Higher monitor refresh rates boost gaming win rates by 38%, LG Display study finds

LG Display has found that higher refresh rates — the number of times per second a display updates its image — improve not only win rates but also overall gamer satisfaction, according to experiments conducted with its OLED gaming monitors.

LG Display announced Thursday that it had presented a paper titled "Analysis of the Effect of Refresh Rate on FPS (First-Person Shooter) Game Performance" at an international academic conference.

According to the paper, using a monitor with a higher refresh rate improved players' ability to identify moving objects on screen, leading to faster reaction times and greater accuracy.

LG Display conducted a blind test with 31 adult casual gamers. Participants played an FPS game on monitors set to four different refresh rates — 60Hz, 240Hz, 360Hz and 480Hz — in random order, after which both quantitative and qualitative metrics were measured.

The quantitative metrics covered hit score (number of successful strikes) and event interval time (the time elapsed from a target appearing to its elimination), while the qualitative metrics assessed screen transition smoothness, ease of target tracking and overall preference on a five-point scale.

The hit score — a measure of targeting accuracy — rose 38 percent at 480Hz compared with 60Hz. Even against 240Hz, which already showed improvement over the baseline, the 480Hz setting delivered an additional 10 percent gain.

"This can be interpreted as meaning that gaming performance continues to improve as the refresh rate increases," LG Display said.

Qualitative satisfaction scores also rose. Gamers rated higher-refresh-rate monitors as producing smoother motion and making it easier to track moving enemies.

A higher OLED refresh rate significantly reduces input lag — the time it takes for a player's input to appear on screen — and motion blur, the blurring effect seen on fast-moving objects.

In the experiment, input lag fell by more than 10 milliseconds at 480Hz compared with 60Hz. The reduction allowed players to pinpoint the positions of fast-moving enemies more precisely.

LG Display plans to use the findings to lead the gaming monitor market by pushing high-refresh-rate gaming OLED panels as its flagship offering.

In May, the company won the "Display of the Year" award — the highest honor at the Society for Information Display, the world's foremost display research organization — for its 27-inch 540/720Hz (DFR) OLED panel, which holds the world's highest refresh rate.

"Building on our commercialization experience with outstanding performance — including the world's highest refresh rate achieved in the 27-inch 720Hz DFR OLED — we will secure a first-mover advantage in core next-generation display technologies and further strengthen our competitiveness in the gaming display industry," said Choi Young-seok, chief technology officer of LG Display.