FreeSync FAQ Released - pretty disappointing

[mr moose]

except this will be a new DP standard that all gaming monitors will have, no licensing fees, just minor DP changes. This will be open for NVIDIA to make it work with their cards.

Of course with new display standards you can't use old monitors. But most monitors will have adaptive sync, for 2 reasons-

1. It's a vesa standard.

2. No licensing fees like the ones for gsync. 

3. It's not locked to one manufacturer, like Gsync is. 

4. It builds on display port standards, which revisions of have been implemented in the past. 

So really there's no reason not to add it if you were a manufacturer. In the end, NVIDIA will have to adapt (hah pun) to adaptivesync. They'll still call it Gync probably, but it will support the vesa standard. 

And this is good. 

As an NVIDIA guy, I really hope they get on board with this. I want to keep on NVIDIA cards for the awesome game streaming. I want to buy a monitor with a universal,open, license fee free vesa standard. Not some monitor that costs more due to NVIDIA license fees that I can only take advantage of with NVIDIA cards. 

Honestly, I don't see Gync monitors as a lasting thing because of this being a vesa standing with no fees. I think there will be limited selection for Gsync monitors, but a large selection of A-Sync monitors. 

 

One could argue that because it is part of the standard and is going to be incorporated into most (guess) monitors, then those who don't want/need it will end up paying for it.  We don't know what the end cost will be.  I guess that's why I hope there will still be monitors out there without it that get pushed sown in price as a result.

[Syntaxvgm]

One could argue that because it is part of the standard and is going to be incorporated into most (guess) monitors, then those who don't want/need it will end up paying for it.  We don't know what the end cost will be.  I guess that's why I hope there will still be monitors out there without it that get pushed sown in price as a result.

Well I wouldn't image it would cost more based on how it works, it'll just be a DP revision with some changes to the controller boards I guess. But if it does, I'm sure it will be at least a standard on gaming-targeted monitors. Without licencing fees, I can't imaging it'll cost much even if it someone needs anything other than R&D. 

[Enderman]

except this will be a new DP standard that all gaming monitors will have, no licensing fees, just minor DP changes. This will be open for NVIDIA to make it work with their cards.

Of course with new display standards you can't use old monitors. But most monitors will have adaptive sync, for 2 reasons-

1. It's a vesa standard.

2. No licensing fees like the ones for gsync. 

3. It's not locked to one manufacturer, like Gsync is. 

4. It builds on display port standards, which revisions of have been implemented in the past. 

So really there's no reason not to add it if you were a manufacturer. In the end, NVIDIA will have to adapt (hah pun) to adaptivesync. They'll still call it Gync probably, but it will support the vesa standard. 

And this is good. 

As an NVIDIA guy, I really hope they get on board with this. I want to keep on NVIDIA cards for the awesome game streaming. I want to buy a monitor with a universal,open, license fee free vesa standard. Not some monitor that costs more due to NVIDIA license fees that I can only take advantage of with NVIDIA cards. 

Honestly, I don't see Gync monitors as a lasting thing because of this being a vesa standing with no fees. I think there will be limited selection for Gsync monitors, but a large selection of A-Sync monitors. 

It's not just minor display port changes. If you knew how this technology worked you would know that there need to be hardware support to change the frequency that the image is broadcast on the screen. This is what the small piece of gsync hardware did. Now hardware that does exactly that is what amd wants in the new monitors. Basically it does the exact same thing. But what is all lies the 'no dedicated hardware' bullshit claim from AMD a while ago to compete with gsync. It is pretty obvious now that this technology needs to be hardware oriented, not just software like AMD tricked everyone into believing.

[Syntaxvgm]

It's not just minor display port changes. If you knew how this technology worked you would know that there need to be hardware support to change the frequency that the image is broadcast on the screen. This is what the small piece of gsync hardware did. Now hardware that does exactly that is what amd wants in the new monitors. Basically it does the exact same thing. But what is all lies the 'no dedicated hardware' bullshit claim from AMD a while ago to compete with gsync. It is pretty obvious now that this technology needs to be hardware oriented, not just software like AMD tricked everyone into believing.

