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Screen tearing and input lag are two of the most dreaded issues in PC gaming. What do they mean though? Screen tearing essentially occurs when parts of multiple frames are displayed simultaneously, resulting in this:
It looks as though the frame has been stretched and torn into three parts, thereby the name “tearing”. Input lag is rather straight-forward: you press a key and there’s a delay before you see the result. These two problems, although, may not seem like much of an issue, can be the cause of victory or defeat in fast-paced eSports games and first-person shooters.
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The technology that tackles them is called Adaptive Sync. NVIDIA and AMD have their own respective versions of it, namely G-Sync and FreeSync. But before we dive into the specifics:
What is Adaptive Sync
Traditional monitors come with a fixed refresh rate. The most common is 60 Hz. This is the rate at which the monitor refreshes the screen, displaying the next consecutive frame. It tells you how many frames your monitor can display per sec without tearing. However, as I’m sure you already know games don’t always run at a fixed frame rate, there are inconsistencies, sometimes the GPU ends up rendering more frames than your monitor can display, sometimes less. This results in screen tearing and lags, respectively.
The easiest way to tackle this is to either drop some of the more intensive graphics options or enable V-Sync. However, the latter can cause input lags as it basically puts brakes on your GPU pipeline, limiting the frames to 60 (if your monitor is 60Hz) per sec.
What G-Sync and FreeSync compatible monitors do is that they vary the refresh rate according to your GPU. Say you are running a game at 50FPS, then if your monitor supports adaptive sync, it’ll scale down the refresh rate to 50. However on the flip side, if you’re getting more frames per sec than your monitor can display, then this technology can’t help you.
AMD FreeSync vs NVIDIA G-Sync
Price:
One of the main differences between FreeSync and G-Sync is that the former like most of AMD’s technologies is OpenSource. It leverages the VESA Adaptive-Sync that comes along with Display Port 1.2a. As such, there are no penalties or royalties that need to be paid to implement FreeSync, allowing OEMs to integrate it into even the cheapest of monitors. The lower end FreeSync models cost less than 10K.
G-Sync, on the other hand, is NVIDIA’s own proprietary technology. Earlier there was only one version that required a PCB from Green team to enable it. However, recently NVIDIA embraced the VESA standard, dubbing it as “G-Sync Compatible”. What you need to know is that G-Sync compatible are essentially FreeSync monitors vetted and tested by Jensen and Co. All this requires manpower and resources, and so the G-Sync monitors, even the third-tier G-Sync Compatible ones are quite expensive. The cheapest ones cost around 25K INR twice as much as some of the entry-level FreeSync monitors.
Quality:
When it comes to quality, the G-Sync monitors take the cake, of course, they cost more than most modern graphics cards and there’s the drawback. Low-end FreeSync monitors “get the job done”. Not to say that they are inferior, but most of the cheap ones only support Adaptive Sync between 48Hz and 75Hz. Basically, if your frame rate goes below 48, it’ll result in unbearable lagging.
AMD announced something called Low Framerate Compensation (LFC) to deal with this, however only the higher-end models come equipped with it. What LFC does is that it duplicates frames to push up the average frame rate to the minimum supported by your monitor. Say you’re getting 25 FPS in a game and your monitor supports 50 FPS for FreeSync to work. Then LFC will create an identical copy of every frame and render it between constant intervals to increase the average frames per sec to 50.
Looking at G-Sync displays. There are three tiers: G-Sync Compatible, G-Sync and G-Sync Ultimate. As already mentioned, G-Sync Compatible is NVIDIA’s FreeSync equivalent but keep in mind that these are on par with the more expensive models, the ones that come with LFC. Of course, NVIDIA claims that these monitors undergo several dozen tests but this is the main advantage. G-Sync is the good old proprietary variant that NVIDIA charges a premium for. These monitors although feature the best implementation of Adaptive Sync, cost more than a pretty penny. They start from around 35K INR and often come with top-spec monitors. As such, if you are buying a G-Sync monitor, you can be sure you’re buying a top-end screen.
Lastly, there’s FreeSync 2 and G-Sync Ultimate. These basically come with advanced features such as HDR, LFC and often with monitors with a
Connectivity:
As far as connectivity goes, AMD has got another advantage. Traditional G-Sync monitors only work over Display Port. Many G-Sync compatible monitors support HDMI as well, but the more expensive ones are largely limited to DP. Both FreeSync and FreeSync2 monitors come with HDMI as well as DP support, providing wider connectivity options.
Conclusion
So there you have it, G-Sync vs FreeSync. Earlier, the main difference was that FreeSync was somewhat inferior but much cheaper while the opposite applied to the G-Sync monitors. The differences are more subtle now. FreeSync2 is improved and older screens with LFC are mostly on par with G-Sync compatible models, but often can’t be had for cheap. With NVIDIA’s adoption of the VESA standard has started, the playing field has somewhat leveled. However, you can still find FreeSync monitors much cheaper than rival G-Sync screens. They’re not the best, but considering the dirt cheap prices, they’re more than what you can expect.
Further reading:
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