VESA Releases DisplayPort 2.1 Specification

[TheLostSwede]

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) announced today that it has released DisplayPort 2.1, the latest version of the DisplayPort specification, which is backward compatible with and supersedes the previous version of DisplayPort (DisplayPort 2.0). VESA has been working closely with member companies to ensure that products supporting DisplayPort 2.0 would actually meet the newer, more demanding DisplayPort 2.1 spec. Due to this effort, all previously certified DisplayPort 2.0 products including UHBR (Ultra-high Bit Rate) capable products - whether GPUs, docking station chips, monitor scalar chips, PHY repeater chips such as re-timers, or DP40/DP80 cables (including both passive and active, and using full-size DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort or USB Type-C connectors) - have already been certified to the stricter DisplayPort 2.1 spec.

Achieving a robust, end-to-end user visual experience remains the utmost priority for VESA's DisplayPort specification, whether across a native DisplayPort cable, via DisplayPort Alt Mode (DisplayPort over the USB Type-C connector), or tunneled through the USB4 link. As such, DisplayPort 2.1 has tightened its alignment with the USB Type-C specification as well as the USB4 PHY specification to facilitate a common PHY servicing both DisplayPort and USB4. In addition, DisplayPort 2.1 has added a new DisplayPort bandwidth management feature to enable DisplayPort tunneling to coexist with other I/O data traffic more efficiently over the USB4 link. This increased efficiency is on top of mandated support for VESA's visually lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC) codec and VESA's Panel Replay capability. DSC bitstream support can reduce DisplayPort transport bandwidth in excess of 67 percent without visual artifacts, while VESA's Panel Replay capability can reduce DisplayPort tunneling packet transport bandwidth in excess of 99 percent when Panel Replay operation is taking place.




"Achieving greater alignment between DisplayPort and USB on a common PHY has been a particularly important effort within VESA given the significant overlap in use case models between the DisplayPort and USB4 ecosystems," stated Alan Kobayashi, VESA Board Chair and VESA DisplayPort Task Group Chair. "DisplayPort 2.1 brings DisplayPort into convergence with USB4 PHY specifications to ensure the highest video performance across a broad range of consumer products. Display transport through DisplayPort, with its higher bit rates and proven visual quality of DSC compression even for HDR content, offers ample bandwidth for the needs of virtually every practical application. Features such as driving multiple displays over a single cable, or enabling multiple functions on a single port like video, power and data transfer, no longer require any compromise in video format choice. The advanced capabilities of the DisplayPort video interface are enabled by the invaluable contributions by our more than 300 member companies from across the electronics ecosystem."

DisplayPort 2.1 has also updated the DisplayPort cable specification to provide greater robustness and enhancements to full-size and Mini DisplayPort cable configurations that enable improved connectivity and longer cable lengths (beyond two meters for DP40 cables and beyond one meter for DP80 cables) without diminishing UHBR performance. VESA certified DP40 cables support up to the UHBR10 link rate (10 Gbps), with four lanes, providing a maximum throughput of 40 Gbps, while VESA certified DP80 cables support up to the UHBR20 link rate (20 Gbps), with four lanes, providing a maximum throughput of 80 Gbps.

"For all of our standards including DisplayPort, VESA has invested significant resources in testing and auditing procedures, including interoperability testing of products incorporating VESA specifications. This is to ensure that products that are introduced to market that claim support of VESA's standards meet the high-quality benchmarks that we have established," stated James Choate, compliance program manager for VESA. "VESA continues to investigate and develop new procedures to improve our auditing process in order to ensure robust implementation of quality products supporting DisplayPort and other VESA specs in the market. Thanks to the contributions by test equipment vendors, VESA has a solid test infrastructure in place to support wider testing and deployment of DisplayPort 2.1 certified devices in the marketplace."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[sephiroth117]

Please don't go too fast, Nvidia has to catch with 2.0 first

 

[Nanochip]

So Radeon rdna3 may support dp2.1 after all, now that the spec is official. Good to see innovation continuing. Looking forward to the next generation of USB and thunderbolt as well.

 

[Dragokar]

It must be really hard for such companies to create a proper chart with which cable and standard supports what metric......

 

[Octopuss]

But why does virtually everything still only support DP 1.4?

 

[Space Lynx]

So Radeon rdna3 may support dp2.1 after all, now that the spec is official. Good to see innovation continuing. Looking forward to the next generation of USB and thunderbolt as well.

