This is an interesting area which is fairly new, if a monitor supports 24hz and 60hz, apart from software what is stopping it using some form of free sync? Isn't this a case of the specific panel and implementations in certain laptops having refresh rates which match the output of the display device. Hasn't the mobile scene been using this for a while as a power saving method?
Exposing support for variable VBLANK is all you need. Technically, this should be able to be added on to any lcd display, just the firmware in the LCD control board need to support it.
no offense but you must be an nvidia fanboy. scott wasson is one of the biggest nvidia famboys on the web! It's comical. On a recent podcast he actually admitted NVIDIA PURCHASED his website some retail R9 290's for some hit piece on AMD (the retail performance variability thing). That's right, he happened to "casually mention to contacts at Nvidia" (evidently he is somehow in constant contact with Nvidia I guess lol?) the piece I guess, and since he couldn't afford them, Nvidia offered to pay for the AMD cards for testing!
I'm sorry, that just destroys any notion of website integrity..
I mean, I think Scott is really smart, and just because he's biased doesn't mean his work cant have value, he personally pretty much invented the whole frame pacing thing which was a great thing even if now played out, but be advised he is very biased.
with Desktops, power usage doesn't matter, as long as everything stays quiet. And if no one knows about this technology and advantages, no one would be able to spend additional money and development on anything.
There's a ton of "Great stuff" that software guys want which the hardware guys don't do. Software is only indirectly related to hardware purchase so far as hardware companies are concerned. So anytime a software guy emails with "hey do this!" they kind of just ignore it for a good while.
If it was that easy, Nvidia would be doing it that way. Some form of DRAM is needed with fast I/O to the panel with super low latency.
Now in a notebook, it's easy to put the dram on the laptop's motherboard. Apple has been requesting at least a small amount of Dram on panels for years to store the framebuffer for power savings. The same dram can be used for gsync.
There is definately a lot of varibles unknown with AMD's solution, but they have yet to show a demonstration that equals Nvidia's 60 FPS thru 144 FPS Gsync.
In either case, the panel manufacturer needs to provide support for it, correct? This is probably an easier target, as it doesn't need a separate board like G-Sync does.
Gsync doesn't require a separate board, unless replacing in an older model. You will see NEW models come with it inside replacing the current scalers that are already in there. What do you think they take out when they mod the current one? A board or at least some chip...But only because they are using it to retrofit an model that came before the tech did. Even if they leave it in, you won't need it in the future, you will included the gsync setup instead.
So they have had the ability in hardware for years but it takes Nvidia making a product for them to derp along and figure that out? I'm sure this works great just like Enduro, and Crossfire frame pacing.
Yeah truly. This barebones demo says to me they just slapped this together to say that they can do it too. Not that there was much to G-Sync technically. good to see it though.
I don't think this is equivalent to GSync. GSync works by making the monitor board holding VBLANK until GPU sends an image. FreeSync uses a VESA standard to change VBI speculatively depends on what the driver thinks the next VBLANK should be. There is software overhead first, and it won't work for the most important frames, when the framerate fluctuates, so you will still see tearing and stutter occasionally. If the app runs in constant frame, like how AMD's demo is doing, then the driver should be able to speculate properly and get the correct VBLANK configured. With the pendulum demo NVIDIA has however, since the framerate can fluctuate, FreeSync won't work nearly as well.
Surely the point is that VBLANK is kept active (or delayed, if the VBLANK itself is a set duration) until the new frame is ready (or a certain amount of time passes), whenever that is?
Surely the point of this demo is AMD saying "look at this standard feature that NVIDIA want to charge $100 for, in their proprietary implementation"?
Yeah, it's a real shame they didn't think of it earlier. And being free and open is great if it works. but seeing this is something AMD needs to support via software I'm "a bit" sceptical..
Yes believe it or not, the INTARNETS lets you travel all over the INTARWEBS in a matter of seconds. But yes, been here for years, thanks for the interest.
you realize AMD is like a year late with Kavari? Hindsight is 20/20, and its what AMD does best however by the time they offer a alternative that is OUT RIGHT NOW, its to late, nvidia already has the market share.
I'd be curious as to how the solutions compare. I assume NVidia thought their solution has added value (the upfront engineering, validation, and ODM marketing costs alone require as much). It could be as simple as NVidia's current card line-up lacks variable VBlank support.
Anand, would you mind following up on this one? This is an interesting development indeed!
Per Anand, support has been in place for a couple generations. Since your 280X is current generation your GPU is good.
Unfortunately I don't see any possibility of existing monitors getting support for this feature. In most cases there is no way for a user to upgrade the firmware (no USB interface, etc). On top of that, the marketing opportunities would further discourage vendors from bringing support to current monitors.
This is probably part of the reason for GSync - branding monitors that support it, and providing a monitor display controller that implements it (or something stupidly similar but proprietary). I presume that support for this feature is not provided in the monitor information data that the monitor sends to the computer, so you can't auto-detect monitor support to turn it on without the consumer needing specific knowledge. So maybe there's a risk of "Boom!" ...
This is brilliant news, although as many people have said it exposes just how lazy our technology engineers can be. Failing to put in simple fixes which solve obvious problems at no cost with existing open standards, until someone forces them to. And I'm not having a go at AMD alone here, but also panel makers, PC makers, OEMs... ridiculous.
You're blaming the wrong people. It's not the engineers' fault, it's the corporate giants fault. They could have brought this technology out, but simply didn't see the value in it.
There's value in it now for AMD by devaluing their competitor's investment in a proprietary technology.
Corporations don't care about value to the consumer after all.
29.9x, you mean? AKA 30FPS? Traditional V-Sync on the left, FreeSync-enabled V-sync on the right. If you've got something running at ~50 FPS on a non-variable VBLANK 60hz panel, and you turn on regular ol' V-Sync, it runs at 30FPS. The panel on the right using FreeSync doesn't seem to suffer from the same limitations.
Now, we can't be certain how fine-grained it is until we get a proper review, but at a minimum it's clearly a huge leap above what we've got now, without being limited to G-Sync capable hardware. This needs to be in every panel. Screw proprietary solutions, this could (and should) be supported by everyone.
