Question about adaptive sync

[InfiniteZero0]

  Can somebody explain to me why adaptive sync (G-Sync/Free Sync) is necessary when it's possible to just lock your framerate down to your monitor's refresh rate? It makes even less sense that they put it on higher refresh rate monitors since you'll go past that refresh rate even less. Can someone explain the benefits of having such a technology over the cheaper and less restrictive solution of using whatever monitor you want and just locking the frame rate?

[Enderman]

[Marinatall_Ironside]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fghQh0Y4oA4

[Belgarathian]

My understanding is that it's not so much exceeding the 60hz refresh rate your monitor may have, but when you can't maintain a 60hz refresh rate (i.e drops to 49fps) you won't suffer from screen tearing and stutters.

 

There is probably a whole lot more, and some latency differences etc as well but I don't think I did too badly for a sentence. 

[Glenwing]

  Can somebody explain to me why adaptive sync (G-Sync/Free Sync) is necessary when it's possible to just lock your framerate down to your monitor's refresh rate? It makes even less sense that they put it on higher refresh rate monitors since you'll go past that refresh rate even less. Can someone explain the benefits of having such a technology over the cheaper and less restrictive solution of using whatever monitor you want and just locking the frame rate?

 

Lock your framerate to your monitor's refresh rate? What happens if your framerate drops below that?

[InfiniteZero0]

I was talking about having V Sync off. To my understanding, V Sync stuttering only occurs if you turn it on and go under your monitor's refresh rate, and you only get tearing with no V Sync when your frame rate goes over it. Or am I wrong. If so please elaborate. As for Free Sync as fast as possible, I've watched it already, doesn't answer my question.

[Glenwing]

I was talking about having V Sync off. To my understanding, V Sync stuttering only occurs if you turn it on and go under your monitor's refresh rate, and you only get tearing with no V Sync when your frame rate goes over it. Or am I wrong. If so please elaborate. As for Free Sync as fast as possible, I've watched it already, doesn't answer my question.

 

Tearing can occur whenever the framerate and refresh rate are not synchronized, whether the framerate is less than, greater than, or even equal to the refresh rate. It's just most common when you're above the refresh rate, but it can happen at any framerate.

 

Capping your framerate to your monitor's refresh rate will stop your framerate from passing above the refresh rate, but it's still possible to drop below the refresh rate and get stuttering, whether or not you have V-Sync on. If you have V-Sync on you'll either drop to 30fps or flicker between 30fps and 60fps if your framerate is borderline, which creates stuttering. If you have V-Sync off, your framerate might be around say 49fps or 53fps or something like that, which creates more minor stuttering since the monitor is showing 60 frames per second, if you're at 53 fps then 7 of those 60 frames on the monitor will be duplicates, which will be noticed as a stutter as the monitor effectively drops to 30fps for that one frame, since showing the same frame twice once in a while is the same effect as suddenly dropping to 30Hz for 1 frame.

[InfiniteZero0]

Tearing can occur whenever the framerate and refresh rate are not synchronized, whether the framerate is less than, greater than, or even equal to the refresh rate. It's just most common when you're above the refresh rate, but it can happen at any framerate.

 

Capping your framerate to your monitor's refresh rate will stop your framerate from passing above the refresh rate, but it's still possible to drop below the refresh rate and get stuttering, whether or not you have V-Sync on. If you have V-Sync on you'll either drop to 30fps or flicker between 30fps and 60fps if your framerate is borderline, which creates stuttering. If you have V-Sync off, your framerate might be around say 49fps or 53fps or something like that, which creates more minor stuttering since the monitor is showing 60 frames per second, if you're at 53 fps then 7 of those 60 frames on the monitor will be duplicates, which will be noticed as a stutter as the monitor effectively drops to 30fps for that one frame, since showing the same frame twice once in a while is the same effect as suddenly dropping to 30Hz for 1 frame.

I see, so basically, even if your framerate exactly matches the monitor's refresh rate, there will still be tearing? Meaning unless you use V-Sync or an adaptive sync technology you'll get screen tearing no matter what? If so I get it now.

[Glenwing]

I see, so basically, even if your framerate exactly matches the monitor's refresh rate, there will still be tearing? Meaning unless you use V-Sync or an adaptive sync technology you'll get screen tearing no matter what? If so I get it now.

 

There can be, yes. It just has to do with how the frames align with the monitor's refresh cycle. If the frames are not timed correctly tearing can occur. This can be seen with buggy/incorrect implementations of V-Sync where every frame is slightly late resulting in a persistent tear on every single frame like seen here: 

 

But unless you have V-Sync on you'll pretty much never have a framerate that exactly matches your monitor to a decimal point for more than a single frame. But in theory yes you could get tearing even if you had that without the framerate and monitor being properly synchronized.