The scourge of gamers everywhere is screen tearing, or at least it was,
until tech like G-Sync from NVIDIA and FreeSync from AMD came along to save the day.
Unlike the old FIX, V-Sync, these technologies don't sacrifice frame rate and actually improve
responsiveness. But unfortunately, these variable refresh rate technologies are both still pretty
inconsistent in terms of how well they work, and are pretty confusing, with both sides offering
three different performance tiers for a feature that really should be pretty straightforward.
To be fair, NVIDIA and AMD do keep lists of certified monitors, but if the monitor you're
considering isn't on one of those lists, it's a crapshoot as to whether variable refresh rate
will even work, leaving you to rely on trial and error, or on a second-hand account from some
rando online. Can't trust those guys. So maybe it isn't surprising that Vesa has swooped in
to try to both clear this whole mess up, and also make sure the tech actually works as intended.
And if you don't know who Vesa are, they're not the credit card people. Thank goodness.
It's an industry association that defines display standards for everything from DisplayPort
to HDR to those holes that let you wall mount your screens. Love those guys.
But how are they going to fix variable refresh rate? Like many problems in life,
they're trying to solve this one by slapping a spiffy logo on displays that actually do play
nicely with VRR, and fittingly, the logo will say Vesa Adaptive Sync, and look a little something
like this, with the number indicating the display's maximum refresh rate.
But how is this different from the lists of monitors you can already get from AMD and NVIDIA?
One huge distinction is that Vesa is requiring that displays get sent to an authorized independent
testing facility in order to earn the badge. Neither the GPU nor the monitor manufacturers
can put the logo on a specific display's box until it passes verification, aka basic training.
And the testing is quite stringent, partly to ensure that it actually does give gamers an
adaptive sync experience that works as the good lord intended, but also partly because there are
key specifications that monitor manufacturers are notorious for fudging. A big one is pixel
response time, which affects how much the display will suffer from artifacts like ghosting.
Vesa's procedures require that monitors are tested at room temperature and default settings,
criteria that were chosen precisely because display makers unfortunately use high ambient
temperatures and aggressive overclocks to achieve a response time figure that doesn't always reflect
reality. On top of this, the Vesa standard also ensures flicker, jitter, and dropped frames are
well within limits. In short, the Vesa Adaptive Sync badge means the monitor is good, and that the
actual adaptive sync functionality will work within a reasonably wide range of frame rates,
something that isn't always guaranteed on many displays marketed as gaming monitors.
But if you're not into gaming, there's another badge for displays that you should know about.
This media sync logo means that the screen should show most kinds of video content without tearing,
flicker, or other artifacts, whether it's 24fps movie content or the buttery smooth 60fps video
we've gotten used to seeing on social media. This testing procedure is a little more lenient
than the one for adaptive sync, so it shouldn't be too hard for well-built mid-range displays to
pass. Note, though, that even though an adaptive sync badge means the display is also media sync
certified, I'm sure you'll see some manufacturers slap both logos onto the box to make it look
more impressive. It might work with me. Although these programs are very new,
there are already a couple of displays from LG that earned the badges at the time we wrote this video.
Hopefully, we'll be seeing more in the near future, so our monitor buying lives
can be a little easier. But do keep in mind that these Vesa tests don't cover brightness,
HDR quality, or viewing angles, so be sure to read reviews and the rest of the spec sheet for
any monitor that you're interested in. You don't want to end up with a display that runs your games
flawlessly until you move your head a little bit to the left. And then it's, oh, it looks horrible.
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