Sony promises PS5 will get variable refresh rate ‘in the coming months’

Sony is pushing out an update for the PlayStation 5 that will add a handful of quality-of-life features. That includes improvements to the PS App and PS Remote Play as well as some nips and tucks to the interface for trophy cards and the Game Base. The company is even testing voice commands, so you can rage quit Elden Ring by simply yelling at your console. But while Sony is shoring up the user experience of its red-hot device, it is also preparing a key new-gen feature. And it’s one that might especially help with that aforementioned Elden Ring.

In a blog post, Sony platform experience senior vice president Hideaki Nishino says his team plans to bring support for variable refresh rate (VRR) to PS5 soon. That is the feature that enables a TV to update its display at the same frequency as a computer renders an image. Typically, without VRR, rendering times and refresh rate can fall out of sync in many demanding games — like Elden Ring. This creates juttering images that occasionally have visual artifacts that look like lateral tearing. VRR eliminates those annoyances and is one of the best technologies for improving overall image quality.

VRR does require an HDMI 2.1-equipped TV, but those are exactly the TVs that many people are already buying to go along with their new-gen systems. This is especially true because modern PC video cards and Xbox Series X/S already support VRR. Sony has also previously signaled that it would eventually adopt the feature.

Now, PS5 owners need to wait just a few more months to get it.