Published , by Chris Jarrard
Published , by Chris Jarrard
Desktop graphics giant NVIDIA made some big headlines Sunday night during their CES 2019 Keynote presentation. Among announcements for new graphics cards, displays, and expanding software support for its RTX series of graphics cards, the company dropped a bombshell on the PC gaming world with the news that adaptive sync will be supported on monitors that adhere to the VESA specs for variable refresh rate operation. A few select gaming monitors that have previously been marketed as compatible with AMD’s adaptive sync technology, known as Freesync, will be receiving NVIDIA G-SYNC certification. This new functionality will be enabled in a new driver update.
NVIDIA first launched their G-SYNC-capable displays back in 2013. These monitors overcame the screen tearing and stuttering issues that plagued PC gamers for years by synchronizing the display of frames rendered by the GPU with the refresh rate of the monitor. This solution offered benefits over traditional v-sync because it didn’t introduce input lag or stutter. At its most effective, the technology allowed the smooth display of games, even when the PC hardware could not deliver a consistent framerate.
AMD later offered its own solution, dubbed FreeSync, which allowed similar functionality with its own graphics cards. AMD’s solution was effectively a re-branding of the industry-standard VESA Adaptive Sync spec. Unlike NVIDIA’s approach, which required dedicated hardware built into the monitor, as well as strict guidelines for performance, AMD’s FreeSync certification could be freely slapped onto any monitor capable of variable refresh rates. FreeSync-capable monitors were generally much cheaper than similar G-SYNC monitors, and consumers would be locked in to one company or the other if they wanted adaptive sync for their video games.
NVIDIA’s announcement at CES 2019 marks a drastic change from the approach the company offered over the last five years. The company says it tested over 400 variable refresh rate monitors and has certified 12 of them as G-SYNC capable. All of these models were previously marketed and sold with AMD FreeSync compatibility. With a driver update arriving on January 15, the specific models listed below will be automatically configured for variable refresh rate operation when used with Turing (RTX 2xxx) or Pascal (GTX 1xxx) GPUs.
If this new wasn’t wild enough, NVIDIA will allow users of this new driver to manually enabled adaptive sync for any compatible display, but they are not officially supporting the feature outside of the 12 models mentioned during the keynote. AMD’s FreeSync certification is rather lenient compared to NVIDIA’s G-SYNC certification, so there are loads of FreeSync displays in the wild that only offer narrow ranges of refresh rates. Most G-SYNC-certified displays have active ranges from 30-144Hz (or more) and some FreeSync displays only offer ranges of 48-60Hz. The 12 models that NVIDIA granted certification to are certainly the cream of the crop when it comes to the FreeSync family.
As for guesses why NVIDIA decided to change its course and open up adaptive sync for its GPUs after years of keeping it locked to G-SYNC? No one knows for certain, but the company may want to put extra pressure on AMD. It’s also possible that the impending release of HDMI 2.1 (and its inclusion of variable refresh rate support in the spec) could have forced their hand. Rumors continue to float that the next generation consoles will support variable refresh rates and many new 4K TVs support the technology already. Either way, this is nothing but good news for PC gamers with NVIDIA GPUs. The market is loaded with low-priced FreeSync gaming monitors that can now use adaptive sync with NVIDIA GPUs.
If you have been thinking about buying a new gaming monitor for your PC or upgrading from an older model, check out our gaming monitor guide. It’s loaded with great G-SYNC and FreeSync options.