Those are not lies. First of all, I consider that a minor change, and theres no licencing fee, or need to buy an NVIDIA card for it to work. Hence "FreeSync"

And therse no dedicated hardware, it'll be a change to controller boards that follows the new DP standard. Controller boards are very cheap besides licencing. I'd argue that it'll be cheaper to add than new HDMI standards due to HDMI licensing. 

Second, it's a vesa standard. it will happen on most new monitors with new DP standards. So it'll be a standard everyone has access to with new monitors. 

If Amd wet the route of NVIDIA, manufactures would have to pay a fee to have SEPARATE hardware to be compatible, and it would only work with AMD. But this standard will be open. 

Though the freesync name is bulshit, the purpose is to make an open vesa standard for ASync that both AMD and NVIDIA will be compatible with. What did you expect AMD to do, NOT have frame sync tech and just let nvidia take all of its customers? 

 

What they mean by dedicated hardware can be argued though. Their hope is to have EVERY gaming targeted monitor be compatible, with no extra cost. I would call that open and leave it, their claims are a bit zealous. I don't think this will work as a firmware upgrade for the majority of monitors. 

 

You still have yet to answer for that bullshit about the titanZ and the 295x2 and you cherry picking benchmarks just to not let that damn AMD win even though it was well known that was not the case, even a news subject for a while. Get over it, the 295x2 was a win for AMD. So what. I still wont buy amd again anytime soon, and you don't have to either. I fully expected the titanz to beat the 295x2, but it turns out the  AMD dual gpu implementation was less limited. I doubt NVIDIA will make the same mistake again and have a dual gpu card that under-performs the two separate cards. 

The only reason I brought up that the 295x2 beats the titanz even though it shouldn't was because you can't make the "it also costs to much" argument very well when it performs better than the competitions cards that costs double, as you can argue that you really get twice as much for your money. I'll take the cuda cores personally though.  

Baseless claims in order to defend your favorite brand is for console peasants that don't know hardware. We're better than that. 

[mr moose]

Those are not lies. First of all, I consider that a minor change, and theres no licencing fee, or need to buy an NVIDIA card for it to work. Hence "FreeSync"

And therse no dedicated hardware, it'll be a change to controller boards that follows the new DP standard. 

Second, it's a vesa standard. it will happen on most new monitors with new DP standards. So it'll be a standard everyone has access to with new monitors. 

If Amd wet the route of NVIDIA, manufactures would have to pay a fee to have SEPARATE hardware to be compatible, and it would only work with AMD. But this standard will be open. 

Though the freesync name is bulshit, the purpose is to make an open vesa standard for ASync that both AMD and NVIDIA will be compatible with. What did you expect AMD to do, NOT have frame sync tech and just let nvidia take all of its customers? 

 

What they mean by dedicated hardware can be argued though. Their hope is to have EVERY gaming targeted monitor be compatible, with no extra cost. I would call that open and leave it, their claims are a bit zealous. 

 

You still have yet to answer for that bullshit about the titanZ and the 295x2 and you cherry picking benchmarks just to not let that damn AMD win even though it was well known that that was not the case, even a news subject for a while? Get over it the 295x2 was a win for AMD. So what. I still wont buy amd again anytime soon, and you don't have to either. 

Baseless claims in order to defend your favorite brand is for console peasants that don't know hardware. We're better than that. 

But there is dedicated hardware that you need to have free sync,

 

You'll also need to have a GCN1.1 card,  which means quite a few AMD owners will have to upgrade their GPU. 

 

To be honest there's not a lot between them,  AMD had changes made to the vesa standard while nvidia simply produced an alternative for the monitor manufacturers to use.  both ways require specific monitor hardware, so which one is cheaper (if one is) will only become apparent overtime. until then we are just guessing.  Both require specific GPU's, which means many will have to upgrade anyway.

[Syntaxvgm]

But there is dedicated hardware that you need to have free sync,

 

You'll also need to have a GCN1.1 card,  which means quite a few AMD owners will have to upgrade their GPU. 

 

To be honest there's not a lot between them,  AMD had changes made to the vesa standard while nvidia simply produced an alternative for the monitor manufacturers to use.  both ways require specific monitor hardware, so which one is cheaper (if one is) will only become apparent overtime. until then we are just guessing.  Both require specific GPU's, which means many will have to upgrade anyway.

