Refresh rate

Refresh rate is the number of times per second a display updates the image from the GPU, measured in Hertz (Hz). In VR and AR applications, refresh rate is a critical specification that directly impacts visual comfort, motion sickness, latency, presence, and overall user experience. It refers to the frequency at which the head-mounted display (HMD) screen physically redraws the image presented to the user's eyes. Modern VR headsets typically operate at 90 Hz or higher, with premium devices supporting 120-144 Hz or beyond.

The industry has established a general consensus that a refresh rate of at least 90 Hz is the minimum standard for a comfortable and high-quality VR experience. Many modern consumer headsets support rates of 120 Hz or higher to further enhance visual smoothness and reduce the potential for user discomfort.

Technical Fundamentals

Refresh rate represents the maximum frequency at which a display can redraw or update the pixels on screen. The GPU renders frames and sends them to the display controller, which then updates the pixel states during each refresh cycle. The display receives new frames from the GPU or rendering system and refreshes accordingly, operating by cycling the display panel to update the image at fixed intervals. Modern VR displays use specialized approaches including pulsed emission and low persistence techniques to minimize motion blur and optimize the viewing experience.

Measurement and Mathematical Relationships

Refresh rate is measured in Hertz (Hz), representing the number of complete refresh cycles per second. The relationship between refresh rate and frame timing is expressed mathematically as:

Frame Period (ms) = 1000 / Refresh Rate (Hz)

This frame period directly affects motion-to-photon latency and determines the temporal resolution available for rendering head movement updates. Higher refresh rate means less latency between frames. For example, a display with 30 Hz has a frame latency of approximately 33.33 milliseconds (ms), calculated as 1000 ms / 30 Hz = 33.33 ms. In contrast, a 60 Hz display reduces this to 16.67 ms, halving the latency.

Frame Period by Refresh Rate

Refresh Rate	Frame Period	Frames per Second
30 Hz	33.33 ms	30 frames
60 Hz	16.67 ms	60 frames
72 Hz	13.89 ms	72 frames
80 Hz	12.50 ms	80 frames
90 Hz	11.11 ms	90 frames
100 Hz	10.00 ms	100 frames
120 Hz	8.33 ms	120 frames
144 Hz	6.94 ms	144 frames
180 Hz	5.56 ms	180 frames

Latency due to limitations of refresh rate can be reduced by increasing the refresh rate. For example, a display with 60 Hz would have the latency of 16.67 ms, half of the 30 Hz display.

Display Technologies in VR

VR displays utilize two primary technologies with different temporal characteristics:

OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode): Self-emissive pixels that can be modulated at the pixel level, achieving duty cycles around 17% in devices like the HTC Vive and HTC Vive Pro. Rise time is approximately 0.3 ms and fall time is approximately 0.5 ms. In an OLED display, each pixel is a self-emissive light source. This allows pixels to switch on and off almost instantaneously, with response times measured in nanoseconds. This inherent speed makes OLED technology naturally suited for the rapid strobing required by low persistence displays, providing crisp motion with minimal ghosting.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display): Requires backlight modulation using fast-switching LED backlights. The HTC Vive Pro 2 achieves an extremely low 5% duty cycle at 120 Hz, with both rise and fall times of approximately 0.3 ms. In an LCD, pixels do not produce their own light; they act as shutters that modulate light from a separate backlight. These shutters are made of liquid crystals that physically reorient themselves to change color, a process that is much slower than OLED switching, with response times measured in milliseconds. To achieve low persistence, VR-specific "fast-switching" LCD panels with improved liquid crystal formulations are used in conjunction with a strobing backlight. The backlight flashes very briefly, but only after the liquid crystals have had sufficient time to settle into their new state, thereby simulating the effect of a low persistence OLED.

On traditional displays like CRTs, the refresh rate was tied to the electron beam scanning the screen, but modern LCD and OLED displays in VR/AR headsets hold pixel states until updated, reducing intrinsic flicker but still requiring high rates for smooth motion.

While OLEDs have a clear advantage in response time, manufacturing complexities historically meant that high-end LCD panels could sometimes achieve higher refresh rates in a given product generation. For instance, the LCD-based Valve Index supports up to 144 Hz, which surpassed many contemporary OLED headsets. However, this technological gap is closing. Modern fast-switching LCDs have become highly effective for VR, while new Micro-OLED displays are pushing the boundaries of resolution and efficiency at high refresh rates.

