FreeSync FAQ Released - pretty disappointing

[mr moose]

This thread makes me sad. Free was a joke to begin with but the name caught on and stuck so AMD had to use it in order to capitalize on name recognition.  FS is definitely more open than GS and will be cheaper so give it a rest.

 

The reasons for only certain cards supporting it are most likely driver related.  I doubt AMD want to spend a lot of time rewriting drivers.  They may end up expanding it to more cards if the monitor don't sell too well but they have sold so many of the supported cards that I doubt this will be an issue.

 

Link to supporting documents? 

 

The reason people think it's "free" and that they are going to end up not having to lay out for a new hardware is because of generic posts like yours that state how cheap it's going to be and how open it is.  these two things are unknown. Until we see both options in the market place we don't know.

[Victorious Secret]

Like I said before, "free" is a lie and AMD knows it. 

 

By all accounts you're going to need at least new GPU hardware even if you have a generation older card. You'll need monitor support. You don't just automagically update HARDWARE PORTS on a monitor. My TV is HDMI 1.3, I don't get a "free" update to 1.4. Thats physically impossible. So why the hell do people keep saying free? Hardware HAS to support it on some level. 

 

G Sync is already out there, its already being marketed, and it'll probably win. 

 

Instead of going to NVidia and saying "awfully mind rolling this into the existing thing for a fee?" they go at it on their own and make a forked hardware standard that only fucks over consumers if said consumer invests in the wrong hardware. And I don't mean us, I mean general population. 

 

Look at HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray. Nerds like us knew which way things were probably headed, but general consumers? They didn't know better till it was too late. Thats who you screw over when you engage in crap like this. 

 

HDMI is a standard but even that costs money to implement. You're paying royalty fees. But guess what? That crap is EVERYWHERE. So why not approach Nvidia with a monetary solution in the use of G Sync across all potentially supported devices? Why not focus on ONE, instead of having TWO that do the same goddamn thing and in the end might end up costing the same amount for consumers. 

[LAwLz]

Its not driver related afaik, I recall richard huddy saying that freesync requires a specific piece of hardware on the card that the older cards don't have.

But then why does it work for movies and power saving? I don't really see how changing refresh rate while watching a movie is any different from changing refresh rate while playing game.

[El_indian]

While playing a game the GPU is rendering graphics (and at variable rates depending on the intensity of the scene and the power of the GPU). I imagine the communication with the monitor is also lot more complicated than simply playing a video file with a fixed refresh rate.

..but really idk

[Fetzie]

But then why does it work for movies and power saving? I don't really see how changing refresh rate while watching a movie is any different from changing refresh rate while playing game.

 

Videos have a fixed frame-rate (even if each video has a different frame-rate). Most camera recorded content is played back at 24FPS, most computer generated footage runs at 30 FPS and then you have movies like The Hobbit that were recorded at 48 FPS and those new 60 FPS youtube videos. In all these cases, you don't need a dynamically updating scan frequency because you know exactly what frame-rate is going to be displayed. This means that you only need a driver update for the old display controller to enable it to set the output frequency to the specific frame-rate of the content being displayed instead of the maximum frame-rate that the monitor can display (for example 60, 120 or 144 Hz).

 

The refresh rate needs to change dynamically within a few milliseconds to react to frame-rate changes while gaming. Presumably this is beyond the display controller on the HD 7000 cards (and their re-badged derivatives).

[Guest]

But then why does it work for movies and power saving? I don't really see how changing refresh rate while watching a movie is any different from changing refresh rate while playing game.

Its definitely different. As mentioned above, a movie is a fixed framerate. Changing the refresh rate to watch a movie, or simply for powersaving is rather trivial compared to constantly changing it dynamically to match a game's frames per second, I'd imagine there would be a lot more involved there.

[seiny]

I thought free-sync was suppose to work on almost any monitor currently out? Was this correct at some point?

[mr moose]

I thought free-sync was suppose to work on almost any monitor currently out? Was this correct at some point?

not really, the hype surrounding it certainly gave people that impression but AMD never actually said that.  What has been said are things like this:

 

AMD doesn’t want to charge for this technology since it’s already a part of a spec that it has implemented (and shouldn’t require a hardware change to those panels that support the spec), hence the current working name “FreeSync”.

 

 

from anandtech, which would have lead people to believe they didn't need to buy a new monitor. and why freesync was going to be free.

