[PCPER.com] Nvidia: We're not planning support for Freesync

[Mondozei]

PC Perspective had an interview with Nvidia's Tom Petersen the other day. He did talk about G-Sync/Freesync a little bit.

A lot of people are asking if G-Sync is immaterial now that the open source/free of charge Freesync is out, especially as Adaptive Synd(the underlying tech behind both G/F-Sync) is standard in DP 1.3 and not just in DP 1.2a.

Tom Peterson basically said; no. We're not going to support Freesync. On the other hand, his no was not categorical. He also added "you should never say never". How you interpret this depends on your outlook and assumptions.

My assumption continues to be. Nvidia will continue to support G-Sync until it's no longer possible to do so. The fact that they keep the door ajar at all times indicates that they know that the risk is that Freesync will simply be a no-brainer and as such they may have to pivot.

What I wonder though, can you really disable support for Adaptive Sync in DP 1.3? Because if, say, Pascal GPUs have native DP 1.3 support and AS is built into DP 1.3, can Nvidia really change any of that? I'm guessing that they can, from his comments, but still, how does one go about it in more techical terms. Anyone knows?


Link to the exact section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHrSe0DtXHk#t=3247

 

[ShintaiDK]

He said it before. So nothing new in that.

I dont see the news part besides that nVIdia didnt change stance?

 

[Gloomy]

There was no guarantee their GPUs support it, anyway.

AMD pushed this through the spec based on a capability that as far as we know only exists in AMD GPUs at the moment, and not even all of them.

 

[biostud]

Of cause they don't. Gsync monitor sales would plummet if they supported freesync.

 

[MeldarthX]

Mon; its not so much disabling support........its looking more and more of their scalers on their cards just can't do it; and until they can. They have no other choice than to use G-Sync.....

Adaptive Sync monitors are going to outnumber G-Sync by per economics; they are cheaper to create......

Even AMD's isn't fully compatible with older cards.....only the newest Raedons are fully compatible. R9 290s - R7 260s, and the 285 tonga.....7000s are video play back compatible; but not games......

As long as Nvidia feels they will make more money not supporting a standard feature; they won't support it. A year from now; I'd say picture will be could be very well different with; most monitors coming with Adaptive -Sync standard; and G-sync still on a few models....

 

[SoulWager]

PC Perspective had an interview with Nvidia's Tom Petersen the other day. He did talk about G-Sync/Freesync a little bit.

A lot of people are asking if G-Sync is immaterial now that the open source/free of charge Freesync is out, especially as Adaptive Synd(the underlying tech behind both G/F-Sync) is standard in DP 1.3 and not just in DP 1.2a.

Tom Peterson basically said; no. We're not going to support Freesync. On the other hand, his no was not categorical. He also added "you should never say never". How you interpret this depends on your outlook and assumptions.

My assumption continues to be. Nvidia will continue to support G-Sync until it's no longer possible to do so. The fact that they keep the door ajar at all times indicates that they know that the risk is that Freesync will simply be a no-brainer and as such they may have to pivot.

What I wonder though, can you really disable support for Adaptive Sync in DP 1.3? Because if, say, Pascal GPUs have native DP 1.3 support and AS is built into DP 1.3, can Nvidia really change any of that? I'm guessing that they can, from his comments, but still, how does one go about it in more techical terms. Anyone knows?


Link to the exact section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHrSe0DtXHk#t=3247

I've said all along that Nvidia support for adaptive-sync is contingent on widespread adoption of adaptive-sync monitors. They will support it if and when the increased sales of video cards to people with adaptive-sync monitors outweighs the decreased sales of g-sync monitors.

I don't think they'll kill G-sync, even if they support adaptive-sync. There's still too much room to improve on both solutions.

Also, adaptive-sync is not a mandatory part of DP1.3

 

[Despoiler]

I've said all along that Nvidia support for adaptive-sync is contingent on widespread adoption of adaptive-sync monitors. They will support it if and when the increased sales of video cards to people with adaptive-sync monitors outweighs the decreased sales of g-sync monitors.

I don't think they'll kill G-sync, even if they support adaptive-sync. There's still too much room to improve on both solutions.

Also, adaptive-sync is not a mandatory part of DP1.3

Nvidia won't kill G-Sync, but their monitor partners will if the sales volume is too low to support their development and support efforts. I think the final decision maker will be if Intel supports A-Sync. I guarantee they are looking at it.

