FreeSync on Nvidia GPUs Tested, Does It Work Properly?

[Music] welcome back to hardware box today we're going to be testing a new feature that NVIDIA has just enabled in their latest drivers and that support for free sync moderates this was first announced at CES 2019 to the surprise of the community I think I'm not sure many people were expecting Nvidia to back down from their g-sync Tower but they have and finally those with NVIDIA GPUs can now use adaptive sync with a wide range of free sync monitors now you might be thinking wide range that's not riding video only announced that 12 monitors would be supported but that's actually not the case Nvidia announcement of this feature was a little misleading in my opinion so I'll do my best to clarify it here Nvidia support for adaptive sync displays now comes in the form of four tiers yes four tier so it's pretty confusing at the top is g-sync ultimate the new name for g-sync HDR monitors that are g-sync ultimate certified have Nvidia g-sync HDR module inside and support basically the full suite of HDR features juicing ultimate monitors include the ASA predator X 27 the Isuzu rog swift PG 27 UQ and the new HP omen X Imperium 65 one step down is regular g-sync these are the monitors that we've had for many years now that include a juicing module but don't support juicing HDR these are the adaptive sync monitors that have always worked with NVIDIA GPUs and NVIDIA GPUs only and the ones that command a higher price tag than their free sync counterparts then we get down to gsync compatible monitors these are free sync monitors that NVIDIA has certified to pass their strict J sync performance metrics they don't have a g-sync module but they do support the vasa adaptive sync standard so they also work with AMD GPUs with the latest in video drivers these monitors now work with adaptive sync on NVIDIA GPUs with adaptive sync enabled by default so far NVIDIA has announced that 12 monitors are g-sync compatible you can see the list here if you're on any of these monitors and install the latest driver adaptive sync will be enabled automatically and you can use it just like you would with any other j sync monitor Nvidia claims that G think compatible is still inferior to regular old g-sync they have this table here showing that g-sync monitors are certified with more image quality tests have a full variable refresh rate range variable overdrive and our factory color calibrated however there is really no reason why g-sync compatible monitor couldn't also be factory calibrated or have a full variable refresh rate range in video just isn't requiring these things for the monitor to receive a J sync compatible sticker while g-sync monitors must have those features there's also a fourth tier that Nvidia only talks about briefly and that's the ability to use any free sync or Vaser adaptive sync monitor with an NVIDIA GPU via a toggle in the Nvidia control panel Nvidia claims that this is for vrr or variable refresh rate monitors yet to be validated as chasing compatible and says that when enabling the feature it may work it may work partly or it may not work at all and of course in video wants you to think you have to purchase a decent compatible monitor to know for sure that it works so despite Nvidia announcing the g-sync compatible program with just 12 supported monitors out of 400 tested in reality every adaptive sync monitor is now supported all you have to do is enable the toggle and away you go sure only certified monitors are guaranteed to work but Nvidia isn't restricting you to just g-sync compatible monitors every free sync monitor should work now Nvidia they did spend a bit of time during their keynote and on the show floor attempting to convince people that the g-sync compatible program actually is necessary because apparently non-certified monitors are rife with issues they showed off monitors that were flickering and blanking and basically used those examples to tarnish the entire freesync ecosystem Nvidia were effectively saying that the G syncing compatible monitors they've certified to not have these issues while any non certified monitors will have issues which is why you need to purchase a chase ink compatible monitor as soon as I saw in the video talking about these issues I immediately called BS and that's because these issues they showed off and not issues with free sync or the phaser adaptive sync standard they're not issues inherent to the technology instead they issues with monitor manufacturers producing a crappy product it's no secret some precinct monitors especially earlier models aren't very good and do indeed have issues like flickering even on AMD GPUs but those monitors are pretty much just rubbish in my opinion if you receive a monitor that flickers or has blanking issues it's a defective product that should be returned there are plenty of monitors that don't have any such issues so I wasn't a fan of Nvidia claiming that non-certified monitors will definitely have these sorts of problems firstly a quick look at how exactly you enable adaptive syncs support for non-certified monitors once you've installed driver version 4 1771 or newer all you have to do is open up the in-video control panel browse to setup g-sync then select your free sync monitor from here make sure both the enabled g-sync g-sync compatible check box and the enable settings for the selected display model checkbox are both ticked the second check box doesn't appear if the monitor is chasing certified then all you have to do is click apply your monitor will restart and adaptive sync will be enabled in some cases you might need to go into the global 3d settings and select G sync compatible from the monitor technology drop-down menu but across the monitors I've tested this wasn't necessary it's also important to note that free sync has to be enabled in your monitors on the screen menu some wonders have a toggle that allows you to turn free sync or adaptive sync on or off you'll need to set it to on to get the option to enable adaptive sync one final note about this before we get into the test results jacent compatible and free sync monitors only work with invidious Pascal GPUs or newer I tested a variety of monitors with an NVIDIA GeForce r-tx 2080 ti but all Pascal cards should also work this is different to gsync monitors which work with GPUs back to NVIDIA GeForce 600 series I believe this is because Pascal is the first GPU architecture to support adaptive sync as well as G sync while older architectures supported just chasing so far I've tested seven free sync monitors with an NVIDIA GPU all of these monitors I've previously tested and found to work flawlessly with AMD GPUs so no flickering blanking or other issues they pretty much work fine I'd have loved to test more free sync monitors considering their over 500 models on the market but these are all I have on hand right now still I guess it's a pretty good sample size the golfer testing was to see if there were any differences between adaptive sync enabled and disabled with an NVIDIA GPU and if there were any differences compared to the monitor attached to an AMD GPU with free sync activated this included testing the monitor across a range of refresh rates to see how it behaved inside and outside the refresh rate range the first monitor I tested was the ASIC kg 2 5 1qf a budget 24 inch 1080p monitor with a 30 to 144 Hertz refresh rate range this is a great monitor for the price and it's safe to say I found no issues with the monitor working with adaptive