 

But AMD did say this, which I believe only got mentioned once in this article:

 

but AMD warns us: "...this does not guarantee that firmware alone can enable the feature, it does reveal that some scalar/LCD combinations are already sufficiently advanced that they can support some degree of DRR (dynamic refresh rate) and the full DPAS (DisplayPort Adaptive Sync) specification through software changes."

 

 

And that I believe was the first and last time till now that AMD have said anything about the likely hardware requirements for freesync.

 

Unfortunately it seems to be the result of AMDs current marketing tactics to seed some awesome news and let the hype train take over. Which builds curiosity, excitement and hope, but at the same time it misleads people.

[LAwLz]

Its definitely different. As mentioned above, a movie is a fixed framerate. Changing the refresh rate to watch a movie, or simply for powersaving is rather trivial compared to constantly changing it dynamically to match a game's frames per second, I'd imagine there would be a lot more involved there.

Hmm fair enough. Although I would like to point out that not all moves are fixed frame rate, for example quite a few Top Gear episodes are variable frame rate since The Stig's laps and the studio segments are 50 FPS, while the rest is 25 FPS. That's not something that need ms response time to change between though.

[Notional]

Hmm fair enough. Although I would like to point out that not all moves are fixed frame rate, for example quite a few Top Gear episodes are variable frame rate since The Stig's laps and the studio segments are 50 FPS, while the rest is 25 FPS. That's not something that need ms response time to change between though.

MIght be shot in 50fps, but surely not broadcastet that way. The entire show only runs at 1 framerate. I'm not even sure any codecs/broadcasting methods, can change the framrate in the middle of an episode. If you have a source saying otherwise, I would love to read it. 

[LAwLz]

MIght be shot in 50fps, but surely not broadcastet that way. The entire show only runs at 1 framerate. I'm not even sure any codecs/broadcasting methods, can change the framrate in the middle of an episode. If you have a source saying otherwise, I would love to read it. 

Nope it is variable frame rate when broadcasted as well. The show has two different frame rates. 25FPS for the reviews, road trips etc and 50 FPS for The Stig laps as well as the studio sections.

Sadly I don't have any source on it changing between 25 FPS and 50 FPS (other than having seen it with my own eyes) but you can read up on the technical capabilities of BBC HD's broadcasting on their own website, or Wikipedia, or other website. It's just regular variable frame rate though so it shouldn't be too hard for you to believe that it does, right? Variable frame rate is one of the points in Wikipedia's container comparison. As you can see, it's pretty widely supported.

If you don't know of any codecs that support variable frame rate then you haven't looked very far. H.264 supports it, and that's the codec BBC uses for some of their broadcasts (including the HD Top Gear version with VFR). It's not that often used so it's rarely brought up, but it's mentioned on HandBrake's website and on AviSynth's wiki.

[Guest]

Like I said before, "free" is a lie and AMD knows it. 

 

By all accounts you're going to need at least new GPU hardware even if you have a generation older card. You'll need monitor support. You don't just automagically update HARDWARE PORTS on a monitor. My TV is HDMI 1.3, I don't get a "free" update to 1.4. Thats physically impossible. So why the hell do people keep saying free? Hardware HAS to support it on some level. 

 

G Sync is already out there, its already being marketed, and it'll probably win. 

 

Instead of going to NVidia and saying "awfully mind rolling this into the existing thing for a fee?" they go at it on their own and make a forked hardware standard that only fucks over consumers if said consumer invests in the wrong hardware. And I don't mean us, I mean general population. 

 

Look at HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray. Nerds like us knew which way things were probably headed, but general consumers? They didn't know better till it was too late. Thats who you screw over when you engage in crap like this. 

 

HDMI is a standard but even that costs money to implement. You're paying royalty fees. But guess what? That crap is EVERYWHERE. So why not approach Nvidia with a monetary solution in the use of G Sync across all potentially supported devices? Why not focus on ONE, instead of having TWO that do the same goddamn thing and in the end might end up costing the same amount for consumers. 

You are being kind of silly trying to make nvidia out to be a saint here, and AMD 'fucking over consumers'. Its really not that black and white.

 

I applaud nvidia for pushing this adaptive sync technology, vsync technology is something thats been neglected far too long when it comes to pc gaming. However, that does not change the fact that nvidia's solution is fully proprietary, which means nvidia is just as at fault for splintering the market as AMD is.

 

If nvidia had come to the market first, but with a more open standard and AMD still decided to roll their own, then I could see the outrage about freesync, but as it stands one can not blame AMD for not wanting to implement Nvidia's proprietary tech.

