Do FreeSync Displays, Nvidia GeForce GPUs Play Nice Together?
When Nvidia announced it would begin supporting FreeSync with its GeForce GPUs, it did so in more or less the nastiest way possible. Things got off to a nice enough start, with Nvidia explaining that it had only formally certified 12 displays out of the more than 400 it had tested, but that the feature would be available to anyone with a FreeSync display, provided they checked a box inside the Nvidia Control Panel. The company must not have liked the way this played in the media, because Nvidia’s CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, later baselessly and illogically declared that FreeSync had “never proven to work.” Nvidia also showcased unidentified displays at CES as examples of the problems gamers might encounter when attempting to enable FreeSync on an Nvidia — or even an AMD — GPU.
- Acer KG251QF (24-inch, 1080p, 30-144Hz)
- BenQ EL2870U (28-inch, 4K, 40-60Hz)
- Viotek GN24C (24-inch, 1080p, 48-144Hz)
- AOC C27G1 (27-inch, 1080p, 48-144Hz)
- Viotek GN32LD (32-inch, 1440p, 48-144Hz)
- Philips Momentum 43 (43-inch, 4K, 48-60Hz)
Each of the displays above worked flawlessly, with all features and supported capabilities enabled.
The seventh and only panel that failed to work with Adaptive Sync on an Nvidia GPU wasn’t a surprise. The Viotek NB24C only supports FreeSync over HDMI, which AMD implemented via a custom protocol, whereas Nvidia is only supporting FreeSync via DisplayPort. HDMI won’t add support for Variable Refresh Rate (that’s the formal name of the term) until HDMI 2.1. This does have implications for TV support since most-to-all of the FreeSync TVs currently available only support it over HDMI. (It’s not clear if any TVs are implementing this capability over DisplayPort.)
There’s always the possibility that specific displays will prove to be incompatible with GeForce cards, but TechSpot’s findings echo our own expectations that there’s no fundamental problem with FreeSync as a standard. Features like HDR and Low Framerate Compensation appear to be fully supported as well. Despite the negative conversation around FreeSync support at CES, Nvidia’s engineers appear to have done their job well as far as compatibility and support.
Continue reading
MSI’s Nvidia RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio Review: 2080 Ti Performance, Pascal Pricing
Nvidia's new RTX 3070 is a fabulous GPU at a good price, and the MSI RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio shows it off well.
Nvidia Will Mimic AMD’s Smart Access Memory on Ampere: Report
AMD's Smart Access Memory hasn't even shipped yet, but Nvidia claims it can duplicate the feature.
Nvidia Unveils Ampere A100 80GB GPU With 2TB/s of Memory Bandwidth
Nvidia announced an 80GB Ampere A100 GPU this week, for AI software developers who really need some room to stretch their legs.
Nvidia, Google to Support Cloud Gaming on iPhone Via Web Apps
Both Nvidia and Google have announced iOS support for their respective cloud gaming platforms via progressive web applications. Apple can't block that.