Sony TVs Finally Get VRR Support But PS5 Players Are Still Waiting
Even more Sony TVs are finally receiving VRR (variable refresh rate) support, including many of Sony’s best 4K TVs that launched last year. While that’s fantastic news for owners of some of Sony’s more recent flagships, PS5 players are still in the dark as to when they’ll receive VRR support on the console.
As reported by FlatpanelsHD (opens in new tab), the VRR update is rolling out now to Sony TV owners in the US, UK and Europe. The Sony TVs featured in the update are the A90J and A80J OLED TVs, as well as the Z9J, X95J and X90J LCD TVs. That’s great news if you own one of these Sony TVs and have a HDMI 2.1 cable to enable VRR, but if you’re looking to use the feature for gaming, the only current-gen consoles to support it right now are the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
The addition of VRR to many of Sony’s 2021 TVs follows the rollout of the feature to the Sony X900H 4K HDR TV last year. Additionally, Sony also brought Auto HDR Tone Mapping and automatic low-latency mode (ALLM) to many of its recent 4K TVs – two features that go hand-in-hand with many of the best PS5 games. As such, it seems like VRR could be the last piece of that PS5 puzzle.
VRR has become a game-changing feature for consoles in recent years. The tech works by matching the TV to the compatible device’s refresh rate. On consoles like the Xbox Series X, that can climb up to 120Hz for a very smooth gameplay experience. VRR also adapts to any shifts in the refresh rate, allowing for greatly reduced input lag and far less jarring frame drops.
Analysis: when will Sony add VRR to PS5?
While nothing is set in stone, we strongly believe that Sony adding variable refresh rate support to PS5 is surely a case of when, and not if. If only because competing platforms like Xbox and PC have already supported VRR for quite some time.
We heard rumblings last year that Sony could be adding VRR to PS5 in the near future as it prepared to roll the feature out to many of its 4K TVs. However, those updates have now arrived, and we’re still completely in the dark as to when VRR will make its PS5 debut.
Given that the PS5 is on the cutting edge of console technology, and takes advantage of features available in the best 4K TVs, we’d be hard pressed to believe that VRR hasn’t crossed Sony’s mind when it comes to implementing the feature for its flagship console.
It’s possible, then, that VRR support is still on the way, but potentially needs a bit more development time in order for the feature to work as well as possible on PS5. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait all that much longer for VRR on PS5, as we’d love to play upcoming games like God of War Ragnarok with the feature enabled.