If you want to know more about FreeSync and whether it makes a difference to your sports-watching habits, you’ve come to the right place. To really understand FreeSync, you need to have basic knowledge of screen testing, screen stuttering, and V-Sync. So, let's start there.
Screen Tearing
You’ll notice screen tearing when your graphics card’s framerate is faster than your monitor’s refresh rate. In such cases, your graphics card is sending images to your monitor at a speed faster than your monitor is capable of displaying them and from your point of view, whatever sporting event you're watching will intermittently look torn. No, you won't have the view at home that you would if you were watching it at a sports bar. But even if it's just one portable monitor you're watching at home, eliminating screen tearing can make all the difference.
Screen Stuttering
Just because your graphics card is capable of producing 60 frames per second, on average, doesn’t mean that that will always be the case. While it might achieve that FPS rate sometimes, it can also dip below that number. When V-Sync is on, and your framerate falls below your monitor’s refresh rate, you get screen stuttering. Screen stuttering is essentially the reverse of screen tearing. Rather than your GPU producing images faster than your monitor is capable of displaying them, your GPU is doing the opposite. This result is screen stuttering, which makes the sport you’re watching look like it’s “lagging”:or “skipping ahead. So, if you're watching the Buffalo Bills vs the Miami Dolphins, for example, this can be a big problem when the game is at a crucial point.
Will V-Sync Help?
This feature was designed to resolve screen tearing. When V-Sync is enabled, your GPU has no choice but to work at a lower rate than your monitor’s refresh rate. If your graphics card’s framerate is 85 FPS, on average, and your monitor is 60Hz, V-Sync will ensure your GPU is capped and not allow it produce over 60 FPS. This basically resolves screen tearing.
The Solution = AMD Sync
The aim of FreeSync technology is to resolve issues related to both screen stuttering and screen tearing. And while there have been other solutions developed before AMD released its own product, FreeSync is the most readily available and widely used option for resolving these two problems.
FreeSync essentially enables your monitor to “sync” its refresh rate to match the rate that your GPU is producing new frames. The result of this is that your monitor will cease producing frames too slowly or too quickly, and you will no longer see screen stuttering and tearing.
FreeSync Vs G-Sync
FreeSync has one key advantage over its main competitor: NVIDIA G-Sync. FreeSync is far more cost-effective than G-Sync. This is largely due to the fact that FreeSync is an open-source offshoot and is software-based. G-Sync, on the other hand, is a hardware-based solution. So, monitor manufacturing companies are required to pay to use G-Sync technology in their products. The issue is that those manufacturers are then forced to pass on those costs to the consumer. As a result, a G-Sync monitor costs significantly more than that of its AMD counterpart, as FreeSync is far easier and less costly to implement. This has resulted in more FreeSync monitors being available than G-Sync monitors.
While G-Sync is the solution for certain users under certain circumstances, FreeSync is the solution for other users. If you have an AMD GPU already, it’s worth investing in a FreeSync monitor. If you’re looking to purchase a FreeSync monitor, however, just remember that they’re not all the same as each other. You’ll need one that will produce as broad a range of refresh rates as possible.
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