 

[exar333]

Have we even seen a Freesync monitor reviewed? Not thread-crapping, but we talk about it all the time and the only real demo I have seen was from summer of 2014, and it was pretty light on detail.

 

[Creig]

Production ready Adaptive-Sync capable monitors were recently shown at CES. People who have seen G-sync said they couldn't tell the difference between FreeSync and G-sync. One of the people was from Blur Busters. We should have actual 'hands on' reviews by the end of next month.

 

[exar333]

Production ready Adaptive-Sync capable monitors were recently shown at CES. People who have seen G-sync said they couldn't tell the difference between FreeSync and G-sync. One of the people was from Blur Busters. We should have actual 'hands on' reviews by the end of next month.

That's good...I still feel like for some reason they have not been previewed. As if there was some drawback, maybe its just paranoia.

From what I have read, it will work with 290/290x/285 (and newer, obviously) right?

 

[NTMBK]

Gah. Hopefully they will cave and support FreeSync in the next gen of cards. Maybe if Intel also adopts it, they'll have to follow suit.

 

[KaRLiToS]

Have we even seen a Freesync monitor reviewed? Not thread-crapping, but we talk about it all the time and the only real demo I have seen was from summer of 2014, and it was pretty light on detail.

Why do you ask if you know the asnwer is NO ?

Journalists saw them at CES 2015 and they all had positive feedbacks about it.

 

[Creig]

That's good...I still feel like for some reason they have not been previewed. As if there was some drawback, maybe its just paranoia.

From what I have read, it will work with 290/290x/285 (and newer, obviously) right?

The 295X2, 290X, 290, 285, 260X and 260 GPUs all support dynamic refresh rates during gaming, video playback and power-saving. The 7000, 8000, R7 or R9 have partial support, but only for video playback and power-saving.

AMD APUs codenamed "Kaveri," "Kabini," "Temash," "Beema" and "Mullins" also feature the necessary hardware capabilities to enable dynamic refresh rates for video playback, gaming and power-saving.

 

[exar333]

Why do you ask if you know the asnwer is NO ?

Journalists saw them at CES 2015 and they all had positive feedbacks about it.

I asked because I had not seen one yet, otherwise I would not have asked. Rumors were for a release before the end of the year, but that got delayed.

Just a little surprised no previews from a site like AT have happened. AMD is launching this as a competitor to GSYNC (which is here and a product you can buy) so I have been hoping they would be more aggressive with showing what it can do. It has just been very quiet....

CES-type 'demos' do not mean a lot to me, honestly. Just as a new CPU or GPU release, a tightly-controlled environment is much different than an independent review, which is what I am waiting on.

The reason I ask is that I am in the market for a new monitor, and because you will likely have to choose between a GYSNC or Freesync option, that may drive my purchase decision between GM200 vs. 390x.

 

[KaRLiToS]

You don't like your 3440x1440 monitor?

 

[Techhog]

Have we even seen a Freesync monitor reviewed? Not thread-crapping, but we talk about it all the time and the only real demo I have seen was from summer of 2014, and it was pretty light on detail.

Oh wow, someone who isn't subscribed to tech YouTube channels? Or did you unsub for CES?

 

[HE-MAN24]

anything that is open source will win in the end

 

[RussianSensation]

NV will not support FreeSync for as long as possible because:

1) Currently they make $ by selling GSync modules to monitor vendors for at least $100+. If you run multiple monitors, this gets multiplied. NV makes 3x the money if you happen to buy 3 GSync monitors, while if you were to buy 3 FreeSync monitors, NV would get $0 extra dollars from you.

2) NV is probably hoping that some professional reviewers find Gsync superior. If this happens to be true, you can bet their viral marketing and marketing campaign will kick in full force. If that happens, you can bet NV will push GSync as superior to FreeSync. Why? See point #1 above. Until FreeSync is pitted against GSync, NV won't even lift a finger because them announcing support for FreeSync will even make NV gamers think hard about buying a more expensive GSync monitor today.

3) Even if FreeSync happens to be at least as good as GSync, NV will try to use the leverage of its 70%+ market share to not adopt FreeSync for as long as possible. Again, goes back to point #1. When most of their userbase continues to keep buying NV cards, it's in NV's best interest to use GSync as a secondary lock in feature to keep you in the NV eco-system. It's a genious marketing move to make you buy a GSync monitor that you'll likely keep for 5+ years which means NV will get 1-2 GPU upgrades out of this gamer + at least 1 GSync module sale. If a gamer is not tied to the monitor, he can choose an AMD or an NV GPU for his next upgrade. NV doesn't want you to have a choice for your next purchase. NV's desire for pushing proprietary locked features is to lock their customer into the eco-system, the same model Apple uses. JHH on many occasions said that he admires Apple and respects how they run their business.