[mr moose]

If nvidia had come to the market first, but with a more open standard and AMD still decided to roll their own, then I could see the outrage about freesync, but as it stands one can not blame AMD for not wanting to implement Nvidia's proprietary tech.

 

What I don't like is this perception that Nvidia is more proprietary and less open than AMD.  I just don't think we have enough real information and products out there to support this.  Freesync is proprietary because only works on GCN 1.1 cards,  G-sync is proprietary because it only works on a g-sync monitor.  The fact that adaptive sync has been incorporated into the vesa standard does not make it free because while anyone can make GPUs that capitalise on the standard, we only have two GPU manufacturers, one will and one may not.  

[Guest]

What I don't like is this perception that Nvidia is more proprietary and less open than AMD.  I just don't think we have enough real information and products out there to support this.  Freesync is proprietary because only works on GCN 1.1 cards,  G-sync is proprietary because it only works on a g-sync monitor.  The fact that adaptive sync has been incorporated into the vesa standard does not make it free because while anyone can make GPUs that capitalise on the standard, we only have two GPU manufacturers, one will and one may not.  

Just because only newer AMD cards fully support it doesn't mean its proprietary, that doesn't make any sense. An open standard doesn't magically mean that all existing hardware supports it... It just means the display controller on the older cards can't handle it for whatever reason, probably because they weren't designed with this technology in mind.

 

Freesync is free, as in the standard is open and royalty free, as in other companies wouldn't have to pay licensing to implement it. Do you really think nvidia would allow AMD to implement gsync without paying nvidia any licensing or royalties for the tech? If your answer to that is no, then yes, freesync is definitely more 'open' than gsync.

[mr moose]

Just because only newer AMD cards fully support it doesn't mean its proprietary, that doesn't make any sense. An open standard doesn't magically mean that all existing hardware supports it... It just means the display controller on the older cards can't handle it for whatever reason, probably because they weren't designed with this technology in mind.

 

Freesync is free, as in the standard is open and royalty free, as in other companies wouldn't have to pay licensing to implement it. Do you really think nvidia would allow AMD to implement gsync without paying nvidia any licensing or royalties for the tech? If your answer to that is no, then yes, freesync is definitely more 'open' than gsync.

 

you have confused adaptive sync (the standard adopted by vesa) and freesync (AMDs use of adaptive sync to create dynamic frame rates),  And by definition if something is restricted to specific hardware by design then it is proprietary.   The day that another GPU manufacturer produces a card with freesync and doesn't have to pay any royalties for it, I will concede that it is then truly an open standard, until then it is proprietary on AMD hardware.

[El_indian]

Yes. It is my understanding too that AMD are using the VESA standard and building their own thing on top of it. 

[Notional]

you have confused adaptive sync (the standard adopted by vesa) and freesync (AMDs use of adaptive sync to create dynamic frame rates),  And by definition if something is restricted to specific hardware by design then it is proprietary.   The day that another GPU manufacturer produces a card with freesync and doesn't have to pay any royalties for it, I will concede that it is then truly an open standard, until then it is proprietary on AMD hardware.

 

The free part of freesync is now called Adaptive Sync, and IS royalty free for its members. Freesync is now the driver software implementation, and will of course always be proprietary, like all drivers always will be. This does not change the fact that AMD is responsible for Adaptive Sync, which is an industry standard. The Freesync part is no longer interesting for other graphics card manufacturers, as they need their own proprietary drivers anyways. All graphics card manufacturers has full access to the industry hardware standard Adaptive Sync, so they can make their own driver support, free of charge.

[mr moose]

The free part of freesync is now called Adaptive Sync, and IS royalty free for its members. Freesync is now the driver software implementation, and will of course always be proprietary, like all drivers always will be. This does not change the fact that AMD is responsible for Adaptive Sync, which is an industry standard. The Freesync part is no longer interesting for other graphics card manufacturers, as they need their own proprietary drivers anyways. All graphics card manufacturers has full access to the industry hardware standard Adaptive Sync, so they can make their own driver support, free of charge.

 

No, adaptive sync has been around since 2009, until now it's only been on eDP. now it's part of the DP standard from 1.2a.

http://www.vesa.org/news/vesa-adds-adaptive-sync-to-popular-displayport-video-standard/

 

Free sync is AMDs hardware/software solution that uses adaptive sync to achieve dynamic frame rates.

http://community.amd.com/community/amd-blogs/amd-gaming/blog/2014/05/29/what-is-project-freesync

 

They are not the same thing.