This convergence has led to market diversification rather than a single "winner." High-refresh-rate LCDs are common in the mainstream consumer market (for example Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Valve Index), offering a strong balance of performance and cost. Meanwhile, high-end Micro-OLEDs are featured in premium, next-generation devices (for example Apple Vision Pro, Bigscreen Beyond) where ultimate contrast, color, and form factor are prioritized over cost.

Other trade-offs influence the choice as well. OLEDs provide perfect blacks and infinite contrast, which greatly enhances immersion in dark environments. LCDs, on the other hand, can often achieve higher peak brightness and may use a full RGB subpixel layout that can reduce the screen-door effect compared to the PenTile subpixel arrangement often found in OLED panels.

Refresh Rate vs Frame Rate

While often used interchangeably, refresh rate and frame rate (measured in frames per second, or FPS) are distinct but closely related concepts.

• Refresh Rate (Hz) is a hardware-level specification of the display panel itself. It dictates the maximum number of times the screen can physically draw a new image in one second. A 90 Hz display, for example, updates its image 90 times every second, regardless of the content being sent to it. It is a property of the display hardware – the fixed frequency at which the screen updates.

• Frame Rate (FPS) is a software-level metric that describes how many new frames the computer's GPU is actually rendering and sending to the display each second. This rate can fluctuate based on the complexity of the scene being rendered and the power of the hardware. Frame rate refers to how many images per second the system's graphics engine is producing and represents the temporal resolution of the content.

For an optimal experience, the frame rate should ideally match the display's refresh rate. If the GPU renders at 90 FPS and sends these frames to a 90 Hz display, the user sees a smooth, consistent image. However, a mismatch can cause problems. If the GPU can only produce 60 FPS for a 90 Hz display, the user will experience judder and stutter because the display is ready for new frames that the GPU has not yet provided. Conversely, rendering frames faster than the display can show them is a waste of computational resources, as the extra frames will simply be discarded.

A monitor or headset will refresh at a constant rate regardless of how many frames are being rendered. If the application's frame rate is lower than the display's refresh rate, some refresh cycles will have to re-show the previous image (resulting in repeated frames and possible stuttering). Conversely, if the GPU outputs frames faster than the refresh rate, the display cannot show them all – this can lead to artifacts like *screen tearing*, where parts of multiple frames appear at once.

The relationship is hierarchical: no matter how powerful the GPU, if a headset has a 90 Hz refresh rate, it cannot display more than 90 unique frames per second. Conversely, a 120 Hz headset will not provide smooth visuals if the application only renders at 60 FPS.

Synchronization Problems

When frame rate does not match refresh rate, several visual artifacts can occur:

Judder: A stuttering or jerky visual experience caused when the rendering engine fails to produce frames in time for each display refresh. In VR, dropped frames create a particularly unpleasant sensation. John Carmack described it as "like a kick in the head" and emphasized that "dropping a frame in VR is a bad thing." In VR, dropping below the native refresh rate (e.g. a game only running at 45 FPS on a 90 Hz headset) will typically cause noticeable judder or the need for reprojection.

Screen tearing: Visual artifacts where portions of two different frames display simultaneously, creating a "torn" appearance where images don't align properly. Carmack noted that "a tear line in VR just ruins the experience." Techniques such as vertical sync (V-Sync) and adaptive sync (including VRR technologies like G-SYNC/FreeSync) or asynchronous reprojection are used to better align frame delivery with the refresh timing, ensuring a smoother output.

Motion sickness and discomfort: Unlike traditional displays, low or inconsistent frame rates in VR can induce nausea, vertigo, and disorientation as the visual system struggles to process images that don't update naturally.

Importance in VR and AR

In VR and AR, refresh rate is a critical factor affecting user comfort and the sense of presence: the psychological feeling of "being there" in the virtual environment. A higher refresh rate results in lower latency between frames, leading to smoother motion and reduced visual artifacts. VR and AR devices typically require high refresh rates to maintain a comfortable and immersive experience.

Visual Comfort and Presence

In VR, the brain is highly sensitive to any disconnect between physical movement and visual feedback. When a user turns their head, they expect the virtual world to update instantaneously and smoothly, just as the real world does. A high and stable refresh rate is essential to maintaining this illusion of presence.

