AMD FreeSync: The Radeon Answer to NVIDIA G-SYNC

Posted Jan 6, 2014 by in: FreeSync G-SYNC Gaming Laptops & Phones

AnandTech looks at FreeSync, which is AMD’s answer to G-SYNC.

They demonstrated a laptop running variable refresh rate, a mobile platform running variable refresh rate!

Incidentally, before receiving a G-SYNC monitor, I posted a message on AVSFORUM about adding variable refresh rate technology to HDMI 3.0).

About Mark Rejhon

Also known as Chief Blur Buster. Founder of Blur Busters. Inventor of TestUFO. Read more about him on the About Mark page.

6 Comments For “AMD FreeSync: The Radeon Answer to NVIDIA G-SYNC”

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Arael
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Arael

Funny enough inspired by that news I found out today that Heaven Benchmark running on OS X on my MacBook with V-Sync turned on produces variable framerate without tearing or stuttering… Seems like my investment was a great choice and since a year I’m living happily with benefits of variable V-Sync not being aware of that blessing 🙂

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10 years 3 months ago
doggghouse
Member
doggghouse

Apparently this only will work for laptops, according to Nvidia:
http://techreport.com/news/25878/nvidia-responds-to-amd-free-sync-demo

I don’t know much about the technology but maybe you’ll find it to be interesting…

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10 years 3 months ago
loggfreak
Member
loggfreak

the response from nvidia is towards people that think that since amd uses open standards for changing the vblank interval, and since it works on an unmodified laptop(only drivers are changed on that laptop) it will work on every monitor without changing the hardware, which is not true, variable vblank is only implemented in some laptops as far as i know, that’s why nvidia said it doesn’t work on desktops, however when asus and LG and samsung etc implement the variable vblank standard into monitors firmware, it will also work on seperate monitors, even without hardware upgrade, but idk if many monitors have updatable firmware

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10 years 3 months ago
knexfan0011
Member
knexfan0011

I hope this works as well as gsync does. If freesync turns out to be nearly identical as far as the user experience goes I doubt gsync will survive and nVidia will have to adopt freesync which will be a win for consumers and AMD. When are you guys gonna get your hands on this tech?

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10 years 3 months ago
Mark Rejhon
Author
Mark Rejhon

Right now, it’s mainly targeted to 60Hz LCDs, mainly laptop LCDs.

But this is great for laptop gaming at least, since laptop frame rates are pretty low to begin with, and that adds lots of stutters. Variable refresh rate does huge wonders with low frame rates.

Laptops have often been able to dynamically change refresh rates between 50Hz and 60Hz (because 50Hz saves power). So this was a simple modification of laptop LCD’s to allow them to dynamically refresh on the fly (similiar to G-SYNC). However, these are typically low-resolution LCD’s that run only up to 60Hz.

That said, I wonder how they are going to be able to scale this up for gaming monitors. Those LCDs often don’t have power management (via refresh rate) in the same way laptop LCDs do. I am not sure there are chips available that reliably does VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) at full HD resoultions at gaming rates (120Hz+). I think that’s one of the reasons why NVIDIA has to use an FPGA at this time, an FPGA that normally costs between $300-$1000.

That said, competition is healthy, and it will force both companies to improve their respective VRR’s (Variable Refresh Rate), and hopefully make VRR a standard later this decade. Blur Busters supports VRR technologies that become mainstream.

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10 years 3 months ago
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