless you turn on vsync; in which case it's limited to the refresh rate of your monitor (the way vsync caps fps is undesirable though, so it's not recommended to use).

Thank you for the info. Ill check it out. Is there a website on if i should go with a 240hz or go for 144hz? I been watching videos and have people tell me that it depends on what PC rig you gave or if you can't get over 144fps then there no point. Every video i watch tell you about the monitor how great it is but they don't tell you what there monitor that they test are good for what PC rigs. Right now, I'm so confuse on this. I wish they have a compatible area where they can tell you what RIG is good for what monitor to buy.

 

My PC specs.

 

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 3700X 8-Core 3.6 GHz. 

 

Video Card: SUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB GDDR6 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card ROG-STRIX-RTX2080TI-11G-GAMING and G.SKILL

 

Ram: Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) - Timing 16-19-19-39. 

 

[Eigenvektor]

8 hours ago, DethNade said:

So, if I can't get over 144FPS in games then the 240Hz monitors wouldn't matter?

Yes, exactly. If a game never runs at more than 144 fps, having a monitor that can display 240 images per second makes no difference.

 

It's unlikely you'd even notice the difference between 144 Hz and 240 Hz. It might make a discernible difference to professional competitive players, but otherwise the message about making you a better gamer is just marketing.

[Stahlmann]

99% of PC games run unlimited. So you can get as many FPS as your PC and/or monitor allow.

 

There are very rare exceptions of locked games. Sometimes they're fps-locked for no reason - for example PayDay 2 - and manually working around it or unlocking it won't bring issues.

 

Then there are ever rarer exceptions where the game is specifically programmed to run at a locked framrate. Altering the framerate will break physics or do other unwanted things. Examples for this would be Skyrim or Dark Souls.

[Stahlmann]

2 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

Yes, exactly. If a game never runs at more than 144 fps, having a monitor that can display 240 images per second makes no difference.

 

It's unlikely you'd even notice the difference between 144 Hz and 240 Hz. It might make a discernible difference to professional competitive players, but otherwise the message about making you a better gamer is just marketing.

It doesn't inherently make you a better gamer, but it can help you unlock more of your potential. Meaning if you don't have much potential it won't really help you, but if you're pretty good then it can help.

 

Higher refresh rates will give you a competitive advantage if you have the skill to back it up. The biggest difference is the jump from 60 to 144Hz. After that there are big diminishing returns, but there are differences.

 

LTT did 2 videos about this topic and the data they gathered is pretty much as applicable now as it was back then. Even for very casual gamers 144Hz made a big difference in how they perform compared to 60Hz. 240Hz still showed improvements with all participants, but the pro players could get more out of it so to say.

 

So the main difference in higher refresh rate displays is not really motion clarity, but how recent the displayed information is and then the following input lag.

[Eigenvektor]

8 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

LTT did 2 videos about this topic and the data they gathered is pretty much as applicable now as it was back then. Even for very casual gamers 144Hz made a big difference in how they perform compared to 60Hz. 240Hz still showed improvements with all participants, but the pro players could get more out of it so to say.

I've seen those videos (and others) and my take away has always been: Anything above 144 Hz is worth it for a small percentage of gamers. Save your money and use it for things that have a more noticeable effect. Besides if you don't have a machine able to run >>144 fps (now and in the future), features like AdaptiveSync are probably more important.

[minibois]

On 1/23/2022 at 10:19 PM, DethNade said:

Thank you for the info. Ill check it out. Is there a website on if i should go with a 240hz or go for 144hz? I been watching videos and have people tell me that it depends on what PC rig you gave or if you can't get over 144fps then there no point. Every video i watch tell you about the monitor how great it is but they don't tell you what there monitor that they test are good for what PC rigs. Right now, I'm so confuse on this. I wish they have a compatible area where they can tell you what RIG is good for what monitor to buy.

 

My PC specs.

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 3700X 8-Core 3.6 GHz. 

Video Card: SUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB GDDR6 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card ROG-STRIX-RTX2080TI-11G-GAMING and G.SKILL

Ram: Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) - Timing 16-19-19-39. 

Because games often update and so do things like graphics drivers, it's difficult to definitely give an fps number you can expect in each given game.

The best you can do is look up benchmarks of your graphics card (since the CPU doesn't contribute much to the games beyond a certain point) and see what kind of fps you can expect.

 

With monitors there is a lot of variables to consider, like the refresh rate (Hz), but also the resolution, color accuracy, etc. desired.

With a 2080 Ti I think 1440p 144Hz or 1080p 240Hz can both certainly make sense, but it really depends on the games you play. A game like CS:GO will more easily get very high fps, where as something like Call of Duty is much more demanding of your graphics card.