Treyarch lowers refresh rate for Black Ops 4 servers to 20Hz

It appears developer Treyarch has reduced the refresh rate of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s multiplayer servers from 60Hz to 20Hz. This means that data comes to the players with a longer delay from the server.

The change appears to be in software version 1.03 that was recently released, according to a study by Reddit user Smcro, whose findings he outlined in a post. He used Wireshark to examine the send rate from the servers when playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 on a PlayStation 4, noting that the data comes to the player at a 20Hz refresh rate.

During the beta phase and shortly after launch, a speed of 60Hz was measured, so it seems that developer Treyarch has reduced the refresh of information from the server. Why the change was made is not known, however, as the developer has not publicly reported anything about it.

Since Smcro only owns a PlayStation 4, it has not been able to test the send rate on other systems. Black Ops 4 is also available for Xbox One and PC. According to publisher Activision, the game broke sales records after it came out last week.