Testing Nvidia Freesync - How bad is it?

[Thinkfreely]

Hey been a minute since I posted but wanted to share my experience so far with testing the new freesync patch for those who want to know.

 

For those who don't know, Nvidia in a "Oh sh*t" moment released a patch 2 days ago allowing Nvidia GPU's of the Pascal and Turing generations to work with freesync monitors. My personal belief is this was because of there extremely poor sales of RTX and over stocked pascal gpus, and threat coming from AMD  and especially INTEL as both those gpu platforms are/will be on Freesync.

 

They have tested over 400 monitors with 500 more to go and so far this is what they had.

• Acer XFA240
• Acer XG270HU
• Acer XV273K
• Acer XZ321Q
• AOC AGON AG241QG4
• AOC G2590FX
• Asus MG278Q
• Asus XG248 / XG258
• Asus VG258Q
• BenQ XL2740

I luckily had the XFA240 already and then borrowed another freesync monitor not supported the ACER ED242QR.

I tested these on the two systems I have with Overwatch, BO4, and Fornite.

1st System

Ryzen 1700x (stock)

16gb DDR4 cas 16-18-18-18 (3200)

1060 6GB EVGA (STOCK)

 

2nd System (Main)

2700x (4.2 OC)

16gb DDR4 cas 16-18-18-18 (3200)

2080ti EVGA Black (Stock - It's a sh*t overclocker)

 

My findings are as follows. The supported XFA240 monitor had absolutely no issues whatsoever and if I did a blind test, even with those versed in Gysnc/Freesync I doubt they would know.

 

The Acer ED242QR (not supported by Nvidia) was surprisingly the exact same, I didn't notice any difference in any testing I ran it through.

Now I know that there are so many other combinations of cpu/gpu's that could affect these results, and these were 1080p monitors, so I don't know at other resolutions what the outcome would be.

 

But now that we have verifiable monitors that work with Nvidia GPUs, my gut tells me that AMD is in deep sh*t because its now going to come down to just cost/performance, and if Nvidia is objectively the better GPU they now have a nasty advantage. Because moving forward if you buy a Nvidia GPU you now know you can use it no matter what monitor (Gysnc/Freesync) you buy.

 

So unless AMD comes back with some serious performance/price gpu's they are going to be squeezed out of the GPU market when Intel comes in next year.

Just my thoughts.

 

 

[Princess Luna]

I have tried it myself out of curiosity on a LG 29UM68-P that features Freesync from 46hz~75hz and honestly I did not find the experience enjoyable, I still prefer tuning down settings a little and going with triple buffered v-sync.

[Thinkfreely]

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

I have tried it myself out of curiosity on a LG 29UM68-P that features Freesync from 46hz~75hz and honestly I did not find the experience enjoyable, I still prefer tuning down settings a little and going with triple buffered v-sync.

Out of curiosity what type of issues did you run into? I had 0 tearing, input delay, or artifacting of any kind.

[JohnDongus]

I tried it with my pixio px329, it works great all the way up to 144hz.

 

[Thinkfreely]

Just now, JohnDongus said:

I tried it with my pixio px329, it works great all the way up to 144hz.

 

is that the max refresh on the Monitor? Or the max it would work to.

[JohnDongus]

Just now, Thinkfreely said:

is that the max refresh on the Monitor? Or the max it would work to.

The max is 165, i think gysnc / freesync only supports 144hz max.

[Princess Luna]

8 minutes ago, Thinkfreely said:

Out of curiosity what type of issues did you run into? I had 0 tearing, input delay, or artifacting of any kind.

Since I was using a 1080 Ti on just a 2560x1080p panel I had to go to a demanding game like AC Origins max settings and super-sampling to force myself on the 60ish fps range to keep on the FreeSync window... There was slight tearing that happened randomly.

 

If I just go easy on the super-sampling for instance and overclock the monitor to 80hz instead without FreeSync turned on and use V-Sync Triple Buffered there's no tearing and it become smooth as silk... input lag? I didn't notice any with v-sync vs freesync.

 

So yeah it's not being a miracles thing yet then again I do think it's a technology more meant for 144hz and not 75hz.