From Anand's g-sync review "G-Sync works by manipulating the display’s VBLANK (vertical blanking interval). VBLANK is the period of time between the display rasterizing the last line of the current frame and drawing the first line of the next frame. It’s called an interval because during this period of time no screen updates happen, the display remains static displaying the current frame before drawing the next one. VBLANK is a remnant of the CRT days where it was necessary to give the CRTs time to begin scanning at the top of the display once again. The interval remains today in LCD flat panels, although it’s technically unnecessary. The G-Sync module inside the display modifies VBLANK to cause the display to hold the present frame until the GPU is ready to deliver a new one. With a G-Sync enabled display, when the monitor is done drawing the current frame it waits until the GPU has another one ready for display before starting the next draw process. The delay is controlled purely by playing with the VBLANK interval. You can only do so much with VBLANK manipulation though. In present implementations the longest NVIDIA can hold a single frame is 33.3ms (30Hz). If the next frame isn’t ready by then, the G-Sync module will tell the display to redraw the last frame. The upper bound is limited by the panel/TCON at this point, with the only G-Sync monitor available today going as high as 6.94ms (144Hz). NVIDIA made it a point to mention that the 144Hz limitation isn’t a G-Sync limit, but a panel limit."
Article needs more information on how many consumer monitors being sold already support variable vblank. Was this not implemented because of legacy? or easier/cheaper not to? I hope there's more support than other 3rd party free features like HD3D.
There's two things I think the custom controller is doing: an accelerated read-in and read-out to support very low latencies (explains the massive RAM array: to allow monstrous bandwidth) between the frame being completed and it appearing on the panel, and the on-board multiple frame buffer for use when FPS drops really low and frame duplication is needed (I wouldn't be suprised if some motion interpolation were occuring there). And possibly the processing needed for the lightboost-like display mode, though I'm not sure if that's been demonstrated yet.
That, and it's a single target that Nvidia can design for. VBLANK-twiddling, while possible under the VESA specifications, isn't standardised. Monitors may do anything from displaying the frames when you send weird VBLANKs, displaying garbage, partial or duplicate frames, or just "NO SIGNAL". You can bet the freesync implementation used on that Satellite Click only works for one specific panel.
The way I see it is that AMD wants to protect stupid consumers and avoid them from spending a shitload of money for a technology that is already free, so after their laughter on nVidias marketing gimmicks, they decided to protect some of those stupid consumers by opening their eyes and giving them a pick at what they actually are paying/buying with G-sync.
Also my cudos to the guy (lordoftheboired) for his comment, he describes exactly what the hell is going on with those damn consumers. give it a vesa mark and noone bats an eye. give it an apple/nVidia/etc mark and everyone looses their minds (just to use this horrible meme thing that is going on lately)
ARGH! This happens all the time. VESA makes a standard that fixes some glaring issue or provides really useful functionality. All is good. And then it's either A. ignored completely, or B. re-implemented in an incompatible manner by a company that wants to brag about how genius they are more than they really want to BE genius.
Why does VESA even MAKE standards if they're only ignored or cloned incompatibly? And why is nVidia trying to be Apple? We already HAVE Apple for adding the appearance of proprietary genius to other people's work, and nVidia's marketing department isn't NEAR as good. And why has AMD sat on this for several generations instead of, I dunno, enabling hardware functionality in the drivers. I mean it's not like it isn't THE WHOLE REASON THEY EXIST FOR PETE'S SAKE!
Because it's NOT a VESA standard. The ability to vary VBLANK IS part of the standard, but there's no guidance on what monitors need to do with it other than 'VBLANK may vary sometimes, deal with it'. "NO SIGNAL" is a perfectly valid response to a 'malformed' VBLANK under the standard.
Seems kind of strange to have a standard that contains variable VBLANK but then says "Lawl VBLANK varies but you don't have to handle it in any particular manner lawl". Also, wouldn't a "malformed" VBLANK be a non-standard VBLANK by definition? Just sounds rather absurd.
If it only works on a single panel, it would seem odd to have them demonstrate it. Anyway if there's a future for FreeSync it would be nice if Intel got behind it too.
Since I assume that means you know which standard the variable VBlank comes from, could you kindly point me towards it so I can read it? I'm genuinely curious, but can't even guess which of the umpteen-bajillion VESA standards it's buried in, even if I assume it's just one of the half-a-bajillion that have come out since the turn of the century and the rise of LCD monitors. . It's something I really wish AMD would have specified, rather than just saying "there's a VESA spec for this" and leaving it at that.
What I wonder, is why VBLANK still exists. It seems like VESA should have cleaned up that dinosaur for LCDs a long time ago. You shouldn't have to tell an LCD to keep something on the screen until a certain time. Keeping something on the screen is the default mode.
It still exists because DVI(and consequently, HDMI) requires it to exist. That's not the only anachronism DVI requires.
And while it's definitely a dinosaur and completely irrelevant, it's not really for the reasons you think. It's being used nowadays as the time between the completion of displaying one frame and the beginning of displaying the next. Which isn't really WRONG, but... much like the concept of vertical sync, it's an archaic function that's directly tied to CRT functionality.
The vertical blanking interval has nothing to do with blanking the SCREEN. The name comes because during VBlank your CRT's driver hardware cuts off the electron beam while it travels from the bottom-right corner back to the top-left, so you don't leave a big slash across your screen. Anything drawn during the vertical blanking interval is... blanked out. And at the end of the VBlank period, your graphics controller generates the VSync pulse to turn the beam back on. And at the same time it sends the VSync interrupt so your software know it's time to start drawing again. And they better drop whatever they're doing and start drawing RIGHT NOW, because the beam waits for neither man nor code.
