AMD FreeSync - AMD's Free G-SYNC Alternative

[IPCharger]

Don't forget h.264 recording with RadeonPro on the horizon.

You can already use AMD's built in h264 encoder to record with Bandicam (no need to wait for RadeonPro).

[bradscoolio]

Pardon my french but this is fucking brilliant! 

[ZetZet]

Can you hurry up with this, I want to buy a pc someday and now I really have no idea who's side I'm on.

[_wky]

I'm hoping this will help drive down the pricing of Nvidia's G-SYNC. This should be interesting.

[Opsilon]

Guys....

Calm the f**k down, most of us have not seen how will this work in reality anyway, not to mention if you have a 120 HZ monitor where v-sync is not really needed, you will see no difference.

I can understand that they want to save power, but what they are doing right now again calls for new monitors.

 

With the 600 series Nvidia introduced adaptive v-sync, so all of you Nvidia users if you are not using it, you are doing it wrong, and AMD people you should try it at a friends house or LAN center, it makes a huge difference when gaming.

That being said, i am not against variable refresh rates, but until this becomes a standard for every monitor ( every monitor has amd and nvidia options ) we as the consumers lose every time. AMD's implementation might make Nvidia cut the prices on g-sync chips, but until every manufacturer says: O.K. we are going to have both, and not ad 500$ to the monitor cost ( 150-200 makes sense, but over time it should be even cheaper ). This will not work, so calm down, wait and see, both companies promise a lot, but it will take some time to see what is what, so wait and don't jump to conclusions.

Then again, would be fun to see AMD's "free" solution be better, i would rofl so much!

[UselessBread]

I wonder if that is free as in free beer or free as in richard stallman.

[mr moose]

Guys....

Calm the f**k down, most of us have not seen how will this work in reality anyway, not to mention if you have a 120 HZ monitor where v-sync is not really needed, you will see no difference.

I can understand that they want to save power, but what they are doing right now again calls for new monitors.

 

With the 600 series Nvidia introduced adaptive v-sync, so all of you Nvidia users if you are not using it, you are doing it wrong, and AMD people you should try it at a friends house or LAN center, it makes a huge difference when gaming.

That being said, i am not against variable refresh rates, but until this becomes a standard for every monitor ( every monitor has amd and nvidia options ) we as the consumers lose every time. AMD's implementation might make Nvidia cut the prices on g-sync chips, but until every manufacturer says: O.K. we are going to have both, and not ad 500$ to the monitor cost ( 150-200 makes sense, but over time it should be even cheaper ). This will not work, so calm down, wait and see, both companies promise a lot, but it will take some time to see what is what, so wait and don't jump to conclusions.

Then again, would be fun to see AMD's "free" solution be better, i would rofl so much!

That's it, and even then it is possible the only reason a g-sync monitor has the $120 premium is because G-sync is a selling point not necessarily an extra production cost.  There is nothing to say that manufactures aren't going charge an extra $100 to put a freesync compatible sticker on it.  Don't think they won't.

[afa7336]

Can you hurry up with this, I want to buy a pc someday and now I really have no idea who's side I'm on.

 

Go with what A) fits your budget B) Gives you the best performance in the games you like and C) What would give you, the individual, a better experience. No matter what "team" you choose, its going to be a good choice. Chasing tech, so to speak, is generally a very bad idea. Something new, interesting, and neat will always come out or be talked about and can preclude you from buying some kind of tech.

[Denned]

Looks promising! But I can't help but think that Nvidia's solution can only be a better / more reliable. But whether it's woth the price premium, is a great question.

Also AMD's solution works just as much on "every" display as Nvidia's. AMD's might just be a little more elegant, since that solution is already being implemented on displays for other reasons.

[crystal6tak]

So AMD GPU's now have Freesync, Mantle, Radeonpro recording, TressFX 2.0 and TrueAudio... None of which are available to consumers right now.    If all of them work out then this year is going to be great for AMD GPU's.

