Comment by michaelmrose
3 hours ago
I couldn't find ready stats on what percentage of displays are 60 hz but outside of gaming and high end machines I suspect 60 hz is still the majority of of machines used by actual users meaning we should evaluate the latency as it is observed by most users.
The point is that we can improve latency of even old machines by simply attaching a display output that supports a higher refresh rate, or perhaps even variable refresh rate. This can negate most of the unavoidable latency of a compositor, while other techniques can be used to avoid compositor latency in more specific scenarios and try to improve performance and frame pacing.
A new display is usually going to be cheaper than a new computer. Displays which can actually deliver 240 Hz refresh rates can be had for under $200 on the lower end, whereas you can find 180 Hz displays for under $100, brand new. It's cheap enough that I don't think it's even terribly common to buy/sell the lower end ones second-hand.
For laptops, well, there is no great solution there; older laptops with 60 Hz panels are stuck with worse latency when using a compositor.