Today The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) announced that a technology called Adaptive-Sync will become standard for the DisplayPort 1.2a specification. If that sounds like gibberish to you, here’s the takeaway: It’s great news for AMD’s Project FreeSync, and for gamers seeking an alternative to Nvidia’s G-Sync.

At its heart, Adaptive Sync enables a monitor using a DisplayPort video input to match the refresh rate of the content, which tends to vary dramatically in gaming. As Nvidia showed us with G-Sync, when a GPU’s framerate output is at odds with a monitor’s refresh rate, you get artifacts like screen tearing. Forcing a fixed framerate is simply the other side of an evil coin, resulting in stutter and input lag.

“DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync enables a new approach in display refresh technology,” said Syed Athar Hussain, Display Domain Architect, AMD and VESA Board Vice Chairman. “Instead of updating a monitor at a constant rate, Adaptive-Sync enables technologies that match the display update rate to the user’s content, enabling power efficient transport over the display link and a fluid, low-latency visual experience.”

English: An example of a DisplayPort cable
English: An example of a DisplayPort cable (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

AMD’s Project FreeSync works in concert with this technology, providing adaptive framerate syncing on the driver side of things. This means that users wishing to embrace the technology will need a compatibile Radeon graphics card and a monitor supporting Adaptive-Sync. From what I understand, the advantage to AMD’s solution is that Nvidia’s G-Sync technology requires proprietary monitors with custom modules built in, while AMD’s will tap into an open industry standard. If we assume that all monitors with DisplayPort inputs going forward will utilize the standard (a safe assumption), then AMD’s solution should come at a lesser cost.

I’ve reached out to Nvidia asking if and how this development will affect G-Sync moving forward.

In the meantime, here’s a meaty Q&A from AMD’s Robert Hallock which should answer all your burning questions about Adaptive Sync, its features, and its availability.


Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/20...port-spec/