[PCPER] NVidia G-sync

[JAG87]

Eye strain is not an issue with LCD's. They are solid state. The refresh doesn't cause a flicker, it is simply a matter of updating the image. Lowering the refresh rate will not cause eye strain anymore than having lower FPS on a 60hz monitor does.

Yes it will, practically all 120 Hz LCDs have a scanning back light. Unless they somehow decoupled the back light refresh from the display refresh... I'm not really sure about this. But a back light scanning below 60 Hz would seriously drive you crazy.

 

[bystander36]

This sounds great! Also should allow for 24fps movies to be viewed correctly on what used to be fixed 60hz monitor.

Although that is a different tech, to set a refresh rate of 24hz for video, it certainly should be possible to add features like that. I've always wondered why I didn't get more control over the refresh rates on current monitors.

 

[bystander36]

Yes it will, practically all 120 Hz LCDs have a scanning back light. Unless they somehow decoupled the back light refresh from the display refresh... I'm not really sure about this. But a back light scanning below 60 Hz would seriously drive you crazy.

You are talking about Lightboost. That is a different tech all together.

Lightboost may not be available at the same time as G-sync. Lightboost is designed for 3D Vision. Its 2D application is done through a hack. G-sync may still not be available in 3D Vision. We'll have to wait and see on that.

 

[JAG87]

Although that is a different tech, to set a refresh rate of 24hz for video, it certainly should be possible to add features like that. I've always wondered why I didn't get more control over the refresh rates on current monitors.

Hehe, because they work off your 60 Hz AC current, and it's too expensive to implement what nvidia has just done.

You are talking about Lightboost. That is a different tech all together.

Lightboost may not be available at the same time as G-sync. Lightboost is designed for 3D Vision. Its 2D application is done through a hack. G-sync may still not be available in 3D Vision. We'll have to wait and see on that.

No, scanning back lights are present in much more than just light boost monitors. Tons of HDTVs have them. They are used to improve motion blur, black levels and contrast ratios.

 

[smackababy]

Was this Nvidia's big gaming related announcement that wasn't a GPU?

 

[Paul98]

Although that is a different tech, to set a refresh rate of 24hz for video, it certainly should be possible to add features like that. I've always wondered why I didn't get more control over the refresh rates on current monitors.

Yeah all you would need to do is set the refresh rate of the monitor to the refresh rate of the video you are watching.

 

[bystander36]

No, scanning back lights are present in much more than just light boost monitors. Tons of HDTVs have them. They are used to improve motion blur, black levels and contrast ratios.

On monitors, like the ASUS VG248QE, that backlight pulsing is only present in 3D. Samsungs 120hz monitors are the same. The pulsing backlighting is only present in 3D. You have to use the hacks presented here in order to make it work outside of 3D : http://www.blurbusters.com/zero-motion-blur/lightboost/

So no, it is not an issue unless you use the hack.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

My question is, did they show this next a 60hz monitor and everyone was amazed, or did they show it next to a 120hz monitor?

I thin 120hz is night and day better than 60hz, so I'm curious how much better G-sync will be vs. 120hz.

 

[bystander36]

My question is, did they show this next a 60hz monitor and everyone was amazed, or did they show it next to a 120hz monitor?

I thin 120hz is night and day better than 60hz, so I'm curious how much better G-sync will be vs. 120hz.

I'd expect it to be similar to v-sync versus not having v-sync on visuals and be as responsiveness, if not more responsive to your mouse movements as it is without v-sync on.

Now, how great that would feel may vary from game to game and person to person. I bet this will be a bigger deal to me than most, as I get sick due to latency, and I like the cleanness of v-sync. Now I should be able to get both.

 

[BrightCandle]

My question is, did they show this next a 60hz monitor and everyone was amazed, or did they show it next to a 120hz monitor?

I thin 120hz is night and day better than 60hz, so I'm curious how much better G-sync will be vs. 120hz.

They didn't say although they were looking at frame rates in the 30-60 range in the demos from what I could hear so I suspect 60hz was the comparison.

 

[Face2Face]

NVM

 

[Anarchist420]

sounds like a revolutionary idea. isn't it similar to direct drive monitor in that it cuts monitor processing out?

 

[BrightCandle]

sounds like a revolutionary idea. isn't it similar to direct drive monitor in that it cuts monitor processing out?

NVidia said its like replacing the scalar. But Nvidia's CEO also said they had to do a lot of work on the core of how LCD's are driven and the complex technology involved. This suggests their G-sync chip has to also get involved into directly setting the voltage for pixels. But really the only major thing it changes is the interface so that it takes a signal from the GPU for the purpose of starting a frame. It makes it possible however for them to then update the screen immediately and do a follow the beam like technique as done on CRTs effectively making it directly driven, they didn't say that was what they were doing however so I don't know if they are buffering the frame first or not.

 

[smackababy]

My question is, did they show this next a 60hz monitor and everyone was amazed, or did they show it next to a 120hz monitor?

I thin 120hz is night and day better than 60hz, so I'm curious how much better G-sync will be vs. 120hz.

They probably demo'd this on a 60hz screen, but it should give similar benefits on a 120hz panel. Adjusting the refresh rate dynamically to match the FPS.

 

[Anarchist420]

NVidia said its like replacing the scalar.

what about things like dithering?

 

[bystander36]

Here is another follow up article with a bit more info on it: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...Refresh-Rate/Potential-Benefits-New-Interface

 

[Stuka87]

Its so disappointing that cool pieces of technology like this are not being developed as ISO standards.

Instead you get stuck with one GPU provider and you have to use specially modified displays that have said GPU manufacturers module inside them. So you are single source locked for both your display and your GPU.

