Early PS5 reviews point to no support for VRR, despite spec-sheet listing

Sony still seemingly hasn't figured out a way of supporting VRR on its consoles.

Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) is a feature we know PS5 can support. Back when Sony officially revealed the console's specs, the platform holder confirmed that VRR is supported on the console's HDMI 2.1 port.

Unfortunately, the launch version of the PS5 does not actually support VRR. Digital Foundry uncovered this curious omission in its review of the console.

VRR is, of course, one of the most exciting features we hope become standard next-gen. It allows the display to match its refresh rate to the game's own framerate, which eliminates or drastically reduces screen tearing. The benefits of VRR are most evident in games whose framerate can't quite lock to 30fps or 60fps, because those slight drops now become much less noticeable to the user.

PS5 does support 4K at 120fps, and the included cable can carry the full-fat signal, so it's a bit bizarre to see VRR missing, particularly since Microsoft has been supporting the feature since the launch of Xbox One X, and it's certainly there at launch for Xbox Series X/S.

One thing to keep in mind is that it may be possible that no PS5 games currently support VRR, even if the console itself may do. In other words, it may be that there simply doesn't exist any games that take advantage of the feature, which would likewise be a big problem.