The Gsync won't be cheaper due to licensing. Which why NVIDIA did that,  I don't know, because controller boards are cheap, and they just decided to make it harder to push out their own technology. 

 

You'll also need to have a GCN1.1 card,  which means quite a few AMD owners will have to upgrade their GPU.

I wasn't aware it was that restricted, that is kinda BS. Tough I could argue NVIDIA is restricted as well, they go all the way back to the 6 series. I thought it at least went back to the 7000 series. What about the R9 200 series re-brands like the 280x? Isn't that just a 7970? 

[Enderman]

Those are not lies. First of all, I consider that a minor change, and theres no licencing fee, or need to buy an NVIDIA card for it to work. Hence "FreeSync"

And therse no dedicated hardware, it'll be a change to controller boards that follows the new DP standard. Controller boards are very cheap besides licencing. I'd argue that it'll be cheaper to add than new HDMI standards due to HDMI licensing. 

Second, it's a vesa standard. it will happen on most new monitors with new DP standards. So it'll be a standard everyone has access to with new monitors. 

If Amd wet the route of NVIDIA, manufactures would have to pay a fee to have SEPARATE hardware to be compatible, and it would only work with AMD. But this standard will be open. 

Though the freesync name is bulshit, the purpose is to make an open vesa standard for ASync that both AMD and NVIDIA will be compatible with. What did you expect AMD to do, NOT have frame sync tech and just let nvidia take all of its customers? 

 

What they mean by dedicated hardware can be argued though. Their hope is to have EVERY gaming targeted monitor be compatible, with no extra cost. I would call that open and leave it, their claims are a bit zealous. I don't think this will work as a firmware upgrade for the majority of monitors. 

 

You still have yet to answer for that bullshit about the titanZ and the 295x2 and you cherry picking benchmarks just to not let that damn AMD win even though it was well known that was not the case, even a news subject for a while. Get over it, the 295x2 was a win for AMD. So what. I still wont buy amd again anytime soon, and you don't have to either. I fully expected the titanz to beat the 295x2, but it turns out the  AMD dual gpu implementation was less limited. I doubt NVIDIA will make the same mistake again and have a dual gpu card that under-performs the two separate cards. 

The only reason I brought up that the 295x2 beats the titanz even though it shouldn't was because you can't make the "it also costs to much" argument very well when it performs better than the competitions cards that costs double, as you can argue that you really get twice as much for your money. I'll take the cuda cores personally though.  

Baseless claims in order to defend your favorite brand is for console peasants that don't know hardware. We're better than that. 

The fact that they completely changed their 'freesync' is the main issue here. AMD started off completely differently claiming a simple software update would let their GPUs have a variable framerate on monitors. The first clue that this was shit was when they showed it working on a laptop. Obviously the connection between a laptop screen and the motherboard is not standardized and can easily be reprogrammed to work differently since it is not a DP cable or anything like that.

Now that this is becoming a vesa standard idk if it was AMD that convinced them to add this to the new versio or if AMD is taking advantage of the new version's feature. If AMD convinced them to add it as a feature, nvidia could have just as easily asked them to implement the gsync hardware. If this is just a feature that vesa implemented themselves, AMD should have no right to claim it theirs as freesync.

 

Also I was just bringing up benchmarks to prove he is wrong and the 295x2 does NOT crush the titan z. In fact they perform more or less equally, with the 295 doing better in some games and the Z doing better in others. On average the 295x2 is slightly better because of the mantle improvements. Mantle in only a feature in some games, so it is not completely accurate to compare them on average. Also this has nothing to do with price performance. The titan z is NOT for gamers as stared by linus and everyone else. I was just proving him wrong. You can get two 780tis for $1500 and will perform almost identically. AMD cards are a lot better at price performance obviously, but that doesn't mean they are 10x better than an nvidia equivalent. The titan z was not a mistake. There re many people who have bought them. It seems like you may not understand their reasons. Not everyone is looking for price/performance.

[Trik'Stari]

 

In the end it will end up being the same as gsync, where you need a special monitor that supports it.

