this is a very special technology preview and while I will be doing an
unboxing the monitor inside this box is an ASUS VG 248 QE that has been modified
to have its scaler replaced by an NVIDIA
g-sync module it is not a finished product and
therefore we won't be evaluating the merits of this monitor specifically but
rather the technology in general so
without getting too Technical and boring here let's talk about what gsync is and
why we need it a graphics card renders
each frame of your game as fast as it possibly can then makes it available to
your monitor monitors typically by contrast operate on fixed refresh interv
they will grab whatever is available to them at the exact time that they are
ready to refresh in a perfect world the video card would render exactly one
frame just before the monitor was ready for each refresh and we'd see beautiful
smooth animation the problem is that different frames in games can be
rendered in different amounts of time looking at the floor for example is much
less demanding than looking at a suddenly exploding vehicle that means
that in the real world the frame rate output by your graphics card doesn't
match the refresh rate of your monitor vsync or vertical sync forces the
graphics card to wait around for the monitor to be ready before it sends a
rendered frame with frames being delivered at even intervals animation
appears a much smoother even if the frame rate isn't that great see 24 frame
per second movies as an example this is great until something demanding comes on
screen and the frame rate drops below the refresh rate of the monitor in most
cases this will be 60 HZ when that happens one image will stay on screen
for two whole monitor refreshes this is
perceived as a stutter in the animation on top of that vsync also introduces
additional input lag meaning that the delay between when you move your mouse
and when the image on screen reflects your movement is increased some game
engines handle this better than others but for example I just playe couldn't
play Left 4 Dead with vsync on it was just too laggy so why not just turn
vsync off well then we end up with a visual anomaly called tearing the GPU
outputs a frame as soon as it's done but if the monitor is in the middle of
drawing an image on the screen already we'll end up with multiple different
frames on the screen at the same time this manifests as vertical objects being
out of alignment in extreme examples like this one you can actually see more
than two frames on screen at the same time in practice this is extremely
distracting to look at but I like many gamers out there have simply learned to
suck it up because I'd rather get screen updates as soon as they're available and
have it look stupid rather than be looking at something pretty on my screen
that happened a frame ago now on
to this guy gsync it allows your monitor
to wait for your graphics card to be ready to deliver a new frame and update
itself at that exact moment this eliminates the lag and stuttering
associated with vsync on and low frame rates and it eliminates the tearing
associated with vsync off and high frame rates because we never need to Output
multiple frames to the screen during a single refresh all right so it sounds
magical what do I need well you'll need a gsync compatible graphics card a
gtx650 TI booster higher has to be Kepler based until Maxwell launches next
year you'll need a g-sync monitor like this one with the g-sync module built in
although there may be some upgrades available for this particular model later on you know depending what happens
you'll also need a DisplayPort connection on your graphics card a
DisplayPort cable and you'll need to use the DisplayPort input on your
monitor all right lonus so you're asking for a pretty big investment here show me
what it can do well that's a problem I
can't really show you because in order to experience the smoothness of g-sync
every part of the chain needs to support it if I were to use a capture card or
take a high-speed video of gsync running my capture card or camera would operate
at exactly 60 FPS then it would be played back on your 60 HZ Monitor and
you'd be able to see that there's no tearing but you'd see frame doubling
during performance tips as if we were just recording gameplay with regular
vsync on I could just record footage of games running with no tearing but that's
only part of the experience you have to try it to really understand it I'm
hoping to work with NVIDIA to do a live Meetup where viewers can come and try
gsync for themselves but I think that's still a little ways off speaking of
understanding g-sync there are some misconceptions about the technology that
I would like to clear up things you don't even have to be there in person to
understand so number one is that other than this particular model which has
like a g-sync module DIY upgrade coming
aftermarket modding of monitors to add the functionality is extremely
improbable it would require extensive modifications to the monitor's internals
and just someone figures it out great but I wouldn't count on it number two
