In his latest Instagram AMA, Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, Facebook’s Vice President of Augmented and Virtual Reality, teased the potential of Oculus Quest 2 running at a higher 120Hz refresh rate in the future.
Bosworth frequently participates in AMAs (‘ask me anything’) on Instagram, where users submit questions and Bosworth can choose to respond to them in a recorded video uploaded to his Instagram story.
One of the questions asked about 120Hz support on Quest 2, to which Bosworth didn’t say anything but simply responded with a quick thumbs up. Oculus Quest 2 launched in October last year with only a 72Hz refresh rate, however Facebook had already announced support for 90Hz in an post-launch software update.
90Hz support was officially launched in November last year, however support for a 120Hz refresh rate could be in the cards as well. The Quest 2’s screen supports 120Hz, but the real challenge will be getting past other constraints, such as performance barriers and battery strain. According to Bloomberg, Facebook tested the Quest 2 at 120Hz but may have capped it at 90Hz due to battery life concerns.
Previously, John Carmack hinted on Twitter at 120Hz support for Quest 2 or a hypothetical future headset. Carmack encouraged developers to future-proof their games when adding support for 90Hz by not setting their apps to default to the highest frame rate possible, which would likely make them “run poorly if we release 120 FPS support.”
Bringing the Quest 2’s refresh rate up to 120Hz would bring it almost in line with the Valve Index, which can run at 120Hz and even go up to 144Hz in some situations. The refresh rate change might also apply to Oculus Link, meaning that even if some or all Quest 2 standalone games and apps couldn’t reach 120Hz due to performance limitations, users might be able to play PC VR content through Link at 120Hz.