Yes, there's actually two different VSyncs. And yes the entire concept is backwards for the modern world. And it still exists because DVI was designed for easy interoperability with VGA, and HDMI is more or less a clone of DVI. So it explicitly calls for VBlank and HBlank periods, and sync signals at the end of them. And thus we're generating VSync, VBlank, HSync, HBlank, and even the actual scan across the individual lines in an era where no displays work that way, because our display CONNECTIONS require them. So the graphics card must generate all of this ancestral baggage, and the display must scrape it all off and throw it away to reconstruct the image, because DVI is a clunky hack. If we were handling digital video SANELY, we'd never generate any of that crap(and DisplayPort doesn't!).
I wonder if NVIDIA will backpedal on G-Sync now and implement this with software, I hope so because I like free - they could then leave the G-Sync for the xxxtreme gamerz
The nvidia sticker on the side is worth $100's to most fanboys LOL. That is what Nvidia gives you free, the .01 cents sticker. Makes their card automatically worth $200 more than the AMD equivalent that performs the same.
This is just a hack. Clearly AMD wants to play catch-up. Gaming on a laptop screen is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong.....I'm using AMD triple-Eyefinity setup and would love it....on the desktop. But who said nVidia could not do the same on laptops? They just went further.
that's the catch... anybody can do it... on any panel(laptop desktop possibly even tv's)... apparently the only thing is panel builders need to update their firmwares to correctly handle this (again) since modern screens don't actually need this functionality.
You missed the point. It's not that you can do this on a laptop(which I'm sure can be done with GSync). It's that there are displays in the wild that work with FreeSync RIGHT NOW.
And not just top-end displays. This one's apparently a 1366x768 panel in a 600-dollar laptop, which is HARDLY premium gear. I desperately want to know what OTHER panels are quietly supporting VESA variable VBlank and just waiting for someone to throw the switch. It's possible that once AMD enables it in the public drivers, your three-monitor setup CAN use FreeSync/VVVB. THAT'S what makes this interesting. Not that AMD demonstrated a competitor to GSync, but that they demonstrated it with pre-existing hardware and a pre-existing standard.
Would FreeSync work for DVI, HDMI and Displayport? Why does Nvidia need 3 memory chips in the monitor? Does AMD use video memory for this? Wouldn't it be smarter to let the monitor buffer the last frame? Would letting the GPU buffer the last frame give less latency?
Most possibly the framebuffer, as huge as the modern day framebuffers are keeping a simple frame in memory is quite nothing really. Even a 4K frame is some 16MB in size... so compare that to any modern GPU that has upwards of 1GB.
I think this approach is more error prone then the G-synch approach which in turn I think is a massive overkill... So possibly G-synch will be for Extreme Gamers and FreeSynch for everybody else. No idea if the screen firmware can be updated via DVI/HDMI/VGA etc but if it could that would be a huge trick to pull... Imagine a driver update that would turn your screen into a FreeSynch one with a simple driver update... well... one is entitled to his dreams isn't he?
For those asking why Nvidia is charging money for special hardware, and why AMD is saying it's free...
How long did Nvidia convince people that they needed a motherboard with an Nvidia chipset to run SLI with their cards? Or if it were an intel board, it had to have that nv200 bridge or whatever it was.. Something that is now completely supported through software on any high end chipset.
What makes you think something like G-Sync or variable vblank would be any different for them? The impression I get, is that it's already supported by most mobile/laptop displays, and likely has been for a while. And that it's likely supported on most modern lcd displays as part of the vesa standard, it just hasn't been taken advantage of via drivers yet. Otherwise they wouldn't of been able to buy an off the shelf laptop to run the demo with.
In qanywat the best part in here is that Intel, Nvidia and AMD and what ever GPU maker can use this feature as they want. So everybody can support it. And because it is handled via software, there will be differencies how well it will work. I would not be surpriced if nVidia would do the best drivers for freesync (it they want to do it!). Maybe they don't do it at first because they allso have G-sync that pring them money. Allso the hardware with G-sync does help in many situations, that can not be done with free-sync. The interestin matter is, if AMD and/or intel can put some kind of buffer hardware in their GPU so that with that hardware and free-sync you could get the G-sync quality with every display in the market... That would be something usefull!
I doubt consoles will have that feature.. If they did, they will charge extra.. more to that, most console gamers don't even know what's G sync or free sync really is or even heard of it.. So in their eyes it will be waist of time resources..
So if no hardware is needed, every monitor on the planet already works fine right? NO? Ok, oh, so YOU DO REQUIRE HARDWARE just like gsync requires a monitor mod and will be included in them in the future (just like vblank crap is in this PARTICULAR laptop you tested). "Using two Toshiba Satellite Click notebooks purchased at retail, without any hardware modifications" Right because it ALREADY had support it needed in it. Or why doesn't it work with my old Dell laptop too? "The GPU’s display engine needs to support it, as do the panel and display hardware itself. If all of the components support this spec however, then you can get what appears to be the equivalent of G-Sync without any extra hardware."
Right, so lots of things need to be supported for it to work and we hope one day they DO include support for this just like a gsync module, NV card and good NV drivers...LOL. But to Anand (and probably Ryan), there is no change needed...hmmm...Surely some mistake Anand? You're not this dumb right? Saying something requires changes is ...well, saying it requires some changes. If it requires NOTHING, we can all use it today. OH wait...We can't because I need some CHANGES to my monitor, maybe vid card needs an upgrade, need drivers etc. IF it's built in now, why doesn't my Dell 2407WFP-HC and Radeon 5850 stutter today? I can just download some software and fix this today Anand? It's requires no hardware changes according to you right? Where is my download link. I want to check it out...LOL.
"and a sensible one too that doesn’t require any additional hardware" If that statement was even near true you couldn't write this in the same article: "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."
So Vendors need to be ENCOURAGED to include support for something and you're hoping they do. How is this support any different than saying I hope Gsync gets in more monitors? "In our review I was pretty pleased with G-Sync. I’d be even more pleased if all panels/systems supported it."
Yeah, so same statement for both sides I guess. We'd like to see monitors support this, but THEY REQUIRE SOMETHING to do it from both sides...ROFL@ Anand/Ryan's AMD twists (and even Ian's 1440p articles claiming AMD A8-5600's are great cpus for any single gpu cards...ROFLMAO).
