NVIDIA finally officially supports Adaptive Sync (with a small catch)

[D13H4RD]

One of the biggest bombshells in NVIDIA's CES 2019 press conference was the announcement that NVIDIA GPU users will no longer have to get a G-SYNC monitor to utilize adaptive sync, as the company now extends official support to a number of FreeSync-capable monitors, dubbed as "G-SYNC capable". 

Quote

Nvidia is crashing AMD’s FreeSync party. The company announced today at CES that it is testing every “adaptive sync” monitor to see if they meet its GSync standards. So far, it has found 12 displays function properly, and it is going to automatically turn on GSync support for those monitors in its GeForce software.

There is a small catch however. Jensen Huang claims that after testing approximately 400 monitors on the market, only 12 are deemed to be worthy of bearing the "G-SYNC CAPABLE" moniker. These 12 are;

Spoiler

• Acer XFA240
• Acer XZ321Q
• Acer XG270HU
• Acer XV273K
• Agon AG241QG4
• AOC G2590FX
• Asus MG278Q
• Asus XG248
• Asus VG258Q
• Asus XG258
• Asus VG278Q
• BenQ Xl2740

With all that said, if your monitor is on the "We're not wooooorthyyyyy" list, the setting can still be enabled manually from the GPU Control Panel as part of a driver update that will be released on the 15th of January, whereas supported monitors have them enabled automatically. 

 

D13H4RD's opinion 

Spoiler

This is the best news out of the entire press conference by far. While G-SYNC is neat, these monitors can be significantly pricier compared to their FreeSync counterparts. NVIDIA's announcement basically means that while they can't guarantee the best performance, it should work. 

Source: VentureBeat

[Enderman]

Freesync and Adaptive sync are two different things.

[Ja50n]

It was easy to see where this format war was headed simply by looking at the fact that FreeSync is free while Nvidia takes a $200-$500 cut for every Gsync monitor. Their implementation was far more expensive and no better in quality than a comparable FreeSync panel.

[porina]

Random thought, there's "good" FreeSync, and there's not so good... the adaptive range may be limited on cheaper models, and there was some frame doubling thing for low fps operation that might not be present on cheaper displays. I'd guess that nvidia would only certify the better monitors that have enough FreeSync feature set to be comparable to G-sync. The lower end models would be at your own risk.

[schwellmo92]

3 minutes ago, Ja50n said:

Nvidia takes a $200-$500 cut for every Gsync monitor. Their implementation was far more expensive and no better in quality than a comparable FreeSync panel.

Nvidia doesn't "take a cut", they sell the FPGA that is embedded in the monitor, and yes they do make some profit off of it. G-SYNC is also slightly better than FreeSync in that it works through all the way down to 1fps unlike FreeSync, and to be G-SYNC approved the monitor has to go through Nvidia quality control.

[D13H4RD]

10 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Freesync and Adaptive sync are two different things.

What's the main differences between VESA A-Sync and AMD FreeSync? 

 

Just wondering 

[porina]

2 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

What's the main differences between VESA A-Sync and AMD FreeSync? 

 

Just wondering 

The name? Without digging I don't know either, but there was also FreeSync 2 with I think HDR support. Was that also standards based or an AMD extension to the VESA standard? Without looking it up, it is common for standards to have mandatory and optional parts, so maybe that's just a feature extension?

[mr moose]

14 minutes ago, Ja50n said:

It was easy to see where this format war was headed simply by looking at the fact that FreeSync is free while Nvidia takes a $200-$500 cut for every Gsync monitor. Their implementation was far more expensive and no better in quality than a comparable FreeSync panel.

Easy to see when looking back on it.

Not all format wars head in the same direction and quality rarely has anything to do with it.   Whilst G-sync is objectively better, most end users these days don't necessarily need any form off sync.  Making the whole ordeal dead in the water before it began. 

 

Also this is a bad thing for AMD,  as it stands now if you can use your Nvidia card on your freesync monitor then freesync adds nothing to the argument for a Navi based upgrade.  Nvidia have essentially bought the competition back to raw horsepower and RT  whilst making their money out of Gsync and investing nothing in freesync.

[LAwLz]

13 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Freesync and Adaptive sync are two different things.

From what I know, Freesync is just a marketing name AMD came up with for adaptive sync.

 

15 minutes ago, Ja50n said:

It was easy to see where this format war was headed simply by looking at the fact that FreeSync is free while Nvidia takes a $200-$500 cut for every Gsync monitor. Their implementation was far more expensive and no better in quality than a comparable FreeSync panel. 

Be careful when looking at like that though. A lot of times when people compare prices between G-Sync and FreeSync monitors they forget things like all G-Sync monitors supporting strobing backlight, while only some FreeSync monitors supporting it (because it's something that has to be added separately).

 

It would be interesting to know what the actual price difference between G-Sync and FreeSync would be, if both monitors were otherwise identical. Not sure if anyone makes that though.

