How to Change Refresh Rate on a Monitor

Your monitor might be capable of smoother motion than what you’re currently seeing. Many displays ship with a conservative default refresh rate, which means the smooth gameplay you paid for could be sitting there unused, waiting for a quick settings change. Learning how to change the refresh rate on your monitor takes just a couple of minutes and can sharpen everything from fast-paced gameplay to the simple act of dragging a window across your desktop.

Below, we’ll walk you through checking and adjusting your refresh rate on both Windows and Mac. If you’re shopping for a faster display while you’re at it, you can also browse ViewSonic monitors for high-refresh options.

Whether your screen tops out at 60Hz or climbs well past 240Hz, the steps are largely the same. Let’s start with what refresh rate actually is, then get into how to set it.

Understanding Refresh Rates

Refresh rate describes how many times per second your display redraws the image on screen. It’s measured in hertz (Hz), so a 144Hz monitor refreshes its picture 144 times every second. The higher that number climbs, the smoother motion appears to your eyes.

This matters most when things move quickly. A spreadsheet looks identical at 60Hz and 240Hz because the content sits still. A fast pan in a shooter or a quick flick of the mouse, though, reveals the difference instantly.

How Refresh Rate Works

Each refresh is a fresh snapshot of whatever your graphics card sends to the display. At 60Hz, your monitor shows 60 of these snapshots per second, leaving roughly 16.7 milliseconds between each one. Push that to 144Hz and the gap shrinks to about 6.9 milliseconds, so updates arrive more than twice as often.

That tighter spacing is what your eyes register as fluid movement. Here’s what improves when the snapshots arrive faster:

• Sharper motion: Blur softens during fast pans and rapid camera movement.
• Cleaner scrolling: Text stays legible as it slides up and down the page.
• A connected feel: The cursor tracks your hand instead of trailing behind it.

Refresh rate also works hand in hand with your frame rate, the number of frames your graphics card produces each second. A display can only show as many unique frames as it receives, so a 165Hz panel fed 60 frames per second will only deliver 60 distinct images. Getting the full benefit of a high refresh rate means pairing it with hardware that can keep pace, a point we’ll return to later.

One quick distinction: refresh rate is not the same as response time, which measures how fast a pixel shifts from one color to the next. The two sometimes get mixed up, but they describe different things, and both shape how clean motion looks.

Why You Might Need to Change It

The most common reason for changing your monitor refresh rate is simple: your monitor isn’t running at its maximum refresh rate out of the box. Some high-refresh displays default to 60Hz, especially after a fresh setup, a new cable, or a driver update, so the speed you’re paying for stays dormant until you flip it on.

Other reasons people adjust the refresh rate include:

• Saving power on a laptop by stepping down to a lower rate.
• Matching a frame rate cap for a specific game or application.
• Troubleshooting flickering, screen tearing, or compatibility quirks.
• Maximizing performance, the gamer’s favorite, by cranking it as high as the panel allows.

Knowing how to change the hertz on your monitor puts that control in your hands, whatever the goal. The process differs slightly between operating systems, so we’ll cover each one in turn.

How to Change Monitor Refresh Rate (Windows)

Windows makes it straightforward to both check your current setting and bump it up to whatever your display supports. First we’ll confirm where things stand, then adjust.

How to Check Monitor Refresh Rate on Windows

To see your current refresh rate, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings (press the Windows key + I).
2. Go to System > Display.
3. Scroll down to the Related settings section and click Advanced display.
4. Find your active refresh rate listed in hertz, alongside your resolution and display details.

Running more than one monitor? Pick the correct screen from the Select a display to view or change its settings dropdown menu at the top of the Advanced display page first. Each display can run its own refresh rate, so confirm you’re reading the one you actually want to change.

How to Set Monitor Refresh Rate on Windows

Once you’re on the Advanced display page, setting a new rate takes only a moment:

1. Locate the Choose a refresh rate dropdown.
2. Open it and select the highest value your monitor offers.
3. Confirm the change when Windows prompts you.

Your screen may flicker or go black for a second as it switches. Windows then asks whether you want to keep the new setting, and it reverts automatically if you don’t confirm within 15 seconds. That safety net means a rate your display can’t handle won’t leave you stuck staring at a blank panel.