Low refresh rates in a head-mounted display can lead to noticeable flickering and increased motion blur during head movements, contributing to discomfort and disorientation. If the refresh rate is too low, users may perceive flicker or motion blur, which can cause eye strain and discomfort in immersive environments. A low refresh rate introduces a noticeable delay and lack of smoothness, which creates a sensory conflict. The user's inner ear (vestibular system) reports motion, but their eyes see a laggy, stuttering world. This mismatch is a primary cause of cybersickness, with symptoms including nausea, disorientation, and headaches.

Research has shown that higher refresh rates significantly reduce these symptoms and enhance the sense of presence. When work on the original Oculus Rift prototype began, "the common wisdom was that 90Hz (and therefore 90 frames per second) was the minimum target for VR presence to work." Research by Meehan et al. (2001) found higher frame rates associated with higher self-reported presence ratings due to increased realism from smooth motion.

Presence requirements include:

• Minimum 90° horizontal field of view
• End-to-end latency under 20 ms (preferably under 13 ms)
• Refresh rate of 90 Hz minimum
• High positional tracking accuracy with minimal jitter

In AR applications, high refresh rates ensure that digital overlays remain synchronized with the real-world environment, reducing discrepancies that could break immersion.

Motion Sickness Reduction

Research establishes a clear relationship between refresh rate and cybersickness (VR-induced motion sickness). Studies have shown that total motion-to-photon latency above approximately 20 milliseconds significantly raises the risk of VR sickness. To keep latency low, most VR headsets operate at 90 Hz or higher. This 90 Hz benchmark (equating to an ~11.1 ms frame interval) was established as a practical minimum for comfortable VR; even small drops below 90 FPS tend to increase user discomfort noticeably.

A landmark 2023 study published in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics found that "120fps is an important threshold for VR. After 120fps, users tend to feel lower SS [simulator sickness] symptoms without a significant negative effect on their experience." One experiment found that 120 FPS was an important threshold beyond which participants experienced significantly less VR sickness compared to 60 or 90 FPS.

Measured cybersickness rates by refresh rate:

• Below 60 Hz: Significantly increased nausea and disorientation
• 60 Hz: Can be twice as nauseogenic as 120 Hz
• 72 Hz: Acceptable for OLED displays with low persistence
• 90 Hz: Industry minimum standard
• 120 Hz: Optimal threshold, reduces nausea incidence by approximately half compared to 60 Hz

In one controlled study, a VR forklift training simulator achieved only a 40% completion rate at 60 fps (average Simulator Sickness Questionnaire score: 54), while optimization to 90 Hz increased completion to 95% (average SSQ score: 8).

Physiological Mechanisms

Higher refresh rates reduce motion sickness through several interconnected mechanisms:

Visual-Vestibular Conflict Reduction: VR displays visual motion without corresponding vestibular system (inner ear) signals. The brain detects this mismatch and triggers a "poison response", nausea evolved to expel neurotoxins causing sensory confusion. Higher refresh rates minimize this conflict by reducing temporal gaps between visual updates and actual head position.

Reduced Prediction Error: The brain constantly predicts sensory input based on internal models. Large mismatches between predicted and actual input trigger discomfort. Higher refresh rates minimize temporal gaps that create prediction errors. EEG studies show motion sickness correlates with increased delta/theta/alpha band power (6-12 Hz) in brain activity.

Improved Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex (VOR) Compatibility: The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) naturally stabilizes vision during head movement with approximately 20 ms latency. VR systems exceeding this delay create VOR mismatch. Higher refresh rates reduce per-frame display time, helping systems stay within the natural VOR response window. The VOR causes a person's eyes to automatically rotate in the opposite direction of head movement to keep an image stable on the retina.

Motion-to-Photon Latency

Motion-to-Photon Latency (MTP) is the total time elapsed from when a user initiates a movement (for example turning their head) to the moment the corresponding change in the virtual world is fully illuminated on the display. It is arguably the single most important metric for user comfort in VR. This latency is a cumulative result of several stages in the VR pipeline:

1. Sensor sampling (tracking head/controller position)
2. Data transmission to the processor
3. Application processing and physics simulation
4. GPU rendering of the new frame
5. Display refresh (drawing the new frame on the screen)

Refresh rate only governs the final stage of this pipeline. For example, a 90 Hz display updates every 11.1 milliseconds (ms), meaning it can contribute up to that amount to the total MTP. However, even with an infinitely fast display, high latency in the tracking or rendering stages will still result in a poor experience. For VR to feel responsive and to avoid inducing cybersickness, the total MTP should ideally be kept below 20 ms.

