***AMD Freesync owners thread***

[Nexus18]

felt way more like an advert to me
a nicely made one tho ^^;

It is an awful "review"

 

[Gerard]

Considering his name is redninja and he has the amd logo in his avatar not an entirely unbiased advertis....eerrrr review.

 

[shankly1985]

Interesting news coming out FreeSync now when below the Frame window pushes the Refresh rate back to the max. So if you running 144hz and went below 40hz it would stick at 40hz now it will go back to 144hz.

 

[LtMatt]

Nice in depth article from The Tech Report on FreeSync and the BenQ XL2730Z.

AMD has built some flexibility into FreeSync's operation: the user can choose whether to enable or disable vsync for frames that exceed the display's timing tolerance. Consider what happens if frames are coming in from the GPU too quickly for the display to keep up. With vsync enabled, the display will wait a full 6.94 ms before updating the screen, possibly discarding excess frames. (G-Sync always behaves in this manner.) With vsync disabled, the display will go ahead and update the screen mid-refresh, getting the freshest information to the user's eyes while potentially introducing a tearing artifact. Since variable refresh is active, the screen will only tear when the frame rate goes above or below the display's refresh range.

Giving users the option of enabling vsync in this situation is a smart move, one that I fully expect Nvidia to copy in future versions of G-Sync.

I asked AMD's David Glen, one of the engineers behind FreeSync, about how AMD's variable-refresh scheme handles this same sort of low-FPS scenario. The basic behavior is similar to G-Sync's. If the wait for a new frame exceeds the display's tolerance, Glen said, "we show the frame again, and show it at the max rate the monitor supports." Once the screen has been painted, which presumably takes less than 6.94 ms on a 144Hz display, the monitor should be ready to accept a new frame at any time.

What FreeSync apparently lacks is G-Sync's added timing logic to avoid collisions. However, FreeSync is capable of operating with vsync disabled outside of the display's refresh range. In the event of a collision with a required refresh, Glen pointed out, FreeSync can optionally swap to a new frame in the middle of that refresh. So FreeSync is not without its own unique means of dealing with collisions. Then again, the penalty for a collision with vsync enabled should be pretty minor. (My sense is that FreeSync should just paint the screen again with the new frame as soon as the current refresh ends.)

Everything I've just explained may seem terribly complicated, but the bottom line is straightforward. FreeSync's logic for handling low-FPS situations isn't anywhere near as bad as some folks have suggested, and it isn't all that different from G-Sync's.

Crysis 3, on the other hand, was reasonably playable at around 35 FPS.

In fact, playing it was generally a good experience on the XL2730Z. I've seen low-refresh quantization effects before (by playing games on one of those 30Hz-only 4K monitors), and there was simply no sign of it here. I also had no sense of a transition happening when the frame rate momentarily ranged above 40Hz and then dipped back below it. The experience was seamless and reasonably fluid, even with vsync enabled for "out of bounds" frame intervals, which is how I prefer to play. My sense is that, both in theory and in practice, FreeSync handles real-world gaming situations at lower refresh rates in perfectly acceptable fashion. In fact, my satisfaction with this experience is what led me to push harder to understand everything I've explained above.

Full Article
http://techreport.com/review/28073/benq-xl2730z-freesync-monitor-reviewed

 

[shankly1985]

Good read.. It echoes my experience also when forcing a lower frame rate to test.. It is very smooth I feel.

 

[LtMatt]

The misinformation spread had to be corrected.

 

[tommybhoy]

Op updated, FreeSync monitor choice is expanding rapidly and it's only been a few weeks

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-127-LG&groupid=17&catid=948



https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-128-LG&groupid=17&catid=948



http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-078-AC&groupid=17&catid=948



http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-113-BQ&groupid=17&catid=948



https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-083-AS&groupid=17&catid=948



https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-213-SA&groupid=17&catid=948



https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-214-SA&groupid=17&catid=948



https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-215-SA&groupid=17&catid=948



https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-216-SA&groupid=17&catid=948



https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-217-SA&groupid=17&catid=948

The misinformation spread had to be corrected.

Overall, the XL2730Z is indisputably one of the best gaming monitors on the planet.

Not too shabby at all considering what some experts reported, didn't test it properly or 'requested' to test under a certain scenario???

 

[Orangey]

You'd think people would know not to trust pcper by this point, they're blatantly trying to torpedo AMD at the behest of the Green Goblin.

 

[Gerard]

You'd think people would know not to trust pcper by this point, they're blatantly trying to torpedo AMD at the behest of the Green Goblin.