[Thinkfreely]

2 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Since I was using a 1080 Ti on just a 2560x1080p panel I had to go to a demanding game like AC Origins max settings and super-sampling to force myself on the 60ish fps range to keep on the FreeSync window... There was slight tearing that happened randomly.

 

If I just go easy on the super-sampling for instance and overclock the monitor to 80hz instead without FreeSync turned on and use V-Sync Triple Buffered however there's no tearing and it become smooth as silk... input lag? I didn't notice any with v-sync vs freesync.

 

So yeah it's not being a miracles thing yet then again I do think it's a technology more meant for 144hz and not 75hz.

Well my thought is it shouldn't be about the HZ, it's on them to ensure there is compatibility. However I don't think the monitor you tested is on the supported list, so I would be interested to see the same thing tested with a supported monitor.

[Sorenson]

I have no complaints on my Samsung Chg70. I was honestly thinking of selling my 1070 ti for a Vega 64 before they announced this. I have none of the issues they showed on the "non-validated" monitors. The only Reason my Monitor fails the G-sync test is because it doesn't have adaptive overdrive. 

 

I've been playing FFXV and Dragon Age Inquisition with Vsync off for the past couple days and haven't noticed any tearing or stuttering. 

[tarfeef101]

I updated to the latest driver on my 1080ti using windows 8.1 and an AO G2460PF

 

Couldn't get the option to show up. Followed all nvidia's steps, and nothing. And the display is in DP 1.2 mode, which is how to enable it for the panel AFAIK.

So I guess for me the experience hasn't been very good

[Thinkfreely]

2 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

I was honestly thinking of selling my 1070 ti for a Vega 64 before they announced this

Proved my point and AMD being in a really bad position with this.

[Thinkfreely]

1 minute ago, tarfeef101 said:

I updated to the latest driver on my 1080ti using windows 8.1 and an AO G2460PF

 

Couldn't get the option to show up. Followed all nvidia's steps, and nothing. And the display is in DP 1.2 mode, which is how to enable it for the panel AFAIK.

So I guess for me the experience hasn't been very good

You have to have Windows 10 for it work. If you upgrade it should recognize it.

[tarfeef101]

1 minute ago, Thinkfreely said:

You have to have Windows 10 for it work. If you upgrade it should recognize it.

NOOOO!!!!!! NEVER!!!!

That really sucks. Do you have a link to official confirmation of this? I didn't see that anywhere I looked 

[Techicolors]

20 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

I have tried it myself out of curiosity on a LG 29UM68-P that features Freesync from 46hz~75hz and honestly I did not find the experience enjoyable, I still prefer tuning down settings a little and going with triple buffered v-sync.

i believe i have the same monitor but it works well for me. i also tested with AC Origins one of the few games i experience bad tearing and fps with vsync off, performs surprisingly good. maybe there is some tearing but it's imperceptible to my eyes. i'm honestly shocked at how smooth it is i can definitely deal with the bad fps. i'll probably test AC Unity next, performs even worse than Origins 

 

additionally i heard about CRU and how you can extend the freesync range. it's experimental tho and it's mostly to reduce the minimum range 

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, Techicolors said:

e

Maybe I should tweak with it more.

[Thinkfreely]

6 minutes ago, tarfeef101 said:

NOOOO!!!!!! NEVER!!!!

That really sucks. Do you have a link to official confirmation of this? I didn't see that anywhere I looked 

v417.71 https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ag5z8m/nvidia_freesync_monitor_testing_master_list/

[Fasauceome]

41 minutes ago, Thinkfreely said:

my gut tells me that AMD is in deep sh*t because its now going to come down to just cost/performance, and if Nvidia is objectively the better GPU they now have a nasty advantage

Well, this was true in the realm of Vega 64 vs 1080, but at this time, it's now very different. In non ray tracing titles, the new Radeon VII graphics card revelaed at CES is going to be rather competent, and when it comes to AMD's bread and butter, the mid range, the RX 580 was very competitive against the 1060. I believe that AMD is not in such hot water due to their 7nm success.

[tarfeef101]

52 minutes ago, Thinkfreely said:

v417.71 https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ag5z8m/nvidia_freesync_monitor_testing_master_list/

That is not an official confirmation of windows compatibility... that is a bunch of ppl testing out stuff themselves.