sync enabled on an NVIDIA GPU no flickering no banking nothing it worked exactly the same as when hooked up to an AMD GPU so that's a success the second monitor was the BenQ el2 870 you a 4k 60 hertz panel with a narrow 40 to 60 hertz refresh rate range this monitor also worked perfectly although the refresh range is too narrow to support low framerate compensation or LFC so when frame rates dropped below 40 fps adaptive sync no longer functioned and either tearing or stuttering was introduced depending on whether you had vsync disabled or enabled this is expected behavior though and also happens with an AMD GPU again outclassed this as a perfectly working display and as a success the next monitor was the vo-tech G in 2040 another 24 inch 1080p monitor this time with a VA panel and the 48 to 144 Hertz refresh rate range again this monitor worked perfectly and due to the large refresh rate range it also supported LFC this was one feature I was curious to see whether it worked on NVIDIA GPUs or not if in video was being lazy they would just let adaptive sync deactivate when frame rates dropped below the 48 Hertz refresh window however that's not the case instead Nvidia is properly supporting LFC with monitors that should support LFC so when frame rates drop below 48 fps the monitor runs at a multiple of the frame rate and frames are duplicated for example if the game was running at 37 fps the monitor would refresh at 74 Hertz and show each frame twice so it's nice to see one of the key features of adaptive sync that Nvidia already uses for juicing kimonos also works here without any corners cut I tested two other monitors with similar results the AOC c-27j one which is a 27 inch 1080p monitor with a 48 to 144 Hertz refresh range and the vo-tech GN 32 LD a 32 inch 1440p monitor with a 48 to 144 hertz refresh range both monitors also worked perfectly and had a functional LFC then we have the Philips momentum 43 a 43 inch 4k monitor with a 48 to 60 Hertz refresh range and HDR support there's no LFC here due to the narrow refresh window but otherwise this panel worked as expected with no issues the good news here is that you get adaptive sync support even when HDR is enabled it's not a matter of choosing one or the other HDR has no impact on adaptive sync capabilities which is good news for those interested in an HDR monitor but didn't want to buy a juicing ultimate display there is one freesync monitor I tested that didn't work with adaptive sync on an NVIDIA GPU but this isn't a huge surprise the vo-tech NB 24c only supports adaptive sync through HDMI while nvidia gpus only support adaptive sink through DisplayPort AMD GPUs can do adaptive sink through either HDMI or DisplayPort so this monitor has functional adaptive sync with AMD GPUs but not NVIDIA GPUs the lack of adaptive sync over HDMI will also disappoint those looking to pair an NVIDIA GPU with the range of free sync capable TVs that have been hitting the market in recent years most precinct TVs only have HDMI ports so again NVIDIA GPU owners will be left out now so of these seven monitors I tested six worked flawlessly as I expected the one monitor that didn't work was never going to work because it required free sync over HDMI which Nvidia doesn't support it's also good to verify that low framerate compensation and HDR work in conjunction with adaptive sync on NVIDIA GPUs just like on AMD GPUs so there's no real difference between the free sync implementation on Nvidia and on AMD graphics cards I expect what I found here will be the case for the vast majority of free sync monitors if the monitor is known to work perfectly with AMD GPUs / DisplayPort so you know it doesn't have inherent flickering issues it should also work perfectly with NVIDIA GPUs when you enable the toggle if the monitor has issues on an NVIDIA GPU it will also likely have issues on an AMD GPU and should be returned I guess a question some people would be asking is should the monitors I tested to work perfectly actually be certified as Jason compatible and it's hard to say with that knowing Nvidia strict testing guidelines however any monitor that doesn't support LFC will automatically fail in videos testing and there are loads of precinct monitors with that LFC including two that I tested today but I think it's important to stress that you don't need to purchase adjacent compatible monitor to get adaptive sync with your NVIDIA GPU buying a decent compatible monitor will guarantee your working experience and guarantee support for features like AFC but regular free sync monitors will work just fine as well at least based on what I've seen today don't fall for the BS that all the non certified monitors will have issues because that's definitely not true as for a few loose ends I don't have any monitors that actually qualify as Jason compatible so I can't tell you how the experience differs compared to non certified monitors however I expect the experience to be exactly the same considering the experience with non-certified 4s inka monitors is already excellent again the decent compatible badge just ensures a certain level of quality that you may not get with say the cheapest and crappiest free sync displays if you're wondering about input lag I measured no appreciable difference to input lag between adaptive sync enables and disabled on NVIDIA GPUs enabling adaptive sync does not appear to increase GPU side processing time which is also the case for AMD GPUs so that's good news as well you can use multiple adaptive sync displays hooked up to a single NVIDIA GPU you're not limited to just one adaptive sync enable display however adaptive sync will only function on one monitor at a time I don't expect this to be an issue for most people but say you have two games running on two separate adaptive sync displays only one of those monitors will be fed and adaptive sync signal from its corresponding game I also haven't tested any free sync to monitors because I don't have any on hand because freezing 2 is an HDR pipeline exclusive to AMD that allows the game to talk directly to the monitor for lower latency HDR processing I don't expect this functionality to work with NVIDIA GPUs however this won't stop regular HDR working in conjunction with adaptive sync on NVIDIA GPUs as I've already mentioned so there's an own or a thinking of buying a precinct to monitor will get HDR functionality just not preaching to HDR functionality in a limited selection of games that support it finally I think Nvidia supporting free sync is whilst nothing but a good thing for the industry and consumers in general it did take in video quite some time to do so and I'm not a fan of Nvidia basically calling all free sync monitors garbage in the process but this will bring Cheaper adaptive sync monitors to owners of the most popular GPUs on the market I really don't see a reason anymore to buy a g-sync display if there's a free sync equivalent and I guess that's it for this one if you also have a free sync display and an NVIDIA GPU I'd love to hear how you're finding the experience so leave a comment below I'm also interested to see if there are many people with displays that do have issues with adaptive sync enabled especially if those issues are not present on AMD GPUs or aren't a known issue with that particular model as always you can subscribe for more hardware unbox content give it a like if you enjoyed the video consider supporting us on patreon to get access to our exclusive discord chat and I'll catch you in the next one [Music] [Music]

