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So I needed a monitor and decided to checkout this Freesync thing. I was expecting some extra smoothness in FPS but have been quite shocked at the difference in response times and overall immersion in various games. Freesync is such a radical departure from what gamers have been used to up until now that its actually quite difficult to understand what is going on ...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4 ... ame_limit/

Here's are some of my notes for various games ...

> BF2/FH/PR ... *dramatic* increase in responsiveness, esp. noticeable in planes. Not completely confirmed that no screen tearing in 48 - 60 range. *Seems* to be no tearing and MASSIVE responsiveness increase even outside those ranges.
> Dying Light ... Not fully tested yet. But no tearing.
> Hard Reset ... MUCH IMPROVED FRAME RATE AND RESPONSIVENESS
> Red Faction Guerilla ... MUCH IMPROVED FRAME RATE AND RESPONSIVENESS *Even when demolishing buildings*.

I noticed the difference most of all with flying planes/heli's in PR anf FH. I can suddenly actually fly properly now ! A huge increase in responsiveness. Some of the problems I've been plagued with - low fps, stuttering, lag - this may have been down to problems with my old monitor which I now suspect had a faulty refersh rate sync chip in it. But much of it has been due to this well known problem for gamers involving monitor/GPU syncing, vsync and all the rest of it. Freesync seems to expose what an appalling mess that has all been, its amazing that we have not had Freesync/Gsync sooner.

One thing I don't quite understand yet is why games appear MUCH more responsive (no lag) OUTSIDE my monitors published Freesync ranges ( 48 - 60hz ). Freesync ALSO seems to fix a lot of problems between the GPU and Monitor, although not having had a Displayport connection before some of this may be to do with the Displayport technology alone.

So, AMD and Viewsonic have had a lot of hype about having much increased reaction times in shooters. I was a bit skeptical but its turned out to be true !

Good to hear but if your monitor was faulty that would explain it. I will be getting a monitor in 4 months I will look at these types.

PLODDITHANLEY wrote:Good to hear but if your monitor was faulty that would explain it. I will be getting a monitor in 4 months I will look at these types.

Yes, a faulty monitor was some of it, but the rest of it was bad limitations of non-freesync gpu/vga.. Highly recommend looking at these monitors. My one (link in post above) was lower range product hence only having 48-60 freesync range. But apparently there is an EDID hack out there to increase the ranges.

I have a FreeSync monitor (the BenQ XL2730Z) but I don't have an AMD GPU to try it out.

FreeSync range is 40-144hz by the way.

I bought it simply because it offered everything I wanted for the best price. 1440p, 144hz, and true 8-bit TN (there are only about three gaming TN monitors that have this).

I don't like IPS for gaming. Too bright, too much IPS glow, and slow response times.

600 euros.....

Bit more than I am prepared to spend....

Steeps wrote:I have a FreeSync monitor (the BenQ XL2730Z) but I don't have an AMD GPU to try it out.

FreeSync range is 40-144hz by the way.

I bought it simply because it offered everything I wanted for the best price. 1440p, 144hz, and true 8-bit TN (there are only about three gaming TN monitors that have this).

I don't like IPS for gaming. Too bright, too much IPS glow, and slow response times.

That's a better Freesync range, mine is quite narrow, but the monitor is high quality and I got it for ~ 128 British Pounds. 1920x1080 is plenty for most things and, thanks for the TN info, I did not know my monitor is TN ( VX2257-mhd 22? Monitor for Video Gaming - LED Display - Products - ViewSonic ) but I picked it primarily for gaming so I guess it would be. A nice thing about this monitor is that it auto switches between inputs so when my Windows machine turns off the display it switches to my Linux machine if the display is on. There is also what seems to be an undocumented feature where pressing button 2 cycles between active inputs (no need to go into the OSD). This is also my first monitor with a proper colour calibration file and boy it shows ! I have colour shifts all over my old monitor displays, horrible. Only other problem is an alarming "short out" sound and the display goes on and off quickly. Happens rarely but at first I thought, "oh oh, will I be using the warranty sooner than I thought". Actually after some Google searches it seems to be a bug in Displayport with AMD drivers.

Meanwhile there are true 24-bit color monitors sitting on the sides of the road or on their way to be put in landfills that can display 100-120+ Hz refresh rates

PM to learn more

Well yeah there a group that apparently love CRTs for gaming - me my desk is too small.

TN from 24" are now euro 150 27"s at 250 all at FHD no more.

Rice N. Beans wrote:Meanwhile there are true 24-bit color monitors sitting on the sides of the road or on their way to be put in landfills that can display 100-120+ Hz refresh rates

PM to learn more

If you can stand listening to the incessant whine they produce when they are on, then go for it!

Just a warning to any freesync/gsync buyers after what I thought was a bug in AMD drivers ... IT IS NOT, and it is a potentially hardware damaging problem (although I've not seen any actual evidence so far of anyone's hardware being damaged).

As I said above, after having the monitor connected via displayport for a while there would occasionally be an electronic switching sound and it would go on and off + occasional glitches in the graphics, lines across the screen, etc. I eventually had the time to tackle what I thought was a badly seated cable and then ... displayport failed completely - no display ! I was forced to go to HDMI cable. Looked around and find this MAJOR problem with displayport ! This is not even mentioned on the official page about buying the right cable. It is a problem with many cables having pin 20 connected. Pin 20 must not be there as that introduces a 3.3v charge into places where it should not be ! Displayport cables for connection to external monitor must be 19 pins only. For example this cable.

Here is a good guide to what the problem actually is: Rage3D.com : AMD Eyefinity & DisplayPort Difficulties [ AMD Eyefinity & DisplayPort Difficulties ]

Apparently most cables out there have this problem. I find it difficult to believe they are ALL fraudulent or a such poor quality. I suspect a miscommunication by VESA in their specs somewhere along the line that has caused this problem. I emailed the VESA chief executive about this as I was so upset of the possible damage that could have been caused to recently purchased over ?100 graphics card and over ?100 of monitor. The only evidence of anything like damage I've had so far is one or both displayport sockets cutting out on either the graphics card or monitor probably due to a protection circuit or confused electronics (3.3v charge could charge and discharge capacitors in wrong way). But after a few days not using it the new (19pin!) cable is working fine so far.

So this is what we British call a balls up (by Vesa), lol

Scary stuff. I use HDMI and have been scared off from display port for life.

PLODDITHANLEY wrote:Scary stuff. I use HDMI and have been scared off from display port for life.

Works fine once you know the issue. One thing I don't understand is that with some games, even though the framerate is well above the published Freesync range for the monitor, I can't see any tearing when there should be tearing happening. My guess is that the time between frames (eg. ~10ms @ 100fps) is just too fast to even notice the tear.