 

Adaptive sync is a vesa standard that anyone can use,  freesync is proprietary to AMD cards.  And on top of all that no one has addressed the fact that we only have two GPU manufacturers, so:

 

  The day that another GPU manufacturer produces a card with freesync and doesn't have to pay any royalties for it, I will concede that it is then truly an open standard, until then it is proprietary on AMD hardware.

 

So contrary to popular belief freesync has nothing to do with royalties. As has been pointed out many times before and through all the articles previously linked. calling it freesync was a deliberate marketing strategy from AMD.   It was their answer to G-sync. 

 

If you have contrary evidence then I suggest you link it, because I have done extensive searches and all I come up with are the same articles saying the same thing.

[Notional]

No, adaptive sync has been around since 2009, until now it's only been on eDP. now it's part of the DP standard from 1.2a.

http://www.vesa.org/news/vesa-adds-adaptive-sync-to-popular-displayport-video-standard/

 

Free sync is AMDs hardware/software solution that uses adaptive sync to achieve dynamic frame rates.

http://community.amd.com/community/amd-blogs/amd-gaming/blog/2014/05/29/what-is-project-freesync

 

They are not the same thing.

 

Adaptive sync is a vesa standard that anyone can use,  freesync is proprietary to AMD cards.  And on top of all that no one has addressed the fact that we only have two GPU manufacturers, so:

 

You just don't want to learn do you? Adaptive Sync is the hardware spec of freesync that AMD pitched to VESA, that they accepted. eDP has never had adaptive sync ever. I challenge you: Google Adaptive Sync edp with an interval of 2008-2012. You will find nothing, because the power savings feature of eDP is called Variable VBlank, NOT Adaptive Sync. They are not the same, they will never be the same. G-Sync and Adaptive Sync utilizes Variable VBlanks to create variable frame rates, but it is NOT the same thing.

 

People seems to have already forgotten the articles on this subject. Here's an initial one, people should read up on from january: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7641/amd-demonstrates-freesync-free-gsync-alternative-at-ces-2014

 

You forgot the biggest gpu manufactuer on this earth: Intel. Do you think Intel will make their own standard like Nvidia, or do you think they will use Adaptive Sync industry standard, created by AMD?

[Guest]

you have confused adaptive sync (the standard adopted by vesa) and freesync (AMDs use of adaptive sync to create dynamic frame rates),  And by definition if something is restricted to specific hardware by design then it is proprietary.   The day that another GPU manufacturer produces a card with freesync and doesn't have to pay any royalties for it, I will concede that it is then truly an open standard, until then it is proprietary on AMD hardware.

 

 

You are missing the point. The AMD driver/hardware implementation on the card doesn't matter. Since adaptive sync is a vesa standard, anyone would be free to utilize it with their own driver implementation, without having to pay licensing to anyone. Its not like gsync, where you are talking to a proprietary gsync module on the monitor. Why on earth would anyone have to pay AMD any licensing to have their hardware talk to an open VESA standard?

 

 

This is AMD's Richard Huddy addressing this: "The freesync spec is out there and all freesync monitors will work well with any card that wants to implement freesync. So we will implement freesync, and I expect other vendors will implement freesync. It can be a free choice for anyone, whether they include freesync. So nvidia can do it, intel can do it, anyone else can do it. After that, because there is no license fees or anything like that, then there is proper compatibility. You need to do QA of course when building the monitors, and building the graphics cards, but everything should work fine"

 

As far as the hardware on the card itself that's needed to support freesync, Its just derived from embedded display port controller, not some mysterious secret sauce. Richard Huddy states that its just an extra part on the display controller that is needed to support variable refresh rate, and that its not 'terribly complicated':

 

This is why all of AMD's apu's already support it, while not all of their dedicated cards do. Mobile graphics already had display controllers already designed with variable refresh in mind, they only started adding that part to their dedicated cards starting with gcn 1.1 cards.

[Alex(PlayMedium)]

And I'm just sitting here with my 290, waiting for compatible monitors.

[mr moose]

You just don't want to learn do you? Adaptive Sync is the hardware spec of freesync that AMD pitched to VESA, that they accepted. eDP has never had adaptive sync ever. I challenge you: Google Adaptive Sync edp with an interval of 2008-2012. You will find nothing, because the power savings feature of eDP is called Variable VBlank, NOT Adaptive Sync. They are not the same, they will never be the same. G-Sync and Adaptive Sync utilizes Variable VBlanks to create variable frame rates, but it is NOT the same thing.