Channel: Hardware Unboxed

Views: 326,377

Rating: 4.9086676 out of 5

Keywords: hardware unboxed, benchmarks, pc gaming, graphics cards, Ryzen, Threadripper, Core i9, Intel, Top 5, upgrade, my pc

Id: icJnTUAaB9Y

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 16 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ExpertFudger]

tl;dw?

[u/DannyzPlay]

Xl2730(Z) owners are having issues.

[u/ch196h]

Seems like the gsync tax has finally dug into sales enough that Nvidia finally caved and is accepting the AS standard. This is good for everyone in the long run. Proprietary garbage only slows down innovation.

[u/klaithal]

This is a big deal. I am suddenly not limited to amd to enjoy my freesync monitor...

[u/joemaniaci]

I tried it last night on my LG 34" curved monitor and my 1070. Playing around with the Pendulum demo it seemed to make a difference. Was super easy to set up as well.

[u/Manordown]

Welcome to buttery smooth gameplay nvidia owners. I’ve been gaming on my freesync monitor for over two years.

[u/just-a-spaz]

Why was tomb raider tearing so much? It doesn't really look like g-sync was working on that one even though he said it was.

[u/[deleted]]

It's really a half assed effort.

No support for Maxwell and below, and no HDMI support

[u/cman1098]

I got my Pixio to work with my 1080. Funny I have to use CRU to fix the freesync range to the advertised specs so it will work just like I did when I owned a 480.