I doubt it, the cards are already in production (I'd bet money on it), you have to stockpile before you can sell. I expect late November we will have launch, November 3rd is reveal date.

 

[mechtech]

…….still waiting for gpus and monitors to get caught up………

Hey Swede, you didn’t update the wiki yet!!

DisplayPort - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[ARF]

But why does virtually everything still only support DP 1.4?

Cui bono​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono
Because someone has the interest that everyone uses low-end specs - 720p and 1080p screens.

 

[ZetZet]

I doubt it, the cards are already in production (I'd bet money on it), you have to stockpile before you can sell. I expect late November we will have launch, November 3rd is reveal date.

If you read the changes for 2.1 they are for cables, not related to cards, DSC support becoming mandatory, which AMD probably supported already and adjustments for USB4. Pretty sure they have all that down, especially considering that AMD and VESA work pretty closely together.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

This coming out just 2 weeks before the launch of the RDNA3 series is a strong indicator that these are bringing the new spec.

I wonder if this means the top RDNA3 cards are coming with the USB-C connector, like AMD's original Radeon 6900XT.
It could mean full PSVR2 support for the new GPUs, and other future VR headsets that sport a single cable.

Of course, I'm assuming the new DP2.1-over-USBC spec doesn't retract from previous DP2-over-USBC one, which brought 5Gb/s USB 3.1 (more than enough for accelerometers and dual cameras) and up to 100W USB-PD.

 

[ARF]

DP 1.4 supports only 8K@30 at 8-bit, and 4K@97 at 10-bit.
Even DP 2.0 only supports 8K@74 at 10-bit.

UHBR20 must be upgraded to support 8K@240 at 12-bit. That requires a lot of bandwidth.

DisplayPort - Wikipedia

 

[ZetZet]

This coming out just 2 weeks before the launch of the RDNA3 series is a strong indicator that these are bringing the new spec.

I wonder if this means the top RDNA3 cards are coming with the USB-C connector, like AMD's original Radeon 6900XT.
It could mean full PSVR2 support for the new GPUs, and other future VR headsets that sport a single cable.

Of course, I'm assuming the new DP2.1-over-USBC spec doesn't retract from previous DP2-over-USBC one, which brought 5Gb/s USB 3.1 (more than enough for accelerometers and dual cameras) and up to 100W USB-PD.

Do you really think Sony would give their VR headset PC support?

Also isn't wireless just the future for PC VR? With AV1 encoding/decoding capabilities that seems like the future to me.

 

[TheLostSwede]

…….still waiting for gpus and monitors to get caught up………

Hey Swede, you didn’t update the wiki yet!!

DisplayPort - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Not my job...

 

[ARF]

Of course, someone who has all the technical data shall do it.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Do you really think Sony would give their VR headset PC support?

Considering they gave official PC support to DualSense and they're making a significant push on PC gaming, yes. Future Playstation VR games released on PC will support PSVR2.
PSVR2 is already a headset that works much closer to a cheaper PC headset anyways. It uses inside-out tracking and a regular USB-C connection (probably DP2.0 in alt-mode), unlike PSVR1 that needed a camera with a custom connector to track the controller + headset lights.

Also isn't wireless just the future for PC VR? With AV1 encoding/decoding capabilities that seems like the future to me.

Coding + decoding induces latency and should make reprojection techniques harder to achieve.

I do agree that the future of VR is wireless, but IMO it's probably coming in the form of 60GHz 802.11ay / WiGig 2 with 44 to 176Gbit/s with line-of-sight. That way there's no need to compress the signal.
OTOH, that also means we'll get new concerns with battery life and battery weight (ergonomy, confort, etc.). And for seated VR - which is what most people will use for anyways - a single cable isn't that much of a problem.

 

[Tek-Check]

This coming out just 2 weeks before the launch of the RDNA3 series is a strong indicator that these are bringing the new spec.
I wonder if this means the top RDNA3 cards are coming with the USB-C connector, like AMD's original Radeon 6900XT.
It could mean full PSVR2 support for the new GPUs, and other future VR headsets that sport a single cable.

Of course, I'm assuming the new DP2.1-over-USBC spec doesn't retract from previous DP2-over-USBC one, which brought 5Gb/s USB 3.1 (more than enough for accelerometers and dual cameras) and up to 100W USB-PD.

