360Hz to 540Hz Refresh Rate Motion Clarity and Eye Tracking Blur: Edge Cases, Failure Modes, and Root-Cause Debugging

[Nathan Peterson]

I’ve been running a 360Hz panel for two years and just picked up a 540Hz OLED for testing, but I’m hitting some confusing edge cases between 480Hz and 540Hz. With sample-and-hold physics, the per-frame dwell time drops from 2.78ms at 360Hz to 1.85ms at 540Hz, so in theory retinal blur during active eye tracking should shrink proportionally—but my dynamic visual acuity during rapid crosshair re-tracking doesn’t feel like it’s improving linearly past 480Hz. Is anyone else seeing a plateau effect where the perceived clarity gain diminishes even though the theoretical blur window keeps shrinking? And how much of that is just the human eye’s persistence-of-vision limit versus actual panel response time?

Second question: what are you all seeing with overshoot/undershoot artifacts in the 500Hz+ range during low-motion scenarios like slow tracking a stationary-ish target? My current setting produces inverse ghosting on dark targets against bright backgrounds, which wrecks my sub-pixel edge reading. Do you dial back overdrive to avoid this, or push it harder and accept the ringing? Also worth noting—does anyone have empirical data on whether the blur reduction at 540Hz actually holds during the saccadic movements we make in FFA, or does motion smear creep back in during fast flicks? I’m trying to decide if the upgrade is worth it for tracking-heavy titles or if I’m chasing diminishing returns.

"i7-14700K | RTX 4070 Super | Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120"

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