Gadgetory

welcome back to hard robach's today's view is a bit of an interesting one because it's on a topic that's been doing the rounds lately if you've been keeping up with the main Redditt for pc gaming you might have noticed a few people suggesting it's possible to get free sync working with an Nvidia graphics card via an AMD GPU to separate reddit threads notice that if you hook up your free sync display to an AMD GPU display output while your primary NVIDIA GPU is still in your PC it is possible to run games on the NVIDIA GPU while still getting the benefit of free sync one thread mentioned it was possible with two discrete GPUs in the one PC one from each vendor while the other more widely circulated thread suggested all you need is an NVIDIA GPU and an AMD APU like the Rison 320 200 G this is a pretty big deal if it's true because as you all know invidious GPUs don't natively support free sync instead Nvidia forces gamers who want adaptive sync into buying a decent component of which are usually around 200 bucks more expensive than their free sync alternatives so getting free sync working on NVIDIA GPUs would mean gamers can buy cheaper displays and get the exact same experience all those that already have facing displays with NVIDIA GPUs will be able to unleash the benefit of adaptive sync so let's talk about the apu method first because this one seems to have been I guess the most vigorously tested and proven to work at this point basically if your system has an AMD Raven Ridge apu like the Rison 320 200 G and an Nvidia graphics card getting free sync to work is quite simple just unplug your free sync monitor from the NVIDIA GPU then plug into your motherboard instead this makes the integrated Vega GPU the primary display output then all you have to do is a few software side tweaks you have to enable the integrated graphics in your motherboards bios if it's disabled by default and then you simply head into the Nvidia control panel and set the games you plan on playing to using the NVIDIA GPU alternatively you can use Windows 10s new graphics setting feature to set games to use the NVIDIA GPU what this does is it renders the games on the NVIDIA GPU then simply passes the rendered data to the integrated Vega GPU which then sends it to the display as Rison APU support freesync adaptive sync data is packed up into the display stream even though the NVIDIA GPU is actually rendering the game simple easy solution to enable free sync while still harnessing the power of your NVIDIA GPU of course not everyone has a system with a Rison APU and not everyone wants to build a risin APU system after all there are plenty of CPUs much faster than the Rison 520 400 G the gamers want to use so this apu method for getting free sync support is a bit limited but it does open up the question could NVIDIA GPU owners simply add in a discreet AMD GPU to their system rather than an APU plug their display into the AMD card and get free sync support while still using the NVIDIA GPU to render games well this could be a pretty neat workaround for those with expensive free sync monitors and powerful NVIDIA GPUs you could add in something like the Radeon rx 550 which costs just a hundred bucks or so and that will give you free sync support for less than the typical $200 cost of the g-sync module in competing monitors this is definitely something worth looking into and there wasn't as much information on it compared to the APU method so I decided to give it a try I whipped out my Intel Core i7 8700 K test system in the be quiet dark based 700 instead about installing both an Nvidia and AMD GPU in the same system on the nvidia side we're using the gigabyte geforce gtx 1070 TI windforce which will be the primary rendering GPU then the idea would be to pair it with an rx 550 because it's the cheapest AMD GPU you can buy right now new that supports free sync but I don't have an RX 550 on hand I do have though an equally cheap free sync capable graphics card I decided to use instead Vegas 64 again the setup process is pretty easy both GPUs are installed in the system my free sync display is hooked up to the AMD GPUs display outputs via DisplayPort and both Nvidia and AMD drivers are simultaneously installed and of course fruit sync is enabled in Radeon settings after doing all of this I immediately noticed a few issues unlike with the APU method there is no way to set in software what GPU is to be used by default you can't launch the nvidia control panel when your display output is an AMD GPU and when you display is plugged into the nvidia GPU the Nvidia control panel doesn't give any option to set the NVIDIA GPU as default Windows 10 also doesn't distinguish between the GPUs in its graphics settings screen it will only allow you to use the GPU the display is hooked up to the reason for this difference compared to the apu method is simple the AP use integrated graphics is listed as a power saving option so both the Nvidia control panel and Windows 10 settings allow you to prioritize a high performance GPU instead but when you have any two GPUs in your system both are classed as high performance so the option to choose a GPU disappears and this makes sense most users don't have two different graphics cards in their system and if they did and want it to game they'd simply plug their monitor into the highest performing one outside of niche hacks like this there's no real reason for a GPU selection option to exist but this doesn't mean the free sync on NVIDIA GPUs hack is dead in the water some games have a built-in selection option allowing you to choose which GPU is used for rendering and it's with this option that you can get it working in some circumstances so first let's show the baseline with the NVIDIA GPU hooked up directly to the free sync monitor the game I'm showing is Middle Earth shadow of war because it's one of the titles