[Scionyde]

Sometimes I feel like NVIDIA gets *some* undue hatred because of their proprietary stuff. I forget if it was Ryan Shrout who mentioned it on the WAN show, but he made the point they do typically spend a lot more time and R&D money to develop things than AMD does. Though I will admit, as somebody who was thinking about modding his Asus monitor for G-sync with the kit, the prices haven't been all that appealing to me, and I'm not sure I'm willing to pay for the kit.

 

Some other people have voiced this concern, and I think I agree - if this was such an obvious solution that was as good as G-Sync, why wouldn't NVIDIA do something similar? Even if they wanted to be "evil" like some people think and charge people a premium for it, couldn't they have just walled off this "free" solution with patents so AMD would never get their hands on it? Maybe this is subconscious, inadvertant fanboyism because I currently own an NVIDIA GPU, but I have a hard time believing they would've dropped the ball so spectacularly if this is the case. (Also, why haven't we seen this sooner?)

 

I'm really interested to see how it goes, but I do have my doubts, and I'll reserve judgment until reviewer sites get their hands on desktop monitors with this implemented. 

[afa7336]

So AMD GPU's now have Freesync, Mantle, Radeonpro recording, TressFX 2.0 and TrueAudio... None of which are available to consumers right now.    If all of them work out then this year is going to be great for AMD GPU's.

 

Maybe. Its a double edged sword. You make people wait six-ten months or less knowing how tech people are, and you risk angering your fanbase/customers and driving them to the competition. Basically, we're dealing with the ever changing tech world, you gotta have your stuff out quick quick quick. Goes for both Nvidia and AMD.

[ForeseenVisionz]

But..but.. I just bought a 780ti like 3 hrs ago in high hopes for gsync.... well fml! Well atleast I got phyx right?..right?..Oh okay then  

[Derangel]

Sometimes I feel like NVIDIA gets *some* undue hatred because of their proprietary stuff. I forget if it was Ryan Shrout who mentioned it on the WAN show, but he made the point they do typically spend a lot more time and R&D money to develop things than AMD does. Though I will admit, as somebody who was thinking about modding his Asus monitor for G-sync with the kit, the prices haven't been all that appealing to me, and I'm not sure I'm willing to pay for the kit.

 

Some other people have voiced this concern, and I think I agree - if this was such an obvious solution that was as good as G-Sync, why wouldn't NVIDIA do something similar? Even if they wanted to be "evil" like some people think and charge people a premium for it, couldn't they have just walled off this "free" solution with patents so AMD would never get their hands on it? Maybe this is subconscious, inadvertant fanboyism because I currently own an NVIDIA GPU, but I have a hard time believing they would've dropped the ball so spectacularly if this is the case. (Also, why haven't we seen this sooner?)

 

I'm really interested to see how it goes, but I do have my doubts, and I'll reserve judgment until reviewer sites get their hands on desktop monitors with this implemented. 

 

VBLANK is a VESA standard. No one owns the rights to it or can patent it. Nvidia seems weirdly scared of open source or GPU agnostic things. If Nvidia truely cared about PhysX, for example, they would fix it and make it work properly on CPUs then make an OpenCL version so everyone can use it. That said, I really don't think this will be as good as G-Sync. It's a step in the right direction, but we need to replace vsync all together, not add more things that rely on it.

[ForeseenVisionz]

Sometimes I feel like NVIDIA gets *some* undue hatred because of their proprietary stuff. I forget if it was Ryan Shrout who mentioned it on the WAN show, but he made the point they do typically spend a lot more time and R&D money to develop things than AMD does. Though I will admit, as somebody who was thinking about modding his Asus monitor for G-sync with the kit, the prices haven't been all that appealing to me, and I'm not sure I'm willing to pay for the kit.

 

Some other people have voiced this concern, and I think I agree - if this was such an obvious solution that was as good as G-Sync, why wouldn't NVIDIA do something similar? Even if they wanted to be "evil" like some people think and charge people a premium for it, couldn't they have just walled off this "free" solution with patents so AMD would never get their hands on it? Maybe this is subconscious, inadvertant fanboyism because I currently own an NVIDIA GPU, but I have a hard time believing they would've dropped the ball so spectacularly if this is the case. (Also, why haven't we seen this sooner?)

