Explain Gsync for me please

[Mark Kaine]

Im looking to buy a gysnc or free sync monitor but I'm unsure how it works and I don't mean technically,I mean in*practice* .

 

So let's say a game drops a few frames (from 60 to like 57fps or so) will I still notice this with a Gsync monitor, because I definitely notice immediately without Gsync on my current monitor,which I love but it just doesn't have any Gsync/ free sync capabilities and as such framedrops are obviously very noticeable.

 

 

[minibois]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

So let's say a game drops a few frames (from 60 to like 57fps or so) will I still notice this with a Gsync monitor, because I definitely notice immediately without Gsync on my current monitor,which I love but it just doesn't have any Gsync/ free sync capabilities and as such framedrops are obviously very noticeable.

G-Sync/Freesync will synchronize the output of the monitor (its Hz) with the output of your videocard (the fps in games).

This eliminates screen-tearing; when the top and bottom half of the monitor show something different.

 

If you have frame drops, G-Sync?Freesync won't make those disappear; just try to disguise them by making it so the monitor only updates when needed.

[Oshino Shinobu]

GSync essentially matches the refresh rate of the monitor to frame rate being output by the GPU. 

 

It, for the most part, eliminates tearing and helps reduce stutter without introducing a delay. 

 

Drops in frame rate are much less noticeable than they are without it. That said, It's not magic, so you're still going to notice a big dip in FPS, but in general, it makes things much smoother. 

 

Something people don't realise is that if you're running at an FPS at or above your monitor's fresh rate, GSync does nothing, it's disabled. It matches the monitor to the GPU, so it can only work up to the monitor's refresh rate. Depending on how you have it configured, you can either have VSync turn on so that when you go over your monitor's refresh rate, VSync takes over to try to prevent tearing or you can have it so it just disables and VSync doesn't enable, at which point, you may start to get tearing again. For this reason, it's actually best to run as close as you can to your monitor's refresh rate without actually exceeding it to get the most out of GSync. 

[MrTuffguy]

 

[Juular]

In practice, the biggest advantage of modern VRR displays be it GSync or FreeSync enabled is that they're high refresh rate to begin with. In my experience i didn't notice any difference enabling FreeSync other than eliminating screen tearing when FPS is lower than display refresh rate. With FreeSync you'll still need to enable VSync or cap the FPS if it's higher than display refresh rate tho but the delay associated with that would be minimal anyway in these cases.

[Mark Kaine]

31 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

It, for the most part, eliminates tearing and helps reduce stutter without introducing a delay. 

 

Drops in frame rate are much less noticeable than they are without it. That said, It's not magic, so you're still going to notice a big dip in FPS, but in general, it makes things much smoother. 

 

36 minutes ago, minibois said:

G-Sync/Freesync will synchronize the output of the monitor (its Hz) with the output of your videocard (the fps in games).

This eliminates screen-tearing; when the top and bottom half of the monitor show something different.

 

If you have frame drops, G-Sync?Freesync won't make those disappear; just try to disguise them by making it so the monitor only updates when needed.

 

Hmm, i see... It doesn't really sound like it's for me then , a better option would just have a GPU powerful enough to not drop any frames I guess... I never have an issue with screen tearing and I don't really want to turn off vsync either because I really hate screen tearing and the lag from vsync is minimal in my experience so that it's not worth the trade-off imo... I get you're saying it eliminates tearing but it also sounds like it could have the opposite effect in certain scenarios...

 

I also only play at 60fps, actually most of my games are tied to that framerate (japanese devs like capcom, namco,etc say hi...) So I feel I probably wouldn't benefit much if at all from free/ gsync... I was really just interested in how good it can cover up framedrops and yeah... doesn't seem worth it, especially if I get a better GPU soon (and guaranteed will not want to play above 60fps as explained above)

 

Ultimately I'd have to try it out but currently it's probably better to save my money for a 3070 or something.

 

Thanks for the explanation guys!

[Mark Kaine]

3 minutes ago, Juular said:

In practice, the biggest advantage of modern VRR displays be it GSync or FreeSync enabled is that they're high refresh rate to begin with. In my experience i didn't notice any difference enabling FreeSync other than eliminating screen tearing when FPS is lower than display refresh rate. With FreeSync you'll still need to enable VSync or cap the FPS if it's higher than display refresh rate tho but the delay associated with that would be minimal anyway in these cases.

