We’ve received a continuous stream of reports over the last few months suggesting there’s a problem with PlayStation 5: VRR support has an issue where game performance can be interrupted by a continuous, obvious stutter that manifests every eight seconds. Various theories have been shared and discussed online, covering a range of displays and firmwares but after spending some time investigating the problem, we can confirm it is a real problem, impacting both PS5 and Pro consoles – and based on our tests, it will impact any VRR-compatible display.
To fully understand the issue, it’s important to explain how VRR – variable refresh rate – works in general and more specifically on PlayStation consoles. Until VRR arrived, the most stable performance in console games was to see frame-rate locked to 60fps or 30fps. An even delivery of frames is sent to the display, synchronising with the refresh rate of the panel. At 60fps, a new frame is displayed with each new refresh of the screen. At 30fps, a new frame persists for two refreshes. As the name suggests, VRR operates with a variable refresh rate. Instead of the console needing to synchronise with the display update, the console itself is in charge of when the refresh happens – typically whenever a new frame is ready to be presented.
With VRR, a game doesn’t need to run locked to 60fps or 30fps to present to gamers in a consistent manner – as long as frame-rates remain broadly similar, gameplay still looks smooth, even if a game is operating in, for example, a variable 50-60fps or 100-120fps ‘window’. It’s a boon to players and can even be considered a ‘fix’ of sorts to variable frame-rates, reducing stutter considerably and removing screen-tearing completely in titles that exhibit it.
So, what’s the problem with PlayStation? The most obvious example of the stuttering issue presenting itself occurs in titles that support 120Hz VRR with unlocked frame-rates – games like The Last of Us Part 1 and 2, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and Diablo 4, for example. What happens is that gameplay works just fine for around 20 minutes, but at some point soon after that, a noticeable stutter manifests every eight seconds, give or take a few frames. The point of VRR is to bring consistency to variable frame-rates and the ‘magic’ is lost when the game stutters so noticeably in so regular a cadence.
If you have a VRR-compatible panel, you may have access to a refresh rate monitor. Disregarding more complex elements of VRR not relevant to the discussion (low frame-rate compensation, etc), these read-outs tell you how often the console is driving the display to update itself with a new frame. It’s the closest you’ll get to a console equivalent to a PC-style frame-rate meter. Thanks to the inclusion of these meters, we’ve noted that the stuttering causes the refresh rate counter to momentarily spike up to 120Hz in the most obviously affected titles. So, in a game like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 on PS5 Pro, for example, we can see frame-rates in the 60-70fps range thanks to the onscreen display – and when a stutter kicks in, there’s that telltale, momentary jump to 120Hz.