Monday, January 7th 2019

NVIDIA G-SYNC now Supports FreeSync/VESA Adaptive-Sync Technology
NVIDIA finally got around to realizing that the number of monitors with VESA adaptive-sync overwhelmingly outnumber those supporting NVIDIA G-Sync, and is going ahead with adding support for adaptive-sync monitors. This however, comes with a big rider. NVIDIA is not immediately going to unlock adaptive-sync to all monitors, just the ones it has tested and found to work "perfectly" with their hardware. NVIDIA announced that it has found a handful of the 550+ monitor models in the market that support adaptive-sync, and has enabled support to them. Over time, as it tests more monitors, support for these monitors will be added through GeForce driver updates, as a "certified" monitor.
At their CES event, the company provided a list of monitors that they already tested and that fulfill all requirements. G-Sync support for these models from Acer, ASUS, AOC, Agon and BenQ will be automatically enabled with a driver update on January 15th.
Update: We received word from NVIDIA that you can manually enable G-SYNC on all Adaptive-Sync monitors, even non-certified ones: "For gamers who have monitors that we have not yet tested, or that have failed validation, we'll give you an option to manually enable VRR, too."
Update 2: NVIDIA released these new Adaptive-Sync capable drivers, we tested G-SYNC on a FreeSync monitor.
At their CES event, the company provided a list of monitors that they already tested and that fulfill all requirements. G-Sync support for these models from Acer, ASUS, AOC, Agon and BenQ will be automatically enabled with a driver update on January 15th.
Update: We received word from NVIDIA that you can manually enable G-SYNC on all Adaptive-Sync monitors, even non-certified ones: "For gamers who have monitors that we have not yet tested, or that have failed validation, we'll give you an option to manually enable VRR, too."
Update 2: NVIDIA released these new Adaptive-Sync capable drivers, we tested G-SYNC on a FreeSync monitor.
231 Comments on NVIDIA G-SYNC now Supports FreeSync/VESA Adaptive-Sync Technology
Funny how in the last monitor which looks like a LG G-series UW-C when he moves the mouse at the end the blinking goes away.
We would have heard if LG had defected monitors by now. Those models have been out for 3yrs. The newer ones have a different base.
To his defense he did say "Nvidia told me" and "This is what they told me" He never says he tested it to verify.
LG 34UM69G-B has 40-75Hz frequency range.
Nvidia has said they want 2.4 range to even consider a monitor being G-Sync Compatible. This is an example of a monitor that does not fit that requirement.
He probably should have pointed at that monitor and said "This is a crappy VRR monitor". Oh. You are right. It was mentioned in the Youtube comments and I did not check very well. The point remains though, it is more than likely a monitor with a too small VRR range.
There is a very good technical reason for the requirement of a wide enough frequency range. It needs to be at least 2 to be able to double the frames when FPS falls below frequency range. Exactly 2 is too small because frequency needs to be more dynamic and this causes pretty much exactly what is demonstrated in the video. So manufacturers use a higher requirement, AMD uses 2.5 for LFC in Freesync and Nvidia now says 2.4 for G-Sync Compatible. Unofficial solution to these problems for Freesync monitors has generally been to manually increase the monitors range definition and hope that monitor works fine with it. This is effectively monitor overclocking and not guaranteed.
This frame doubling is the crux of both AMD's LFC (Low FrameRate Compensation) and has been part of basic Nvidia's G-Sync spec from the start. Monitor can (or is tested, specced and guaranteed to) work with a certain frequency range. Minimal refresh rate is usually 30-40 Hz while maximal varies a lot - 75, 100, 120, 144, 165, 240 Hz are most common ones.
Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) uses this entire range as opposed to a fixed refresh rate but it still cannot go beyond the range. When FPS drops below the minimum supported refresh rate simple VRR method of fixing refresh rate to current FPS (yes, technically GPU will trigger a refresh but for high-level explanation this is close enough) will no longer work as monitor will not be able to refresh at too low a rate. The solution was to start doubling frames. For every frame coming from GPU monitor gets refreshed twice. For example, when game runs at 20 FPS, monitor refreshes at 40 Hz and each frame from GPU is shown twice on monitor. This doubling may be repeated again if necessary, for example 10 FPS on monitor with 40 Hz minimum refresh rate will get each frame shown 4 times.
This is a simple and elegant solution that is not really a problem with a real wide frequency range gaming monitor - for example, the initial GSync requirement was 30-144Hz with properly low minimum refresh rate and a wide range (maximum is 4.8 times minimum). This does become a problem on monitors with high minimum refresh rate and/or narrow frequency range. There have been a lot of Freesync monitors with ranges like 48-75 Hz which AMD never bothered to tackle in any way.
