NVIDIA G-SYNC Tech Preview - Linus & Slick's Impressions
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
2,002 words · ~10 min read
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this is a very special technology preview and while I will be doing an
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unboxing the monitor inside this box is an ASUS VG 248 QE that has been modified
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to have its scaler replaced by an NVIDIA
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g-sync module it is not a finished product and
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therefore we won't be evaluating the merits of this monitor specifically but
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rather the technology in general so
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without getting too Technical and boring here let's talk about what gsync is and
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why we need it a graphics card renders
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each frame of your game as fast as it possibly can then makes it available to
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your monitor monitors typically by contrast operate on fixed refresh interv
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they will grab whatever is available to them at the exact time that they are
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ready to refresh in a perfect world the video card would render exactly one
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frame just before the monitor was ready for each refresh and we'd see beautiful
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smooth animation the problem is that different frames in games can be
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rendered in different amounts of time looking at the floor for example is much
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less demanding than looking at a suddenly exploding vehicle that means
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that in the real world the frame rate output by your graphics card doesn't
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match the refresh rate of your monitor vsync or vertical sync forces the
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graphics card to wait around for the monitor to be ready before it sends a
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rendered frame with frames being delivered at even intervals animation
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appears a much smoother even if the frame rate isn't that great see 24 frame
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per second movies as an example this is great until something demanding comes on
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screen and the frame rate drops below the refresh rate of the monitor in most
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cases this will be 60 HZ when that happens one image will stay on screen
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for two whole monitor refreshes this is
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perceived as a stutter in the animation on top of that vsync also introduces
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additional input lag meaning that the delay between when you move your mouse
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and when the image on screen reflects your movement is increased some game
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engines handle this better than others but for example I just playe couldn't
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play Left 4 Dead with vsync on it was just too laggy so why not just turn
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vsync off well then we end up with a visual anomaly called tearing the GPU
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outputs a frame as soon as it's done but if the monitor is in the middle of
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drawing an image on the screen already we'll end up with multiple different
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frames on the screen at the same time this manifests as vertical objects being
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out of alignment in extreme examples like this one you can actually see more
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than two frames on screen at the same time in practice this is extremely
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distracting to look at but I like many gamers out there have simply learned to
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suck it up because I'd rather get screen updates as soon as they're available and
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have it look stupid rather than be looking at something pretty on my screen
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that happened a frame ago now on
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to this guy gsync it allows your monitor
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to wait for your graphics card to be ready to deliver a new frame and update
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itself at that exact moment this eliminates the lag and stuttering
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associated with vsync on and low frame rates and it eliminates the tearing
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associated with vsync off and high frame rates because we never need to Output
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multiple frames to the screen during a single refresh all right so it sounds
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magical what do I need well you'll need a gsync compatible graphics card a
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gtx650 TI booster higher has to be Kepler based until Maxwell launches next
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year you'll need a g-sync monitor like this one with the g-sync module built in
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although there may be some upgrades available for this particular model later on you know depending what happens
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you'll also need a DisplayPort connection on your graphics card a
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DisplayPort cable and you'll need to use the DisplayPort input on your
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monitor all right lonus so you're asking for a pretty big investment here show me
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what it can do well that's a problem I
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can't really show you because in order to experience the smoothness of g-sync
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every part of the chain needs to support it if I were to use a capture card or
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take a high-speed video of gsync running my capture card or camera would operate
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at exactly 60 FPS then it would be played back on your 60 HZ Monitor and
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you'd be able to see that there's no tearing but you'd see frame doubling
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during performance tips as if we were just recording gameplay with regular
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vsync on I could just record footage of games running with no tearing but that's
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only part of the experience you have to try it to really understand it I'm
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hoping to work with NVIDIA to do a live Meetup where viewers can come and try
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gsync for themselves but I think that's still a little ways off speaking of
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understanding g-sync there are some misconceptions about the technology that
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I would like to clear up things you don't even have to be there in person to
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understand so number one is that other than this particular model which has
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like a g-sync module DIY upgrade coming
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aftermarket modding of monitors to add the functionality is extremely
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improbable it would require extensive modifications to the monitor's internals
