What "GSync Compatible" Actually Means | NVIDIA at CES 2019
What "GSync Compatible" Actually Means | NVIDIA at CES 2019
2019-01-09
everyone saw at the Nvidia suite now at
CES 2019 the first thing we're looking
at here is going to be the monitor side
of things this is one of the biggest
news items at the Jensen discussion a
couple of days ago and something we've
talked about briefly but Nvidia is now
supporting adaptive sync with non g-sync
as in the module displays so the name
for this is going to be G sync
compatible and they're also non
compatible or non validated monitors
which would be your traditional free
sync branded or just adaptive sync
monitors as opposed to something with a
an FPGA in it like a G sync FPGA before
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so it's let's we're gonna walk through
some of the common questions that we've
seen in comment sections online
hopefully answer some of those today if
you have more posting below we'll follow
up but I think the the first thing we
need to go through here is clarifying
some of the branding and naming so
adaptive sync is the technology kind of
like you have SMT versus hyperthreading
hyperthre Tina's SMT it's a subclass of
the same thing so adaptive sync is the
parent technology we've talked about
this for years now at this point free
sync is an AMD branded version of this
and gsync is an NVIDIA physical module
that's existed for a while now in panels
that that you all are likely familiar
with Jesus incompatible means that it's
an adaptive sync monitor could be a free
sync monitor that has been validated in
Nvidia's labs as producing a good
experience which is partly qualitative
and partly quantitative so some of the
tests that Nvidia goes through for a
decent compatible display would be
things like visual quality so can you
see any color issues or brightness
variation or in this one over here we
have some footage of it flickery and
occasionally those would be things that
obviously don't pass the gcn compatible
test and then the ones that are non
validated this is
important point that many of you have
asked about can still be used so even if
it's not validated you can still enable
adaptive sync you can still use it with
your Nvidia card Torian or Pascal are
the ones that are made immediately as
supported anyway it's just a matter of
will you see issues and part of that's
going to be down to your hardware part
will be down to you
for example this monitor immediately to
my right has some slight flicker some
some brightness variation I suppose for
me this would be fine but for other
people probably not so you can still use
it with adaptive sync to answer that
question that's been in the comment
sections it's just if you already own
the monitor you can try it but probably
don't go out and buy it monitor if you
don't have one yet that's not juicing
compatible if you plan to use the
feature so a lot of work to be done here
but so that's spar twelve have passed
Nvidia has a list on the website of the
monitors that have passed for g-sync
compatible if you would like to use a
monitor with adaptive sync but not a
g-sync module with your taurine or your
Pascal video card there's another thing
here so a vrr range or ratio of the VR
arrange is important for this in order
to pass g-sync compatible validation the
range that Nvidia is looking for is 2.4
and that's just a cheeves by dividing so
you divide the maximum refresh range or
the framerate by the minimum and the
result should be or the quotient should
be 2.4 the reason for that is I guess if
you kind of will take some numbers that
are easy to work with you have a refresh
range of say 40 to 60 and you have a
framerate drop below 40 so you're below
your minimum adaptive sync range you hit
maybe 35 or 38 or something like that
you have 35 you're out of range in order
to stay within range
you could double so if you have let's
say traditionally 60 to 120 or something
you drop down to 50 or 55 you can double
your at 100 or 110 that's within the
range and so you're not going to drop
out of adaptive sync in this scenario
you'll get a repeated frame or you could
have multiple repeated frames depending
on the maximum range which would
potentially be perceived as a stutter
but that's better than a tear depend on
who you are
so going back to the other example they
were hitting 35 eww get to 70 out of 60
so you drop out of adaptive sync and
you're now going to default to either
vsync on or off depending on the
settings of the game the control panel
or whatever you're using so the
theoretical range for that you'd want a
ratio of 2.0 it's a kind of be a minimum
and videos at 2.4 for their ratio just
to have some margin to make sure that
the experience is is more or less
guaranteed as good
instead of existing right on the edge of
it Andy as an example and we're gonna
check their website and put it on the
screen if we can find it our
understanding is that Andy has a
requirement of a 2.5 for their ratio of
some of their validation so it's AMD and
NVIDIA are more or less in agreement
there although the testing beyond that
differs and and that's why you see some
of the issues appear in free sync
monitors that we've discussed in the
past so that covers the vrr range
visual qualities looked at luminance
variations looked at all of these
monitors here today our factory reset
except with the instances where factory
reset turns off adaptive sync where it's
been enabled so shouldn't be any
anything there if you're going to be a
cynic or skeptical about the settings
and I think that that covers a lot of
this there is another branding name I
should point out which is G sync
ultimate so G sync ultimate if you see
that what it means is HDR is supported
DisplayPort 1.4 a is supported 1000 nits
for all of those displays and then there
are matrix-matrix back lights with
hundreds of zones something we showed
probably last year as well if you're
curious about what all that means so
hopefully that answers at least some of
the basic questions of what g-sync
compatible means how it's different from
free sync how it's different from the
physical g-sync module if you have
further questions please post them below
and upload each other for the good ones
and not the memes ideally so that I can
pass them along easily thank you for
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time
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