Nvidia Couldn't Stop This...
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,814 words · ~9 min read
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Unless you make a habit of living under a rock,
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or if you're just not that into gaming, that too,
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you've probably seen the headlines,
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AMD FreeSync working on GeForce cards.
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And it's true, but there's a catch.
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So the current methods for enabling FreeSync
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on a GeForce graphics card
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require you to also have an AMD GPU in your system
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that is capable of supporting FreeSync itself.
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So today's video then has us trying it out
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to see if it's worth the hassle
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to save money on a G-Sync monitor.
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And while we're at it,
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we were thinking maybe we'd try to run G-Sync
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on an AMD graphics card.
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Rosewill's new Prism S500 case
1:00
lights the way with its array of RGB fans,
1:02
tempered glass panel,
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and spacious,
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and you can even use it as a display in the interior.
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Click the link below to learn more.
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So let's start with how this works.
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There are actually two different ways to go about this.
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There's the GPU way and the APU way.
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So we'll be using the APU method for the uninitiated.
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And APU is AMD's name for a CPU
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that has a graphics processor built into it.
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Now, normally, as soon as you install
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a dedicated graphics card,
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your onboard graphics gets disabled,
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when you can use this.
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But for what we're doing,
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we actually need to force the Vega 11 GPU
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that's built into our Ryzen 5 2400G on.
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So we're gonna change IGFX multi-monitor to enabled,
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and we are going to set the primary video device
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to our onboard graphics.
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Let's go ahead and reboot.
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Now, while we wait for that to happen,
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let's talk about what's going on under the hood here.
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If you watched our gaming on Linux video a little while ago,
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we showed a piece of software called Looking Glass
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that Wendell from Level 1 Techs was using to game
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with very low latency in Linux
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by running the game effectively in a virtual machine
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that was running Windows and then capturing its output.
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TLDR, the API that Windows is using here is called DXGI.
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And what it does is essentially mirror the output
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from one card to another with very little delay.
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Though, there is no delay.
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There is still a delay.
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So as you can see here,
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we've already got our GeForce driver installed and working.
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So the next thing we need to do,
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we've already downloaded it here,
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is install the drivers for our Radeon graphics.
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Now that our Radeon drivers are installed,
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which, yes, is working correctly,
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we need to change our display configuration
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a little bit here.
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So what we want is our FreeSync monitor
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plugged into our onboard graphics,
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and we want nothing plugged
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into our GeForce graphics card.
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One cool thing, by the way,
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is that because of the way that this works,
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in theory, we could actually do the same thing
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with Intel's upcoming integrated graphics
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with FreeSync support.
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That's not confirmed at this time yet though.
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So now that all of this is done,
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we can go into our display settings.
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Then on the bottom,
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we're going to see an option here for graphic settings.
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Now, all we need to do is add whatever we want to run.
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We want to run here.
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Okay, so now we go into options,
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and then we just need to set our graphics preference.
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So we're going to set that to high performance,
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right about here.
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See, here's our power saving GPU.
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Here's our high performance one.
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Now, when we launch this demo,
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theoretically, FreeSync technology will work.
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We can actually test it too.
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Check this out.
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So let's go ahead and,
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turn AMD FreeSync off.
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Oh, we got to turn V-Sync off for one thing.
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Okay, there we go.
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That's more like it.
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Now let's turn FreeSync off and boom, there's our tearing.
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Let's go ahead and do an FPS sweep
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so we can get some really nasty tearing there.
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Yep.
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Now let's turn FreeSync back on.
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Okay, so let's try Counter-Strike.
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So V-Sync's off.
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Let's see how smooth this is.
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So in theory, this DXGI thing only adds about one to two
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milliseconds of additional lag.
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So for the people out there claiming they can feel
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the difference, okay, maybe,
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but you're probably super human because at 60 frames
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per second, that is, what does that work out to?
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Wait, oh wow, this feels like ass.
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I think this is running on the wrong GPU.
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So it's a little kludgy for every one of your,
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there we go, for every one of your programs,
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you're going to have to actually change that.
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Let's see if we can just re-maximize it
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and it'll run on the right one.
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Yeah, that super did not work.
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Let's try relaunching it.
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There we go.
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That's more like it.
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All right.
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I am getting a frigging mess ton of tearing here.
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When you're running FreeSync,
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are you supposed to enable V-Sync within the game?
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Yeah.
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Oh, well there's our problem.
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Also the developer console isn't enabled, crying out loud.