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and just someone figures it out great but I wouldn't count on it number two
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ASUS does not have any kind of exclusivity on gsync in 2014 I'm not
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sure where this came from number three g-sync will work on any panel size TVs
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monitors you name it it's a matter of time before we even start to see it on
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VR devices and phones and whatnot like kind mobile devices and stuff like that
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number four g-sync will work with light boost compatible monitors or with non-l
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Boost compatible monitors at this time g-sync and the low persistence mode that
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folks have been running on light boost monitors don't work at the same time but
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that may change in the future number five gsync will work on 60 HZ 120 HZ or
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whatever Hertz panels the fixed refresh rate of the monitor simply becomes the
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maximum refresh rate number five or six
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not sure g-sync will work with any panel resolution the sample here is 1080p but
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there's no reason g-sync couldn't work at 1440p or even 4K I've also had quite
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a few folks ask about g-sync on AMD and there are many conflicting reports but
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all I really have to say right now is that there's no real evidence that
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NVIDIA is planning to provide a license to AMD in any way shape or form last one
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is what about SLI and Surround SLI will
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work just fine in gsync the master card that is plugged into your display will
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dictate what refresh rate the monitor should run at and as for surround at
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this time it should be just fine if you have three matching monitors although
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there may be some driver reconfigure mation that may enable you to have
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g-sync here and not g-sync there but that's kind of up in the air at the
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moment so you've got most of the information now let's take a look at why
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I believe this will be extremely hard for NVIDIA to sell one day we're going
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to look back at non- g-sync monitors and we're going to laugh going back to
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tearing stuttering and leg will feel like ancient technology but with that
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said g-sync is going to be a tough sell for NVIDIA because we're all used to
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living without it let's look at another recent Paradigm shifting change in PC
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Hardware solid state drives at least with an SSD you can benchmark versus a
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hard drive and show people the numbers but even then many insisted well I don't
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mind waiting another two seconds blah blah blah it's expensive who cares but
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ask yourself this if you've gone SSD in the last couple of years in fact leave a
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comment on the video and tell me about this how hard is it when you have to go
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back and use a hard drive based system now particularly when it's not on a
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fresh OS and you have to do some real work on it that is how we're all going
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to feel about g-sync in a while so i' actually like to take a moment here to
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let lukee give his thoughts on g-sync so you can hear more than just my opinion
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the fact that we had one in house and we were able to try it was awesome when I
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finally got my hands on g-sync the first thing I did was grab a copy of
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Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag and run around the abstergo hallways because in
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those hallways I found some of the worst tearing I've ever seen and I noticed
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with g-sync no tearing also no mouse input lag which is a big thing because
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with g-sync you're not compromising anything for the awesomeness of g-sync
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and I find that to be the biggest deal with g-sync I don't think a bunch of
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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
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the awesomeness of these Technologies but you don't have to sacrifice lag
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which is a big reason why a lot of people don't run it so let's be clear
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guys this is just a tech preview it's not a full review but there are still
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some conclusions that we can draw so having tried it myself outside of
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NVIDIA's conference controlled environment and having talk to Luke
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about it off camera I think our feelings about it are fairly similar um I don't
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think everyone will or even necessarily should rush out and buy all the
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necessary components on the day they're available and completely replace
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perfectly good Hardware U some of the hardcore guys will and that's cool
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you're going to have a better gaming experience but I think that the more
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likely scenario is that the next time you're at a natural uh upgrade point for
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your monitor or your graphics card you're going to want to carefully
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consider gsync capability when you're making your purchasing decision uh at
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this point another very important conclusion is that I cannot recommend
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while I can't recommend a monitor to buy I can recommend what not to buy don't
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buy anything until quarter 1 next year when we have a clearer idea of what will
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or what won't be available with gsync because the most important thing here is
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to make sure that you're making an educated decision and right now we just
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don't quite know enough so stay tuned guys we're going to definitely have more
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content on this we're going to be covering at CES we're going to be
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covering it once there's retail availability of the proper finished
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hardware and as always guys like the video if you liked it dislike it if you
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disliked it leave a comment let me know how you felt about it and as always
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