Refresh rate visual test
Press “Start” and a block glides steadily across the strip below. What you have to do is look — watch whether its edges keep up cleanly, whether it stutters, whether there is smearing or tearing. The page also prints the frame cadence the browser actually measured for reference.
Let us be clear about what that number is: it is the browser’s frame cadence, not the display’s physical refresh rate. The two usually agree, but when it drops you cannot tell whether the panel is simply like that or the browser failed to keep up. So what this page gives you is your eyes plus a reference figure — it does not draw the conclusion for you.
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Reference table
Below, each tier is listed by the panel specification, with how long a whole frame lasts at that rate. These numbers are worked out (1000 ÷ refresh rate), not copied. If the cadence you measured matches a tier, that row lights up — land between two tiers and no row lights up at all, which is itself a result worth noting.
| Refresh rate | One frame | Usually found in |
|---|---|---|
| 60 Hz | 16.7 ms | Ordinary office screens and older laptops |
| 75 Hz | 13.3 ms | Early laptop panels |
| 90 Hz | 11.1 ms | Some high-refresh laptops and all-in-ones |
| 120 Hz | 8.3 ms | Gaming laptops, iPad Pro, TVs |
| 144 Hz | 6.9 ms | Mainstream gaming monitors |
| 165 Hz | 6.1 ms | Gaming monitors (a common overclocked tier) |
| 240 Hz | 4.2 ms | High-refresh gaming monitors |
| 360 Hz | 2.8 ms | Flagship gaming monitors |
How to watch it properly
- The block needs to be fast enough. At slow speeds every refresh rate looks smooth — the difference between 60Hz and 240Hz only shows up in fast movement. Start with the “Fast” setting and drop down if it is too blurry.
- Watch the edges, do not follow it with your eyes. Let the block sweep across your field of view while you fix on one spot — chasing it smooths the stutter away, because your eyes keep compensating.
- Compare it with the background grid. Those faint squares are a stationary frame of reference. If the block slips or jumps relative to the grid, it is not keeping up.
- Do not test in power-saving mode. A laptop unplugged from the mains, the system’s power-saver profile, or a browser window that is not in the foreground — all three drag the refresh rate down to a number that has nothing to do with the panel specification.
Who is holding it back
From the moment the program says “draw now” to the moment your eyes see it, the picture goes through four gates: the browser painting the frame → the compositor compositing → the GPU outputting → the panel responding. The only one this page can reach is the first — the other three are invisible to it. So:
- A nice number with visible stutter — the problem is most likely in the last three gates: the compositor dropping frames, the GPU driver, the cable, or the panel response. Look at another page or another browser: whether it reproduces is a very useful clue.
- A low number and visible stutter — this machine really is not keeping up right now. The usual causes are power-saving mode, another tab eating CPU, extensions, or a laptop driving an external screen with too little bandwidth.
- A nice number and it looks smooth — then this tier is enough for you. There is no need to buy hardware for a bigger number.
One aside: the animation on this page is drawn by the page itself, so the time it takes is counted in what you measure. A completely blank page might measure slightly higher — the difference is small, but it is better said than unsaid. For mouse-side readings such as polling rate and jitter, go to the Mouse polling rate test; what that page measures has nothing to do with this one.
Common questions
Not exactly, and this page never treats it as the display’s specification. That number measures the browser’s frame cadence (requestAnimationFrame), not the panel’s physical refresh rate. The two agree under normal conditions, but power-saving downclocking, the browser being sent to the background, or the compositor dropping frames all pull it lower — it tells you how smoothly this machine is running right now. To find out the panel’s specification, look at the system settings or the monitor’s own menu: the browser cannot read that number.
Not necessarily. From “this frame is painted” to your eyes seeing it, there are still three stretches in between: the compositor combining the layers, the GPU sending the picture out, the panel turning the pixels over. The browser can reach none of those, and any one of them can cause a hitch. So what this page gives you is a visual judgement plus a reference figure, not a verdict — on the same machine, looking stuttery while the number is beautiful (or the other way round) is entirely possible, and it usually means the problem is in those last three stretches.
Because the browser paints its frames to the display’s refresh beat: on a 144Hz panel, if the browser misses a frame it waits for the next beat, so the real cadence drops to 72 (a half) or 48 (a third). When the reported number lands on a divisor of 144, it usually means the compositor is dropping frames, not that your display has changed. The table below lists panel specifications only, so when you measure something like 72 not a single row lights up — forcing it to the nearest tier would be calling “does not match” a match.
It varies a great deal, and it depends heavily on what you are looking at: on a still image, 60 and 144 are exactly the same; the gap is easiest to spot when you watch the edge of something moving fast across the screen; and with video or most games it shrinks back to very little. There is also a variable that is often overlooked: everyone’s threshold is different, and after long use of a high refresh rate, 60 looks especially stuttery. So this page passes no judgement — it just gives you a board you can compare across.
A stationary point of reference. Judging whether something moves smoothly depends on its relationship to the background — on a plain colour with nothing to refer to, the feeling of “jerking along” is noticeably weakened, because your eyes have nothing to compare against. Those lines are kept deliberately faint: they are a reference, not a pattern, and if they were brighter they would steal the block’s edges.
Because a block endlessly sliding sideways is exactly what the “reduce motion” system setting is meant to stop — so this page does not autoplay; it only moves when you press once yourself. Users who have reduce motion switched on still see a stationary block rather than an animation playing on its own.