This makes MTP a more holistic, user-centric metric than refresh rate alone. While a high refresh rate is necessary to achieve low MTP, it is not sufficient. The entire system, from sensors to software to pixels, must be optimized for low latency.

Target Latencies

• Under 20 ms: Required for presence and comfortable VR (John Carmack's recommendation)
• Under 10 ms: Ideal for high-quality VR experiences
• Under 5 ms: Necessary for AR with optical see-through displays
• Over 50 ms: Causes motion sickness and breaks immersion

Latency Pipeline

Total motion-to-photon latency comprises multiple stages:

1. Sensor Latency: IMU sampling (~1 ms) and camera processing (10-15 ms)
2. Tracking/Processing: Sensor fusion and pose calculation (~25 ms in naive implementations)
3. Rendering: Scene rendering on GPU (varies with complexity)
4. Display: Frame scanout and pixel update (determined by refresh rate)

Higher refresh rates directly reduce the display component of latency. Modern VR systems use predictive tracking, late correction, and tiled updates to reduce effective latency to 2-13 ms even when initial sensor readings may be 21-42 ms old.

Display Persistence and Low Persistence

Display persistence (also called pixel persistence) refers to the duration per frame that the display actively emits light, as distinct from being dark or black. This is separate from but closely related to refresh rate. Persistence is a primary cause of motion blur in VR.

The Motion Blur Problem

Most conventional LCD and OLED screens are "sample-and-hold" displays. This means that when a pixel is set to a specific color for a frame, it holds that color and remains continuously lit for the entire duration of the refresh cycle (for example for the full 11.1 ms at 90 Hz).

Traditional displays use sample-and-hold presentation where each frame remains visible for the entire refresh period. During head movement in VR, this creates motion blur because the brain receives the same static image even as the user's head position changes. The longer a frame persists, the less accurate it becomes relative to the current head position, causing a visible "smearing" effect.

In VR, this causes significant motion blur due to a physiological phenomenon called the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). Since an HMD is attached to the head, a continuously lit ("high persistence") image is effectively smeared across the user's moving retina during a head turn, creating a blurry, ghost-like effect.

The relationship between persistence and motion blur can be quantified: 1 ms of persistence equals 1 pixel of motion blur during motion at 1000 pixels per second. A full-persistence 60 Hz display (16.7 ms) creates 33 pixels of motion blur at 2000 pixels/second motion, while a 3 ms low-persistence display creates only 6 pixels of blur at the same speed.

Low Persistence Technology

Another reason high refresh rates are vital in VR is the use of low-persistence displays. VR headsets minimize motion blur by only illuminating each frame briefly (turning pixels off between refreshes). This low-persistence technique requires a fast refresh to avoid visible flicker. All modern VR headsets (e.g. Valve Index, Meta Quest 3, etc.) use high refresh rates coupled with low-persistence OLED or LCD panels to achieve a clear, stable image during head movements.

Low persistence displays strobe the image on and off rapidly, with the screen only illuminated for a small fraction of each frame (typically less than 20% duty cycle). This technique dramatically reduces motion blur without requiring impossibly high refresh rates. Instead of illuminating a pixel for the full cycle, the display flashes the image for a very brief period (typically 2 ms or less) and then goes dark for the remainder of the cycle. This strobing technique ensures that the pixel is not lit long enough to be smeared across the retina during head motion. The result is a much sharper and clearer image during movement, which is critical for both visual quality and user comfort.

Duty Cycle (%) = (Emission Time / Frame Period) × 100

Measured persistence values in commercial VR headsets:

• Oculus Rift CV1: 2 ms pixel persistence (confirmed by John Carmack)
• HTC Vive/HTC Vive Pro: ~1.9 ms pulse width at 90 Hz (17% duty cycle)
• HTC Vive Pro 2: ~0.42 ms pulse width at 120 Hz (5% duty cycle)
• Valve Index: 0.33 ms at 144 Hz (extremely low persistence)

Research published in Nature Scientific Reports demonstrates that "reducing the display emission duty cycle to less than 20% is beneficial to mitigate motion blur in VR HMDs." The study also found that increasing refresh rate from 90 Hz to 120 Hz provides minimal additional benefit when already using low persistence with less than 20% duty cycle, suggesting that persistence is more critical than raw refresh rate for motion clarity.

