Gsync doesn't do a damn thing

[moonbogg]

I loaded the pendulum test. I saw no difference between any setting. It was smooth on all of them. Are people serious about this Gsync stuff? I swear I have never seen it do a damn thing and I have had it for well over a year on two different monitors.
Tell me what I have to do to notice it doing something, anything at all. Any test, anything.

 

[omeds]

Do you see any tearing or judder when gaming? No? Then Gsync is working its magic.

Without Gsync you will see judder when vsync is ON and fps fall below refresh rate

Or with vsync OFF you will see tearing

Gsync fixes both of those issues.

 

[moonbogg]

The last time I saw any tearing was when I was still using a CRT monitor. I've never had an issue with tearing or juddering on any LCD screen. If Gsync does anything, its so subtle that I can't notice it.

 

[PowerK]

The last time I saw any tearing was when I was still using a CRT monitor. I've never had an issue with tearing or juddering on any LCD screen. If Gsync does anything, its so subtle that I can't notice it.

Wow... without G-Sync, I see tearing and/or judder everyday.

 

[YBS1]

You're simply not someone who is very susceptible to noticing tearing. I'm not either, but apparently you notice it even less than I do. I could at least notice the visual improvement with gsync on even if the tearing didn't bother me one bit when present. So I'm using gsync now except in really fast paced twitch shooters, as I still detected some very slight input lag with it enabled. I was told this can be mostly eliminated by capping my fps at my refresh rate, but I've not tested it out.

 

[pj-]

The last time I saw any tearing was when I was still using a CRT monitor. I've never had an issue with tearing or juddering on any LCD screen. If Gsync does anything, its so subtle that I can't notice it.

Did you run with vsync enabled on those LCDs? If not then you are blind or your games just happened to run at exactly 60fps all the time.

Edit: I can't see any difference on the pendulum demo either, but I can easily tell when my monitor isn't in gsync mode. Maybe the demo is busted

 

[TheELF]

Riiiight...so you expected to get a lot of stutter on your 3930K @ 4.6 + 2X GTX 980TI SLI ?
Disable "a few" cores and run a game with only one card on your 1440 display and tell us if you notice anything then.

Or if you don't want to mess with settings use this to restrict your games to a % of what they would usually use.
Battle Encoder Shirase 1.6.2

 

[bystander36]

Did you run with vsync enabled on those LCDs? If not then you are blind or your games just happened to run at exactly 60fps all the time.

Edit: I can't see any difference on the pendulum demo either, but I can easily tell when my monitor isn't in gsync mode. Maybe the demo is busted

Even with exactly 60 FPS, you should still see tearing. Tearing isn't caused by not matching the FPS, but not matching when those frame finish and when the display is in vertical blanking mode.

Anyway, Moonbogg either is not properly setup, or simply does not notice tearing and judder. I don't know how common that is, but I most certainly notice it.

 

[moonbogg]

OK I will do a real test with GTA V. I'll use a single card and max the game. It will get around 60fps. I'll disable Gsync and Vsync and play the game. I'll repeat with Gsync on and report back.

 

[railven]

Just do what I did to show the girlfriend and made her accept my purchase.

FPS limited to 60, G-Sync Off in control panel.
Turned on a game, she saw tearing. Turned V-sync on, she saw no tearing but noticed stutter.

ALT+TAB, set frame limited to 45 and then 30.
She saw tearing and stutter. Turned on V-sync she saw stuttering out the ying-yang.

Exit game, turned on G-Sync, repeated above scenarios. No tearing, no stutter. Went as low as 29 FPS where it started to stutter like the dickens haha.

 

[Bacon1]

I loaded the pendulum test. I saw no difference between any setting. It was smooth on all of them.

If you do the option on the bottom to show the test pattern it makes it very obvious when it tears. Turn off gsync / vsync and set fps to fluctuate between 30-60 or so and you should see it happen constantly as the top of the bar will appear slightly offset from the bottom of it (going up and down as the refresh changes).

 

[deustroop]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_G-Sync

G-Sync is a proprietary adaptive sync technology developed by Nvidia aimed primarily to eliminate screen tearing. G-Sync eliminates screen tearing by forcing a video display to adapt to the framerate of the outputting device rather than the other way around !

So it operates opposite to vsync : It is useful only when the fps is less than the refresh Hz. If fps > Hz then there may be the tearing for which vsync would be used--but see the thread here:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/which-monitor-is-best.2485304/

And for a complete review of vsync, adaptive vsync and the latest gadget fast sync see this very interesting explanation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpUX8ZNkn2U

 

[poohbear]

The last time I saw any tearing was when I was still using a CRT monitor. I've never had an issue with tearing or juddering on any LCD screen. If Gsync does anything, its so subtle that I can't notice it.

That can't be right. Tearing was introduced with the low refresh rates of LCD monitors, CRTs had a very high refresh rate and tearing was never an issue, Vsync didn't even exist in CRT days.

Are u sure u even know the purpose of Gsync? Do u play first person games or FPS games? Cause if u don't u won't experience it.

 

[TheELF]

That can't be right. Tearing was introduced with the low refresh rates of LCD monitors, CRTs had a very high refresh rate and tearing was never an issue, Vsync didn't even exist in CRT days.

I still have an CRT and I can tell you that tearing is very much a possibility,vsync exists ever since (if not even earlier) the amiga's CPU got clocked at a frequency dividable by the then TV standard PAL/NTSC frequencies.
7.15909 MHz on NTSC systems (USA) or 7.09379
MHz on PAL systems (Europe)

 

[VirtualLarry]

That can't be right. Tearing was introduced with the low refresh rates of LCD monitors, CRTs had a very high refresh rate and tearing was never an issue, Vsync didn't even exist in CRT days.

