WYP
News Guru
Amd lately have been quiet on the topic of variable refresh rate, or rather Nvidia's G-Sync Technology. At CES today, AMD have a short demo of a free alternative to this Technology.
Apparently there is a current VESA standard for controlling VBLANK intervals and if the GPU's display engine and the monitor support it, then you can get a G-Sync equivalent with no additional hardware.
AMD simply need driver support for them to implement controlled VBLANK timing (or "FreeSync" as AMD call it). AMD claim this is already in the Latest Catalyst drivers, but the controls are not exposed to us end users.
Below is an excerpt from AnandTech's artice
If what AMD say is true and all current generation AMD tech is compliant with this controlable VBLANK standard, then they will eventually be capable of FreeSync when it is ready(which includes both the PS4 and the XB1).
All in all, AMD seem to have worked out a potential G-Sync killer but only time will tell if it will become the new standard.
Source - AnandTech
Apparently there is a current VESA standard for controlling VBLANK intervals and if the GPU's display engine and the monitor support it, then you can get a G-Sync equivalent with no additional hardware.
AMD simply need driver support for them to implement controlled VBLANK timing (or "FreeSync" as AMD call it). AMD claim this is already in the Latest Catalyst drivers, but the controls are not exposed to us end users.
Below is an excerpt from AnandTech's artice
The next step was to write a little demo app that could show it working. In the video below both systems have V-Sync enabled, but the machine on the right is taking advantage of variable VBLANK intervals. Just like I did in our G-Sync review, I took a 720p60 video of both screens and slowed it down to make it easier to see the stuttering you get with V-Sync On when your content has a variable frame rate. AMD doesn’t want to charge for this technology since it’s already a part of a spec that it has implemented (and shouldn’t require a hardware change to those panels that support the spec), hence the current working name “FreeSync”.
AMD’s demo isn’t quite as nice as NVIDIA’s swinging pendulum, and we obviously weren’t able to test anywhere near as many scenarios, but this one is a good starting point. The system on the left is limited to 30 fps given the heavy workload and v-sync being on, while the system on the right is able to vary its frame rate and synchronize presenting each frame to the display's refresh rate. AMD isn’t ready to productize this nor does it have a public go to market strategy, but my guess is we’ll see more panel vendors encouraged to include support for variable VBLANK and perhaps an eventual AMD driver update that enables control over this function.
If what AMD say is true and all current generation AMD tech is compliant with this controlable VBLANK standard, then they will eventually be capable of FreeSync when it is ready(which includes both the PS4 and the XB1).
All in all, AMD seem to have worked out a potential G-Sync killer but only time will tell if it will become the new standard.
Source - AnandTech
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