Judder and Stutter

Judder is a visual artifact perceived as a shaky, inconsistent, or stuttering motion. It is primarily caused by a desynchronization between the application's frame rate and the display's fixed refresh rate. When the rendering engine takes too long to produce a new frame and misses the display's refresh deadline (an event known as a "dropped frame"), the old frame is often displayed again. This repetition causes a perceptible hitch in what should be smooth motion, breaking immersion and contributing to discomfort. While related to the general perception of "stutter" from a low frame rate, judder is often characterized by its inconsistency, arising from a fluctuating frame rate that fails to align with the display's rigid refresh interval.

A higher refresh also reduces judder (skipping or stuttering motion) when the headset or objects are moving quickly. Overall, a fast display update rate is one of the key factors (along with accurate tracking and high resolution) in creating a comfortable VR/AR experience.

Performance, Hardware, and Design Trade-offs

Achieving the high refresh rates demanded by modern VR is a significant engineering challenge that involves a delicate balance of performance, power, and physical design.

The Rendering Budget (Frame Time)

A display's refresh rate imposes a strict, non-negotiable deadline for the GPU, known as the frame time or rendering budget. This is the maximum amount of time the system has to render a complete, stereoscopic frame before the display needs to show it. The calculation is a simple inverse of the refresh rate:

$$Frame\ Time\ (ms) = \frac{1000}{Refresh\ Rate\ (Hz)}$$

This relationship means that as the refresh rate increases, the time available for rendering decreases dramatically. At 90 Hz, the GPU has 11.1 ms to complete its work. At 120 Hz, this budget shrinks by 25% to just 8.3 ms. At 144 Hz, it is a mere 6.9 ms.

Computational Demands

Meeting these extremely tight deadlines for two separate eye views at increasingly high resolutions requires enormous computational power. For tethered VR, this necessitates a "VR-Ready" PC equipped with a powerful, modern GPU capable of handling the immense rendering load.

The challenge is even greater for standalone headsets, which rely on power-efficient mobile chipsets. To consistently hit a 90 Hz or 120 Hz target on this hardware, developers must employ aggressive optimization techniques and often make sacrifices in graphical fidelity, such as using lower-resolution textures, simpler 3D models, and less complex lighting and shadow effects. The requirement to render each frame in just a few milliseconds severely limits the graphical and simulation complexity possible on mobile hardware.

Engineering and Design Compromises

For HMD manufacturers, the push for higher refresh rates involves a cascade of engineering trade-offs:

• Power Consumption: Driving displays at higher frequencies and running the processor at maximum speed to meet the rendering budget significantly increases power consumption. This leads to shorter battery life in standalone headsets. In some demanding PC VR scenarios, the power draw can even exceed the charging rate of a standard USB connection, causing the battery to drain while the headset is plugged in.

• Heat Dissipation: Higher power draw generates more heat, which must be managed through passive heatsinks or active cooling systems like fans. Inadequate cooling can lead to thermal throttling, where the processor slows down to prevent overheating, causing performance to drop and breaking the immersive experience.

• Weight, Bulk, and Cost: More powerful processors, larger batteries, and active cooling systems all add weight, bulk, and cost to an HMD. This runs directly counter to the industry's goal of creating VR devices that are lightweight, comfortable, and affordable for the mass market.

Reprojection and Frame Rate Mitigation Technologies

Modern VR platforms employ sophisticated techniques to maintain smooth display output even when applications cannot sustain the target frame rate. Given the immense difficulty of consistently rendering frames at the native refresh rate of an HMD, a class of software technologies has been developed to mitigate the negative effects of dropped frames. These techniques prioritize maintaining smooth head tracking above all else, as this is the most critical element for preventing cybersickness.

Asynchronous Timewarp (ATW)

Asynchronous reprojection is a general term for a family of techniques that synthetically generate a new frame when the application fails to deliver a real one in time for the display refresh.

Asynchronous timewarp (called "Asynchronous Reprojection" in SteamVR) is an implementation of this concept developed by Meta. It is always active on modern VR headsets. When a new frame isn't ready, ATW takes the previous fully rendered frame and geometrically warps or "reprojects" it based on the most up-to-date head-tracking data. It takes rendered frames and reprojects them at the last possible moment before display using the newest available head tracking data. If the current frame doesn't finish rendering in time, ATW reprojects the previous frame with updated tracking, providing smooth head rotation even during frame drops. This process corrects for the user's head rotation (3-DoF) that occurred since the last frame was rendered. The "asynchronous" nature means it runs on a separate, high-priority thread from the main rendering process. This allows it to interrupt a slow-rendering application to ensure an image with the correct orientation is always displayed at the precise moment of the screen refresh, dramatically reducing the perceived judder and latency from a missed frame.

