How low can FPS drop for G-SYNC to work smoothly?

[Zyphercap]

Hi there,

I'm considering buying a 1440p 144hz monitor with G-Sync. I have never owned a G-Sync compatible monitor before, but from what I understand, it will match the frames output with my monitor's refresh rate when my fps drops below the monitor's refresh rate, making it look buttery smooth. But is there some sort of minimum fps threshold for this to work properly? I've read that G-Sync works between 30fps-180fps, but I can hardly imagine G-Sync can make a game I'm running between 30fps-40fps look like it's 144fps? That seems a little too good to be true.

 

[Glenwing]

Hi there,

I'm considering buying a 1440p 144hz monitor with G-Sync. I have never owned a G-Sync compatible monitor before, but from what I understand, it will match the frames output with my monitor's refresh rate when my fps drops below the monitor's refresh rate, making it look buttery smooth. But is there some sort of minimum fps threshold for this to work properly? I've read that G-Sync works between 30fps-180fps, but I can hardly imagine G-Sync can make a game I'm running between 30fps-40fps look like it's 144fps? That seems a little too good to be true.

G-Sync (and FreeSync) both operate down to 0 Hz, when they fall below the hardware lower limit they just show duplicate frames, which is invisible to the viewer and can maintain the G-Sync effect at any framerate. The "minimum range" is just a hardware curiosity that people have taken out of context (it used to matter for AMD FreeSync, but it was updated to support frame duplication years ago).

People say 40 Hz looks as smooth as 60 Hz, but I haven't tested it extensively personally.