Vindicated: after talking to some professional Counter-Strike gamers I’m certain I used to be proper once I stated 360 Hz is the candy spot for aggressive FPS

Just a few months in the past I made the case {that a} 360 Hz refresh fee in your monitor is the candy spot for aggressive FPS earlier than diminishing returns kick in. I had nothing however my very own testing and a giant bottle of ‘belief me bro’ again then, however I’ve now spoken to a few Counter-Strike 2 professionals and I stay satisfied I used to be proper.

At Logitech’s G Play event (that includes a Counter-Strike 2 match) in Warsaw earlier at present, I spoke to Oscar Bell, AKA ‘Azuwu’, and Simon Boije, AKA ‘yxngstxr’. Both presently play for Luminosity, a staff that notably tugs at my CS2 coronary heart strings given it was very large circa 2016 once I was nonetheless lapping up the tailwinds of CS:GO novelty.

Regarding refresh charges, Azuwu tells me: “When I had 240 at home, I didn’t even really notice 360. But now I’m 360 I can’t go back down, you know, I feel it a lot. So I think 360, 400, 600 are all pretty similar… I’d say 400 is a nice spot and 600 is extra nice. But anyway, in a lot of PCs, you won’t hit 600 frames.”

And Yxngstxr says: “I think it’s kind of a placebo, personal thing, you know? Because on most PCs you rarely get 600 fps, right?… 600 Hz with like 300 fps, it doesn’t even matter.”

I run CS2 on a reasonably high-end rig—that includes a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and RX 9070 XT—and I can not often hit 600 fps in CS2, even at 1280 x 960 or 1080p. Usually I’m hovering across the 500 mark.

One factor that does make a distinction, in response to Yxngstxr, is Zowie’s DyAc anti-ghosting tech. The staff all makes use of Zowie screens, as do many different professional gamers, and it is partially due to this.

“The edge of the players,” Yxngstxr says, “get more noticeable.”

I observed the identical once I tested the 600 Hz Zowie XL2586X+. The tech is a proprietary kind of backlight strobing that helps improve motion clarity. For most uses it’s overkill, but if you’re a pro gamer I can see why it would be useful.

However, regarding this DyAc tech, Azuwu says, “I have it on, but it’s hard to tell.”

If there’s one thing we all seemed to agree on, in so many words, it’s that when you get up to these ultra-fast refresh rates, the returns start to become diminishing. But given what both pro players said, I don’t think I was wrong when I said 360 Hz is the sweet spot for competitive FPS.