ATW was first shipped on Gear VR in late 2014 and added to Oculus Rift PC in March 2016. Valve added similar functionality to SteamVR in October 2016.

Limitation: ATW only corrects for rotational head movement, not positional movement or moving objects in the scene.

Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW)

Asynchronous spacewarp (ASW) is a more advanced Meta technology that extends reprojection to handle positional movement and object motion. It builds on ATW and uses a fast extrapolation algorithm that analyzes differences between previous frames to predict what a synthetic "in-between" frame should look like using motion vectors. It typically activates when an application's frame rate consistently drops to half the display's refresh rate (for example 45 FPS on a 90 Hz display).

When enabled, ASW automatically forces the application to run at half framerate (45 FPS on 90 Hz displays, 60 FPS on 120 Hz displays) and synthetically generates every alternate frame. ASW 2.0 incorporates depth buffer information to greatly reduce visual artifacts, requiring developer support to submit depth data.

Motion Smoothing is Valve's equivalent technology. It functions on the same core principle: when the frame rate drops, it forces the application to render at half-rate (or even one-third or one-quarter rate) and synthesizes the missing frames by extrapolating motion from the previously rendered frames.

These technologies are a crucial software layer that makes VR accessible on a wider range of hardware. However, they function as a "crutch" rather than a cure. They trade the severe discomfort of judder for a different set of visual imperfections, highlighting the persistent gap between current hardware capabilities and the performance demands of an ideal VR experience.

Positional Timewarp

Positional timewarp adds positional correction to the always-on timewarp system using depth buffer information, similar to ASW 2.0 but active for all frames rather than toggling on during sustained frame drops.

Visual Artifacts and Limitations

The process of synthetically generating frames is an estimation, and it can introduce noticeable visual artifacts, especially during fast or complex motion. Common artifacts include:

• Warping and Wobbling: The edges of objects, particularly those moving against a complex background, can appear to warp, ripple, or melt.
• Ghosting: A faint, transparent trail or "double image" may appear behind moving objects.
• Disocclusion Artifacts: When a foreground object moves, it reveals the background behind it. Since the algorithm only has data from previous frames, it must guess what this newly revealed area looks like, which often results in smearing, stretching, or tearing artifacts in that region.

While these artifacts are often preferable to the severe judder of dropped frames, their presence means that native, full-frame-rate rendering remains the gold standard for visual quality.

Modern VR/AR Headset Specifications

Current VR and AR headsets span a range of refresh rates, with industry trends moving toward 120 Hz as the new baseline standard. As of 2025, refresh rates in VR/AR headsets vary by device, with higher-end models supporting up to 144 Hz or 180 Hz.

Commercial VR/AR Headset Refresh Rates (2024-2025)

Headset	Type	Supported Refresh Rate(s) (Hz)	Release Date
Meta Quest 3	Standalone / PC VR	72, 80, 90, 120	October 2023
Meta Quest 3S	Standalone VR	Up to 120	October 2024
Meta Quest 2	Standalone / PC VR	60, 72, 80, 90, 120	October 2020
Meta Quest Pro	Standalone VR	90	October 2022
Valve Index	PC VR	80, 90, 120, 144	June 2019
Sony PlayStation VR2	Console VR (PS5)	90, 120	February 2023
Apple Vision Pro (M2)	Standalone AR/VR	90, 96, 100	February 2024
Apple Vision Pro (M5)	Standalone AR/VR	90, 96, 100, 120	October 2025
HTC Vive	PC VR	90	April 2016
HTC Vive Pro	PC VR	90	2018
HTC Vive Pro 2	PC VR	120	May 2021
HTC Vive XR Elite	Standalone / PC VR	90	February 2023
HTC Vive Focus 3	Standalone VR	90	May 2021
HP Reverb G2	PC VR	90	November 2020
Pico 4	Standalone VR	72, 90	2022
Pico 4 Ultra	Standalone VR	90	September 2024
Pimax Vision 5K Super	PC VR	90, 120, 144, 180	2025
Pimax Crystal	PC VR	72, 90, 120	2023
Varjo (all models)	PC VR	90	Various
Oculus Rift CV1	PC VR	90	March 2016
Oculus Rift S	PC VR	80	March 2019
Microsoft HoloLens 2	AR	60	November 2019
Magic Leap 2	AR	120	September 2022

The Apple Vision Pro is unique in supporting adaptive refresh rates that automatically adjust based on content type: 90 Hz for most content, 96 Hz for 24 fps video playback synchronization, and 100 Hz for flicker compensation. The M5 model introduced 120 Hz support for Mac Virtual Display mode.