 

I'm really interested to see how it goes, but I do have my doubts, and I'll reserve judgment until reviewer sites get their hands on desktop monitors with this implemented. 

But then again you make a very valid point here. Maybe all hope for all un nvidia owners isnt lost after all.

[Andrew48]

GO AMD GO!!

[TOMPPIX]

[Scia]

Free-Synch + Mantle vs. G-Synch - 200$. [The ASUS 1440p 120hz TN monitor with GSynch is 800$ ]

 

I'll go with the first option. Oh--- wait--- I already did

[GamerDude]

Free-Synch + Mantle vs. G-Synch - 200$. [The ASUS 1440p 120hz TN monitor with GSynch is 800$ ]

 

I'll go with the first option. Oh--- wait--- I already did

I went with the first option big time, bought two R9 290X during one of my spree, no regrets at all. Just tried Crysis 3 @ 5760x1200, near max setting (maxed out everything other than AA, which I've settled for 4xMSAA instead of 8x) and it ran very nicely with the two cards. :wub:

[iAsuno]

only amd gpus? sorry no time to read. 

[sp82]

Hi all,

I'm interested in G-Sync and Free-Sync too.

It's seems that Nvidia support already Coordinated Video Timings (CVT) but only on professional GPUs:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/advanced_timings.html

 

I am very sad that this type of optimization has not been proposed before. 

 

today exist different standards of synchronization between the GPU and the monitor, but the type of synchronization proposed by GSync and FreeSync is the one where the GPU generates synchronization signals vary in time depending on of the speed of rendering.

 

The GPU must have a programmable/controllable timing generator and the standard protocol behind the connection (dvi, hdmi, dp, ecc..) between GPU and the monitor and the controller of the display must support variable timing.

 

The demo from AMD was on laptop where the display maybe is attached directly to the gpu by LVDS connection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVDS

 

On a laptop the schema is:

GPU+LVDS Connection+DISPLAY

 

On PC:

GPU+ HDMI, DVI or DP Connection + DisplayController + Display

 

In laptop case the display is controlled almost directly by the gpu, in pc case the chain is much longer and every component must support variable timing.

 

Variable VBLANK (aka CVT) is available in your chain?

how to find out?

[7850OC]

Hi all,

I'm interested in G-Sync and Free-Sync too.

It's seems that Nvidia support already Coordinated Video Timings (CVT) but only on professional GPUs:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/advanced_timings.html

 

I am very sad that this type of optimization has not been proposed before. 

 

today exist different standards of synchronization between the GPU and the monitor, but the type of synchronization proposed by GSync and FreeSync is the one where the GPU generates synchronization signals vary in time depending on of the speed of rendering.

 

The GPU must have a programmable/controllable timing generator and the standard protocol behind the connection (dvi, hdmi, dp, ecc..) between GPU and the monitor and the controller of the display must support variable timing.

 

The demo from AMD was on laptop where the display maybe is attached directly to the gpu by LVDS connection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVDS

 

On a laptop the schema is:

GPU+LVDS Connection+DISPLAY

 

On PC:

GPU+ HDMI, DVI or DP Connection + DisplayController + Display

 

In laptop case the display is controlled almost directly by the gpu, in pc case the chain is much longer and every component must support variable timing.

welcome  to the best place in the world 

[MikkoP]

Does anyone know if my U2713HM has this functionality? =) Because I'm more than excitted.

[LOLPhilips]

Very interesting =) Hope to see more then a demo and article in the furture, and hope its gonna be a success..

 

Would still buy Nvidia myself though..

[MikkoP]

Would still buy Nvidia myself though..

 

AMD is trying to take the first place of Nvidia. R9 290 with Mantle and this, you get so much more FPS in games if Mantle succees and with FreeSync... mmmm =)