 

People seems to have already forgotten the articles on this subject. Here's an initial one, people should read up on from january: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7641/amd-demonstrates-freesync-free-gsync-alternative-at-ces-2014

 

You forgot the biggest gpu manufactuer on this earth: Intel. Do you think Intel will make their own standard like Nvidia, or do you think they will use Adaptive Sync industry standard, created by AMD?

 

 

I have already linked to the relevant information from the original source for both adaptive sync and free sync. I have also linked to that article earlier in this thread explaining why the term adaptive sync was not used and why AMD used the term freesync, which by the way is the driver/hardware AMD developed to work with v-blank in that original article. Adaptive sync is not v-blank but an extension of it. Ergo  It is not free sync.

 

You are missing the point. The AMD driver/hardware implementation on the card doesn't matter. Since adaptive sync is a vesa standard, anyone would be free to utilize it with their own driver implementation, without having to pay licensing to anyone. Its not like gsync, where you are talking to a proprietary gsync module on the monitor. Why on earth would anyone have to pay AMD any licensing to have their hardware talk to an open VESA standard?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fZGV5z8YFM8#t=4010

 

This is AMD's Richard Huddy addressing this: "The freesync spec is out there and all freesync monitors will work well with any card that wants to implement freesync. So we will implement freesync, and I expect other vendors will implement freesync. It can be a free choice for anyone, whether they include freesync. So nvidia can do it, intel can do it, anyone else can do it. After that, because there is no license fees or anything like that, then there is proper compatibility. You need to do QA of course when building the monitors, and building the graphics cards, but everything should work fine"

 

As far as the hardware on the card itself that's needed to support freesync, Its just derived from embedded display port controller, not some mysterious secret sauce. Richard Huddy states that its just an extra part on the display controller that is needed to support variable refresh rate, and that its not 'terribly complicated': https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fZGV5z8YFM8#t=4157

 

This is why all of AMD's apu's already support it, while not all of their dedicated cards do. Mobile graphics already had display controllers already designed with variable refresh in mind, they only started adding that part to their dedicated cards starting with gcn 1.1 cards.

 

Huh?  driver/hardware implantation does matter, with out it you can't get freesync. The whole point to adaptive sync being a standard is moot if you don't have hardware that supports it.  Seeing as this thread is going around in circles now I'll just re post some of my older posts because you might have missed them:

 

 

Given the context it gets used in by not just media but in the way AMD have used it it reeks of marketing.   AMD's marketing style is to seed bits of information that point to one thing but not enough information to confirm and then lets the internet media get carried away.  Classic examples have been the mantle hype and the 9000 series hype.  With this they simply called it "freesync" from the get go, no other word or description as such, just freesync. Have a read through all the articles and find a quote from AMD that actually gives any details:

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7641/amd-demonstrates-freesync-free-gsync-alternative-at-ces-2014

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Variable-Refresh-FreeSync-Could-Be-Alternative-NVIDIA-G-Sync

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Demonstrates-Prototype-FreeSync-Monitor-DisplayPort-Adaptive-Sync-Feature

http://www.kitguru.net/peripherals/monitors/anton-shilov/amd-demonstrates-the-first-freesync-display-prototype/

 

 

This is why so many people thought that freesync was free (as in no cost to them), when freesync is AMD's implementation of adaptive sync (which is the industry standard AMD pushed for).  So freesync has little to do with royalty free use of adaptive sync as it is tied to GCN 1.1 cards.

 

 

Open source is irrelevant if it can only be used with GCN 1.1 cards. Ergo the naming of it as "freesync" is a misnomer.

 

Not quite true, free sync is not just software from AMD, to enable dynamic free sync for games etc you need to have an R series card, so anyone still running a 7000 or 8000 card cannot use dynamic freesync.  Hardware is required in both the monitor and the card,  so in short at the least you need a new monitor and at most a new card and monitor.    Calling it free is a misnomer. that is where the surprise is, but as I said earlier, it didn't surprise those of us who thought critically about it, only those who didn't think about what they were reading and only saw the words free or an opportunity to shit on nvidia.

