Windows 11 Saves Electricity With Dynamic Refresh Rate DRR

Since the leak and the introduction of Windows 11, the optical changes have been talked about, but the new operating system brings some interesting innovations under the hood. And not all have been officially confirmed right away, including the Dynamic Refresh Rate.

High refresh rates are a good thing because they enable particularly smooth actions such as scrolling, animations, and the like. But that also has its price, because something like that costs a lot of electricity. On a desktop computer, of course, hardly anything speaks to setting such a frequency permanently. On laptops, which nowadays more and more often offer displays with 120Hz and more, this kind of thing has a heavy impact on the battery in mobile use.

Flexibility In Adjustment

Windows 11 will therefore offer a feature called Dynamic Refresh Rate (DRR). So far, you have to choose a refresh rate on Windows 10, usually 60Hz or 120Hz. With DRR, Windows 11 – as the name suggests – the operating system will make this decision for you.

In a blog post, Microsoft developer Ana Marta explains: “This means that Windows 11 seamlessly switches between a lower and a higher refresh rate, depending on what you are doing on your PC.” So far, this function has been activated in Windows Insider Builds and is supposed to help “balance performance and power consumption”.

Specifically, this means that “normal” activities such as writing e-mails and editing documents will run at 60Hz, while inking and scrolling will switch the display to a higher frequency, i.e. 120Hz. DRR will also address the corresponding apps (if they support it). In the preview phase, inking is initially Office, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Whiteboard, Microsoft Photos, Snip & Sketch, Drawboard PDF, Microsoft Sticky Notes, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft To-Do, and Inkodo; in the case of Office, there is scrolling added.