Change Monitor Refresh Rate in Windows 10

Changing refresh rate of your Monitor is pretty easy in Windows 10. If you want to change it, or even adjust it a bit, here’s the way that you can do it. But, before discussing that, let’s get to know what the refresh rate is.

Refresh Rate demystified

The refresh rate is the number of times a frame gets updated in a second. It is measured in Hertz or Hz. In terms of computers, 1 Hz = 1FPS. That simply means that a screen with a refresh rate (hereby referred as ‘RR’ for the sake of brevity) of 1Hz will be able to display a maximum of 1 frame per second.

What is Monitor Refresh Rate?

I explained RR in the above paragraph, but that was a general definition of it. In the context of monitors, it is something different. The Refresh rate of a monitor is the maximum amount of frames each second. Most monitors that are available on the market run at 60Hz. That means, they’ll be able to display a max of 60 frames per second to the users.

Normally, a higher RR is preferred over a lower one. The movies you see have around 24FPS. The games you play on consoles like Xbox and PlayStation run at ~30FPS.

How to Change Refresh Rate in Windows 10

1. Right-click on your Desktop and go to Display Settings.
2. In the Customize your display settings page, click on Advanced display settings.
3. In this screen, scroll down to the bottom and click on Display adapter properties. This will open the Generic PnP monitor display adapter properties.
4. Click on the Monitor Tab and look at the Monitor settings. Here you’ll see the Monitor settings section. Click on the drop-down menu on the Screen refresh rate heading.

• Change it to whatever you want from the list. Windows will only let you choose the numbers what it thinks are safe for your particular monitor to display. As you can see in the screenshot below, my monitor is capable of showing both Interlaced and Progressive resolutions. Yours may look different.

Which Refresh rate to choose?

In general, you should select whatever number is the highest. In my case, it is 60Hz for PC. It means that my PC can show a maximum number of 60 frames each second to me. If there is something that is playing at a higher number than that like, say around 90 or 120 or 144, I’ll only see 60FPS at the most. If you want a monitor which can show more than the common 60Hz, you can go for something that supports 120 or 144Hz. These are commonly available in the market, however, are a little expensive than the monitors with 60Hz RR.

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