that actually has a GPU selector in just the basic benchmark tool in the top left we have the GPU utilization of each GPU on the top is Vega 64 s utilization and on the bottom is the 1070 TI utilization keep that in mind for later then in the upper right corner I've enabled a feature of this free sync monitor that shows the current refresh rate note this isn't the frame rate but the actual refresh rate of the panel it's also why I'm videoing the monitor rather than using a capture card when free sync is active the refresh rate fluctuates and you'll see no screen tearing but when free sync is not active the refresh rate will stay static at 144 Hertz and you will see some tearing in this first instance of the NVIDIA GPU hooked up directly to the free sync monitor you'll notice only the NVIDIA GPU is being utilized but crucially the monitors refresh rate is fixed at 144 Hertz and there's some screen as the framerate output is below 144 FPS this shows as expected that nvidia gpus don't support free sync now here's the same benchmark being run on the AMD GPU with the AMD GPU hooked up to the monitor you'll see in the top left corner that the NVIDIA GPU isn't being used and the refresh rate is fluctuating so free sync is working lastly we get to the good stuff this is the AMD GPU hooked up to the free sync monitor but the game has been set to use the NVIDIA GPU for rendering you'll see in the top left corner that the NVIDIA GPU has the highest utilization and the AMD card is still being utilized a little bit here as well but the magic is really happening with the refresh rate number it's fluctuating in line with the render rate indicating freesync is working there's no tearing either but all the rendering is being done on the NVIDIA GPU so it definitely works in fact it works quite well the NVIDIA GPU handles the rendering and the mb GPU handles free sync now of course in my situation using a 1070 Ti for rendering and Vegas 64 for free sync makes little sense because Vegas 64 could just do both but this exact same process should work with the much cheaper and slower rx 550 so owners of something like say the GTX 1080 could add in an rx 550 for a small cost and get free sync support you're probably wondering is there a performance impact from sending data from the NVIDIA GPU to the display via an additional AMD GPU and the answer to that is yes but it's only a small amount this chart shows the difference in hit man's benchmark using DirectX 12 ultra settings both average frame rates and 1% lowest take hit of about 4% this is also the margin in shadow of War's average frame rates reported by the benchmark but unfortunately fraps didn't work in this game with the NVIDIA GPU passing data to the AMD GPU so we don't have a 1% load data for that title but and this is an enormous but well maybe not in that way anyway there are a number of problems with this Nvidia free sync hack in fact there are so many problems I actually can't see anyone using this trick in practice for starters without the ability to select a primary rendering GPU in Windows or in the Nvidia control panel which again is possible with the APU method but not with two GPUs you were limited to games that have a built-in GPU selector out of the collection of games are regularly benchmark just for have that feature shadow of war hitman Far Cry 5 and watchdogs - plenty of other popular games including fortnight battlefields one GTA 5 and so on don't have a GPU selector so this free sync trick won't work in those games and then on top of that the GPU selector didn't work in Far Cry 5 and watchdogs - attempting to switch to the NVIDIA GPU and restarting the game just left me with a blank screen on launch this is with both the latest in video drivers and drivers from well before people uncover this workaround so I think it is just a bug rather than Nvidia blocking the workaround for those games so far I haven't found a way to globally select to use the NVIDIA GPU like as possible with the APU method if you do have a neat trick to enable GPU selection let me know but otherwise we're stuck with this Nvidia free sync hack in a very limited selection of games if it worked across the board that would make it the trick I guess somewhat more worthwhile but as it stands this just not that many games supported then there's the issue of Nvidia themselves while I did test with the latest three 9907 drivers I'm confident in video we'll be looking for a way to patch and disable this free sync workaround they want to keep their graphics cards only compatible with Qi sync monitors to keep people locked in their ecosystem so any method that gets free sync working undermines this so I definitely wouldn't be rushing out to buy an rx 550 to use this free sync hack as you could end up spending a hundred bucks only to have in video block the workaround and then you'll have wasted that cache if in video was unable to block it and the trick could easily be used in every game this method could be the cheapest way to get adaptive sync with NVIDIA GPUs but unfortunately that's not really how it works right now it's more a proof-of-concept than anything else the APU method is more functional but again you run the risk of Nvidia blocking the workaround and you're also forced into using an AMD APU so it's not the most practical solution for high end gamers again more a proof of concept than a workaround that's applicable to all in the video GPU owners anyway that's it for this look into this freesync on and video workaround that's been talked about a fair bit this week it's definitely something that caught my eye but I thought it's just not all that practical consider supporting us on patreon to fund more of this type of testing and get access to our exclusive discord chat along the way we have a lot of fun in there with you guys that's it got to go edit this one I'll catch you next time