Hearthstone feeling like it isn't running perfectly smooth anymore? The reason might be due to Patch 23.2 introducing new graphical frame rate modes!

Table of Contents

    How to Change to 60 FPS

    You're going to want to change your "Frame Rate" setting, which is a new setting in addition to the old "Quality" setting. Here are the values for most players.

    • Low - 30 FPS
    • Medium - 60 FPS
    • High - 60 FPS

    Important Notes

    • Medium and High when on a Laptop on Battery Power will become 30 FPS.
    • We've also seen some cases where Medium is 30 FPS, this seems to fix itself if you switch the option and go back to Medium.
    • Low frame rate will dynamically switch to 60 FPS when you are dragging elements in-game.

    What About 144 FPS? Even More?

    If you've leveled up your game and have a 144hz monitor, or something even better, you'll be happy to know all you need to do is set your Frame Rate setting to "High" to take full advantage of your high refresh rate display.

    • Low - 30 FPS
    • Medium - 60 FPS
    • High - 144 FPS (or the FPS of your monitor).

    Blizzard has special code that checks your monitor's refresh rate so that Hearthstone will always match it when it is set to High.

    Why Doesn't Blizzard Name These Options Better?

    We don't know for certain, but Blizzard has stated over the years that they like to keep the options simple in Hearthstone. Many players may not know what frame rate even means so pushing numbers in their faces may make them confused. Generally speaking though, High is a graphical setting that more players should be accustomed to since it has been in the "Quality" section since the game has launched.

    There's also more complexity involved in changing the High label dynamically based on display resolution for users with high refresh rates, and with the Medium and High settings getting toned down when you're on Battery power on a Touch device, this is something else that can't be as easily conveyed so keeping it to a simple Low, Medium, and High, makes life easier for players.

    Historically Speaking

    In the past, players that wanted Hearthstone to run at 60 FPS could manually edit client files to enable "targetframerate=60". This was especially a pain to do on mobile, and it would typically reset after patches or sometimes after restarting your game, so it's great to see Blizzard has finally leveled the client up and made this more accessible to all players - options are great!