[AT]AMD Demonstrates "FreeSync", Free G-Sync Alternative, at CES 2014

[Silverforce11]

Not at all. You need the buffering part that is essentially what g-sync hardware is.

Also this was demoed on laptops only, since laptops do not have this entire chain. I guess the desktop support for "freesync" is close to zero. Hence why AMD is doing nothing but a PR spin out of it. No intention to develop it further, no intention for release at the current time. Just a concept.

ShintaiDK, you are in on the AMD boardroom? To know all about AMD's inner workings, roadmaps and secret meetings where they reveal their INTENTIONS.. nice!

Somehow, we've went from a tech demo with clearly stated "not ready for public" to "no intentions to develop it further."

 

[DaZeeMan]

Well for a tech demo, I'm glad that AMD is making an effort here. And they are simply showcasing something that they hope to have ready for prime time at some point in the future. I'm sure there are a number of issues to work through to develop this technology, which will take time.

I don't blame AMD for not announcing a 'release date' yet, because obviously even they think a lot more work is needed. And maybe it won't pan out. Won't be the first time a tech company (ANY tech company) has ended up not bringing something to market.

And one reason to show off a tech demo is to gauge the reaction of your audience; i.e. do they really want this or is it just a nice thought? Is it going to be worth all the blood and treasure to bring it to market? Very valid questions when you have a limited R&D budget to work with.

 

[ShintaiDK]

ShintaiDK, you are in on the AMD boardroom? To know all about AMD's inner workings, roadmaps and secret meetings where they reveal their INTENTIONS.. nice!

Somehow, we've went from a tech demo with clearly stated "not ready for public" to "no intentions to develop it further."

AMD isn’t ready to productize this nor does it have a public go to market strategy

In short, concept only.

 

[Silverforce11]

"AMD isn’t ready to productize this nor does it have a public go to market strategy"

As they've said, its a demo, they are not ready. So why do you expect them to publicize a market strategy for YOU to know all about something they clearly aren't ready to release?

How does that leap into "no intentions to develop it further"?

 

[wand3r3r]

In short, concept only.

Yep.

It's a concept. That's neutral, not:

Hence why AMD is doing nothing but a PR spin out of it. No intention to develop it further, no intention for release at the current time. Just a concept.

Why do you guys bother trying to make it something it is/isn't?

Continue on then... :whiste:

 

[desprado]

"AMD isn’t ready to productize this nor does it have a public go to market strategy"

As they've said, its a demo, they are not ready. So why do you expect them to publicize a market strategy for YOU to know all about something they clearly aren't ready to release?

How does that leap into "no intentions to develop it further"?

He means is there no planing,No marketing and no details so in short it can take very long time to develop.

 

[Arkadrel]

http://techreport.com/news/25867/amd-could-counter-nvidia-g-sync-with-simpler-free-sync-tech

Koduri explained that this particular laptop's display happened to support a feature that AMD has had in its graphics chips "for three generations": dynamic refresh rates.

According to Koduri, the lack of adoption is simply due to a lack of momentum or demand for the feature, which was originally pitched as a power-saving measure.

Nvidia made a big flashly demo of G-sync.

I bet "demand" for this feature AMD has had in its GPUs for the last 3 generations,
will now get some attention.

Sadly when AMD does something, no one pays it much attention.

His new theory is that the display controller in Nvidia's current GPUs simply can't support variable refresh intervals, hence the need for an external G-Sync unit.

^ nvidia dont have it buildt into their hardware yet.

Perphaps next generation of GPUs by nvidia will have it buildt in and not require a external G-sync unit, either.

That said, AMD is still in the early stages of cooking up a potential product or feature along these lines, and it has nothing official to announce just yet.

^ author thinks its gonna happend.

Although adding dynamic refresh to a monitor may cost next to nothing, monitor makers have shown they won't bother unless they believe there's some obvious demand for that feature. PC enthusiasts and gamers who want to see "free sync" happen should make dynamic refresh support a requirement for their next monitor purchase. If monitor makers get the message, then it seems likely AMD will do its part to make dynamic display synchronization a no-cost-added feature for Radeon owners everywhere.

Monitor manufactures saveing pennies.... /sigh.

Coulda had this technology 3 generations ago.

He means is there no planing,No marketing and no details so in short it can take very long time to develop.

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It could just be AMD arnt talking to press about it, and it could be out a week from now.
Or you could be right and it never happends.

But why should something thats free, never happend? And it seems like people want it.

Its been inside their hardware for 3 generations now.

 

[ShintaiDK]

"AMD isn’t ready to productize this nor does it have a public go to market strategy"

As they've said, its a demo, they are not ready. So why do you expect them to publicize a market strategy for YOU to know all about something they clearly aren't ready to release?