Industry standards recommend at least 90 Hz for comfortable use, with many 2025 models exceeding this. Some standalone devices do not always run at their maximum refresh setting due to performance constraints. For instance, the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3 support an experimental 120 Hz mode, but in standalone use most applications default to 72 Hz or 90 Hz because rendering a frame in under 8.3 ms is very demanding on their mobile chipsets. Console VR systems can use reprojection techniques to synthesize extra frames: many PlayStation VR2 titles render at 60 FPS and rely on reprojection to output at 120 Hz for the headset display.

High-refresh displays are also emerging in AR headsets. The Microsoft HoloLens 2 refreshes at 60 Hz – a deliberate choice to maximize resolution and battery life – whereas the newer Magic Leap 2 uses a 120 Hz display to prioritize visual smoothness. Overall, as processing power grows, VR and AR hardware is trending toward higher refresh rates to reduce latency and improve realism, with some devices now exceeding 120 Hz and research prototypes demonstrating even ultra-high refresh displays (experimentally up to thousands of Hz for future low-latency visuals).

Historical Evolution

VR refresh rates have evolved significantly from early development kits to modern consumer devices.

Early Development (2013-2014)

The Oculus Rift DK1 (March 2013) featured a 60 Hz LCD display, representing the first widely accessible modern VR headset. However, 60 Hz proved insufficient for comfortable VR, suffering from high persistence motion blur and visible flicker for many users.

The Oculus Rift DK2 (July 2014) marked a breakthrough with a 75 Hz OLED display featuring low persistence. John Carmack revealed the display was a modified Samsung Galaxy Note 3 screen "overclocked" beyond Samsung's mobile specifications to achieve 75 Hz. This established low-persistence OLED as essential for VR.

The 90 Hz Standard (2016-2019)

The Oculus Rift CV1 (March 2016) established 90 Hz as the industry standard for consumer VR. Carmack explained in his 2014 keynote that "90 Hz is where probably 95-99% of the people really don't see [flicker]." This became the baseline for the HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality headsets, and most PC VR devices.

The Oculus Rift S (March 2019) represented a controversial step to 80 Hz, which Carmack acknowledged "could be seen as a step sideways."

The Oculus Quest (May 2019) launched at 72 Hz. Carmack later revealed the OLED screen could actually run at 90 Hz but was limited for battery life and FCC certification reasons.

High Refresh Era (2019-Present)

The Valve Index (June 2019) pioneered high-refresh consumer VR with 120 Hz default operation and experimental 144 Hz mode, demonstrating the benefits of higher refresh rates for reduced motion sickness and increased immersion.

The Meta Quest 2 (October 2020) demonstrated progressive enhancement: launching at 72 Hz, updating to 90 Hz in November 2020, adding 120 Hz experimental mode in March 2021, and finally making 120 Hz default-enabled in September 2022. Carmack tweeted: "120 fps has been an 'experimental feature' on Quest 2 for a long time, and we are finally going to make it default-on."

By 2025, with around 171 million VR users globally, refresh rate improvements continue to be a focus.

Industry Standards and Recommendations

Technical Standards

IEEE 3079-2020: "Standard for Head-Mounted Display (HMD)-Based Virtual Reality (VR) Sickness Reduction Technology." This published standard defines technical requirements to reduce VR sickness, including measurements and network requirements related to motion-to-photon latency.

ISO 9241-394:2020: "Ergonomics of human-system interaction - Requirements for displays that reduce visually induced motion sickness." This international standard specifies display refresh rate requirements for reducing visually induced motion sickness.

IEEE P2048 Family: The IEEE 2048 VR/AR Working Group is developing multiple standards for VR/AR technology including device taxonomy, video quality metrics, file formats, safety, and interoperability.

Platform Requirements

Meta/Oculus: Applications must sustain 90 fps on recommended specifications for store approval. Quest headsets support 72 Hz minimum (standalone) up to 120 Hz. 60 Hz is restricted to media player applications only for video synchronization.

