-Fran- :
griptwister :
Hahaha! AMD is looking VERY good this year...
http://www.hardware-360.com/amd-unveils-freesync-nvidia-g-sync-without-the-added-cost/
VESA standard... That means only for VGA standard resolutions?
It could mean a comeback for 16:10 aspect ratio
Cheers!
VESA is the governing body for specs like Displayport. Still quite active on the display side of things.
Also, from TR:
http://techreport.com/news/25867/amd-could-counter-nvidia-g-sync-with-simpler-free-sync-tech
Koduri explained that this particular laptop's display happened to support a feature that AMD has had in its graphics chips "for three generations": dynamic refresh rates. AMD built this capability into its GPUs primarily for power-saving reasons, since unnecessary vertical refresh cycles burn power to little benefit. There's even a proposed VESA specification for dynamic refresh, and the feature has been adopted by some panel makers, though not on a consistent or widespread basis. AMD's Catalyst drivers already support it where it's available, which is why an impromptu demo was possible.
Reading between the lines, not all panels support this. Secondly, its not a standard, but a proposed standard.
According to Koduri, the lack of adoption is simply due to a lack of momentum or demand for the feature, which was originally pitched as a power-saving measure. Adding support in a monitor should be essentially "free" and perhaps possible via a firmware update. The only challenge is that each display must know how long its panel can sustain the proper color intensity before it begins to fade. The vblank interval can't be extended beyond this limit without affecting color fidelity.
Koduri pointed out that the primary constraint in making this capability widespread is still monitor support. Although adding dynamic refresh to a monitor may cost next to nothing, monitor makers have shown they won't bother unless they believe there's some obvious demand for that feature. PC enthusiasts and gamers who want to see "free sync" happen should make dynamic refresh support a requirement for their next monitor purchase. If monitor makers get the message, then it seems likely AMD will do its part to make dynamic display synchronization a no-cost-added feature for Radeon owners everywhere.
So HW support still an issue, but a firmware update should suffice. Possible loss of fidelity if Vblank interval delayed too long, which is a possible limiting factor of the tech.
Clear sucker punch to NVIDIA here by AMD. Was wondering where the counter was...Still, another indication we're moving away from new graphical features, and toward more post-processing and features. We're running out of things to improve graphically now. I'm *hoping* Ray Tracing gets here soon...
EDIT
On the technical side, I'm REALLY interested in the implementation here, specifically, how AMD knows ahead of time what the output FPS is going to be.
NVIDIA brute forced this on the hardware side via essentially a FPGA, allowing the monitor itself to know when a signal is incoming, then drive the display based off that. Very little overhead (lag) involved here, but requires a hardware modification to the monitor to work.
On the AMD side, I'm worried input lag is going to be an issue. Specifically,
how does the driver know when and how to adjust the Vblank interrupt interval? To do this, it needs to know the output FPS, which, for a game, can't be known ahead of time. Obviously, this couldn't be done until AFTER the frame has already been produced, so there is going to be a delay while this interval is adjusted by the driver for that particular frame. As a result, you'd get smooth gameplay, variable FPS, but introduce a global lag delay of some period into the system.
That's my reading of the technical side, having no reference materials or white papers to look at. May be off here, but doing this software side would seem to indicate there will be some period of delay, possibly trivial, possibly enough to really annoy some people. Withholding judgement on the results until I see some details.
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