AMD Freesync - Why Fullscreen only?

[Dave2150]

As per the title, I'm wondering if someone knows if there's a technical reason why Freesync cannot support windowed mode and fullscreen windowed mode.

It currently only supports fullscreen exclusive mode, whereas Gsync supports all three types. Is this because of the proprietary module embedded in Gsync monitors, or some other reason?

Many thanks.

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EDIT - AMD added the ability to use Freesync in windowed mode as of the Crimson ReLive 12.1.1 driver set The posts before December were people debating if this functionality could be added or not.

 

[Bacon1]

Not sure why but windows already gives you tear free experience with triple buffered vsync when windowed anyway.

 

[Tweak155]

My guess is because in windowed mode, you can have competing applications that are running at different FPS. The monitor would have to "pick" which application to sync with, even if it's just your desktop. Possibly this is what the GSync option provides, a logic to do this?

I don't know much about the technology but this makes sense in my head

 

[railven]

Not sure why but windows already gives you tear free experience with triple buffered vsync when windowed anyway.

Yeah, but it also locks it at your current refresh rate so stutter city galore.

I didn't even know G-Sync had that option until I was trying to figure out why WoW wasn't benefiting much from it. Found it, turned it on, all gravy.

With Steam Overlay, I ALT+TAB far less than I use to. So I'd see it as a minor inconvenience overall.

 

[Dave2150]

Yeah, but it also locks it at your current refresh rate so stutter city galore.

I didn't even know G-Sync had that option until I was trying to figure out why WoW wasn't benefiting much from it. Found it, turned it on, all gravy.

With Steam Overlay, I ALT+TAB far less than I use to. So I'd see it as a minor inconvenience overall.

I got so used to the instant alt tabbing on my Gsync laptop that I find the 2-3 second delay when tabbing in fullscreen games on my AMD system very annoying! I'll give steam overlay a go when playing stream games, hadn't thought of that.

Would be great to know if AMD are ever able to support windowed mode freesync with current monitors/hardware though.

 

[Stuka87]

I don't see why AMD could not, they would just need to grab whatever is the front most application. But I think the number of people that game in windowed mode is most likely quite low, so its probably a lower priority.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

At first gsync was also fullscreen only, as is shadowplay. Isn't crossfire that way too?

It's just simpler to do I guess.

 

[Bacon1]

Yeah, but it also locks it at your current refresh rate so stutter city galore.

I didn't even know G-Sync had that option until I was trying to figure out why WoW wasn't benefiting much from it. Found it, turned it on, all gravy.

With Steam Overlay, I ALT+TAB far less than I use to. So I'd see it as a minor inconvenience overall.

It's not stutter city, well maybe in DX9 games or something, but don't notice stutter in any games I play. What games have you noticed it stuttering a lot on so I can try them out?

 

[railven]

It's not stutter city, well maybe in DX9 games or something, but don't notice stutter in any games I play. What games have you noticed it stuttering a lot on so I can try them out?

Dark Souls 3
WoW
SW:TOR
Borderlands (2/Pre-Sequel)
Civ6

What else have we been playing?

Unless having an AMD card with a Freesync monitor in Windowed mode is different than having an Nvidia card with a Fressync monitor in Windowed mode.

Basically any game she plays when she drops out of 60 FPS, it stutters. I already tried to convince her to get an AMD card, but she's been an NV Fangirl since I met her.

 

[Bacon1]

SW:TOR

Only one on your list I've played recently, and I ended up swapping from full screen to windowed mode due to it "reloading" the game when swapping back to full screen when tabbing out to my other monitors. No stutters at all, so maybe it is a Nvidia vs AMD issue? I used to use borderless windowed mode as "poor mans" freesync since it lets you still play "uncapped" fps with syncing and no tearing, plus "alt-tab" is nice with 3 monitors. I still play half my games in windowed mode on my Acer Freesync monitor because there isn't much difference except in FPSs where I want to reduce the slight input lag from windowed mode.

 

[railven]

Only one on your list I've played recently, and I ended up swapping from full screen to windowed mode due to it "reloading" the game when swapping back to full screen when tabbing out to my other monitors. No stutters at all, so maybe it is a Nvidia vs AMD issue? I used to use borderless windowed mode as "poor mans" freesync since it lets you still play "uncapped" fps with syncing and no tearing, plus "alt-tab" is nice with 3 monitors. I still play half my games in windowed mode on my Acer Freesync monitor because there isn't much difference except in FPSs where I want to reduce the slight input lag from windowed mode.

It could also be you're not susceptible to stuttering? SW:TOR has some godawful CPU bottlenecks that even on my g-sync monitor it randomly stutters, so to say you experience no stutter at all is hard for me to believe.

