Hey, Is there any way to change the refresh rates independently for games? I have a Samsung SyncMaster 750s monitor and Windows defaults to 85 HZ on the desktop, but I can tell that games have significantly lower refresh rates, and the flicker really bothers me. Is there anything I can do to manually set the refresh rates higher?

Control Panel,Display, Settings Advanced, monitor and choose whatever refresh rate you like...set it lower for everything, this won't cause a problem running ordinary programs. I never saw a refresh rate default so high though, are you sure?

Depending on your vid card there are a few programs out there that let you set custom refresh rates. Some even on a game by game basis. I use ATI Tray Tools for my ATI X850XT. There are similar programs for nVidia cards. btw... My default desktop refresh rate is 90.

Should not get flicker with 85 Hz refresh rate. I think you are getting confused between refresh rate and frame rate - two completely different things. Frame rate is measured in frames per second and a low frame rate will cause flicker when playing games, but that is down to the speed of your CPU and graphics card. Stuart

"Should not get flicker with 85 Hz refresh rate." It seems from his post that he doesn't get flicker at 85, but when he plays games the resolution changes and the refresh changes with it (lowers)... which is why he gets flicker in games, but not on the desktop. I've seen some pathetically bad frame rates, but they never cause the flicker associated with a low refresh. *** I don't know the specs of your monitor, but it's possible you're playing the game at too high a resolution for the monitor to support a decent refresh rate. Also possible that windows is simply not picking an optimal one for whatever resolution you're playing at. You could try temporarily setting your desktop to the resolution you play the game at, manually setting the refresh and hope that windows remembers. Check your monitor documentation to make sure you don't exceed its limits.