If the value you expected isn’t in the list, hold tight. We’ll cover the usual culprits, from cables to drivers, further down.

A tip for desktop gamers: if you have a dedicated graphics card, you can also adjust the refresh rate through the NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Software. These tools sometimes expose custom refresh rates and gather your display options alongside other gaming settings in one place.

How to Change Monitor Refresh Rate (Mac)

macOS handles refresh rate adjustments a little differently, but the idea is the same. You’ll find the controls tucked inside the Displays settings.

How to Check Monitor Refresh Rate on Mac

To check your refresh rate on a Mac:

1. Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of your screen and select System Settings.
2. Click Displays.
3. Look for the refresh rate information near your resolution options.

If you have more than one monitor connected, click on the visual thumbnail icon of the display you want to configure at the top of the window first. Some Macs only show the refresh rate field when an external monitor or a multi-rate display is attached. If you don’t see it at all, the current screen most likely runs at a single fixed rate.

How to Set Monitor Refresh Rate on Mac

To change the rate once you’re in Displays:

1. Click the dropdown menu next to Refresh rate.
2. Choose the value you want.
3. Let macOS apply it instantly, and switch back just as easily if something looks off.

For external gaming monitors, make sure the display is selected before you adjust the rate, since each connected screen carries its own settings. If a high-refresh display only offers 60Hz here, the cause is often the cable or port in use, which we’ll get into next.

What is a Good Refresh Rate for a Monitor?

A good refresh rate depends on what you do with your screen. Here’s a quick guide by use case:

• 60Hz: Fine for browsing, email, and office work, though it now feels dated next to faster panels.
• 100Hz to 120Hz: A noticeable lift that makes even basic navigation feel crisper.
• 144Hz: The popular gaming baseline, balancing smoothness against cost with a clear edge over 60Hz.
• 240Hz and beyond: The competitive and esports tier, where motion stays razor-sharp during rapid aim adjustments and quick reactions count.

For gaming, higher is generally better, but the sweet spot has shifted over the years. A 144Hz display delivers a real upgrade without demanding the priciest hardware to drive it, while serious competitors reach for 240Hz monitors where every fraction of a second matters.

One note worth repeating: chasing the highest number only pays off if the rest of your setup can supply enough frames to fill it. A balanced pairing of monitor and graphics card beats an extreme refresh rate your hardware can’t feed. Many ViewSonic gaming monitors span this range, from approachable high-refresh models to fast panels built for competitive play, so you can match the display to how you actually game.

Why Can’t I Change My Refresh Rate?

If the rate you want isn’t showing up, the limitation almost always traces back to one link in the chain between your graphics card and your screen. Work through these in order to find the bottleneck:

• Your cable or port. An older or low-spec cable can throttle bandwidth and cap your rate well below what the monitor supports. A DisplayPort cable or a current HDMI standard is often the difference between 60Hz and full speed. Check that you’re using the right port too, since some carry more bandwidth than others.
• Your resolution. Many displays offer their top refresh rate only at certain resolutions. Running above the panel’s intended settings might limit your options, so dialing back to the native resolution sometimes restores the higher rates.
• Your graphics drivers. Outdated drivers are a frequent offender. Updating to the latest release from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel can add refresh rate options that weren’t available before. The same goes for your monitor’s firmware in some cases.
• Your hardware’s frame output. A rate is only useful if your system can produce the frames to justify it.

That last point is where knowing how to optimize a gaming PC for high refresh rates comes in. It comes down to balance:

• A graphics card strong enough for the games you play.
• In-game settings tuned so your frame rate stays high.
• Features like adaptive sync enabled to keep your monitor and GPU in step.

If your GPU struggles to hit high frame rates, try lowering a few in-game graphics settings to free up the headroom to take full advantage of a faster display.

Final Thoughts

Changing your monitor’s refresh rate is one of the quickest ways to get more out of a display you already own. A short trip through your system settings can reveal smoother motion that was there all along, simply switched off by default.

Once you know how to check and adjust the setting on both Windows and Mac, keeping your screen at its best becomes second nature. Pair a high refresh rate with hardware that can feed it, mind your cables and drivers, and you’ll see the payoff in everything from competitive matches to everyday scrolling.

Looking for a display with a particular refresh rate? Explore ViewSonic’s complete range of monitors now.

Frequently Asked Questions About Changing Refresh Rate