My GSYNC experiences

[James J]

Sounds like a nice feature. Interested to see what its like when the fps are low say 25-40 James.

I've put that in the OP under the cons part as going under 35 FPS seems to introduce a stutter due to the previously rendered frame being forced to be scanned again whilst using gsync. Reviewers seem to confirm this also, but I've only noticed it whilst pushing my setup past its ability to see what happens. If you have a setup that doesn't game at 35fps, you'll never encounter it. If you do have a setup thats not powerful enough to play a specific game, say crysis 3, at above 35 fps, gsync should be disabled.

 

[James J]

Thanks.

Great work btw, appreciate your feedback/review.

No worries. Its interesting technology and I don't mind playing guinea pig either. My only real genuine concern is that this technology pigeon holes me into buying only Nvidia GPUs. Sure my last few have been from the green camp, but I'm by no means bias. I value silence over raw performance and I'd have probably bought a 295x if it was out in january instead of my 2x 780 ti's. Nvidia confirmed in an event last year that they won't licence the technology out to other companies, which I feel is a shame with this as it should be something that everyone can enjoy.

 

[James J]

Can GSync (the hardware module) be updated firmware wise?

I'm not sure, plus its not mentioned anywhere it seems. The module does have 768mb of memory on it though, so I would assume so. Plus its linked directly to the gpu so from a transfer perspective it shouldn't be difficult.

Shame Gsync wont work on ATI, but what I would really to try is a 144hz monitor, surely that's a better offering than 60hz any day?

Depending on your system spec and the games you play, you'd probably get a bigger benefit from just bumping up the hz compared to anything else.

 

[James J]

Update

Having watched a few videos and films using gsync, the earlier concerns I had in regards to 24 frame footage is thankfully not an issue. I didn't have any motion or refresh rate issues at all with videos.

I have encountered an issue in regards to world of warcraft. If you try and change the antialiasing mode with gsync enabled, it crashes the game immediately. This is 100% reproducible on my setup and doesn't happen with gsync disabled.

 

[James J]

Some games will not work as Nvidia states and I assume some will get updates to work.

The PIA issue is the games hardcapped to X FPS though most can be hacked in .ini files.

Gsync works on WOW absolutely fine though. The problem is a crash related to changing graphics settings.

 

[James J]

See, I'm very interested in trying something like this... off I go to do some research.

Well, firstly I have to buy an NVidia card - which at the moment means paying quite a premium over the 290/290X for the same performance.

Then you need a supporting monitor - of which there is one - and it's a 24" TN Film screen for £270! I'd struggle to justify that price on an IPS model.

You won't be seeing a 144hz 1ms IPS panel anytime soon though.

 

[James J]

Regarding the price...probably about the 20th time I've had to explain it on these forums alone...

The current 24" Asus gsync unit available is an in house diy job. The monitors are retail - no gsync. The retailer (we all know who that is) voids the manufacturers warranty and fits an aftermarket scaling unit from nvidia containing gsync tech. The retailer then covers the monitor with their own warranty and will likely take a hit should it become defective.

The huge bump in cost is down to essentially paying for the aftermarket module from nvidia, man hours fitting and testing it and likely some warranty premium on top.

In short what is available now is not a retail gsync unit.

When retail units hit costs will be lower, much much lower. Even Gibbo said benq gsync units may only be £20-30 more then a non-gsync unit.

Correct on all points. My asus monitor has none of its guts remaining inside it and instead is replaced by a custom job gsync module. It even displays as an nvidia monitor in the device list and even is OSD.

 

[James J]

I was talking about the aftermarket units themselves, as there really isn't anywhere near $200 worth of anything on them.

Companies foolishly slap premiums on things for no rational reason, just like the 295X2 and its obscene price, I don't understand who AMD thought would buy one at nearly 3x the price of a 290X and 4x+ the price of a 290.

The modules aren't mass produced so you are also paying a premium on the availability of them. They've sold out in northern america, which is their only current market for the stand alone unit, plus they have no ETA on the second round of stock yet either. Sadly for consumers, there is nothing like this technology out on the market today, so you'll be paying a premium just for the privilege in the first place.

However, having said that, would I pay £450 for this setup again? Definitely. The colours and blacks on the monitor really aren't bad, sure not IPS standard, yet very good for TN. The input lag is none existant and the gsync technology really is refreshing in the games it works seamlessly with, which is most of them on the market.

My advice is, don't write it off without trying it, as you'd be a fool to proclaim an opinion otherwise. I don't mean that offensively, I'm just pointing out that this is definitely something you need to experience first hand, as no review or graph will tell you the true story and videos can't realistically capture what happens on screen either as you are still watching it on a normal monitor.

 

[James J]

I will concede that I don't like the idea of TN, but I haven't used a modern TN so I have no idea just how they compare to IPS nowadays.

