Google testing variable refresh rate support for Chrome OS: What does it means – Times of India

Google is planning to add support for variable refresh rates (VRR) in the Chrome OS. The feature has been spotted in the Chrome OS 101 Dev Channel by About Chromebooks. As per the report, the feature is currently hidden under a flag and you can enable it by going to chrome://flags#enable-variable-refresh-rate. Google says that the feature can be used with “capable displays.”
What is variable refresh rate
Variable refresh rate feature allows the devices to change the refresh rate of the display as per the content that is being played. For example, a static webpage does not require a high refresh rate as it does not have any motion in it. Such webpages can easily work with 10Hz of refresh rate. However, activities such as playing games, scrolling through your social media feed or even watching an action movie may require a higher refresh rate to offer better responsiveness and improved motion resolution.
As VRR feature automatically reduces the refresh rate of the display, it helps to give a significant boost to the battery life. The feature is already available on several premium smartphones such as the Apple iPhone 13 series and the Samsung Galaxy S22 series.
How VRR can be useful in Chrome OS
Last week, Google announced that Steam is “coming soon” to Chrome OS. Now support for VRR suggests that we may see gaming Chromebooks in near future. According to a previous report by 9to5Google, Google has been preparing its operating system for gaming-specific PCs for quite some time. The report suggests that Google is working on a project codenamed ‘Borealis’ that aims to ensure that Steam and various Linux-compatible PC games run smoothly on Chromebooks.
As per the changes spotted in the Chrome OS, the tech giant is working to get support for full colour RGB keyboards on Chromebooks. A new feature flag that supports the plan has also been discovered recently.