Having monitors that requires SOME kind of support is the exact same thing as gsync, and I don't think AMD wants to charge nothing. They just can't charge for something that is part of a FREE SPEC. They can't afford to fund their own Gsync, so have to wait for free stuff to come along that gets the job done. Hopefully it will work as well, but as we see with other FREE stuff like OpenCL, when you have no money BACKING a tech it takes forever to implement. How long will it take for Billions to be poured into OpenCL to match what Cuda has done with Billions in backing (and 7yrs of doing it) which created an entire software/hardware ecosystem with over 200pro apps using it? I think a decade+. Many people don't realize Cuda didn't come first...ROFL. OpenCL did and NV was key in designing it. But since there is no money to be made in funding FREE stuff like OpenCL they created Cuda which took over as a FUNDED tech that makes the COMPANY money. Let me know how much freesync or OpenCL makes for AMD. I might hate proprietary tech, but I wish AMD would start making some because that is what you make money on (like GCN, etc, tech nobody else can copy without at least a lic which again gains money). What do you gain from Mantle when you have to pay EA 8million to use it? You LOSE money. Physx doesn't make NV money either. These are nice things to have, but not until you have winning perf/better tech/functional drivers first that makes us buy products.
If AMD can expose FreeSync, the only win here is NV isn't alone. NV can access the same FREE spec if desired at any point if Gsync doesn't win out. If you don't think they have a FREESYNC backup driver waiting in the wings you don't realize how smart Jen is, nor why they make money while AMD usually loses it. I would have been more impressed with them creating Not-so-FREESYNC...Tech like that might keep them in the black for a few years.
People wake up and smell the stink...Too much AMD love on this site. Where's that NV portal for NV news to match the AMD love here on this site? You guys don't even hide the slant these days. Read the quotes above, in one sentence it is already IN everything and supported, but the next sentence it needs the same THREE things NV does with gsync. Card, monitor and driver support. We will see FREEsync monitors with a premium FEE attached on top of regular models I'd guess. They maybe should have called it OpenSync, instead of FREE. It isn't free and we have no idea how much it will cost to implement. The product is beta and you're already assuming it's free because you love AMD and they may have paid you to say it. They certainly pay for their PORTAL here right? The slant too..The mantle love article claming xbox used it...LOL.
Quoting Charlie at anandtech now too these days (the K1 article quotes him for assumptions?)? It's called semiaccurate for a reason...ROFL.
Oops...LOL I was thinking OpenGL dates (early 90's?) but OpenCL didn't come until 2008 IIRC (siggraph 2008 I think both NV and AMD had demos, cuda came the year before) though apple did come up with it and send it to khronos for everyone else to work on, amd, nv, Intel, IBM etc etc (Not sure how much apple does on this now but they're still in the group AFAIK and they own the patent actually). But the point is the same. No backing, equals takes forever or never in most cases unless there is financial gain to be had for using it and apparently none of 100 companies has (so far) cared about OpenCL but AMD. I don't see tons of money pouring into OpenCL. Heck even OpenGL has lost for years to Directx due to MONEY. Where's the edit button... :)
Except for, opps, they already explained it perfectly well.
The hardware in existing displays and AMD videocards have been able to do this for a while. It's just not exposed. All a monitor would have to do is make a slight alteration to the firmware and amd with its drivers.
Just a guess here, but I'd say the reason AMD doesn't just throw a switch is that they need to create a safe way to enable this. I have 3 older HP LP2465 panels on my desktop. Maybe they work with this, maybe they don't? If they work, what range do they work over? How will the driver know? This probably is the biggest problem. My guess is that AMD will be able to enable it automatically for some subset of all PC hardware that they've tested, but otherwise they are going to have to create some sort of "man in the loop" system for enabling it and determining the valid frequency range. Hopefully they can then crowd source user data with their RAPTR app and expand their automagic coverage over time.
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twizzlebizzle22 - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
This is an interesting area which is fairly new, if a monitor supports 24hz and 60hz, apart from software what is stopping it using some form of free sync? Isn't this a case of the specific panel and implementations in certain laptops having refresh rates which match the output of the display device. Hasn't the mobile scene been using this for a while as a power saving method?extide - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Exposing support for variable VBLANK is all you need. Technically, this should be able to be added on to any lcd display, just the firmware in the LCD control board need to support it.B3an - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
If its that easy why don't way more displays have it? Seems ridiculous. Because it also has the benefit of power saving.extide - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Probably because up until now nobody has really cared about the feature.B3an - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Weird. But another thing i don't get... how comes Nvidia have dedicated hardware inside monitors to achieve the same thing?piroroadkill - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
NVIDIA lock in. Is that not obvious?Sabresiberian - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
It isn't the same thing.How well it works compared to G-SYNC has yet to be quantified. Looking forward to The Tech Report's analysis of this.
bill5 - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
no offense but you must be an nvidia fanboy. scott wasson is one of the biggest nvidia famboys on the web! It's comical. On a recent podcast he actually admitted NVIDIA PURCHASED his website some retail R9 290's for some hit piece on AMD (the retail performance variability thing). That's right, he happened to "casually mention to contacts at Nvidia" (evidently he is somehow in constant contact with Nvidia I guess lol?) the piece I guess, and since he couldn't afford them, Nvidia offered to pay for the AMD cards for testing!I'm sorry, that just destroys any notion of website integrity..
I mean, I think Scott is really smart, and just because he's biased doesn't mean his work cant have value, he personally pretty much invented the whole frame pacing thing which was a great thing even if now played out, but be advised he is very biased.
Klimax - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
Haha no.BTW: "AMD Center"...
TristanSDX - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Because companies do not want to give something for free. They always want money, even for slightest improvementrscsrAT - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
with Desktops, power usage doesn't matter, as long as everything stays quiet. And if no one knows about this technology and advantages, no one would be able to spend additional money and development on anything.Frenetic Pony - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
There's a ton of "Great stuff" that software guys want which the hardware guys don't do. Software is only indirectly related to hardware purchase so far as hardware companies are concerned. So anytime a software guy emails with "hey do this!" they kind of just ignore it for a good while.jasonelmore - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
If it was that easy, Nvidia would be doing it that way. Some form of DRAM is needed with fast I/O to the panel with super low latency.Now in a notebook, it's easy to put the dram on the laptop's motherboard. Apple has been requesting at least a small amount of Dram on panels for years to store the framebuffer for power savings. The same dram can be used for gsync.