Comparing her experience to mine, when we hit that same CPU hitch her screen gives me a seizure while mine gives me a minor annoyance. EDIT: What I mean by this, is finding places on maps where you can basically tank your FPS and watch your GPU load drop in process only to move a bit more and have your GPU come back up and your FPS hit your set max.

However, I will steal the monitor and connect it to my 290X to test. Be interesting to see if there is some kind of behind the scenes FreeSync going on in window and borderless modes if you're still using an AMD card.

 

[Bacon1]

It could also be you're not susceptible to stuttering? SW:TOR has some godawful CPU bottlenecks that even on my g-sync monitor it randomly stutters, so to say you experience no stutter at all is hard for me to believe.

Oh no I noticed those even while fullscreen... some areas yeah its like 20 fps for some reason while its 60+ right next to that spot.

What I meant is that its no different fullscreen vs windowed.

 

[railven]

Oh no I noticed those even while fullscreen... some areas yeah its like 20 fps for some reason while its 60+ right next to that spot.

What I meant is that its no different fullscreen vs windowed.

Well now you have me confused haha. If you have no difference in fullscreen vs windowed, what the heck is FreeSync doing?

Maybe MMOs aren't the best to use for these types of comparisons because those CPU bottlenecks are so random we can both experience completely different things haha.

I'm just going to assume that with an AMD card there is no difference between fullscreen + windowed mode, ie FreeSync works in windowed mode.

 

[Bacon1]

Well now you have me confused haha. If you have no difference in fullscreen vs windowed, what the heck is FreeSync doing?

Well Freesync changes the refresh rate of the monitor to sync, so there is no input lag while in the refresh window (30-75 on mine).

When you drop into way low fps you get doubling which helps sure, but its still not pleasant and sure *sync will help a bit there but won't make it smooth.

 

[railven]

Well Freesync changes the refresh rate of the monitor to sync, so there is no input lag while in the refresh window (30-75 on mine).

Well, yeah, but the base of this conversation was is FreeSync active in Windowed/Borderless mode? According to the OP, it isn't. So would you still experience the benefit of FreeSync in those situations when you fall from the refresh rate the OS sets?

We have two situations:
Yours: AMD card + FreeSync
Mine: NV card + FreeSync

With differing results. So I'm wondering if there is still some underlining support when in your situation, and if so, to what range, and perhaps AMD should claim support for FreeSync in those situations as well.

When you drop into way low fps you get doubling which helps sure, but its still not pleasant and sure *sync will help a bit there but won't make it smooth.

Well I wasn't using 20 FPS, I was implying spikes of random hitches due to the CPU. SO the FPS would go for her from 60 to 40-45 (her monitor is ranged for 40-75 I believe) and you could see it plain as day. While mine you'd only see the first hitch then it would smooth out as I stayed in the 40-45 FPS range. She'd have continuous stutter until we got pass that portion. (And perhaps stutter is too strong, but it's obvious her experience is no longer smooth, at least to me.)

 

[Bacon1]

Well, yeah, but the base of this conversation was is FreeSync active in Windowed/Borderless mode? According to the OP, it isn't. So would you still experience the benefit of FreeSync in those situations when you fall from the refresh rate the OS sets?

We have two situations:
Yours: AMD card + FreeSync
Mine: NV card + FreeSync

With differing results. So I'm wondering if there is still some underlining support when in your situation, and if so, to what range, and perhaps AMD should claim support for FreeSync in those situations as well.



Well I wasn't using 20 FPS, I was implying spikes of random hitches due to the CPU. SO the FPS would go for her from 60 to 40-45 (her monitor is ranged for 40-75 I believe) and you could see it plain as day. While mine you'd only see the first hitch then it would smooth out as I stayed in the 40-45 FPS range. She'd have continuous stutter until we got pass that portion. (And perhaps stutter is too strong, but it's obvious her experience is no longer smooth, at least to me.)

Right freesync doesn't work while in windowed mode. Yes it could slightly help for when you have really low FPS, but honestly that's not where it shines anyway as gaming in sub 30s is terrible no matter what

Where it shines is in the 30->max ranges (depending on if you think 30 fps is too low of course and game). The difference between adaptive-sync and windowed mode / triple buffered vsync is the reduction of input lag due to frames syncing exactly at the current fps/hz instead of slightly delayed and sync'd @ monitor refresh rate intervals.

I haven't encountered the random spikes you mention only the big ones when in some areas where the fps tanks for some reason (one cave room in sith starting area always did it off the top of my head)

Like you mentioned though, maybe it is a difference in AMD vs Nvidia drivers and how they interact with WDM.

UWP applications work while "fullscreen" with FreeSync even though they are "windowed" because they bypass WDM while running "fullscreen". Gotta say they offer the best of both because it's instant minimize / alt-tab while having full FPS & *Sync, so wouldn't mind if more apps used it .