Ehh, far from true. LCDs have refresh rates comparable to, or exceeding, that of CRTs, and Vsync was sorely necessary even on CRTs. (I should know, I programmed 2D VGA games in ASM on x86.)

 

[poohbear]

The last gen of CRTs had 100hz+ refresh rates as standard, most LCDs have 60hz (until the last couple of years with the new 120hz+ LCDs, albeit those certainly aren't ubiquitous).

Lol I'm afraid I was just in grade school back in the Amiga days. I'm talking about late 90s and the last gen of CRTs. Could also be that we didn't have FPS games in the late 90s...

 

[moonbogg]

Dude I was playing PC games off floppy drives that would hardly fit in your lunchbox. Screen tearing goes way the hell back, like Adam and Eve back.

 

[Madpacket]

Gsync / Freesync - when properly enabled it's not an argument weather you can see it or not (unless you're legally blind). It's completely obvious when you experience even frame delivery, without tearing (vsync disabled) or judder (vsync enabled, with a dash of extra input lag). I've shown non gamers with it enabled / disabled and even they could tell. Adaptive sync is however less beneficial at higher refresh rates so I suspect as others' have pointed out Moonbogg, your computer is simply over specced to where adaptive sync isn't that much of a benefit to you. This is my problem with Gsync compared to Freesync. Gsync - although amazing, is added mainly to very high priced monitors. The demographic that can afford these high priced Gsync monitors generally have very fast computers to begin with. Freesync on the other hand can be found on monitors at $200 or less and at rates between 40 - 75HHz which is where the non tearing even frame delivery has the biggest impact.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

What the above posters have said, gsync is far more pertinent on lower-power builds (relative to the program/settings being pushed) resulting in FPS targets lower than the screen's native refresh rate, where tearing/juddering would normally occur. If you're running twin Titan XP's on a skylake-e while running Doom @1080p, no, you won't see gsync doing its thing. If you run Doom with settings cranked @1440p/144hz on a 970 like me though, it's pretty much magical.

 

[bystander36]

What the above posters have said, gsync is far more pertinent on lower-power builds (relative to the program/settings being pushed) resulting in FPS targets lower than the screen's native refresh rate, where tearing/juddering would normally occur. If you're running twin Titan XP's on a skylake-e while running Doom @1080p, no, you won't see gsync doing its thing. If you run Doom with settings cranked @1440p/144hz on a 970 like me though, it's pretty much magical.

Sure you will, because no matter how powerful your GPU's and CPU are, CPU's will struggle to keep up with 144hz in many if not most AAA games.

 

[SirCanealot]

The last time I saw any tearing was when I was still using a CRT monitor. I've never had an issue with tearing or juddering on any LCD screen. If Gsync does anything, its so subtle that I can't notice it.

What games are you playing? Tearing will show up really easily in some games and others not so much. Dark games are great for hiding tearing — like my girlfriend usually complains really loudly about tearing but we barely noticed it when she watched me play through Doom 2016 🙂 (and running the framerate uncapped on that game is fun!)

 

[Tempered81]

g-sync works great for me in gta 5. Using 105hz and 25 fps cap

https://gfycat.com/InformalFlamboyantAndeancockoftherock

 

[Headfoot]

Sure you will, because no matter how powerful your GPU's and CPU are, CPU's will struggle to keep up with 144hz in many if not most AAA games.

Once you get over 100ish or so FreeSync/Gsync are much harder to notice vs a regular fast refresh rate monitor going at 100ish or so. You'll notice it if the game regularly has big downward spikes in FPS (e.g. high frame time variability) but if its relatively stable FPS then you won't see much of anything.

I actually set up Star Wars Battlefront side by side on a 144hz FS monitor with a 390 vs a a 120hz normal monitor with a 290 and it wasn't very noticeable when they were around 100 but it was pretty noticeable when youd get a FPS drop due to extra actors on the screen, CPU load, etc.

 

[moonbogg]

I think I know why I can't see it. Gsync is most helpful during lower FPS right? That's the reason right there. Lower FPS is so damn ugly anyway that its hard for me to see something like screen tearing when the entire thing looks like a flip book cartoon. During FPS games when panning left to right, high FPS is critical to smoothness for me. The reason is what happens to far off objects when you turn.
There is a view radius which starts at your character's location. The closer areas and objects are to the character, the less impact low FPS has on the image. The farther away things are, the greater impact low FPS has. Its that huge radius in the 3D space where objects quickly fly across the entire span of the monitor as you pan left and right. Those large radius objects are screaming across the screen, so if the refresh rate isn't sky high, there will be huge gaps in an objects motion. A sync'd refresh rate can't do a damn thing to fill in those ugly gaps. They are still there. its like if someone puked on your shoes but then handed you some new shoe laces. You'd be like, "Thanks, but..."

 

[bystander36]

Once you get over 100ish or so FreeSync/Gsync are much harder to notice vs a regular fast refresh rate monitor going at 100ish or so. You'll notice it if the game regularly has big downward spikes in FPS (e.g. high frame time variability) but if its relatively stable FPS then you won't see much of anything.

I actually set up Star Wars Battlefront side by side on a 144hz FS monitor with a 390 vs a a 120hz normal monitor with a 290 and it wasn't very noticeable when they were around 100 but it was pretty noticeable when youd get a FPS drop due to extra actors on the screen, CPU load, etc.

That wasn't the same comparison either. Both cases you get some tearing still, but with A-sync or G-sync, the tearing would be gone. While tearing is less noticeable, it's not gone.