In practice, such monitor with 48-75 Hz range will work well and do VRR in 48-75 FPS range but not ouside of it. Given that these are less expensive monitors and are likely to be paired with less expensive GPUs, drops below this range will be noticeable and not benefit from VRR.
I have to assume the panels they demo'd were running above the monitor's refresh range. If all it needed was FRTC set, then NVIDIA went full retard.
Frame Rate target Control limits the maximum frame rate. This is useful depending on circumstances but is not really directly related to Variable Refresh Rate things. And it has no effect on what I described above because these issues occur at refresh rate minimum, not the maximum. I have not seen exact details anywhere but the problem is probably primarily with running below the refresh range. You are kind of right though in that frame doubling as the solution to this problem would lead to trying to run above the range. It has nothing to do with going full retard. This demonstrates - and very much correctly - this specific problem.
Enhanced Sync fills in the edge cases in FreeSync--they're meant to compliment each other.
If FastSync truly works like Enhanced Sync does, then Fast Sync should be enabled when driving any FreeSync monitor. Not "limits" (that is v-sync), it paces the card so the card is producing approximately as many frames as is needed. 60 fps = targets a new frame every 16.67 ms. 144 fps = targets a new frame every 6.94 ms. Because of targeting, it has less stutter than v-sync because the graphics card isn't sitting on a frame for potentially 16+ ms. AMD fixed it in time. The question is will NVIDIA?
There are more appropriate solutions to run with Vsync while framerate is high and disabling Vsync when framerate drops below monitor refresh rate - Dynamic Vsync (AMD) or Adaptive Vsync (Nvidia). Fixed what? This particular monitor? It is a crappy monitor VRR monitor and should not be used as such.
Nvidia decided from day one that VRR solution has to work from 0 to max refresh rate of monitor and made this a requirement. So the VRR FPS range for G-Sync monitors have always started from 0.
AMD did provide a method for this eventually with LFC but does not require it (well, does for FreeSync2 which is a different story).
www.amazon.com/LG-34UM69G-B-34-Inch-UltraWide-Reduction/dp/B06XFXX5JH
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824025514 With Enhanced Sync enabled, there should be a single tear at the most yet, what does the guy in the video complain about? "Blinking." Go look at the reviews again for the monitor. How many complaints of blinking are there? None?
It's clear these monitors are fine by FreeSync spec. NVIDIA's just not ready to drive them.
Edit: Found another wrench to throw into the mix: the LG monitor is DisplayPort 1.2 where most of those that are marked "GSYNC Compatible" are DisplayPort 1.4. Might have something to do with NVIDIA struggling to drive it.
Edit:
Nvidia is not struggling to drive this monitor. They are unwilling to put their mark - 'G-Sync Compatible' in this case - on what they do not think is a good VRR monitor.
The monitor in the video is a showcase of what happens if they drive this monitor as they would drive a one with a wide enough refresh rate range. Probably.
FreeSync/G-Sync address situations up to the monitor refresh rate. Enhanced/Fast Sync address situations above monitor refresh rate, in case of both these technologies with the specific goal of minimizing input lag. Both Enhanced and Fast Sync are not without downsides, microstutter being the main problem. This is why a common recommendation for both Enhanced and Fast Sync is to have FPS at least 2 times as high as monitor refresh rate.
Hopefully it won't affect mid-range Freesync monitor pricing too much... :cry:
FPS > Hz: sends the most recent completed frame to the monitor
FPS < Hz: sends whatever it has (at most one tear between old frame and new frame)
It does both. Watch the damn video. Not true of Enhanced Sync. By whom? AMD doesn't give any recommendations for Enhanced Sync because it is designed to deal with all frame rates, fixed sync, and FreeSync. If NVIDIA demands money, they'll be sold as separate models with separate price structures (not unlike GSYNC now). It only takes one FreeSync monitor maintaining their low cost to make all of the rest fall in line. The monitor market is extremely competitive.
But on the topic, you said Enhanced Sync mimics what Gsync does which is simply wrong. And your later comment while correct contradicts the first one directly. Enhanced sync does effectively nothing when FPS < Hz.
It has little effect when one frame is completed during refresh period which can introduce some microstutter depending on exact timing.
It does awesome when FPS >> Hz is then the latest frame is really the latest.
You are right It is strange, but AG241QG that is on the short list is having already G-Sync inside.
Well since owning a Freesync monitor it's already been 18 months, another 18 hours wont hurt.