There is definately a lot of varibles unknown with AMD's solution, but they have yet to show a demonstration that equals Nvidia's 60 FPS thru 144 FPS Gsync.
efeman - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
In either case, the panel manufacturer needs to provide support for it, correct? This is probably an easier target, as it doesn't need a separate board like G-Sync does.TheJian - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Gsync doesn't require a separate board, unless replacing in an older model. You will see NEW models come with it inside replacing the current scalers that are already in there. What do you think they take out when they mod the current one? A board or at least some chip...But only because they are using it to retrofit an model that came before the tech did. Even if they leave it in, you won't need it in the future, you will included the gsync setup instead.yelped - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Sounds good...Gunbuster - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
So they have had the ability in hardware for years but it takes Nvidia making a product for them to derp along and figure that out? I'm sure this works great just like Enduro, and Crossfire frame pacing.blanarahul - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
+1. I do hope that they don't screw this up.SikSlayer - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Yeah truly. This barebones demo says to me they just slapped this together to say that they can do it too. Not that there was much to G-Sync technically. good to see it though.purehg - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
I don't think this is equivalent to GSync. GSync works by making the monitor board holding VBLANK until GPU sends an image. FreeSync uses a VESA standard to change VBI speculatively depends on what the driver thinks the next VBLANK should be. There is software overhead first, and it won't work for the most important frames, when the framerate fluctuates, so you will still see tearing and stutter occasionally. If the app runs in constant frame, like how AMD's demo is doing, then the driver should be able to speculate properly and get the correct VBLANK configured. With the pendulum demo NVIDIA has however, since the framerate can fluctuate, FreeSync won't work nearly as well.psychobriggsy - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Surely the point is that VBLANK is kept active (or delayed, if the VBLANK itself is a set duration) until the new frame is ready (or a certain amount of time passes), whenever that is?Surely the point of this demo is AMD saying "look at this standard feature that NVIDIA want to charge $100 for, in their proprietary implementation"?
spartaman64 - Saturday, May 17, 2014 - link
but it is free and it will work close to the same of course the hardware solution is going to be more stable but its not worth paying money forMrSpadge - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Yeah, it's a real shame they didn't think of it earlier. And being free and open is great if it works. but seeing this is something AMD needs to support via software I'm "a bit" sceptical..nathanddrews - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
This has been a feature of OGL for a while, I think.nathanddrews - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Pretty big hit on frame rates, too.yannigr - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
And again.Nvidia = proprietary.
AMD = free.
dylan522p - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
But like always Nvidias solution is better.Remon - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
No, the article says that AMD's demo, with the windmills, wasn't as nice as Nvidia's one, with the pendulum. Nothing about the quality of FreeSync.chizow - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
And again.Nvidia = we'll see it on the market.
AMD = who fking knows.
yannigr - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Oh no.... You are also in the Anandtech articles? First time I see an Nvidia fanboy working 24/7 all over the internet. Duracell.chizow - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Yes believe it or not, the INTARNETS lets you travel all over the INTARWEBS in a matter of seconds. But yes, been here for years, thanks for the interest.bill5 - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
Oh, you'll be seeing mantle on the market all too soon for your liking, believe that, LOL.jasonelmore - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
you realize AMD is like a year late with Kavari? Hindsight is 20/20, and its what AMD does best however by the time they offer a alternative that is OUT RIGHT NOW, its to late, nvidia already has the market share.extide - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
BOOOM G-Sync WHAT? ;)Torashin - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Hahaha that name is genius!eddman - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
I don't get it. If the feature was already part of the VESA standard, then why nvidia made g-sync?!!Weren't they aware that such feature existed?!
This just doesn't make any sense.
saneblane - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Makes perfect sense. Nvidia likes to milk consumers that's all.chizow - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
And AMD likes to make promises only to fail on delivering.Hi saneblane :)
rpsgc - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Why?$$$
Do you even have to ask?
JFish222 - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
I'd be curious as to how the solutions compare. I assume NVidia thought their solution has added value (the upfront engineering, validation, and ODM marketing costs alone require as much). It could be as simple as NVidia's current card line-up lacks variable VBlank support.Anand, would you mind following up on this one? This is an interesting development indeed!
Andromeduck - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
I think the difference is nvidia's is done in hardware where this is done through softwarefrom what I understand, in gsync refreshes the display when the next frame is received whereas in freesync frame time is set by the previous frame
bwat47 - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Does anyone know which displays and which AMD gpu's support/will support this VBLANK variable? I currently have an amd 280x and an asus VG248QEchowzilla - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Per Anand, support has been in place for a couple generations. Since your 280X is current generation your GPU is good.Unfortunately I don't see any possibility of existing monitors getting support for this feature. In most cases there is no way for a user to upgrade the firmware (no USB interface, etc). On top of that, the marketing opportunities would further discourage vendors from bringing support to current monitors.
psychobriggsy - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
This is probably part of the reason for GSync - branding monitors that support it, and providing a monitor display controller that implements it (or something stupidly similar but proprietary). I presume that support for this feature is not provided in the monitor information data that the monitor sends to the computer, so you can't auto-detect monitor support to turn it on without the consumer needing specific knowledge. So maybe there's a risk of "Boom!" ...Hairs_ - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
This is brilliant news, although as many people have said it exposes just how lazy our technology engineers can be. Failing to put in simple fixes which solve obvious problems at no cost with existing open standards, until someone forces them to. And I'm not having a go at AMD alone here, but also panel makers, PC makers, OEMs... ridiculous.althaz - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
You're blaming the wrong people. It's not the engineers' fault, it's the corporate giants fault. They could have brought this technology out, but simply didn't see the value in it.There's value in it now for AMD by devaluing their competitor's investment in a proprietary technology.