If I only had 1 monitor I'd probably stay fullscreen 90% of the time, but with multiple I end up multitasking a lot while gaming, especially when doing the "grindy" stuff that fills most games these days.

So while it would be great if Freesync did work (and does for UWP) in windowed mode, its not that big of a difference over Win10's syncing already.

 

[Dave2150]

Well, yeah, but the base of this conversation was is FreeSync active in Windowed/Borderless mode? According to the OP, it isn't. So would you still experience the benefit of FreeSync in those situations when you fall from the refresh rate the OS sets?

We have two situations:
Yours: AMD card + FreeSync
Mine: NV card + FreeSync

With differing results. So I'm wondering if there is still some underlining support when in your situation, and if so, to what range, and perhaps AMD should claim support for FreeSync in those situations as well.



Well I wasn't using 20 FPS, I was implying spikes of random hitches due to the CPU. SO the FPS would go for her from 60 to 40-45 (her monitor is ranged for 40-75 I believe) and you could see it plain as day. While mine you'd only see the first hitch then it would smooth out as I stayed in the 40-45 FPS range. She'd have continuous stutter until we got pass that portion. (And perhaps stutter is too strong, but it's obvious her experience is no longer smooth, at least to me.)

Freesync only fuctions with an AMD card and compatible Freesync monitor in Fullscreen (exclusive) mode. It does not function in any other mode.

I think there's a significant % of the userbase who'd like windowed or fullscreen windowed mode to be supported tbh, I love using these features on my Gsync laptop.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

As far as I know there's a couple of things preventing this.

First of all modern windows OS from Vista onwards apply vsync to the desktop, which means anything in a window has to sync up with the rest of the desktop.

Secondly, competing variable refresh rate windows would not be able to run independently unless otherwise somehow synced both with the desktop but with each other, which would be a technical challenge even if windows allowed for it. But syncing several different windows side by side would result in pretty significant latency since "syncing" is really just synonymous with "delaying".

 

[Grooveriding]

I believe what gsync does to provide windowed fullscreen is activate for your desktop even in 2D mode. At least it seems that way in my experience. When I turn on the option to have gsync also work in windowed mode, my monitor reports it is in gysnc mode even when sitting on the desktop.

 

[Dave2150]

I believe what gsync does to provide windowed fullscreen is activate for your desktop even in 2D mode. At least it seems that way in my experience. When I turn on the option to have gsync also work in windowed mode, my monitor reports it is in gysnc mode even when sitting on the desktop.

This makes sense, though doesn't explain why AMD's Freesync implementation is incapable of such an action.

 

[railven]

Freesync only fuctions with an AMD card and compatible Freesync monitor in Fullscreen (exclusive) mode. It does not function in any other mode.

I'm aware of that thus my first post in this thread. Someone chimed in that they don't have the issue I have which led down a rabbit hole of is it possible AMD+FreeSync has some inherit advantage versus NVIDIA+FreeSync in non-Fullscreen situations.

TL;DR the posts:
Me: NV+FreeSync - stuttering in Windowed/Bordlerless
Bacon: AMD+FreeSync - no stuttering in Windowed/Borderless

Would like to know what you experience.

I think there's a significant % of the userbase who'd like windowed or fullscreen windowed mode to be supported tbh, I love using these features on my Gsync laptop.

I play a lot of MMOs in Windowed/Borderless and until I saw the option in NV panel, I was starting to regret buying my G-Sync monitor. That changed once I turned it on. Not sure what technically hurdles AMD has to overcome, but I'm sure their user base would greatly welcome it.

 

[dark zero]

I got so used to the instant alt tabbing on my Gsync laptop that I find the 2-3 second delay when tabbing in fullscreen games on my AMD system very annoying! I'll give steam overlay a go when playing stream games, hadn't thought of that.

Would be great to know if AMD are ever able to support windowed mode freesync with current monitors/hardware though.

That is the detail. G-Sync uses an Special HW that gives the features you describe.

AMD is not that good after all. However they are futureproof.

 

[Bacon1]

TL;DR the posts:
Me: NV+FreeSync - stuttering in Windowed/Bordlerless
Bacon: AMD+FreeSync - no stuttering in Windowed/Borderless

I didn't mean that freesync was working. I never had stuttering with my older non-freesync monitor either. I meant that maybe AMD's driver was doing something different with the WDM that was reducing or removing the stuttering you are experiencing.

 

[Dave2150]

That is the detail. G-Sync uses an Special HW that gives the features you describe.

AMD is not that good after all. However they are futureproof.

Seems AMD is a little better than you thought!

Old news I know, though still interesting to see people's thoughts on why AMD were 'unable' to introduce Freesync in windowed/fullscreen windowed mode. Also proves that it isn't a feature that only the Gsync hardware module can provide.

 

[Krteq]

Nice resurrection, but you are right