Ok you're basically saying the same thing... Sounds like not really worth it for 60fps gaming

Thanks

[Juular]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

Ok you're basically saying the same thing... Sounds like not really worth it for 60fps gaming

For 60FPS, like if your GPU isn't capable of more - yeah, it probably doesn't worth it. And if you don't plan on upgrading your GPU soon then just wait for when you will and then pick a new display, because displays are evolving just as much as GPUs and by then you probably will be able to pick a decent high refresh rate display considerably cheaper than now when you can't really make use of it.

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

I get you're saying it eliminates tearing but it also sounds like it could have the opposite effect in certain scenarios...

No, not at all. If you run over your refresh rate, you may get tearing, but that's equally true if you don't use Gsync/FreeSync at all. You can have G/Freesync and VSync enabled at the same time, so if you're within G/Freesyncs range, you get tearing free gameplay with no lag/delay and if you go over the refresh rate of your monitor, G/Freesync stops doing anything and VSync takes over and you get tearing free gameplay with the lag/delay introduced by the frame buffer used in VSync. 

 

G/Freesync is designed to reduce tearing, there's no situation where G/Freesync will increase tearing, other than instances where it's not functioning correctly. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

4 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Ok you're basically saying the same thing... Sounds like not really worth it for 60fps gaming

Thanks

Depends which one you're looking at. GSync, yeah, not really worth the price premium. Freesync often doesn't add anything to the cost, so no reason to not get it. And recent Nvidia cards support Freesync now.

[Juular]

@Oshino Shinobu Small correction, for hardware GSync (not 'GSync compatible' which is essentially nVidia's name for FreeSync) you don't need to enable VSync as hardware bit in the display limits the framerate itself.

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, Juular said:

@Oshino Shinobu Small correction, for hardware GSync (not 'GSync compatible' which is essentially nVidia's name for FreeSync) you don't need to enable VSync as hardware bit in the display limits the framerate itself.

GSync compatible is a validation standard/naming as I understand it. Or maybe they mix the naming for both the technology and their validation standards so it applies to both. 

 

You still need to enable, or set how you want VSync to behave with hardware GSync, unless it's been changed since I used it. Not sure on that, the GSync monitor I had was one of the first ones released. 

[Juular]

5 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

You still need to enable, or set how you want VSync to behave with hardware GSync, unless it's been changed since I used it. Not sure on that, the GSync monitor I had was one of the first ones released. 

Actually you will need to enable VSync with hardware GSync displays with recent nVidia drivers as they gave an option to disable frame limiter but if you enable VSync it's not software VSync, it's a hardware limiter. This option was always enabled in early driver versions.

Displays that got 'G-Sync compatible' badge are probably going through some sort of validation program but they're still essentially FreeSync \ VESA Adaptive-Sync displays, just ones confirmed working with nVidia GPUs well.

[Mark Kaine]

18 minutes ago, Juular said:

like if your GPU isn't capable of more

I get it , its maybe hard to understand but the games I'm playing are tied to that framerate (60) usually (even if you could run it higher) it's a quirk many japanese games have and I love it tbh, think 1 frame inputs, damage tied to framerate, AI logic, etc.

 

The moment you go above it will introduce various issues depending on the game - or be seen as ' cheating' because you suddenly do more damage when running above 60fps (Resident Evil 2 Remake for example)

 

I was really just curious - if ya'll had said like "framedrops totally unnoticeable" or something I'd consider it, but for now I'm really happy with my monitor and higher refresh rates would be literally useless for me so it's not something I'm actively looking to improve ... I just care about 60fps and finally being able to play without "variable resolution" hence I'm getting a new GPU (also strongly considering a 2070S precisely because I neither need 4k nor more than 60fps and I think that GPU would be very capable of that. I get waiting for the 3070 would be smarter, not denying that but the wait and uncertainty of availability and pricing for AIBs is killing me lol) 

 

[Gaires]

Rtings has pretty good article about Freesync and G-sync.

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/learn/freesync-amd-vs-gsync-nvidia