 

[BrightCandle]

If you currently have a 120hz screen then you are probably used to playing anywhere from about 45 fps all the way up to 144 fps and accepting tearing. Now admittedly a peak of 60 won't be as good but basically this will be like vsync off but without tears ever appearing. Zero lag, no stutter and no tears. The maximum hz of the monitor becomes less important as does the game maintaining a very consistent frame rate. We won't need to leave a lot of performance available to get a smooth experience and we will finally be able experience 45 fps without artefacts. 120hz is somewhat less important but I too want the combination of both and I suspect that is what we will get but they didn't say what the peak refresh rate is as part of the demos (that I recall).

 

[bystander36]

Its so disappointing that cool pieces of technology like this are not being developed as ISO standards.

Instead you get stuck with one GPU provider and you have to use specially modified displays that have said GPU manufacturers module inside them. So you are single source locked for both your display and your GPU.

Apparently this is something that can be done by an add on kit to existing VG248QE monitors. That would mean it should be possible for AMD to create their own add on kit. It'll take them some time, I'm sure, but this certainly could be done in a reasonable manner.

 

[JAG87]

On monitors, like the ASUS VG248QE, that backlight pulsing is only present in 3D. Samsungs 120hz monitors are the same. The pulsing backlighting is only present in 3D. You have to use the hacks presented here in order to make it work outside of 3D : http://www.blurbusters.com/zero-motion-blur/lightboost/

So no, it is not an issue unless you use the hack.

Yes, yes it is.

NVIDIA demonstrated the technology on 144Hz ASUS panels, which obviously caps the max GPU present rate at 144 fps although that's not a limit of G-Sync. There's a lower bound of 30Hz as well, since anything below that and you'll begin to run into issues with flickering. If the frame rate drops below 30 fps, the display will present duplicates of each frame.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7436/nvidias-gsync-attempting-to-revolutionize-gaming-via-smoothness


And just like I speculated, under 30 fps the monitor starts displaying even cadences. And for the record I posted at 1:24pm, and Anand posted at 1:25pm, so I didn't even know, it was just an educated guess.

 

[bystander36]

Yes, yes it is.



http://www.anandtech.com/show/7436/nvidias-gsync-attempting-to-revolutionize-gaming-via-smoothness


And just like I speculated, under 30 fps the monitor starts displaying even cadences. And for the record I posted at 1:24pm, and Anand posted at 1:25pm, so I didn't even know, it was just an educated guess.

They used different wording in that review. PCPER called it light variance.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...Refresh-Rate/Potential-Benefits-New-Interface

G-Sync essentially functions by altering and controlling the vBlank signal sent to the monitor. In a normal configuration, vBlank is a combination of the combination of the vertical front and back porch and the necessary sync time. That timing is set a fixed stepping that determines the effective refresh rate of the monitor; 60 Hz, 120 Hz, etc. What NVIDIA will now do in the driver and firmware is lengthen or shorten the vBlank signal as desired and will send it when one of two criteria is met.

1. A new frame has completed rendering and has been copied to the front buffer. Sending vBlank at this time will tell the screen grab data from the card and display it immediately.
2. A substantial amount of time has passed and the currently displayed image needs to be refreshed to avoid brightness variation.

In current display timing setups, the submission of the vBlank signal has been completely independent from the rendering pipeline. The result was varying frame latency and either horizontal tearing or fixed refresh frame rates. With NVIDIA G-Sync creating an intelligent connection between rendering and frame updating, the display of PC games is fundamentally changed.

It doesn't change that it only has an issue when approaching 15 hz (I assume they are using 30hz as the minimum to make certain there are no issues). Of course, that is much lower than 60hz as you said earlier. Not to mention, this has nothing to do with the pulsing backlighting used with Lighboost and who games with FPS lower than 30 FPS?

 

[BrightCandle]

Lightboost will presumably require quite a few adjustments to make this work. You can't just pulse the light at a fixed rate anymore. Instead the start of the frame draw will need to be found, the light turn off, pixels updated and wait for them to appear before its flicked back on and presumably the backlight is then kept on although I don't know if that works from a brightness perspective. Could well be its quite a lot more complicated than the previous system.

 

[bystander36]

Lightboost will presumably require quite a few adjustments to make this work. You can't just pulse the light at a fixed rate anymore. Instead the start of the frame draw will need to be found, the light turn off, pixels updated and wait for them to appear before its flicked back on and presumably the backlight is then kept on although I don't know if that works from a brightness perspective. Could well be its quite a lot more complicated than the previous system.

I also suspect that this will not work with 3D Vision at first. If ever. The way they black out the lenses may make this very uncomfortable. Lightboost is designed for 3D Vision, and only available in 2D through hacks, so I would not expect this to work with Lightboost for some time.

 

[Stuka87]

Apparently this is something that can be done by an add on kit to existing VG248QE monitors. That would mean it should be possible for AMD to create their own add on kit. It'll take them some time, I'm sure, but this certainly could be done in a reasonable manner.

My point is that if this was an ISO standard, it could be included in displays from the factory, and work with a GPU from any manufacturer that supported the data signal for the controller in the display.

AMD having a kit and nVidia having a kit means you need to have a display for that manufacturer. This is not good for consumers.

 

[JohnDC]

Looks like it could be a nice leap forward in monitor technology.Did I hear right that this is not going to be available until next year?

Seems a bit of an early launch.

Will be interesting to see what monitor requirements and caveats are present with this approach and how much extra it will cost.

I wonder if your frame rate drops below say 40(which is the lowest I can stand)If the refresh frequency will start to give you a headache or visual issues.

Guess We will find out next year when they are available.Defiantly something I would like to try before buying.