How does that leap into "no intentions to develop it further"?

Yep.

It's a concept. That's neutral, not:
Why do you guys bother trying to make it something it is/isn't?

Continue on then... :whiste:

Since you are both too focused on attacking me rather than to actually read what is written. Let me help you both by bolding part of what I wrote:

No intention to develop it further, no intention for release at the current time. Just a concept.

 

[Silverforce11]

He means is there no planing,No marketing and no details so in short it can take very long time to develop.

"AMD isn’t ready to productize this nor does it have a public go to market strategy"

Is not very difficult to understand, I don't need you to interpret it for me, thanks.

Certainly not with interpretations such as "No intention to develop it further"..

 

[Silverforce11]

Since you are both too focused on attacking me rather than to actually read what is written. Let me help you both by bolding part of what I wrote:

I have addressed that. Are you IN on AMD's board room to KNOW what their intentions are AT THE CURRENT TIME?

No? Didn't think so. Hilarious actually, AMD giving a tech demo telling reviewers they aren't ready to publicize it yet and you people come up with the most absurdities.

 

[desprado]

Edited..........................................

 

[sontin]

It's a tech demo. It may be one you were not impressed by (even though Anand and the guys from Tech Report both said that it worked much like G-Sync), but it is still a tech demo.

A tech demo should show a certain problem or a solution to it.
This "tech demo" showed me that a monitor synchronized to 50hz running with 50 frames looks smoother than another one with a synchronized 60Hz and 30FPS.

I'm still waiting for a video showing me a G-Sync alternative.

 

[Silverforce11]

I think it is hard for u to understand AMD Con sorry i take my leave here.

Oh hey, reviewers are impressed.. but desprado here thinks its all an AMD Con.. whom shall I trust?

 

[NTMBK]

I think it is hard for u to understand AMD Con sorry i take my leave here.

"Con"? Wow, hyperbole much? You seem to be pretty desprate to dismiss this.

 

[Arkadrel]

I think it is hard for u to understand AMD Con sorry i take my leave here.

Damn those AMD guys! Those con artists! for fooling us! with a working demonstration that shows it working!

 

[desprado]

Damn those AMD guys! Those con artists! for fooling us! with a working demonstration that shows it working!

Dont tell me thisTry to tell this to AMD guys.

 

[desprado]

Oh hey, reviewers are impressed.. but desprado here thinks its all an AMD Con.. whom shall I trust?

Sorry AMD is very Good company.

Sorry mods for the topic.

 

[Keysplayr]

I have addressed that. Are you IN on AMD's board room to KNOW what their intentions are AT THE CURRENT TIME?

No? Didn't think so. Hilarious actually, AMD giving a tech demo telling reviewers they aren't ready to publicize it yet and you people come up with the most absurdities.

Well, how do you know he is wrong? Do you have an "IN" in the boardroom?
Listen, unless you do, don't criticize others for their interpretation of what they see.
I'm not saying he is right or wrong. I don't care which. But I am curious why you do care this much.

 

[BrightCandle]

Even if its just using an extended vblank signal that suggests AMD might be able to utilise a gsync monitor, since that is basically how that works. The whole point of needing new monitors with new electronics is that monitors don't currently just work with that technique to produce the right thing. Its clearly in its infancy with AMD, it's not a product yet but as per usual AMD is pursuing the industry standard approach instead of proprietary patented technology which is good for all of us. But it also means they probably won't have a product for years.

 

[velis]

ftp://ftp.cis.nctu.edu.tw/pub/csie/...Document_Center_Monitor_Interface/CVTv1_1.pdf

IF I'm reading the correct standard at all and IF I understand anything this document states:

This document describes a possibility to reduce blanking DOWN from a MAXIMUM of 60 FPS by specifying a FIXED timing to match a pre-generated source material e.g. a fixed frame rate movie.

This makes AMD's demo pretty much useless since you can only pre-determine frame rate with a known load. So knowing that your min FPS will be 52, you can set the VBLANK to that and have a fluid demo. Missing that, though, results in the same issues as VSYNC.

The document does however speak of providing said video in a window, which would mean that you could have two separate refresh rates within the same picture though my reading isn't nearly as good as to see how that's supposed to be done using the timing parameters for variable blanking. If possible though such a feature seems cool to me.

NV's solution is more advanced than this: they have special logic that holds current frame up to 1/30s in wait for next frame data to come in. At that time it displays the arrived frame and starts waiting for the next one. This provides truly variable VSYNC (down to 30FPS) and also helps with frame rates below 30FPS because you don't have to wait 1/30s for the next frame if it accidentaly comes in at 1/30s + 0.001s.