 

^this.

 

I dislike AMD not only because they seem to do things just out of a want to compete or be different. But they always seem to try to go the cheap route to do it. People say that "oh, amd gpu's have better price for performance" no, they have raw power in exchange for quality and driver support, you can't get more for less, if you pay less, you are going to get less somewhere along the line, no matter what you do. Not to mention that the current price of AMD gpu's is resultant from the cryocurrency mining crash, not necessarily of their choice. In other words, they probably had to lower their prices due to a massive flood of cheap second hand gpu's on the internet once people started selling them off and shutting down their mining rigs.

 

It just seems like AMD is the "troll" of the tech industry, they make claims about other companies that either aren't true, or don't make sense "We don't have access to the GameWorks source code!". They constantly say "support is coming" but it's so slow that it doesn't matter. But for me the absolute worst thing about them is that they seem to have no real direction in mind. Look at dual graphics, I bought an A10 FM2 5700 APU as my first build because I figured I could get more performance out of it than and intel build, by doing dual graphics. Come to find out, I was basically limited to 1 possible card, and that card was essentially overpriced crap compared to the GTX660 I ended up buying instead.

 

Yet all of this will be overlooked, and in the morning I'll have 10 notifications saying "your an idiot, AMD offers better price for performance", meaning they read the first sentence of my post, and then immediately flew into an incandescent rage about someone not liking AMD. To me, AMD offers nothing worthwhile. But then again, I like paying more money for things, because most of the time you get a better product, that lasts longer.

[Syntaxvgm]

Also I was just bringing up benchmarks to prove he is wrong and the 295x2 does NOT crush the titan z. In fact they perform more or less equally, with the 295 doing better in some games and the Z doing better in others. On average the 295x2 is slightly better because of the mantle improvements. Mantle in only a feature in some games, so it is not completely accurate to compare them on average. Also this has nothing to do with price performance. The titan z is NOT for gamers as stared by linus and everyone else. I was just proving him wrong. You can get two 780tis for $1500 and will perform almost identically. AMD cards are a lot better at price performance obviously, but that doesn't mean they are 10x better than an nvidia equivalent. The titan z was not a mistake. There re many people who have bought them. It seems like you may not understand their reasons. Not everyone is looking for price/performance.

Those were not mantle benchmarks. The problem is that the whole titan family was marketed towards gamers. I would rather it be a quadro because it basically is. 

And if they had cooled it right and not nerferd the individual gpus, it would be great. I don't like the idea of buying a 3000$ triple slot card that does not perform on par with the cards it's made of.

 

I would buy a couple of 780tis over a 295x2 any day, you are right. 

 

The fact that they completely changed their 'freesync' is the main issue here. AMD started off completely differently claiming a simple software update would let their GPUs have a variable framerate on monitors. The first clue that this was shit was when they showed it working on a laptop. Obviously the connection between a laptop screen and the motherboard is not standardized and can easily be reprogrammed to work differently since it is not a DP cable or anything like that.

Now that this is becoming a vesa standard idk if it was AMD that convinced them to add this to the new versio or if AMD is taking advantage of the new version's feature. If AMD convinced them to add it as a feature, nvidia could have just as easily asked them to implement the gsync hardware. If this is just a feature that vesa implemented themselves, AMD should have no right to claim it theirs as freesync.

If I remember right, AMD pushed it, but highjacked it. I forget the laptop video. That is BS as the lvds controller is built in.

Sure it will work with laptops someday, but not until the internal LVDS controllers are updated. Which they rarely are.

I didn't know AMDs exact claims about software only.

I guess this would not be the first AMD foot-in-mouth problem. I still have ptsd about bulldozer.

[mr moose]

The Gsync won't be cheaper due to licensing. Which why NVIDIA did that,  I don't know, because controller boards are cheap, and they just decided to make it harder to push out their own technology. 

 

I wasn't aware it was that restricted, that is kinda BS. Tough I could argue NVIDIA is restricted as well, they go all the way back to the 6 series. I thought it at least went back to the 7000 series. What about the R9 200 series re-brands like the 280x? Isn't that just a 7970? 

