I was exploring the fps and refresh rate slider and I realized that when setting the framerate limiter to 25, the refresh rate was incorrectly set to 50Hz on the OLED version, when the 75 Hz setting would be a more appropriate setting, for the same reason 30 fps is at 90 Hz and not 60 Hz. Anyone else seeing the same behavior? Is there an explanation I’m missing here?
I have just heard it mentioned in regards to both the steam deck and smartphones with high refresh rates. I don’t know by how much the battery is affected but I know that lower refresh rate draws less. That why smartphones have variable refresh rate and lower their refresh rate to like 1hz when nothing is happening on screen. You can Google it if you want more info
You’re confusing rendering and displaying. There is no doubt that rendering at higher fps requires more power draw. But were talking here about a fixed rendering framerate of 25 fps and a case of refreshing the screen at 50 or 75 hz using the same 25 fps rendering. This is not a usual scenario so there is little info about this, hence my initial point.
I don’t have exact numbers, but there is some increase in power draw associated with refreshing the screen more frequently. It’s certainly nowhere near as impactful as rendering at 50 FPS vs 25, but it’s non-zero.
The only reasons (afaik) to have the refresh rate be higher than a locked FPS is to change the timing slightly. But frame times should be the same and the game should look better when the refresh rate is lower. Especially because 25 frames on a 50hz display means 1 duplicate frame per frame as opposed to 2 or so.