Monitor Refresh Rate Test (Hz & FPS)
Measure your display's active refresh rate in real-time with sub-millisecond precision. Compare UFO motion smoothness, check frame skipping, test pixel response ghosting, and analyze frame time stability.
Understanding Monitor Refresh Rates & Frame Stability
Your monitor's refresh rate (measured in Hertz or Hz) dictates how many times per second the display redraws the image on your screen. A standard office monitor typically operates at 60 Hz (60 frames per second), whereas high-performance gaming displays run at 144 Hz, 165 Hz, 240 Hz, 360 Hz, or even 480 Hz.
Why High Refresh Rates Matter for Gamers
In fast-paced esports titles like CS2, Valorant, Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, and Fortnite, visual latency is critical to player performance:
- 60 Hz Monitor: Updates screen every 16.67 milliseconds.
- 144 Hz Monitor: Updates screen every 6.94 milliseconds (a 58% reduction in visual delay).
- 240 Hz Monitor: Updates screen every 4.17 milliseconds.
- 360 Hz Monitor: Updates screen every 2.78 milliseconds.
How to Enable 144Hz or 240Hz in Windows Display Settings
Many gamers unknowingly run their 144Hz or 240Hz monitors at 60Hz because Windows defaults to 60Hz upon first plug-in. Follow these steps to unlock your display's full speed:
- Right-click on your desktop and select Display settings.
- Scroll down and click Advanced display settings.
- Under Choose a refresh rate, select 144Hz, 240Hz, or your monitor's maximum rated Hz.
- Ensure you are connected via DisplayPort or HDMI 2.0/2.1 (older HDMI cables cap out at 60Hz).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Our tool uses the browser requestAnimationFrame loop synchronized with the high-resolution performance.now() timer (accurate to sub-milliseconds). It continuously samples 120 rolling frames to calculate exact real-time Hz and frame time deltas.
If your test reads 60 Hz despite owning a 144Hz+ monitor, check: (1) Windows display refresh rate setting in Display Settings, (2) Browser hardware acceleration is enabled in Chrome/Edge/Firefox, (3) You are using a DisplayPort or high-speed HDMI cable.
Frame skipping happens when a monitor drops frames rather than rendering every signal sent by the GPU, often when overclocking monitors. Switch to our Frame Skipping Grid tab and take a camera photo at 1/10s shutter speed. Continuous lit boxes mean zero frame skipping!
Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera) run a single GPU compositor process shared across all windows of the same browser instance. When any window in that browser process enters hardware fullscreen on a 144Hz monitor, Chromium locks its global VSync timer to 144Hz for all tabs in that process. To run simultaneous independent Hz benchmarks side-by-side on two monitors, open the second test window in an Incognito window or a different browser (e.g. Chrome + Brave or Chrome + Firefox)!
Yes! Upgrading from 60 Hz to 144 Hz shaves approximately 10 milliseconds off visual display latency. Because targets become visible earlier on screen, players consistently score 10-15 ms faster on human reaction speed tests.