New GPUs should have at least one USB-C connector supporting full 80 Gbps speed.
There will be one HDMI 2.1 FRL at 48 Gbps, hoperfully, as 6000 GPUs gave us slightly trimmed HDMI 2.1 FRL at 40 Gbps.
I guess two other ports will be native DP at 40 Gbps.

But would not be surprised to see two USB-C ports, one HDMI FRL and one traditional DP. AIBs can adjust ports differently.

 

[cvaldes]

New GPUs should have at least one USB-C connector supporting full 80 Gbps speed.
There will be one HDMI 2.1 FRL at 48 Gbps, hoperfully, as 6000 GPUs gave us slightly trimmed HDMI 2.1 FRL at 40 Gbps.
I guess two other ports will be native DP at 40 Gbps.

But would not be surprised to see two USB-C ports, one HDMi and one traditional. AIBs can adjust ports differently.

Without compatible display devices those USB-C connectors on the GPUs will go for naught. And when I say display devices, I mean more than just traditional PC monitors. This also includes television sets.

Look at the VirtualLink port. The technology was never deployed by VR HMD manufacturers and the port disappeared after a single appearance on Turing generation cards.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Please don't go too fast, Nvidia has to catch with 2.0 first

Yeah, imagine the irony; nVidia pushes the first GPU that can do high 4k FPS gaming and then they limit it with a shitty DP 1.4 connector.

Ah, nVidia, you are the worst, you are true villains, posing as a legitimate company. It's almost like you are purposefully trying to see how you can screw your end-users with as little as possible in features for as much $ as possible.

 

[evernessince]

Do you really think Sony would give their VR headset PC support?

Also isn't wireless just the future for PC VR? With AV1 encoding/decoding capabilities that seems like the future to me.

Valve is porting HL:A over to the PSVR2 so you never know. Valve in general has been helping companies advance VR. They gave HP their speaker and headstrap design for the G2 and the original Vive was made in conjunction with Valve.

Ultimately Sony would only be hurting themselves by not having PC support for the PSVR2. They'd be leaving a large portion of the market to their competitor Meta. In addition, people having a PSVR in hand would encourage sales of VR games exclusive to playstation. Even if they use it for PCVR, it's entirely possible they might just buy a playstation as well.

 

[Tek-Check]

Without compatible display devices those USB-C connectors on the GPUs will go for naught. And when I say display devices, I mean more than just traditional PC monitors. This also includes television sets. Look at the VirtualLink port. The technology was never deployed by VR HMD manufacturers and the port disappeared after a single appearance on Turing generation cards.

There will be plenty of adapters for those who need an additional specific port and AIB models will be diverse in port offer. It should not be an issue at all.
My monitor from 2018 has USB-C Thunderbolt port, native DP and HDMI. Increasing number of monitors will have one or two.
Essentially, most GPUs and monitors will have native DP, HDMI and USB-C, so you can connect whatever you please.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Without compatible display devices those USB-C connectors on the GPUs will go for naught. And when I say display devices, I mean more than just traditional PC monitors. This also includes television sets.

Look at the VirtualLink port. The technology was never deployed by VR HMD manufacturers and the port disappeared after a single appearance on Turing generation cards.

My monitor can do 4K 160 Hz over USB-C. I've tested it using the VirtualLink port on my RTX 2080.

 

[bonehead123]

Please don't go too fast, Nvidia has to catch with 2.0 first

shhhhh, pleeze don't tell them, lest they come up with yet ANUTHA scheme to justify milking us out of even moar $$ than they already are

 

[rbgc]

But why does virtually everything still only support DP 1.4?

Because almost no one need more for gaming using DP. For 4K@120 all you need is graphic card with DP 1.4 and 4K monitor with DP 1.4 (DSC) and HBR3 support.

 

[cvaldes]

My monitor can do 4K 160 Hz over USB-C. I've tested it using the VirtualLink port on my RTX 2080.

I never said the technology couldn’t work. However for widespread adoption there needs to be strong support from the display industry in a timely manner.

Maybe that’s why NVIDIA stuck with DisplayPort 1.4 with the 40 Series generation.

Ultimately these standards need to be adopted by display manufacturers first. People hold onto their displays longer than their discrete graphics cards.

It’s not like everyone who buys a new graphics card will buy a new display at the same time.

 

[wolf]

Are there even display's out with 2.0 let alone 2.1? I know the support needs to come sometime, but I am seeing a storm in a teacup here.

But hey, we all seem to enjoy a little bit of outrage right.