However, for me, resolution and image quality are a priority over something like G-Sync, though again because I haven't used or experienced it, it's an assumption, however it is based on the fact that for me, I use my monitors primarily for graphics, photography or website work over playing games, so resolution and colour accuracy are prime there for me.

Though I would love to see what those 4K TN panels are like, as people seem to be saying the same thing you've said about this monitor, they are very very good for TN panels.

I definitely wouldn't use a TN panel, including this one, for colour critical work, so you'll be stuck with IPS for the foreseeable future sadly. I'd also like to see the samsung 4k panel that greg owns in the flesh, but his video review really turned me off 4k if I'm honest due to the res having a negative effect on how easy websites and various programs are to read. Precision for example was unreadable on it and offers no scaling option, so you are forced to lowering the res on the desktop.

GSYNC is definitely a hard sell, but if someone tries it on a game like BF4, its very easily justifiable. OcUK really needs to get a demo system on display in the shop so people can see first hand.

 

[James J]

I found people made the same claims about 2560x1440, but I find the text more than readable on anything I've used, so I can't imagine the text on a 28" 4K display to be unreadable for me, so I would imagine it's mostly down to the individual.

However, I would still prefer something bigger than 28, as it's not really much of an increase over 27".

But yeah, it will be IPS for the foreseeable future. I'm hoping that once Apple start producing their iMacs and cinema displays with 4K IPS panels, that some 4K equivalents of those cheap Korean monitors pop up, and I will be all over 3 of them.

I've come from a 1440p IPS monitor to this one. I also agree that 4k really needs a physically larger monitor than 28 inches.

 

[James J]

I take it Gsync is like 3D or maybe even colour TV, you can describe it all you like but nobody will realise just how different It is until they see it for themselves.

Probably quite a good analogy to be honest. People think that they have a good experience with vsync off and can't see tearing due to playing at 144hz, but theres definitely a positive difference in clarity and smoothness of the image with gsync enabled regardless.

 

[James J]

It's always hilarious when I'm talking to other "tech savvy" friends about GSync and they say "wow, I must pop onto Youtube and have a look at it for myself!".

Gets a titter from me.

Try find some 240 fps video of vsync on, vsync off and gsync on if you can, as you'll see how gsync works, just not get the actual experience from it. Basically a better, more stable image with no stuttering than vsync, with the input lag of vsync off, but without the tearing. Best of both worlds.

 

[James J]

That is the video that shows how physically different the normal monitor vs gsync module one is internally

 

[James J]

But the stutter with Vsync isn't something you get with Vsync off. So I don't understand how taking a frame and matching up to the display can make the frame rate smoother than having Vsync off what is not being synced at all.
Isnt the reason alone for Gysnc to remove the issues of Vsync what are Screen tear and Input lag plus Frame stutter when your GPU cant keep up with Refresh rate.

all apart from Screen tear dont happen when Sync is disabled. So therefore Gsync should be has the same smoothness wise to having sync disabled.
Is they a bench out there testing say 120fps Gsync vs 120fps No sync to test Frame rate latency and input lag?

Am going to need more convincing. I total see the benefit to someone using Vsync and then Gsync though.

Think you might have misunderstood the importance of syncing up the framerate to the refresh rate. Lets use the 144hz as an example instead of 60, which no one really cares about anyway as gamers.

144hz means that its scan rate on the monitor itself is roughly 7ms (compared to 16ms at 60hz). Now, modern GPU's can render faster than that, with the lowest I've seen so far, even in BF4 on ultra, is 3.8ms render speed. In a perfect world, that means 144hz shouldn't have any lag or tearing. However, when you start hitting 8ms draw times or even slower, the scan rate quickly becomes unsynced, leading to tearing. You won't even notice the difference in the draw times when gaming (typically) until you get a big enough hit in your FPS. The thing is though, you'll definitely have visual artifacts on your screen due to the constant shifting in draw times meaning your monitors scan is all over the place. Might be hard to notice as you accept them as the norm after years of use, yet gsync fixes that.

Frames render faster than your scan rate? Perfect world scenario, no issues. Frames render slower than your scan rate? Gsync alters the refresh rate to match the new draw rate, keeping an extremely smooth experience.

 

[James J]

Would love to know if it makes Planetside 2 feel smoother, that would be a great test as that game regularly drops <50 fps.

If Freesync doesn't rear its head within the next 12 months I will likely move over to Nvidia for G Sync.

I'll get it downloaded and try it out for you. 100mb connection with unlimited downloads ftw!

 

[James J]

OP - Hope you don't mind me posting this in your thread

AOC G-sync due out shortly

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=26283919#post26283919

Don't mind at all as its completely relevant! Its nice that people will have choice and the price is coming down