Gadgetory

this is a very special technology preview and while I will be doing on boxing the monitor inside this box is an Asus VG 248 q e that has been modified to have it scaler replaced by an Nvidia g-sync module it is not a finished product and therefore we won't be evaluating the merits of this monitor specifically but rather the technology in general so without getting too technical and boring here let's talk about what g-sync is and why we need it a graphics card renders each frame of your game as fast as it possibly can then makes it available to your monitor monitors typically by contrast operate on fixed refresh intervals they will grab whatever is available to them at the exact time that they are ready to refresh in a perfect world the video card would render exactly one frame just before the monitor was ready for each refresh and we'd see beautiful smooth animation the problem is that different frames and games can be rendered in different amounts of time looking at the floor for example is much less demanding than looking at a suddenly exploding vehicle that means that in the real world the framerate output by your graphics card doesn't match the refresh rate of your monitor vsync or vertical sync forces the graphics card to wait around for the monitor to be ready before it sends a rendered frame with frames being delivered at even intervals animation appears a much smoother even if the framerate isn't that great C 24 frames per second movies as an example this is great until something demanding comes on screen and the frame rate drops below the refresh rate of the monitor in most cases this will be 60 Hertz when that happens one image will stay on screen for two whole monitor refreshes this is perceived as a stutter in the animation on top of that vsync also introduces additional input lag meaning that the delay between when you move your mouse and when the image on-screen reflects your movement is increased some game engines handle this better than others but for example I just plain couldn't play for dead with vsync on it was just too laggy so why not just turn vsync off well then we end up with a visual anomaly called tearing the GPU outputs a frame as soon as it's done but if the monitor is in the middle of drawing an image on the screen already we'll end up with multiple different frames on the screen at the same time this manifests as vertical objects being out of alignment in extreme examples like this one you can actually see more than two frames on-screen at the same time in practice this is extremely distracting to look at but I like many gamers out there have simply learned to suck it up because I'd rather get screen updates as soon as they're available and have it look stupid rather than be looking at something pretty on my screen that happened on frame ago now on to this guy g-sync it allows your monitor to wait for your graphics card to be ready to deliver a new frame and update itself at that exact moment this eliminates the leg and stuttering associated with vsync on and low frame rates and it eliminates the tearing associated with vsync off and high frame rates because we never need to output multiple frames to the screen during a single refresh alright so it sounds magical what do I need well you'll need a decent compatible graphics card a GTX 650 TI boost or higher has to be Kepler based until Maxwell launches next year you'll need a g-sync monitor like this one with the G sync module built-in although there may be some upgrades available for this particular model later on you know depending what happens you'll also need a DisplayPort connection on your graphics card a DisplayPort cable and you'll need to use the DisplayPort input on your monitor all right Linus so you're asking for a pretty big investment here show me what it can do well that's a problem I can't really show you because in order to experience the smoothness of g-sync every part of the chain needs to support it if I were to use a capture card or take a high-speed video of g-sync running my capture card or camera would operate at exactly 60 FPS then it would be played back on your 60 Hertz monitor and you'd be able to see that there's no tearing but you'd see frame doubling during performance tips as if we were just recording gameplay with regular vsync on I could just record footage of games running with no tearing but that's only part of the experience you have to try it to really understand it I'm hoping to work with Nvidia to do a live meetup where viewers can come and try g-sync for themselves but I think that's still a little ways off speaking of understanding g-sync there are some misconceptions about the technology that I would like to clear up things you don't even have to be there in person to understand so number one is that other than this particular model which has like a g-sync module DIY upgrade coming aftermarket modding of monitors to add the functionality is extremely improbable would require extensive modifications to the monitors internals and distinct someone figures it out great but I wouldn't count on it number two a sous does not have any kind of exclusivity on g-sync in 2014 i'm not really sure where this came from number three g-sync will work on any panel size TVs monitors you name it it's a matter of time before we even start to see it on VR devices and phones and whatnot like kind of mobile devices and stuff like that number 4g sync will work with light boost compatible monitors or with non light news compatible monitors at this time g-sync and the low persistence mode that folks have been running on light boost monitors don't work at the same time but that may change in the future number five G sync will work on 60 Hertz 120 Hertz or whatever Hertz panels the fixed refresh rate of the monitor simply becomes the maximum refresh rate number five or six not sure G sync will work with any panel resolution the sample here is 1080p but there's no reason g-sync couldn't work at 1440p or even 4k I've also had quite a few folks ask about G sync on AMD and there are many conflicting reports but all I really have to say right now is that there's no real evidence that Nvidia is planning to provide a license to AMD in any way shape or form last one is what about SLI and surround SLI will work just fine and gsync the master card that is plugged into your display will dictate what refresh rate the monitor should run at and as for surround at this time it should be just fine if you have three matching monitors although there may be some driver rican Malaysian that may enable you to have g-sync here not g-sync there but that's kind of up in the air at the moment so you've got most of the information now let's take a look at why I believe this will be extremely hard for NVIDIA to sell one day we're going to look back at non g-sync monitors and we're going to laugh going back to tearing stuttering and leg will feel like ancient technology but with that said g-sync is going to be a tough sell for Nvidia because we're all used to living without it let's look at another recent paradigm shifting change in PC hardware solid-state drives at least with an SSD you can benchmark them versus a hard drive and show people the numbers but even then many insisted well I don't mind waiting another two seconds blah blah blah it's expensive who cares but ask yourself this if you've gone SSD in the last couple of years in fact leave a comment on the video and tell me about this how hard is it when you have to go back and use a hard drive based system now particularly when it's not a refresh OS and you have to do some real work on it that is how we're all gonna feel about g-sync in a while so I'd actually like to take a moment here to let Luke give his thoughts on g-sync so you can hear more than just my opinion the fact that we had one in-house and we were able to try it was awesome when I finally got my hands on gsync the first thing I did was grab a copy of Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag and run around the Abstergo hallways because in those hallways I found some of the worst tearing I've ever seen and I noticed what g-sync no tearing also no mouse input lag which is a big thing because with g-sync you're not compromising anything for the awesomeness of g-sync and I find that to be the biggest deal with g-sync I don't think a bunch of people are going to run out and get this but I think in the future it's going to be really nice because you can get all the awesomeness of these technologies we don't have a sacrifice lag which is a big reason why a lot of people don't run it so let's be clear guys this is just a tech preview it's not a full review but there are still some conclusions that we can draw so having tried it myself outside of in videos conference controlled environment and having talked to Luke about it off camera I think our feelings about it are fairly similar I don't think everyone will or even necessarily should rush out and buy all the necessary components on the day the are available and completely replace perfectly good hardware some of the hardcore guys will and that's cool you're going to have a better gaming experience but I think that the more likely scenario is that the next time you're at a natural upgrade point for your monitor or your graphics card you're going to want to carefully consider g-sync capability when you're making your purchasing decision at this point another very important conclusion is that I cannot recommend while I can't recommend a monitor to buy I can recommend what not to buy don't buy anything until quarter one next year when we have a clearer idea of what will or what won't be available if g-sync because the most important thing here is to make sure that you're making an educated decision and right now we just don't quite know enough so stay tuned guys we're going to definitely have more content on this we're going to be covering it at CES we're going to be covering it once there's retail availability of the proper finished hardware and as all these guys like the video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave the comment let me know how you felt about it and as always don't forget to subscribe you