How to Enable or Disable Variable Refresh Rate in Windows 11

laptop gddfd
laptop gddfd

This article explains the steps one can take to turn on or off Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) for games in Windows 11.

Variable refresh rate (VRR) allows a monitor with VRR capabilities, including AMD’s FreeSync, Nvidia’s G-SYNC, and VESA DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync, to adjust its refresh rate based on the frame rate of the image being displayed.

For DirectX 11 full-screen games that do not support VRR natively, this feature will enable the machine to output higher frame rates and helps reduce screen tearing in games.

This setting will only appear if your machine has the necessary drivers and a VRR-capable monitor. Otherwise, you won’t see the settings.

Turn on or off Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) via Windows Settings

As described above, VRR enhances your VRR-capable monitors to adjust their refresh rate based on the image’s frame rate.

Here’s how to turn it on or off.

First, open the Windows Settings app.

You can do that by clicking on the Start menu and selecting the Settings app. Alternatively, press the keyboard shortcuts (Windows key + I) to launch the Settings app.

When the Settings app opens, click the System button on the left.

windows 11 system tile
Windows 11 system tile

On the right, click on the Display tile to expand.

Windows Display Settings tile
Windows Display Settings tile

On the System -> Display settings pane, under Related settings, select the Graphics tile to expand.

Windows Graphic Settings tile
Windows Graphic Settings tile

On the System -> Display -> Graphics settings pane, click the Advanced graphics settings at the bottom to expand.

Then toggle the button for Variable refresh rate to the On position to enable.

To disable it, toggle the button back to the Off position.

Windows Advanced graphics settings VRR button
Windows Advanced graphics settings VRR button

Turn On or Off Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) via the Registry Editor

Alternatively, users can turn on or off Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) via the Windows Registry Editor.

To do that, first, open the Windows Registry, and navigate to the folder key path as listed below.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\DirectX\UserGpuPreferences

If you don’t see the UserGpuPreferences folder key, right-click on the DirectX key, then create the subkey (UserGpuPreferences) folders.

Windows UserGpuPreferences Variable Refresh Rate
Windows UserGpuPreferences Variable Refresh Rate

Right-click on the right pane of the UserGpuPreferences folder key and select New -> String. Next, type a new string value named DirectXUserGlobalSettings.

Double-click the new value name (DirectXUserGlobalSettings) and enter the Value data of 1 to the end of the string for VRROptimzeEnable to enable the VRR feature.

Value data of 0  will turn off the VRR feature.

Windows UserGpuPreferences Variable Refresh Rate string value
Windows UserGpuPreferences Variable Refresh Rate string value

That should do it!

Reference:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/navigating-the-redesigned-graphics-settings-page/

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to enable or disable Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) in Windows 11. Please use the comment form below if you find any errors above or have something to add.

Posted by
Richard W

I love computers; maybe way too much. What I learned I try to share at geekrewind.com.

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