Corporations don't care about value to the consumer after all.
shabby - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
Why is the frame rate 29fps on the left and 49fps on the right?zoob - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
It says right in the article why. VSYNC vs FreeSync.Alexvrb - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
29.9x, you mean? AKA 30FPS? Traditional V-Sync on the left, FreeSync-enabled V-sync on the right. If you've got something running at ~50 FPS on a non-variable VBLANK 60hz panel, and you turn on regular ol' V-Sync, it runs at 30FPS. The panel on the right using FreeSync doesn't seem to suffer from the same limitations.Now, we can't be certain how fine-grained it is until we get a proper review, but at a minimum it's clearly a huge leap above what we've got now, without being limited to G-Sync capable hardware. This needs to be in every panel. Screw proprietary solutions, this could (and should) be supported by everyone.
2bdkid - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
So our monitor must support VBLANK and we must be using AMD graphics, doubt Nvidia will do anything with this.fudd - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
From Anand's g-sync review"G-Sync works by manipulating the display’s VBLANK (vertical blanking interval). VBLANK is the period of time between the display rasterizing the last line of the current frame and drawing the first line of the next frame. It’s called an interval because during this period of time no screen updates happen, the display remains static displaying the current frame before drawing the next one. VBLANK is a remnant of the CRT days where it was necessary to give the CRTs time to begin scanning at the top of the display once again. The interval remains today in LCD flat panels, although it’s technically unnecessary. The G-Sync module inside the display modifies VBLANK to cause the display to hold the present frame until the GPU is ready to deliver a new one.
With a G-Sync enabled display, when the monitor is done drawing the current frame it waits until the GPU has another one ready for display before starting the next draw process. The delay is controlled purely by playing with the VBLANK interval.
You can only do so much with VBLANK manipulation though. In present implementations the longest NVIDIA can hold a single frame is 33.3ms (30Hz). If the next frame isn’t ready by then, the G-Sync module will tell the display to redraw the last frame. The upper bound is limited by the panel/TCON at this point, with the only G-Sync monitor available today going as high as 6.94ms (144Hz). NVIDIA made it a point to mention that the 144Hz limitation isn’t a G-Sync limit, but a panel limit."
Article needs more information on how many consumer monitors being sold already support variable vblank. Was this not implemented because of legacy? or easier/cheaper not to?
I hope there's more support than other 3rd party free features like HD3D.
iwod - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
It cant be that simple. There has to be a reason Nvidia were investing and making G-Sync instead of doing what AMD just did.I just hope Anand will investigate further.
psuedonymous - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
There's two things I think the custom controller is doing: an accelerated read-in and read-out to support very low latencies (explains the massive RAM array: to allow monstrous bandwidth) between the frame being completed and it appearing on the panel, and the on-board multiple frame buffer for use when FPS drops really low and frame duplication is needed (I wouldn't be suprised if some motion interpolation were occuring there). And possibly the processing needed for the lightboost-like display mode, though I'm not sure if that's been demonstrated yet.That, and it's a single target that Nvidia can design for. VBLANK-twiddling, while possible under the VESA specifications, isn't standardised. Monitors may do anything from displaying the frames when you send weird VBLANKs, displaying garbage, partial or duplicate frames, or just "NO SIGNAL". You can bet the freesync implementation used on that Satellite Click only works for one specific panel.
tviceman - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
This is where AMD falls flat on their faces. They "supposedly" already have this tech and have done absolutely nothing with it.Just another day @ AMD.
Yorgos - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
The way I see it is that AMD wants to protect stupid consumers and avoid them from spending a shitload of money for a technology that is already free, so after their laughter on nVidias marketing gimmicks, they decided to protect some of those stupid consumers by opening their eyes and giving them a pick at what they actually are paying/buying with G-sync.Also my cudos to the guy (lordoftheboired) for his comment, he describes exactly what the hell is going on with those damn consumers.
give it a vesa mark and noone bats an eye.
give it an apple/nVidia/etc mark and everyone looses their minds
(just to use this horrible meme thing that is going on lately)
LordOfTheBoired - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
ARGH!This happens all the time. VESA makes a standard that fixes some glaring issue or provides really useful functionality. All is good.
And then it's either A. ignored completely, or B. re-implemented in an incompatible manner by a company that wants to brag about how genius they are more than they really want to BE genius.
Why does VESA even MAKE standards if they're only ignored or cloned incompatibly?
And why is nVidia trying to be Apple? We already HAVE Apple for adding the appearance of proprietary genius to other people's work, and nVidia's marketing department isn't NEAR as good.
And why has AMD sat on this for several generations instead of, I dunno, enabling hardware functionality in the drivers. I mean it's not like it isn't THE WHOLE REASON THEY EXIST FOR PETE'S SAKE!
psuedonymous - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Because it's NOT a VESA standard. The ability to vary VBLANK IS part of the standard, but there's no guidance on what monitors need to do with it other than 'VBLANK may vary sometimes, deal with it'. "NO SIGNAL" is a perfectly valid response to a 'malformed' VBLANK under the standard.Alexvrb - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
Source?Seems kind of strange to have a standard that contains variable VBLANK but then says "Lawl VBLANK varies but you don't have to handle it in any particular manner lawl". Also, wouldn't a "malformed" VBLANK be a non-standard VBLANK by definition? Just sounds rather absurd.
If it only works on a single panel, it would seem odd to have them demonstrate it. Anyway if there's a future for FreeSync it would be nice if Intel got behind it too.
LordOfTheBoired - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
Since I assume that means you know which standard the variable VBlank comes from, could you kindly point me towards it so I can read it?I'm genuinely curious, but can't even guess which of the umpteen-bajillion VESA standards it's buried in, even if I assume it's just one of the half-a-bajillion that have come out since the turn of the century and the rise of LCD monitors. .
It's something I really wish AMD would have specified, rather than just saying "there's a VESA spec for this" and leaving it at that.
mikato - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
What I wonder, is why VBLANK still exists. It seems like VESA should have cleaned up that dinosaur for LCDs a long time ago. You shouldn't have to tell an LCD to keep something on the screen until a certain time. Keeping something on the screen is the default mode.LordOfTheBoired - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
It still exists because DVI(and consequently, HDMI) requires it to exist. That's not the only anachronism DVI requires.And while it's definitely a dinosaur and completely irrelevant, it's not really for the reasons you think.
