We love laptops with high refresh rates, but the feature is tough on battery life. So Microsoft is adding a new setting in Windows 11 that’ll automatically lower the refresh rate for certain computing tasks and raise it for others.
“With Dynamic refresh rate (DRR), you get the best of both worlds—a more natural and responsive inking experience along with smoother scrolling, all while minimizing battery usage,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post.
The setting is a convenient alternative to manually lowering a laptop’s refresh rate. According to Microsoft, the DRR function will be smart enough to distinguish your computing tasks and calibrate the refresh rate accordingly.
“For example, with a Dynamic (60Hz or 120Hz) mode, your display will refresh at 60Hz for everyday productivity tasks, such as email, writing a document, and so forth to conserve battery life,” the company wrote. “It will then seamlessly switch to 120Hz for tasks such as inking and scrolling, to provide a smoother and more responsive experience.”
The Dynamic refresh rate setting is already rolling out through the Windows 11 preview build on the dev channel. But it’s still a work in progress. The setting currently only activates when you’re scrolling on Microsoft Office, and if you’re “inking” or digitally drawing with a stylus in Office, Microsoft Edge, and several other Microsoft and Adobe programs. It's unclear what other modes the setting may enable.
The other limitation is how the setting can only be applied to laptops with a 120Hz or higher display panel that feature a variable refresh rate. The same laptops also need the Windows Display Driver Model 3.0 installed, which is available through Windows update.
There’s also no reason to bring the function to desktop PCs, since they never suffer from battery life problems. “All your existing games will continue to run and perform like they always have because DRR does not apply to games,” the company added.
Microsoft’s blog post has more details. On Windows 11, the setting can be turned on by going to Settings, and selecting System > Display > Advanced display. Then pick a refresh rate that has Dynamic in the name.