 

SO in short:

 

freesync is not adaptive sync

Adaptive sync is an open standard,  whiule freesync is AMD's driver/hardware combo

Freesync is is proprietary to GCN1.1 and Kaveri, Kabini, Temash, Beema and Mullins APUs

 

ANd finally from AMD themselves:

 

Project FreeSync will utilize DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync protocols to enable dynamic refresh rates for video playback, gaming and power-saving scenarios.

 

 

See that?  freesync will utilize displayport adaptive-sync, freesync is not adaptive sync.

 

http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/219

[Guest]

I have already linked to the relevant information from the original source for both adaptive sync and free sync. I have also linked to that article earlier in this thread explaining why the term adaptive sync was not used and why AMD used the term freesync, which by the way is the driver/hardware AMD developed to work with v-blank in that original article. Adaptive sync is not v-blank but an extension of it. Ergo  It is not free sync.

 

 

Huh?  driver/hardware implantation does matter, with out it you can't get freesync. The whole point to adaptive sync being a standard is moot if you don't have hardware that supports it.  Seeing as this thread is going around in circles now I'll just re post some of my older posts because you might have missed them:

 

 

 

 

 

 

SO in short:

 

freesync is not adaptive sync

Adaptive sync is an open standard,  whiule freesync is AMD's driver/hardware combo

Freesync is is proprietary to GCN1.1 and Kaveri, Kabini, Temash, Beema and Mullins APUs

 

ANd finally from AMD themselves:

 

 

See that?  freesync will utilize displayport adaptive-sync, freesync is not adaptive sync.

 

http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/219

The adaptive sync part being an open standard does matter though, no matter how much you claim it doesn't. It means that anyone can create their own implementation that would be fully compatible with existing 'freesync' monitors, without having to pay licensing. AMD's specific implementation is just that, their specific driver implementation.

 

With freesync, there is no hardware that is proprietary to AMD involved. On the monitor all that's needed is: DP 1.2a/Adaptive Sync standard support, and scalars/asic that can handle variable refresh. On the video card you just need a display controller capable of variable refresh. There's no mysterious proprietary AMD freesync hardware module or anything like that. Intel for example could absolutely implement 'freesync' and have it work with all freesync compatible monitors without having to pay any licensing to AMD.

[mr moose]

The adaptive sync part being an open standard does matter, no matter how much you claim it doesn't. It means that anyone could create their own implementation that would be fully compatible with existing 'freesync' monitors, without having to pay licensing. AMD's specific implementation is just that, their specific driver implementation. There's nothing proprietary to AMD on the hardware side of things. What do you expect, for AMD to open source their windows driver?

 

I only said in doesn't matter in the context that there is no other GPU manufacture out there that will make something that not only uses adaptive sync but that in doing so saves money on royalties that can be passed on to the consumer.

 

At the moment, and for the quite foreseeable future, AMD is the only company that uses the adaptive sync standard.  Ergo the fact that it is an open standard means little.

 

 

 There's nothing proprietary to AMD on the hardware side of things. What do you expect, for AMD to open source their windows driver?

what are you talking about?  who would want AMD to open source their drivers and how would that change/help anything?  in fact what's that even got to do with adaptive sync being the open standard? Freesync only works with AMD hardware, that makes it proprietary.  no one expects amd to open their drivers up on that.

[Guest]

I only said in doesn't matter in the context that there is no other GPU manufacture out there that will make something that not only uses adaptive sync but that in doing so saves money on royalties that can be passed on to the consumer.

 

At the moment, and for the quite foreseeable future, AMD is the only company that uses the adaptive sync standard.  Ergo the fact that it is an open standard means little.

 

 

what are you talking about?  who would want AMD to open source their drivers and how would that change/help anything?  in fact what's that even got to do with adaptive sync being the open standard? Freesync only works with AMD hardware, that makes it proprietary.  no one expects amd to open their drivers up on that.

I do not expect them to open source their drivers, and that is not what I was saying. It was a sarcastic response, that didn't come across the way I intended. I've edited that post to be more clear.

 

Your use of the word proprietary is what is bothering me. Just because AMD is the only one that's implemented this so far, does not mean its proprietary to AMD hardware. There's no reason that anyone else, intel for example wouldn't be able to use the new adaptive sync standard to implement 'freesync' (they obviously wouldn't call it that), and have it be fully compatible with freesync monitors, without having to pay anything to AMD. That's all I'm saying here. In this respect, it is certainly more 'open' than gsync.

 

I think we can all agree that 'Freesync' is an ambiguous, confusing, and annoying name though.