How to get the best SteamVR performance on your PC

This guide helps you get smooth, sharp PC VR in SteamVR by setting render resolution, refresh rate, Motion Smoothing and per-game video settings, and by reading SteamVR's frame timing tools. It uses Valve's own documentation only: the SteamVR release notes, Valve's posts VR Resolution Redefined and Introducing SteamVR Motion Smoothing, the Steamworks page on per-application default settings and Steam Support's Updating Drivers article.

1. Update your graphics driver and SteamVR

Steam Support says outdated drivers can hurt performance even when your hardware meets a game's requirements, and that updating them is a good first step when you troubleshoot. Download drivers from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. To check your card and current driver version, press Windows key + R, run dxdiag and open the Display tab.

Keep SteamVR current as well. Valve ships performance fixes regularly: SteamVR 2.15 fixed Motion Smoothing not working with the latest NVIDIA drivers, and SteamVR 2.18 (October 2026) fixed the Throttling Behavior selection in per-application video settings.

2. Start with automatic render resolution

By default SteamVR measures the speed of your GPU and tells games to render at a resolution that suits it and your headset. A fast GPU gets a resolution above the headset's native one; a slower GPU gets a slightly lower one. Valve describes this as the setting previously known as supersampling.

• The automatic value is set when SteamVR starts. It does not change per game or during play.
• Since SteamVR 1.15 the automatic maximum is also limited by your GPU's dedicated memory.
• On a headset with a faster refresh rate, Valve scales the automatic resolution down to match.

To override it, open SteamVR Settings > Video and switch Render Resolution from Auto to Custom. The slider has a detent at the recommended resolution and another at 100%, and SteamVR remembers your custom value if you switch back to Auto.

3. Pick a refresh rate your PC can hold

The headset refresh rate is also set in Settings > Video, and since SteamVR 1.9 it can be changed in the headset as well as on the desktop. A higher refresh rate leaves less time to render each frame. Because SteamVR scales automatic resolution down for faster refresh rates, the same GPU may also render a softer image at a higher rate.

As an example, Valve Index supports 80, 90, 120 and 144 Hz, and its refresh rate can be changed mid-game without restarting (NVIDIA driver 441 or newer).

4. Leave Motion Smoothing on as a safety net

When SteamVR sees that a game is about to drop frames, Motion Smoothing kicks in. It looks at the last two frames, estimates motion and animation, and extrapolates a new frame. The headset keeps its full refresh rate while the game renders only one frame in two. If that is still not enough, it can synthesize two frames for every one delivered, and since SteamVR 1.16 it can extrapolate up to six frames. It switches off again when it is no longer needed.

The global toggle is Settings > Video > Motion Smoothing. It builds on asynchronous reprojection, works on NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, and Valve's notes say R9 and older AMD cards are not supported.

Headsets that use their own compositor behave differently. Valve says the Motion Smoothing controls stay hidden for headsets running through the Oculus driver, so Meta headset owners using Link need Meta's own tools for this. See how to play PC VR games on Meta Quest.

5. Tune individual games

Open Settings > Video > Per-Application Video Settings and choose the game. Options documented by Valve include:

• Resolution Per Eye: the render resolution for this game only.
• Motion Smoothing: overrides the global setting for this game, including a force always-on choice.
• Throttling Behavior: under Frame Limit, overrides SteamVR's automatic throttling (see section 6).
• Field of View: trades peripheral vision for clarity by drawing a smaller part of the scene with the same total render resolution.
• Override World Scale: changes the perceived scale of the world, for example to make a cockpit feel the right size.

Some games cache these values and need a restart before changes fully apply. Reset to Default restores the defaults, including any the developer suggested for that game. Some options, such as Legacy Reprojection Mode, only appear after you select Show Advanced Settings in the lower left of the Settings window.

6. Lock heavy games to a steady lower framerate

Valve says some demanding games, such as simulators, feel smoother at a fixed lower framerate than at a framerate that keeps changing. Two per-game options do this:

• Throttling Behavior overrides automatic throttling and prediction, for example locking the game to half the refresh rate. Valve notes this only works on headsets that use SteamVR's own compositor, such as Valve Index and HTC Vive.
• Forcing Motion Smoothing always on runs the game at half framerate (45 fps on a 90 Hz headset) with Motion Smoothing active all the time. Valve suggests it for games whose physics or movement misbehave when the framerate switches between full and half. There is deliberately no global version; you opt in per game.

7. Read the performance graph and frame timing

SteamVR's mini performance graph shows whether frames arrive on time. Valve moved it to the main SteamVR status window (right-click), and the Developer settings include Show GPU Performance Graph in Headset for checking while you play.

For more detail, the SteamVR menu has a Developer section with a shortcut to the Advanced Frame Timing window, which plots CPU and GPU time per frame. A white line on the stacked CPU graph counts how many times each frame was presented, and a red line on the stacked GPU graph counts frames that were reprojected. Frequent reprojection means the game is missing its frame budget, so lower the resolution or the game's own graphics settings. These tools date from earlier SteamVR versions, so their exact place in the SteamVR 2.x interface may differ.

8. Watch GPU memory

The Video settings include a GPU bus monitoring option. When it is on, the mini performance graph shows bus usage above 3% (NVIDIA only). Valve explains that if the GPU runs out of video memory and Windows starts paging to system memory, performance can drop sharply. The easiest fix, according to Valve, is to reduce the render resolution in SteamVR or the maximum texture resolution in the game's settings. Valve also warns that bus monitoring can cause hitches on some systems, so turn it off when you are done.