Is trying to find a FreeSync Premium supported monitor worth it or bs?
Posted by Kili_RUI@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 12 comments
Im on laptop at the moment and building my PC and choosing my peripherals, i do gotta say about screen tearing is that i NEVER had it, Ive always played Roblox at way more than 60 FPS in my 60 Hz screen and never had screen tearing, narrowing monitors down to having FreeSync Premium (because itll have LFC which ill prob need in a few years after having my PC build) It closes many more options of monitors i can get so, should I NOT focus on FreeSync Premium specific monitors or should I? RX 9070 Ryzen 7600X3D 1440p gaming, if you need to know more please ask me
BaronB@reddit
Short answer: No, it doesn't matter.
Long answer:
The non-Premium version of FreeSync also requires LFC. The difference between FreeSync and FreeSync Premium is the later means the monitors have a 200hz refresh rate or higher. And FreeSync Premium Pro is 200hz and has HDR input support. Note, it doesn't need to be able to display in HDR, just needs to be able to accept an HDR input. If it then displays it in regular SDR, it can still use the "FreeSync Premium Pro" label. Several "HDR10" or "DisplayHDR 400" monitors list FreeSync Premium Pro support, but HDR10 is a video signal format, and "DisplayHDR 400" effectively means it's a slightly brighter than average office monitor.
FreeSync is also really just AMD's marketing name for what have become DisplayPort Adaptive Sync and HDMI 2.1 Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). AMD's implementation was based on an existing spec from DisplayPort used on low powered embedded displays. This was eventually adopted by VESA (who control DisplayPort) for DP 1.2a and the HDMI Forum (who control HDMI) for HDMI 2.1. So that the standard implementations are now essentially the same as FreeSync. The only difference is FreeSync monitors may not have HDMI 2.1 as the HDMI Forum decided to slightly tweak the implementation in HDMI 2.1 vs AMD's original.
Low framerate compensation is basically used by all but the shittiest of shitty monitors already support DisplayPort Adaptive Sync or HDMI 2.1 Variable Refresh Rate, because that's all FreeSync is to begin with.
Similarly, "G-Sync Compatible" is literally just DisplayPort Adaptive Sync and HDMI 2.1 VRR. Nvidia doesn't support variable refresh over HDMI 2.0 or older as Nvidia don't support AMD's original HDMI implementation. Nvidia's original G-Sync, now called "Native G-Sync", used custom hardware on the monitor and entirely different signaling that only worked over DisplayPort. The only exception is on a small selection of LG TVs and monitors before HDMI 2.1 was officially released had "G-Sync" support over HDMI which either used something completely custom, or maybe a pre-release implementation of HDMI 2.1's VRR.
It should also be noted that being getting the "FreeSync" label is entirely down to each manufacturer choosing whether or not they want to add it. AMD doesn't do any certification themselves, and it's entirely on the monitor company to determine which level of FreeSync they want to advertise support for. Some very high end monitors today forgo G-Sync or FreeSync labels entirely because this is a feature any gaming monitor is expected to have at this point, and both Nvidia and AMD GPUs will work with monitors that support the latest display input standards.
But the short version of the long answer is... if the monitor lists support for G-Sync Compatible, FreeSync, or Adaptive Sync, or VRR, they'll all work equally well with an RX 9070. Just avoid the 60hz\~100hz options as you can get 180hz+ monitors for nearly the same price as 60hz monitors that have much better image quality. But if you were looking for FreeSync Premium, you were already looking at that class of monitor.
Mega_Weedle@reddit
Wow, amazing response!
So if I buy a monitor with VRR, do I still need to turn it on in AMD settings on a specific game? Or does it automatically activate?
BaronB@reddit
AMD has VRR enabled by default on any monitor that supports it. Some monitors do require you enable VRR in the monitor's OSD, but that's uncommon these days. You do not need to enable anything in games for it to work.
If you still see screen tearing, that means the game is running at an fps higher than the refresh rate of the monitor, and you can enable VSync in game. This will only cap the max framerate and won't affect VRR.
Kili_RUI@reddit (OP)
Yes sir, genuinely thanks for the deep dive into it!
Degru@reddit
Don't worry about it. All modern gaming monitors have some form of variable refresh rate support, pay attention to colors, black levels and motion clarity instead.
I actually had to turn gsync off on my new 4k OLED because it caused flickering (common problem with gaming OLEDs, known as VRR flicker). I've never actually seen any tearing on it nonetheless.
Kili_RUI@reddit (OP)
ill just buy the best one out there, thank you!
Lord_Hector_Bear@reddit
All most every high refresh monitor supports FreeSync.
Kili_RUI@reddit (OP)
Im starting to notice that, no problem then, thanks!!
Ozi-reddit@reddit
think majority are at least freesync compat which is enough
Kili_RUI@reddit (OP)
W
Significant_Fill6992@reddit
I have a gsync moniter that I bought like 10 years ago that is still fantastic but I don't think the gsync or freesync branding is used much anymore since from my understanding vesa adaptive sync is integrated with displayport
Kili_RUI@reddit (OP)
Yeah looks like it, thank you for telling me!