Remote Desktop At 144 Hz Or 240 Hz: What You Need

Five Things To Check

1. Set the monitor you’re streaming to its highest refresh rate in Windows, on the PC you share.
2. Pick the frame rate you want under Your PCs → Picture, up to 240 fps.
3. Set Hosting → Settings → Performance → Encoder to Fastest.
4. Use a wired connection or 5 GHz or 6 GHz Wi-Fi, and watch the stats while you test.
5. Open fewer screens at once if the frame rate drops.

A 60 Hz Monitor Streams At Up To 60 fps

A screen can’t send more pictures per second than it draws. If the monitor on the PC you share runs at 60 Hz, the stream is capped at 60 frames per second, whatever frame rate you choose. A monitor that can do 144 Hz or 240 Hz often still runs at 60 Hz until you change it in Windows.

1. On the PC you share, select Start → Settings → System → Display.
2. Choose the monitor, then Advanced display.
3. Under Choose a refresh rate, pick the highest option.

If the highest option is 60 Hz, check that the monitor’s own menu allows more, and that the cable and port support it. High refresh rates often need DisplayPort, or an HDMI port and cable new enough for them. Your monitor’s manual lists what it needs.

The Screen You Watch On Matters Too

The screen on the PC you connect from only shows as many frames as its own refresh rate allows. A 60 Hz laptop screen won’t show 144 fps. For all the frames, watch on a 144 Hz or faster screen.

Where To Pick It

Before connecting, choose the PC under Your PCs and use its Picture section. The frame rate choices are 30, 60, 90, 120, 144 and 240. During a stream, Picture on the toolbar changes the frame rate and bitrate too.

If the PC’s owner set a Frame Rate Limit under Hosting → Settings → Limits, that’s the highest you can pick. Check it if the choice is capped. The Upload Limit per person there also caps the bandwidth, which can hold the picture back at high frame rates.

Best Quality Can Cut The Frame Rate

On the PC you share, Hosting → Settings → Performance → Encoder chooses how much work the video encoder puts into each picture: Fastest, Balanced or Best quality. Fastest keeps the frame rate up. Best quality does several times the work for every picture.

In our own test on an RTX 3080 with three screens open at once (two at 1440p and one at 4K), Best quality gave about 38 frames per second on each screen. With Fastest, the same screens ran at 60. If you want high frame rates, especially with several screens or a 4K screen, use Fastest.

Both Are Available

Choose the video format in the PC’s Picture section before you connect. It isn’t a setting in the stream toolbar. If the PC you connect from can’t decode HEVC, choose H.264.

What We Measured

On one PC with an RTX 3080 at 2560 × 1440, we measured the time from a new picture on the sharing PC to the decoded picture on the viewer, both ends on the same machine:

• H.264: 6.5 ms at 60 fps, 3.7 ms at 120 fps, 3.0 ms at 144 fps.
• HEVC: 6.9 ms at 60 fps, 4.8 ms at 120 fps, 3.8 ms at 144 fps.

That leaves out the network, so your ping adds to it. See how we measure for the method. Your numbers depend on your PCs, the game and your connection.

• Wire the PC you share to the router with an Ethernet cable if you can.
• Use 5 GHz or 6 GHz Wi-Fi on the PC you connect from. 2.4 GHz is crowded.
• Pause other heavy traffic such as big downloads while you test.
• Lower the bandwidth or frame rate under Picture if the picture stutters or you see lost packets in the stats.

Turn On The Stats

Open Settings → Stream toolbar and turn on Show stats under the toolbar. During a stream you’ll see the frame rate, bandwidth, decode time, ping and lost packets. If the frame rate is below what you picked, check the refresh rate (Step 1), the encoder (Step 3), then the network.

The Help page has the full checklist, including how many screens are open and the decode time on the PC you watch from.

• Stuck at 60 fps: the monitor on the PC you share is still set to 60 Hz.
• Around 30 to 40 fps with several screens: set the Encoder to Fastest, or open fewer screens.
• Black screen or glitches: update the graphics drivers on both PCs. If the viewer can’t decode HEVC, choose H.264.
• Frame rate choice is capped: check the Frame Rate Limit under Hosting → Settings → Limits.