I doubt that, they backed up their findings with proof from what i seen, they had a whole video dedicated to showing the differences of what happens when freesync gets above or below the range it works and the same with gsync. 1 offered a smoother experience at lower fps settings and no tearing, the other didn't.

 

[Orangey]

With a demo set up to heavily favour NV.

 

[Gerard]

With a demo set up to heavily favour NV.

How was it heavily favouring nvidia? All they were showing was what happens when the monitors get to a frame-rate of around 30-40fps or below. Thats down to the implementation of freesync not the testing method.

 

[pgi947]

U24E590D almost certain to be my next monitor.

 

[Ayahuasca]

With a demo set up to heavily favour NV.

Wasn't the windmill demo provided by AMD?

 

[tommybhoy]

Wasn't the windmill demo provided by AMD?

Modified Pendulum was supplied in their technical Freesync analysis.

Pcper never produced the Gsync zero frame judder that they (fleetingly)mentioned had the same effect, perhaps they tested it with Vsync off too as AMD stated when Vsync is enabled it adds the extra frames(the same way as Gsync).

If there is tools needing, Nvidia give Pcper the means.



Bottom line, they both work very well, plugging one over the other is pointless as you should either be choosing your gpu first or adding it to what you already have in your rig.

Annoyed that it's one or the other, just been offered a TX@half price, would have jumped on it if Nvidia supported AS.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Something seriously wrong with whoevers offering you one for that

 

[Nutella33]

Good showing though. 10 freesync monitors up for order over 8 gsync ones, in a much shorter time frame and at good prices as well.

 

[Orangey]

Good showing though. 10 freesync monitors up for order over 8 gsync ones, in a much shorter time frame and at good prices as well.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Modified Pendulum was supplied in their technical Freesync analysis.

Pcper never produced the Gsync zero frame judder that they (fleetingly)mentioned had the same effect, perhaps they tested it with Vsync off too as AMD stated when Vsync is enabled it adds the extra frames(the same way as Gsync).

If there is tools needing, Nvidia give Pcper the means.



Bottom line, they both work very well, plugging one over the other is pointless as you should either be choosing your gpu first or adding it to what you already have in your rig.

Annoyed that it's one or the other, just been offered a TX@half price, would have jumped on it if Nvidia supported AS.[

And other incredible tales lol.

 

[LtMatt]

Damn, i love that song. I'll be listening to that for ages now!

 

[Ayahuasca]

Right... Well...

*Big announcement*

I'm currently reviewing this monitor, so I guess I technically don't own it and shouldn't be posting in here. I will keep this brief. I am really enjoying the build quality of this thing and find it is much easier to achieve a respectable image with just OSD tweaks than many older XL Series models. So that's two huge plusses already.

I won't be answering any questions on the monitor here, you'll have to wait for the review. But there is something I need your help with. And that is, if you guys have this connected to a GPU that is FreeSync-capable via DP 1.2, does your AMA setting actually do anything? It seems that you can't adjust AMA and it is set to a somewhat lower than optimal value (for 144Hz) that you're stuck with if you intend to use FreeSync. This is easy to verify by going to this page and cycling through the AMA settings. This could have a lot to do with the 'FreeSync ghosting' thing that some other websites were reporting. I shall be chasing this up with AMD to see what's what.

guys, i'm currently talking to BenQ about the situation but to avoid any confusion here, this is the issue as it stands:

If you connect the XL2730Z to a FreeSync system then the AMA function (overdrive circuit) is disabled. It doesnt matter whether you have FreeSync ticked or not in the graphics card settings, it is still turned off. If you "break" the end to end freeSync system by doing something like switching to DVI instead of DisplayPort, or using a non-FreeSync supporting drive, AMA behaves as it should. obviously if you use the screen from an NVIDIA /Intel card or a non-FreeSync card then it behaves as it should.

AMA High is much faster than AMA off, as with it off there is a lot more blurring (hence the reported blurring problems of FreeSync). So at the moment connecting the screen to a FreeSync system is not great, as although you get the benefits of dynamic refresh rate, you have much worse response times and more possible blurring.

This is apparently an issue affecting all FreeSync screens and will require both an AMD driver fix (being worked on i'm told) and a firmware update for the FreeSync screen. i'm pending info from benQ about what is needed for the XL2730Z and how that will work.

Looks like the ghosting rumours weren't just made up then, 2 great monitor reviewers confirming my experience with the screen.

Hopefully it's a quick fix.