NVIDIA G-Sync Explored and Explained

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G-Sync Testing

A Quicky G-Sync Video

Now the problem with explaining and describing what you will see with your eyes, is that we can't really show it. To really understand Nvidia G-Sync you'll need to experience it with your own eyes. Now we did record a video, but the camera and then conversion on YouTube will make things worse again, only a high-speed camera could in fact show you what is being rendered.

We'll give it a try though, but the stutters you see in the video below with G-Sync enabled do NOT show on screen at all. Please keep that in mind. No stutters - no Sir !

Mind you that the video is recorded at 30 FPS, meaning stuttering will occur on your side that you do not see in a real-world situation on the GSYNC monitor - but yes, you will see that in a recorded video.

There is an alternative way though, not perfect but with FCAT we can show you a thing or two on how the monitor refreshes in relation to rendered FPS and Sync status. Now it is not ideal at all to have you guys look at some FCAT results, but at least it will get you an idea of what is happening. On the next page in the conclusion we'll add our subjective visual experience and what we feel and think about the new technology.

Tomb Raider in FCAT

Tomb Raider has grown to be a rather popular title and realistically, is a nice looking game. But it does suffer from tearing with V-Sync Off and actually shows a lot of pulsing AKA sync stuttering with VSync enabled.

Tombraider_frametimechart

In the chart above Tomb Raider suffers from basically what is frame-rate fluctuation with V-Sync enabled (the blue bouncing lines). Basically what happens is that every frame is being displayed twice, this is directly related to the delay that V-Sync causes. The frame is displayed first at 30 FPS, and then the same frame is repeated a second time at 60 FPS (because the GPU is not re-rendering, so the frame is simply repeated at the maximum refresh rate of the monitor). Maybe bouncing is the better word to use here.

Anyhow, with V-Sync Off the frame rate fluctuation causes massive tearing. That obviously we can not measure or show in a chart. But enabling GSYNC will eliminate that. The dark blue line could be a nice representation of the actual framerate AND refresh rate of the monitor, both in sync.

Battlefield 4 in FCAT

Haters hate, Lovers Love... I belong to the latter group and absolutely like the Battlefield franchise. Battlefield 4 actually does require decent rendereing power to run at maximum settings. Obviously here we have the same dillema's again. Depending on our VSYNC settings we get tearing, stutter, and a bit of input lag. Below a GeForce GTX 760 at work.


Bf4_frametimechart

If you look at the bouncing lines then you understand by now that that is VSYNC enabled, Battlefield 4 experiences the very same fluctuation in-between 30–60 FPS and that will cause some input delay and VSYNC stuttering with V-Sync. Turing VSYNC off results into pretty bad tearing that gets worse once the framerate goes down. With G-SYNC enabled these probz however are gawn!


Batman: Arkham Origins

Batman: Arkham Origins is a title that was heavily pimped by NVIDIA, and yeah it is a pretty nice game to be honest. Still like any game it will face the same issues at hand. 

Bao_frametimechart

This chart shows a much smaller amount of time as the Batman: AO engine fluctuates much faster than most other games. However, that fluctuation causes a fair bit of tearing with V-Sync Off. Again something that is a thing of the past with G-Sync enabled.

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