It's being used nowadays as the time between the completion of displaying one frame and the beginning of displaying the next. Which isn't really WRONG, but... much like the concept of vertical sync, it's an archaic function that's directly tied to CRT functionality.
The vertical blanking interval has nothing to do with blanking the SCREEN. The name comes because during VBlank your CRT's driver hardware cuts off the electron beam while it travels from the bottom-right corner back to the top-left, so you don't leave a big slash across your screen. Anything drawn during the vertical blanking interval is... blanked out.
And at the end of the VBlank period, your graphics controller generates the VSync pulse to turn the beam back on. And at the same time it sends the VSync interrupt so your software know it's time to start drawing again. And they better drop whatever they're doing and start drawing RIGHT NOW, because the beam waits for neither man nor code.
Yes, there's actually two different VSyncs. And yes the entire concept is backwards for the modern world.
And it still exists because DVI was designed for easy interoperability with VGA, and HDMI is more or less a clone of DVI. So it explicitly calls for VBlank and HBlank periods, and sync signals at the end of them. And thus we're generating VSync, VBlank, HSync, HBlank, and even the actual scan across the individual lines in an era where no displays work that way, because our display CONNECTIONS require them.
So the graphics card must generate all of this ancestral baggage, and the display must scrape it all off and throw it away to reconstruct the image, because DVI is a clunky hack.
If we were handling digital video SANELY, we'd never generate any of that crap(and DisplayPort doesn't!).
pierrot - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
I wonder if NVIDIA will backpedal on G-Sync now and implement this with software, I hope so because I like free - they could then leave the G-Sync for the xxxtreme gamerzRontalk - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Mantle, freesync all very good staff and free. What Nvidia gives us for free?Gigaplex - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Free? You have to buy the hardware.bill5 - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
The nvidia sticker on the side is worth $100's to most fanboys LOL. That is what Nvidia gives you free, the .01 cents sticker. Makes their card automatically worth $200 more than the AMD equivalent that performs the same.mathew7 - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
This is just a hack. Clearly AMD wants to play catch-up. Gaming on a laptop screen is ridiculous.Don't get me wrong.....I'm using AMD triple-Eyefinity setup and would love it....on the desktop. But who said nVidia could not do the same on laptops? They just went further.
tcube - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
that's the catch... anybody can do it... on any panel(laptop desktop possibly even tv's)... apparently the only thing is panel builders need to update their firmwares to correctly handle this (again) since modern screens don't actually need this functionality.LordOfTheBoired - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
You missed the point.It's not that you can do this on a laptop(which I'm sure can be done with GSync). It's that there are displays in the wild that work with FreeSync RIGHT NOW.
And not just top-end displays. This one's apparently a 1366x768 panel in a 600-dollar laptop, which is HARDLY premium gear.
I desperately want to know what OTHER panels are quietly supporting VESA variable VBlank and just waiting for someone to throw the switch. It's possible that once AMD enables it in the public drivers, your three-monitor setup CAN use FreeSync/VVVB.
THAT'S what makes this interesting. Not that AMD demonstrated a competitor to GSync, but that they demonstrated it with pre-existing hardware and a pre-existing standard.
Fergy - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Would FreeSync work for DVI, HDMI and Displayport? Why does Nvidia need 3 memory chips in the monitor? Does AMD use video memory for this? Wouldn't it be smarter to let the monitor buffer the last frame? Would letting the GPU buffer the last frame give less latency?tcube - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Most possibly the framebuffer, as huge as the modern day framebuffers are keeping a simple frame in memory is quite nothing really. Even a 4K frame is some 16MB in size... so compare that to any modern GPU that has upwards of 1GB.I think this approach is more error prone then the G-synch approach which in turn I think is a massive overkill... So possibly G-synch will be for Extreme Gamers and FreeSynch for everybody else. No idea if the screen firmware can be updated via DVI/HDMI/VGA etc but if it could that would be a huge trick to pull... Imagine a driver update that would turn your screen into a FreeSynch one with a simple driver update... well... one is entitled to his dreams isn't he?
Teknobug - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Sounds good, if it's actually good then that'll make Nvidia G-Sync and their $200 add-on or $500 monitor a laughing stock.RAmable - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Currently G-Sync doesn't support multi-monitor setups, hopefully FreeSync makes this possible.Mathos - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
For those asking why Nvidia is charging money for special hardware, and why AMD is saying it's free...How long did Nvidia convince people that they needed a motherboard with an Nvidia chipset to run SLI with their cards? Or if it were an intel board, it had to have that nv200 bridge or whatever it was.. Something that is now completely supported through software on any high end chipset.
What makes you think something like G-Sync or variable vblank would be any different for them? The impression I get, is that it's already supported by most mobile/laptop displays, and likely has been for a while. And that it's likely supported on most modern lcd displays as part of the vesa standard, it just hasn't been taken advantage of via drivers yet. Otherwise they wouldn't of been able to buy an off the shelf laptop to run the demo with.
haukionkannel - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
In qanywat the best part in here is that Intel, Nvidia and AMD and what ever GPU maker can use this feature as they want. So everybody can support it. And because it is handled via software, there will be differencies how well it will work. I would not be surpriced if nVidia would do the best drivers for freesync (it they want to do it!). Maybe they don't do it at first because they allso have G-sync that pring them money.Allso the hardware with G-sync does help in many situations, that can not be done with free-sync. The interestin matter is, if AMD and/or intel can put some kind of buffer hardware in their GPU so that with that hardware and free-sync you could get the G-sync quality with every display in the market... That would be something usefull!
DIYEyal - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
I doubt consoles will have that feature.. If they did, they will charge extra..more to that, most console gamers don't even know what's G sync or free sync really is or even heard of it.. So in their eyes it will be waist of time resources..