Valve/SteamVR: Supports 80, 90, 120, and 144 Hz modes with automatic reprojection to maintain smoothness during frame drops.

Apple: Vision Pro uses adaptive refresh with system-level "Reduce Motion" API for comfort control and automatic adjustment based on content type.

Recommended Minimums

Industry consensus on refresh rate requirements:

• Minimum acceptable: 60 Hz (though strongly discouraged for interactive VR)
• Minimum recommended: 90 Hz
• Optimal: 120 Hz
• High-end: 144 Hz+
• Research threshold: 120 Hz identified as the point beyond which diminishing returns occur

Research suggests that refresh rates of at least 90 Hz are optimal for most users to avoid motion sickness, with higher rates like 120 Hz or 144 Hz providing even smoother experiences in fast-paced scenarios. Additionally, refresh rates interact with other factors like field of view (FOV) and latency. A balanced combination is essential for tricking the brain into accepting the virtual world as real.

Variable Refresh Rate Technologies

Variable refresh rate (VRR) dynamically adjusts the display's refresh rate to match the frame rate, reducing stuttering and tearing. In VR/AR, VRR is increasingly adopted in headsets like the Meta Quest series to handle fluctuating loads in dynamic scenes.

However, unlike gaming monitors which commonly support Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) technologies like G-Sync and FreeSync, current VR headsets do not implement true variable refresh rate.

The fundamental challenge is that lowering refresh rate in VR increases "pose age", how old the tracking data is, making head movement feel less smooth and responsive. When refresh rate drops, the reprojection systems that compensate for head movement also run at lower frequency, potentially causing discomfort. Instead of VRR, VR platforms rely on asynchronous reprojection techniques to handle framerate variations while maintaining consistent display refresh.

The Apple Vision Pro represents the closest implementation to VRR with its adaptive refresh system that switches between 90 Hz, 96 Hz, 100 Hz, and 120 Hz (M5 model) based on content requirements, though this differs from gaming-style VRR that continuously varies refresh within a range.

Future Trends

Ultra-High Refresh Rates

Nvidia has demonstrated a prototype 1,700 Hz display that maintains stable image quality even under extreme motion, potentially enabling "real life indistinguishability" in future VR systems. Commercial progression is expected to move from the current 90-120 Hz standard toward 240 Hz and beyond. Research prototypes are demonstrating even ultra-high refresh displays experimentally reaching thousands of Hz for future low-latency visuals.

Advanced Display Technologies

Micro-OLED: Already implemented in Apple Vision Pro, offering higher resolution in smaller packages with superior contrast, faster response times, and lower power consumption than LCD.

Micro-LED: Emerging technology with demonstrated pixel densities up to 14,000 pixels per inch (Mojo Vision), offering superior brightness, faster response times, better color accuracy, and greater energy efficiency. Manufacturing at scale remains a major challenge.

Quantum Dot Micro-LED: Advanced implementations like Mojo Vision's approach specifically engineered for AR, handling 1000× higher light levels than TV quantum dots.

Computational Enhancements

Foveated Rendering: Reduces rendering requirements by 5× or more by only rendering full resolution where the user is looking, enabled by precise eye tracking. Currently implemented in Vision Pro, Varjo XR-4, Quest Pro, and Pimax Crystal.

AI Frame Interpolation: Creates synthetic frames between rendered frames, potentially multiplying effective framerate similar to DLSS for VR.

Neural Upsampling: AI-powered resolution enhancement enabling lower-resolution rendering while maintaining perceived quality.

Industry Projections

The VR market is projected to grow from $54.24 billion (2023) to $163.82 billion (2028), with 120-144 Hz becoming standard in near-term devices (2025-2027), Micro-LED reaching consumers in mid-term (2028-2030), and ultra-high refresh rates (500 Hz+) in long-term implementations (2030+).

See Also

• Frame rate
• Latency
• Display persistence
• Low persistence
• Motion blur
• Judder
• Motion sickness
• Cybersickness
• Presence
• Presence
• Asynchronous timewarp
• Asynchronous spacewarp
• Asynchronous reprojection
• Motion-to-photon latency
• Foveated rendering
• Field of view
• Variable refresh rate
• Head-mounted display
• Hertz
• GPU
• V-Sync
• G-Sync
• FreeSync
• OLED
• LCD
• Micro-OLED