 

 

10 minutes ago, porina said:

The name? Without digging I don't know either, but there was also FreeSync 2 with I think HDR support. Was that also standards based or an AMD extension to the VESA standard? Without looking it up, it is common for standards to have mandatory and optional parts, so maybe that's just a feature extension? 

I haven't done that much digging, but from what I understand Adaptive-Sync works independently of the color information being transmitted. If that's the case then Adaptive-Sync supports any past and future color standards, and FreeSync 2 is just a marketing name for a monitor which supports HDR as well as FreeSync. The actual FreeSync part of FreeSync 2 most likely works exactly the same as before.

[S w a t s o n]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Also I stole this me- I mean, I made this

 

 

[chazragg]

was nice to see my mg278q show up on the slide. Bring on the 15th !!!!

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 hour ago, Ja50n said:

It was easy to see where this format war was headed simply by looking at the fact that FreeSync is free while Nvidia takes a $200-$500 cut for every Gsync monitor. Their implementation was far more expensive and no better in quality than a comparable FreeSync panel.

But finding a comparable quality freesync panel wasn't always trivial either in the sea of shitty ones.

[Derangel]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

From what I know, Freesync is just a marketing name AMD came up with for adaptive sync.

 

Be careful when looking at like that though. A lot of times when people compare prices between G-Sync and FreeSync monitors they forget things like all G-Sync monitors supporting strobing backlight, while only some FreeSync monitors supporting it (because it's something that has to be added separately).

 

It would be interesting to know what the actual price difference between G-Sync and FreeSync would be, if both monitors were otherwise identical. Not sure if anyone makes that though.

 

 

I haven't done that much digging, but from what I understand Adaptive-Sync works independently of the color information being transmitted. If that's the case then Adaptive-Sync supports any past and future color standards, and FreeSync 2 is just a marketing name for a monitor which supports HDR as well as FreeSync. The actual FreeSync part of FreeSync 2 most likely works exactly the same as before.

If my memory is accurate, I believe first gen G-sync modules cost monitor OEMs something like $150-$200 per module. I'd imagine that cost went up with versions 2 and 3.

[GoldenLag]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

The actual FreeSync part of FreeSync 2 most likely works exactly the same as before.

Freesync 2 has low framerate compensation unlike freesync 1.

 

Gsync was better than Freesync, but Freesync 2 has brought them to parity.

 

Afaik at least, please correct me if im wrong

[cluelessgenius]

would be quite interesting if we had like a google excel sheet for users to submit their results with their monitor models.

i have been complaining about freesync not making sense from the start and this might actually be awesome if it works. 

definitly testing mine since wildlands is currently giving my 1080 Ti a hard time reaching "good" fps

[Glenwing]

21 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

Freesync 2 has low framerate compensation unlike freesync 1.

 

Gsync was better than Freesync, but Freesync 2 has brought them to parity.

 

Afaik at least, please correct me if im wrong

LFC is not monitor dependent, it works on any FreeSync monitor with a maximum range at least 2x the minimum. It was added to AMD drivers long before FreeSync 2 existed.

[Cyberspirit]

Oh, damn! What a great way to start 2019. I don't have a freesync panel either but, I'll be curious how the "Not worthy" monitors will play along with this.

[CorruptedSanity]

I literally clapped and cheered when I heard him talk about this as I have one of the Asus monitors listed.  My wife thought I was crazy

[GoldenLag]

2 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

Oh, damn! What a great way to start 2019. I don't have a freesync panel either but, I'll be curious how the "Not worthy" monitors will play along with this.

"Not worthy" will probably play well. Nvidia wants some incentive to still ship Gsync monitors. 

[GoldenLag]

1 minute ago, CorruptedSanity said:

I literally clapped and cheered when I heard him talk about this as I have one of the Asus monitors listed.  My wife thought I was crazy

Dont make it sound like an r/thathappened story.

[Enochian]

i wonder if asus strix XG27VQ would work as well. Its not listed buts it's almost the same..

[CorruptedSanity]

6 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

Dont make it sound like an r/thathappened story.

Sorry, I don't get it.  It's probably the biggest announcement in my eyes so I was excited. 

[GoldenLag]

Just now, CorruptedSanity said:

Sorry, I don't get it.  It's probably the biggest announcement in my eyes so I was excited. 

*And everyone clapped and cheered

 

 

Just look up r/thathappened. Youll be inn for a fun time

[Ergroilnin]

Interesting.

 

I am very curious to see if manually enabling this on my Samsung C32HG70 will work or not.

[D13H4RD]

11 minutes ago, Enochian said:

i wonder if asus strix XG27VQ would work as well. Its not listed buts it's almost the same..

 

5 minutes ago, Ergroilnin said:

I am very curious to see if manually enabling this on my Samsung C32HG70 will work or not.

We could all give it a shot when the driver releases. 

 

My SHG50 isn't listed but we can try.