TheJian - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
So if no hardware is needed, every monitor on the planet already works fine right? NO? Ok, oh, so YOU DO REQUIRE HARDWARE just like gsync requires a monitor mod and will be included in them in the future (just like vblank crap is in this PARTICULAR laptop you tested)."Using two Toshiba Satellite Click notebooks purchased at retail, without any hardware modifications"
Right because it ALREADY had support it needed in it. Or why doesn't it work with my old Dell laptop too?
"The GPU’s display engine needs to support it, as do the panel and display hardware itself. If all of the components support this spec however, then you can get what appears to be the equivalent of G-Sync without any extra hardware."
Right, so lots of things need to be supported for it to work and we hope one day they DO include support for this just like a gsync module, NV card and good NV drivers...LOL. But to Anand (and probably Ryan), there is no change needed...hmmm...Surely some mistake Anand? You're not this dumb right? Saying something requires changes is ...well, saying it requires some changes. If it requires NOTHING, we can all use it today. OH wait...We can't because I need some CHANGES to my monitor, maybe vid card needs an upgrade, need drivers etc. IF it's built in now, why doesn't my Dell 2407WFP-HC and Radeon 5850 stutter today? I can just download some software and fix this today Anand? It's requires no hardware changes according to you right? Where is my download link. I want to check it out...LOL.
"and a sensible one too that doesn’t require any additional hardware"
If that statement was even near true you couldn't write this in the same article:
"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."
So Vendors need to be ENCOURAGED to include support for something and you're hoping they do. How is this support any different than saying I hope Gsync gets in more monitors?
"In our review I was pretty pleased with G-Sync. I’d be even more pleased if all panels/systems supported it."
Yeah, so same statement for both sides I guess. We'd like to see monitors support this, but THEY REQUIRE SOMETHING to do it from both sides...ROFL@ Anand/Ryan's AMD twists (and even Ian's 1440p articles claiming AMD A8-5600's are great cpus for any single gpu cards...ROFLMAO).
Having monitors that requires SOME kind of support is the exact same thing as gsync, and I don't think AMD wants to charge nothing. They just can't charge for something that is part of a FREE SPEC. They can't afford to fund their own Gsync, so have to wait for free stuff to come along that gets the job done. Hopefully it will work as well, but as we see with other FREE stuff like OpenCL, when you have no money BACKING a tech it takes forever to implement. How long will it take for Billions to be poured into OpenCL to match what Cuda has done with Billions in backing (and 7yrs of doing it) which created an entire software/hardware ecosystem with over 200pro apps using it? I think a decade+. Many people don't realize Cuda didn't come first...ROFL. OpenCL did and NV was key in designing it. But since there is no money to be made in funding FREE stuff like OpenCL they created Cuda which took over as a FUNDED tech that makes the COMPANY money. Let me know how much freesync or OpenCL makes for AMD. I might hate proprietary tech, but I wish AMD would start making some because that is what you make money on (like GCN, etc, tech nobody else can copy without at least a lic which again gains money). What do you gain from Mantle when you have to pay EA 8million to use it? You LOSE money. Physx doesn't make NV money either. These are nice things to have, but not until you have winning perf/better tech/functional drivers first that makes us buy products.
If AMD can expose FreeSync, the only win here is NV isn't alone. NV can access the same FREE spec if desired at any point if Gsync doesn't win out. If you don't think they have a FREESYNC backup driver waiting in the wings you don't realize how smart Jen is, nor why they make money while AMD usually loses it. I would have been more impressed with them creating Not-so-FREESYNC...Tech like that might keep them in the black for a few years.
People wake up and smell the stink...Too much AMD love on this site. Where's that NV portal for NV news to match the AMD love here on this site? You guys don't even hide the slant these days. Read the quotes above, in one sentence it is already IN everything and supported, but the next sentence it needs the same THREE things NV does with gsync. Card, monitor and driver support. We will see FREEsync monitors with a premium FEE attached on top of regular models I'd guess. They maybe should have called it OpenSync, instead of FREE. It isn't free and we have no idea how much it will cost to implement. The product is beta and you're already assuming it's free because you love AMD and they may have paid you to say it. They certainly pay for their PORTAL here right? The slant too..The mantle love article claming xbox used it...LOL.
Quoting Charlie at anandtech now too these days (the K1 article quotes him for assumptions?)? It's called semiaccurate for a reason...ROFL.
TheJian - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Oops...LOL I was thinking OpenGL dates (early 90's?) but OpenCL didn't come until 2008 IIRC (siggraph 2008 I think both NV and AMD had demos, cuda came the year before) though apple did come up with it and send it to khronos for everyone else to work on, amd, nv, Intel, IBM etc etc (Not sure how much apple does on this now but they're still in the group AFAIK and they own the patent actually). But the point is the same. No backing, equals takes forever or never in most cases unless there is financial gain to be had for using it and apparently none of 100 companies has (so far) cared about OpenCL but AMD. I don't see tons of money pouring into OpenCL. Heck even OpenGL has lost for years to Directx due to MONEY. Where's the edit button... :)SlyNine - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
Except for, opps, they already explained it perfectly well.The hardware in existing displays and AMD videocards have been able to do this for a while. It's just not exposed. All a monitor would have to do is make a slight alteration to the firmware and amd with its drivers.
Manish_Nayak - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
What is the max refresh rate we can get with FreeSync?? G-sync is targetting higher frequency > 120FPSSlyNine - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
Is there any reason to assume freesync wouldn't work at 120fps? Until there is I wouldn't worry about it.Colin1497 - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
Just a guess here, but I'd say the reason AMD doesn't just throw a switch is that they need to create a safe way to enable this. I have 3 older HP LP2465 panels on my desktop. Maybe they work with this, maybe they don't? If they work, what range do they work over? How will the driver know? This probably is the biggest problem. My guess is that AMD will be able to enable it automatically for some subset of all PC hardware that they've tested, but otherwise they are going to have to create some sort of "man in the loop" system for enabling it and determining the valid frequency range. Hopefully they can then crowd source user data with their RAPTR app and expand their automagic coverage over time.swing848 - Sunday, April 5, 2015 - link
This arrived in March 2015 driver