Any PC gamers among you, or even more serious Xbox owners (who have had this for years), will be familiar with technology called Variable Refresh Rate, or VRR, a feature that allows for “a dynamic display refresh rate that can continuously and seamlessly vary on the fly”. That feature is coming to PS5 consoles later this week.
This is a lot more important than it sounds if you cherish visual fidelity (and consistency) in your games. By syncing your console and display to the same refresh rate there’s less likely to be lags or dips in quality between the two, which means stuff like screen tearing can be cut down or even eliminated
While Sony’s announcement only consisted of words, if you want a video explanation of how it works, with some examples, here’s something Nvidia whipped up for their own G-Sync tech:
Now for the technical details. First, this update is arriving as part of a wider PS5 update later this week, but will only work on TVs and monitors that are HDMI 2.1 VRR-compatible, so you’ll need to check if your display supports it first. Secondly, this won’t just flip a magical switch; games will need to be individually patched to make use of VRR, and so the timing (and ultimate availability) of that support is up to individual studios and publishers.
Sony published a list earlier today showing the games that will be getting patches in “the coming weeks”
- Astro’s Playroom
- Call of Duty: Vanguard
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
- Destiny 2
- Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition
- DIRT 5
- Godfall
- Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- Resident Evil Village
- Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
- Tribes of Midgard
Game you play not on that list? Or it is, and you’re wondering when exactly support will arrive? Sony says “These are just a few of the PS5 titles receiving VRR support and we’d like to thank their talented development teams. Please stay tuned to their channels for updates as you’ll have the best experience with VRR once their game patches are live.”