Preemptive for flaming: I have used pretty much equal number of ATI and NV cards in the past. I'm a fan of neither, but love them both. They both allow me to play games, sometimes one, other times the other

Edit: that said, enabling VSYNC on a 144Hz display seems to be much less problematic stutter-wise than doing the same thing on a 60Hz display. A 55 FPS render will yield a 30FPS VSYNC-enabled result (every second frame) on a 60Hz display and a 48 FPS VSYNC-enabled result (every third frame) on a 144Hz display. Seems pretty smooth to me even without x-sync. The way forward seems clear to me, though true variable frame rate also doesn't look bad especially since LCDs don't actually know refresh rate.

 

[Arkadrel]

I don't care which. But I am curious why you do care this much.

He wants the Free technology that looks cool.
Not getting things you want make you angry.

Thus people saying he ll never get it, make him angry.

Simple enough to follow.

Why does desperado believe this technology will never be released?
Isnt that a more intresting question?

 

[Silverforce11]

Well, how do you know he is wrong? Do you have an "IN" in the boardroom?
Listen, unless you do, don't criticize others for their interpretation of what they see.
I'm not saying he is right or wrong. I don't care which. But I am curious why you do care this much.

Actually I asked him for his references to the claims to know AMD's intentions.

I have no idea what AMD intents on doing, neither do YOU nor ShintaiDK. I never claimed I did.

The only idea I have are what reviewers have publicly stated on their time with Freesync, its very simple actually, the take home message from reading the articles, it works and they hope it succeeds.

So, how exactly did that lead to AMD not intending to develop it further is an interesting outcome..

As to your self righteousness, If i were to go into the G-SYNC thread of your beloved company and derail it with statements such as "NV has NO INTENTIONS of further developing G-SYNC to work with IPS panels or higher res, because all the models are CES is TN and most are only 1080p"... would you then in your gentlemanly way encourage that view?

 

[dacostafilipe]

Not at all. You need the buffering part that is essentially what g-sync hardware is.

Yes, you do need some sort of buffering. But it's also possible to be done one GPU directly (aka triple buffering).

You would need for this to be a perfect straight line with perfect even rendertimes per frame to even stand a real chance without the extra hardware buffering.

How on earth do you think something INSIDE an LCD will help your render timing?

 

[DigDog]

where to start ..

i want a video-sync technology, badly. because FPS games.

First and foremost, if AMD even *threatens* to develop a technology competing with NV' G-sync, it will push NV to make theirs cheaper, better, or omnipresent - and we know from the betamax vs vhs, sometimes having more of the worse tech, is better than little of the better one.regardless of which one might be better.

Second, yes, i do smell fish; NV ripped off the Lightboost guys, but has working, ready to buy tech which AMD does not, and it's likely that as soon as NV announced G-s, engineers at AMD scrambled to assemble a tech demo and do a shadow- press release, just to preserve their image if anything.

AMD says the tech will cost nothing (which in itself is strange, because zero cost = zero profit), just as long as the display / panel also support it - which they don't, because they lack the hardware addons which is essentially what G-s is.

So AMD says "we have no plans yet", but that could mean anything, from "no plans" to "we're desperately trying to get this out". But what they would be doing in the latter case, is to get panel makers to support the tech by essentially building their own G-s into the panel, just as NV has gotten Asus and others to build G-s into their systems.
Because G-s ALSO only works if the panel supports it.

Now, i don't want either company to fail, because competition is good for me, the consumer.

And more, i speculate that - assuming both techs make it to launch and beyond - there will be improvements to both tech, copying from each other, so it's only good that AMD came out and spoke about freesync, this will only lead to a better gaming experience for me.
Even if F-s turns out to be laggier than G-s, as soon as F-s 2.0 hits the market "a little while later" it will have sorted out its issues, because companies such as NV and AMD dont bury their head in the sand when the competitor has the better solution, but they copy it.

Last, i'm totally biased towards NV; i prefer their products + associated support, and have had disappointing experiences with AMD ... also the late cpus they've been making really don't put up a great show, (and other, "as i perceive them" flops) so i have my doubts.
But let's hope for both to succeed. While i don't want "the poor man's" sync tech, i know the market will be better if this comes to fruition.

 

[Silverforce11]

He wants the Free technology that looks cool.
Not getting things you want make you angry.

Thus people saying he ll never get it, make him angry.

Simple enough to follow.

Why does desperado believe this technology will never be released?
Isnt that a more intresting question?

Lol..

I do want FREE technology that looks cool, if it works.

I certainly want it more than paying for G-SYNC such a massive $ premium.