With g-sync we have no competition and it's still very new, it may well drop significantly once there is an option for customers. But, controller boards are controller boards, until we know what the R+D cost is I won't argue it.

 

the R9 280 and 280x aren't compatible, they are GCN 1.0.  So effectively unless you have an R9 295X2, 290X, R9 290, R7 260X or R7 260 you will have to upgrade.

 

I thinks there are about 5/6 cards that are currently compatible.

[Syntaxvgm]

With g-sync we have no competition and it's still very new, it may well drop significantly once there is an option for customers. But, controller boards are controller boards, until we know what the R+D cost is I won't argue it.

 

the R9 280 and 280x aren't compatible, they are GCN 1.0.  So effectively unless you have an R9 295X2, 290X, R9 290, R7 260X or R7 260 you will have to upgrade.

 

I thinks there are about 5/6 cards that are currently compatible.

I thought some of the R9 290s were 1.0

God damn that's crap. But it's not like they can go back in time to change their cards' hardware I guess.

[Enderman]

Those were not mantle benchmarks. The problem is that the whole titan family was marketed towards gamers. I would rather it be a quadro because it basically is. 

And if they had cooled it right and not nerferd the individual gpus, it would be great. I don't like the idea of buying a 3000$ triple slot card that does not perform on par with the cards it's made of.

 

I would buy a couple of 780tis over a 295x2 any day, you are right. 

 

If I remember right, AMD pushed it, but highjacked it. I forget the laptop video. That is BS as the lvds controller is built in.

Sure it will work with laptops someday, but not until the internal LVDS controllers are updated. Which they rarely are.

I didn't know AMDs exact claims about software only.

I guess this would not be the first AMD foot-in-mouth problem. I still have ptsd about bulldozer.

Aha I see we are getting somewhere

You said the Z had nerfed GPUs...

The only thing that changed was a bit lower clock speed. They didn't disable any cores or anything like that. It can be overclocked to the same speed as regular titan blacks.

 

I need to see if AMD or vesa initiated this variable refresh rate change in displayport. I'm a bit confused on this specific point...

If vesa made this change and implemented it, AMD should definitely not be taking credit for it and calling it freesync.

[mr moose]

I thought some of the R9 290s were 1.0 <- did you mean 1.1?

God damn that's crap. But it's notliek they can go back in time to change their cards' hardware I guess.

 

 

It's all speculation at the moment, but with the difference between 1.0 and 1.1 there are a few who feel the limitation is artificial,  an attempt by AMD to push people to buy new cards. If this is the case then yes it really is crap, however on the flip side, they have been working on this for a while now so they should have known about it and made 1.0 compilable too, especially seeing as they are having a go at Nvidia for tying their version down.

[Syntaxvgm]

Aha I see we are getting somewhere

You said the Z had nerfed GPUs...

The only thing that changed was a bit lower clock speed. They didn't disable any cores or anything like that. It can be overclocked to the same speed as regular titan blacks.

 

I need to see if AMD or vesa initiated this variable refresh rate change in displayport. I'm a bit confused on this specific point...

If vesa made this change and implemented it, AMD should definitely not be taking credit for it and calling it freesync.

Well I THINK that AMD sparked it, but I think that based on what AMD has said. So who knows.

So I guess I could take the titanz and add a waterblock and make an amazing 5k$ itx machine with a lil modification

Lol well I hope NVIDIA doesn't do that again, it makes them look so bad. They need a better cooler. I mean the 295x2 was great for outside the box solutions, and had great results.

Nvidia needs to stop with the titan as a gaming card marketing. But they won't as a lot of PC noob gamers with money buy it to get the best.

I think it's a really reasonable deal for a DPFP card, and a lot of professionals use it.

[Syntaxvgm]

It's all speculation at the moment, but with the difference between 1.0 and 1.1 there are a few who feel the limitation is artificial,  an attempt by AMD to push people to buy new cards. If this is the case then yes it really is crap, however on the flip side, they have been working on this for a while now so they should have known about it and made 1.0 compilable too, especially seeing as they are having a go at Nvidia for tying their version down.

No I meant 1.0, as they are 7000 series rebrands.

If the 280x is 1.1 but has no differences from the 7970, how is 1.1 different from 1.0 then? It would be forced upgrades as you said.

