Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nimelrian | Hacker News Reader

> with the disadvantage of only being able to sync over a narrow range, such as 40-60 Hz.

1) This is not the problem of FreeSync itself but of the panels and their support for VRR.

2) I have 2 FreeSync monitors at home which both do 40-144Hz (Acer XF270HUA and Benq XL2730Z). In addition, more than 2 years ago AMD added LFC to help with the classic case of "FPS drops below FreeSync range" issue. I don't notice any issues with judder when my framerate goes below the range for 1 or 2 frames.

Your info is out of date. Nowadays FreeSync is just as good as GSync if you get a monitor of good quality (and you still pay 150-300$ less just because it isn't GSync).

View on HN

LFC only works on models that already have a wide sync range, which is the reason that stuff like 40-60 Hz panels are a problem in the first place. The top end of the sync range needs to be at least 2.5x the rate of the bottom end of the sync range (it works by doubling frames up when you go off the bottom end of the sync range).

XF270HU/HUA (-A is a later revision of the same model) is one of the handful of good models (wide sync range). The Nixeus EDG has a wide sync range plus is the only FreeSync model known to have Adaptive Overdrive, which is important for preventing ghosting.

There are a very small handful of others, but only about 1/3 of FreeSync monitors even support LFC, and the EDG is the only (!) one that does Adaptive Overdrive, which is a basic feature on all GSync monitors. So no, this is not "out of date" at all, there really are only a handful of FreeSync monitors that are "just as good as GSync".

Are FreeSync and GSync interchangeable? Can a FreeSync monitor work with an NVIDIA card, or viceversa?

No. When NVidia created GSync, they enforced quality far beyond what the specification could manage and used proprietary technology and consultant engineers to accomplish it. AMD copied their efforts with Freesync by getting some of it added to the DisplayPort protocol. NVidia sees it as an inferior copy and won't support it. AMD and many others see GSync as an exclusionary market grab through tie-ins.

Despite many claims to the contrary from Freesync supporters, it's still the case that only a handful of Freesync displays will give near the same experience as nearly all GSync displays.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com