Monitor motion test. What your screen delivers in motion.
The refresh rate the screen is really at, with the reason if it is below what you paid for. How evenly the frames arrive. Whether frames are being skipped. And the blur that rate makes on a moving edge. One run, a verdict on each, and a result you can keep and share.
These checks are visual: they draw movement or flicker on the screen, and you judge the result by eye, so a screen reader cannot describe it. The list under "What it measures" says in words what each one shows. If motion or flicker makes you unwell, or you have reduced motion switched on, you can leave it out: no other test on this site depends on it.
5 checks · about 2 minutes
- Refresh rate
- Frame pacing
- Frame skipping
- Ghosting and overdrive
- Motion clarity
One check after another, with your progress along the top and a plain verdict on each. Nothing you show the camera or say into the microphone leaves this page.
In short
Monitor motion test: the answer first
A monitor motion test runs the motion checks in one sitting: the refresh rate the screen is really at and why if it is low, how evenly the frames arrive, whether frames are skipped, the overdrive step from what you see at a moving edge, and the blur at your rate.
Reading your result
- Four readings of the rate
- The rate is read four ways with the densest cluster as the headline. When they agree the rate is sure; when they do not, the page says so.
- Pacing after a fix
- If frames were uneven, close what is running, plug in and run again. The pacing check shows whether the change worked.
- Each verdict stands alone
- A clean rate with uneven pacing points at the machine; a clean pacing with a trail at the edge points at the panel's overdrive.
What it measures
Measured here, not assumed.
In the order the checks run.
- Refresh rate
- Read four ways (densest cluster, median, mode, catalogue match) with the cluster as headline and whether they agree; the cause named when it is below the panel's rating.
- Frame pacing
- Late share, hitches, the 99th percentile interval and the 1% low over twenty seconds, with the verdict lines stated.
- Skipping, ghosting, clarity
- The browser's missed frames counted and a strip to photograph for the panel's; what you see at a moving mark's edges turned into the overdrive step; the blur in pixels at the measured rate.
If it fails
The usual failures, and what fixes each.
- Running below the rating
- The result names why. Most often it is the display settings; on laptops, battery power; with two monitors, the slower one.
- Uneven frames
- Close what is running, plug in, turn on hardware acceleration. The pacing check shows whether that worked.
- Gaps in the skipping photo
- Lower an overclock a step at a time until the run of squares is clean.
Where a browser stops
What it cannot tell you.
- A web page measures the browser's frames. Pixel response, true persistence, variable refresh behaviour and input lag need instruments, and this says so on each check rather than guessing.
- The panel's own skipped refreshes show only in a photograph, which the skipping check asks for.
- Keep the tab in front on the main monitor, plugged in: those three things are the causes of most low readings.
Privacy
Nothing leaves this page.
The camera and microphone are read on this page and stopped as soon as they have been measured. The clip you can play back lives in the browser's memory and is discarded when you leave. The location check discards the position. The internet test sends random bytes to this site and nothing else. The result is stored nowhere unless you ask for it by email, and then only the fact that an email was sent is kept.
Questions
Monitor motion test, answered
- Is my monitor really running at 144 Hz?
- Run this. The refresh rate check reads the rate to two decimals and, if you tell it the panel is sold as 144, names the reason when it is lower.
- Can a browser test my monitor's response time or input lag?
- No, and this one does not claim to. It measures what a browser can, the frames it receives, and labels the rest as physics or as needing a photograph.
- How is this different from the classic UFO test?
- That family of tests shows you a moving picture to judge by eye. This measures the frames, gives a verdict with the cause, and keeps the result. The moving mark is here too, for the eye.
- Which check should I run first on a new gaming monitor?
- This one, because it covers the rate, pacing, skipping and overdrive together. Follow any failed line to its own test for the detail.
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