Therefore, for NV to adopt FreeSync quicker, market share would have become a lot more balanced, FreeSync monitors would need to be better in some ways whether quality wise or price wise, and/or the consumer would have to show much more demand for them and actually vote with his/her wallet against a guaranteed proprietary locked system of Gysnc by going AMD+FreeSync options. If the consumers vote against proprietary locked standard and actually buy FreeSync monitors, NV will be forced to adopt it. However, that's unlikely to happen since AMD has too little market share and most of the core NV userbase won't buy AMD cards. Something else would have to be the catalyst. For example, if Intel adopts FreeSync, that would be a huge factor since 80% of the gaming market will have FreeSync available to them. If FreeSync makes its way into laptops with AMD and Intel graphics, and GSync does not due to the cumbersome module, NV will have to adopt FreeSync for laptops at least.

I guess mostly everything rests on dGPU market share, Intel's desire to adopt FreeSync, and wide availability, pricing and quality of FreeSync monitors vs. GSync. I expect NV to hold out as long as possible not to adopt FreeSync, which is one of the most unfortunate things to see from a company that actually thinks GSync is better, but isn't man enough to put their $ where their mouth is by simultaneously supporting both standards. NV is supposed to innovate PC gaming and better the gaming experience for gamers -- instead they are standing in the way of an open standard being adopted for everyone! This is one time NV is not doing the right thing for the PC gaming community by artificially segregating the hardware market. I wonder if gamers will actually stand up this time and refuse to buy GSync, as some think that NV pushed the principle of open standards and artificial vendor lock beyond a reasonable point. It's one thing to lock out PCSS+ and so on in GW titles, lock out PhysX when an NV card detects an AMD card in the same system, but it becomes pure arrogance when a hardware firm thinks we should now buy peripherals specifically for their videocards, when they also make extra $ from those said peripherals.

 

[SoulWager]

Why do you ask if you know the asnwer is NO ?

Journalists saw them at CES 2015 and they all had positive feedbacks about it.

They had positive feedback because it actually exists now. That variable refresh removes judder and tearing within the frequency range of the monitor was never in question. The questions that still need to be answered are on the quality of the implementation. This means testing input lag and fallback cases.

The 40~60hz monitors do not sound nearly as compelling as a 30~144hz monitor. If your max refresh rate is more than double your minimum, there are tricks you can do to make the minimum refresh rate irrelevant(I don't think anyone is using these tricks yet though.) Essentially, you can move the "display exactly when frame finishes" window to include the moment the frame is expected to finish. The bigger the gap between minimum and maximum refresh rate, the less precise you have to be about predicting the frame's render time. Even if you don't do those tricks, a 30~144hz monitor will bump any frame time above 33.3ms up to 41.3ms. A 40~60hz monitor will bump any frame time above 25ms up to 41.3ms.

So your best bet with a 40~60hz monitor is reducing settings so you never go below 40fps, and cap framerate in game to just under 60fps. I would really like to see these monitors bump their maximum refresh rate up to at least 62hz, so games with a hard coded 60hz framerate cap can run with less latency.

 

[KaRLiToS]

They had positive feedback because it actually exists now. That variable refresh removes judder and tearing within the frequency range of the monitor was never in question. The questions that still need to be answered are on the quality of the implementation. This means testing input lag and fallback cases.

I know, that is why I said there is no review out yet, and probably not for the next 4 months.

 

[Creig]

I know, that is why I said there is no review out yet, and probably not for the next 4 months.

First reviews should be available in the next 4 weeks.

 

[DigDog]

once again russian sensation speaks the truth

 

[Gloomy]

Intel/AMD should work on getting this into laptops.

Whoever does this first gets my money. I need a new laptop anyway.

 

[96Firebird]

Intel/AMD should work on getting this into laptops.

Whoever does this first gets my money. I need a new laptop anyway.

If anything, AMD better hope Intel doesn't support it in laptops. They can leverage it as an exclusive feature if Intel doesn't adopt it, which could help sales.

 

[lavaheadache]

This isn't news. NVidia wouldn't support DX if they didn't have to.