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One problem with CSGO though is that it's not demanding
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enough for us to dip below 60 frames per second.
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So it's not really giving us a benefit over just running V-Sync.
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Other than theoretically a little bit less lag.
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So what we're going to do then,
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is we're going to fire up Deus Ex Mankind Divided.
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Can really tell it's much smoother.
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Wow, I suck.
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All right.
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So here we go.
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Now we are right in the sweet spot
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where we're going to be benefiting from our FreeSync display
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where we're not quite able to maintain 60 frames per second,
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but we're right in that 45 to 50 FPS range.
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What kind of annoying thing about this game
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is it has some on-screen effects
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that kind of look like tearing, but we are not,
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oh, see like that, but that's not that, that's me dying.
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I can't believe that this is working.
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Like this just blows me away.
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Okay.
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So remember how I said that because of the way this works,
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we could in theory use Intel's iGPU for FreeSync
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with an NVIDIA card actually churning through the frames.
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Once those come out, that got us thinking,
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what if we did it the other way around?
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What if you're on team red?
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Like a Vega 64,
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but some baller new gaming monitor is only available
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in a G-Sync flavor.
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Wow, that happened so fast.
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I didn't even get a chance to show you guys.
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Check this out.
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So as soon as we plugged it in, boom,
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G-Sync display connected.
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What?
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So we'll go ahead and fire that up.
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Enable G-Sync, enable G-Sync for all the things.
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Now all we have to do is the same process, but in reverse,
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going into our graphic settings and going, okay, CS go.
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We don't want high performance.
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We want power saving.
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Now we can launch Counter-Strike.
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And in theory, we'll be running G-Sync
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for our NVIDIA graphics card,
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but we'll actually be rendering with our onboard graphics.
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Now that wouldn't make a lot of sense in this case,
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but if you were running something like a Vega 64,
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and then you just installed like a GeForce 950 or something
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in another slot, you couldn't do that.
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You couldn't do that.
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You could make it work.
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Whether or not you should make it work
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is another question though,
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because unless someone automates this GPU switching process,
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it is a bit of a pain in the butt, at least at this time.
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And it's not that cost-effective
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because one way or another, you will have to have two GPUs.
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Would you look at that?
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It feels a little laggy,
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but that's because we're running at 33 frames per second.
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There's no tearing,
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and it's as smooth as it could be given the situation.
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Now, one way that you could make the solution make sense
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would be if you had some old compatible hardware
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lying around, or actually maybe if you're team green
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in terms of your gaming rig,
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but you wanted to hook your gaming machine
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up to one of Samsung's FreeSync TVs, for example,
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because until BFGDs actually make their way to the market,
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there are no large format G-Sync displays.
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That could be pretty cool.
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But in most cases,
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you'll probably end up spending
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more than you are actually saving
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or very close for what isn't an amazing experience.
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The real takeaway is that we shouldn't have to do
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any of this.
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FreeSync and VESA Adaptive Sync
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are both industry standards at this point.
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And NVIDIA, if you're listening,
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we're not saying that you need to ditch G-Sync.
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We know that you guys have special green G-Sync socks,
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that you pour on it,
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that makes it a little better in your opinions.
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Personally, I haven't looked at it
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with a high speed camera yet,
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but you guys think it's better, so okay.
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We're just saying that like CUDA and OpenCL,
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there's no reason that you couldn't support both,
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especially since as we've demonstrated here,
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there's no physical link reason
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that you couldn't support both.
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Team Group is sponsoring this video with their Delta RGB SSD.
10:05
Yes, my friends, it's an RGB SSD.
10:09
They've got three versions available.
10:10
So the USB gives off our rainbow wave,
10:13
while the five volt and the 12 volt
10:15
are able to be configured with a variety of RGB software.
10:18
They've got read and write speeds
10:20
of up to 560 megabytes per second.
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And this is pretty cool.
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If you click the link below, you can enter a giveaway
10:26
and the winner can choose either a 500 gig Delta RGB SSD
10:30
or their T-Force RGB 16 gig RAM kit.
10:35
So thanks for watching guys.
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If this video sucked, then I see you NVIDIA employees.
10:41
I see you.
10:42
But if you liked it, you can hit the like button,
10:44
get subscribed, or maybe consider checking out
10:46
where to buy the stuff we featured
10:47
at the link in the video description.
10:49
Also down there is our merch store,
10:50
which has cool shirts like this one
10:51
and our community forum, which you should totally join.