ASUS does not have any kind of exclusivity on gsync in 2014 I'm not
sure where this came from number three g-sync will work on any panel size TVs
monitors you name it it's a matter of time before we even start to see it on
VR devices and phones and whatnot like kind mobile devices and stuff like that
number four g-sync will work with light boost compatible monitors or with non-l
Boost compatible monitors at this time g-sync and the low persistence mode that
folks have been running on light boost monitors don't work at the same time but
that may change in the future number five gsync will work on 60 HZ 120 HZ or
whatever Hertz panels the fixed refresh rate of the monitor simply becomes the
maximum refresh rate number five or six
not sure g-sync will work with any panel resolution the sample here is 1080p but
there's no reason g-sync couldn't work at 1440p or even 4K I've also had quite
a few folks ask about g-sync on AMD and there are many conflicting reports but
all I really have to say right now is that there's no real evidence that
NVIDIA is planning to provide a license to AMD in any way shape or form last one
is what about SLI and Surround SLI will
work just fine in gsync the master card that is plugged into your display will
dictate what refresh rate the monitor should run at and as for surround at
this time it should be just fine if you have three matching monitors although
there may be some driver reconfigure mation that may enable you to have
g-sync here and not g-sync there but that's kind of up in the air at the
moment so you've got most of the information now let's take a look at why
I believe this will be extremely hard for NVIDIA to sell one day we're going
to look back at non- g-sync monitors and we're going to laugh going back to
tearing stuttering and leg will feel like ancient technology but with that
said g-sync is going to be a tough sell for NVIDIA because we're all used to
living without it let's look at another recent Paradigm shifting change in PC
Hardware solid state drives at least with an SSD you can benchmark versus a
hard drive and show people the numbers but even then many insisted well I don't
mind waiting another two seconds blah blah blah it's expensive who cares but
ask yourself this if you've gone SSD in the last couple of years in fact leave a
comment on the video and tell me about this how hard is it when you have to go
back and use a hard drive based system now particularly when it's not on a
fresh OS and you have to do some real work on it that is how we're all going
to feel about g-sync in a while so i' actually like to take a moment here to
let lukee give his thoughts on g-sync so you can hear more than just my opinion
the fact that we had one in house and we were able to try it was awesome when I
finally got my hands on g-sync the first thing I did was grab a copy of
Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag and run around the abstergo hallways because in
those hallways I found some of the worst tearing I've ever seen and I noticed
with g-sync no tearing also no mouse input lag which is a big thing because
with g-sync you're not compromising anything for the awesomeness of g-sync
and I find that to be the biggest deal with g-sync I don't think a bunch of
people are going to run out and get this but I think in the future it's going to be really nice because you can get all
the awesomeness of these Technologies but you don't have to sacrifice lag
which is a big reason why a lot of people don't run it so let's be clear
guys this is just a tech preview it's not a full review but there are still
some conclusions that we can draw so having tried it myself outside of
NVIDIA's conference controlled environment and having talk to Luke
about it off camera I think our feelings about it are fairly similar um I don't
think everyone will or even necessarily should rush out and buy all the
necessary components on the day they're available and completely replace
perfectly good Hardware U some of the hardcore guys will and that's cool
you're going to have a better gaming experience but I think that the more
likely scenario is that the next time you're at a natural uh upgrade point for
your monitor or your graphics card you're going to want to carefully
consider gsync capability when you're making your purchasing decision uh at
this point another very important conclusion is that I cannot recommend
while I can't recommend a monitor to buy I can recommend what not to buy don't
buy anything until quarter 1 next year when we have a clearer idea of what will
or what won't be available with gsync because the most important thing here is
to make sure that you're making an educated decision and right now we just
don't quite know enough so stay tuned guys we're going to definitely have more
content on this we're going to be covering at CES we're going to be
covering it once there's retail availability of the proper finished
hardware and as always guys like the video if you liked it dislike it if you
disliked it leave a comment let me know how you felt about it and as always
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