[mr moose]

No I meant 1.0, as they are 7000 series rebrands.

If the 280x is 1.1 but has no differences from the 7970, how is 1.1 different from 1.0 then? It would be forced upgrades.

the 280 is a rebrand and it is only 1.0.  That's why it won't work.  you need 1.1 to have freesync

 

So anyone who bought a 280 or still has a 7000 series won't be able to use freesync.

[Enderman]

Well I THINK that AMD sparked it, but I think that based on what AMD has said. So who knows.

So I guess I could take the titanz and add a waterblock and make an amazing 5k$ itx machine with a lil modification

Lol well I hope NVIDIA doesn't do that again, it makes them look so bad. They need a better cooler. I mean the 295x2 was great for outside the box solutions, and had great results.

Nvidia needs to stop with the titan as a gaming card marketing. But they won't as a lot of PC noob gamers with money buy it to get the best.

I think it's a really reasonable deal for a DPFP card, and a lot of professionals use it.

Yup. The fact that the titan doesnt output 10 bit colour makes it obviously not a Quadro card.

And it performs so well at gaming that it is basically a geforce gaming card with an absurdly high price.

For people who's job pays them unlimited money for a 'work' PC it is great though

[Syntaxvgm]

the 280 is a rebrand and it is only 1.0.  That's why it won't work.  you need 1.1 to have freesync

 

So anyone who bought a 280 or still has a 7000 series won't be able to use freesync.

Yah ok that's what I meant. Some of the r9 200 series are 1.0.

(this is why rebrands are gay)

[Syntaxvgm]

Yup. The fact that the titan doesnt output 10 bit colour makes it obviously not a Quadro card.

And it performs so well at gaming that it is basically a geforce gaming card with an absurdly high price.

For people who's job pays them unlimited money for a 'work' PC it is great though

I wish AMD and NVIDIA would stop with the overpriced pro cards just because they can get away with it.

I want 10 bit color.....for...stuff

If the titan had it, it would crush their quadro market completely. That's why they nixed it and marketed it to gamers.

[Enderman]

I wish AMD and NVIDIA would stop with the overpriced pro cards just because they can get away with it.

I want 10 bit color.....for...stuff

If the titan had it, it would crush their quadro market completely. That's why they nixed it and marketed it to gamers.

Yeah 100% right :\

I really liked that 8 bit vs 10 bit panel comparison linus did a few years ago...

10 bit looked so much better

[Syntaxvgm]

Yeah 100% right :\

I really liked that 8 bit vs 10 bit panel comparison linus did a few years ago...

10 bit looked so much better

I'm thinking of getting a 10 bit panel and a cheap 10 bit card just for that panel some day. For playback and photo editing mostly.

[LAwLz]

the 280 is a rebrand and it is only 1.0.  That's why it won't work.  you need 1.1 to have freesync

 

So anyone who bought a 280 or still has a 7000 series won't be able to use freesync.

I am very confused by the whole FreeSync compatibility.

The 7000 series (including the 280) supports FreeSync partially. What I don't get is why it works everywhere except in games. Since it works for videos (and other savings) I assume the range is at least 24-60Hz so it's not like they can say "well those cards don't support a wide range of frequencies so they aren't suitable for gaming". If it was just about forcing people to upgrade then I don't see why the 280 isn't compatible.

Like with a lot of stuff AMD announces, there is a serious deficiency of proper info.

[mr moose]

I am very confused by the whole FreeSync compatibility.

The 7000 series (including the 280) supports FreeSync partially. What I don't get is why it works everywhere except in games. Since it works for videos (and other savings) I assume the range is at least 24-60Hz so it's not like they can say "well those cards don't support a wide range of frequencies so they aren't suitable for gaming". If it was just about forcing people to upgrade then I don't see why the 280 isn't compatible.

Like with a lot of stuff AMD announces, there is a serious deficiency of proper info.

 

who knows (AMD of course), it could just be a coincidence, but seeing as we are coming upto a year since the release of most of the 1.1, it may also be a result of fractured design from hasty R+D to counter g-sync.

[f22luke]

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.

[Guest]

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.