[ Legit Reviews ] Richard Huddy Says AMD FreeSync Drivers Are Coming In December

[jackstar7]

Ultrawide IPS with freesync? I can't wait to see it. That will be worth some upgrades.

 

[f1sherman]

More snake oil from Richard "it has RAM, therefore it adds 1 frame of latency" Huddy.

Besides G-Sync adding 1 frame of latency(*), he claims that FreeSync reduces lag(**).
So we have the lie(*)(or at the very best half-truth) combined with the half-truth(**).
Now that's marketing at it's purest.
Yet he goes around as AMD gaming scientist.
At least Nvidia is honest enough to call their Tom Peterson for what he is - director of technical marketing.

TL;DR

Monitors compatible with Project FreeSync:

• Available in 6-12 months

--

I've spoken with Richard Huddy many times in the past, and the one thing that stuck -- always contradict and question what this man says.

link

 

[AnandThenMan]

Nice character assassination attempt.

 

[96Firebird]

Nice character assassination attempt.

Richard Huddy does this well enough on his own.

 

[NomanA]

I think it's worth mentioning the fact again, that the free-sync and adaptive-sync are not the same things.

The monitors will have to support VESA adaptive-sync, which is a generic technology - basically a way for monitors to match the refresh to GPU rendering, and some basic handshaking where the monitor provides the range of viable refresh rates to the external source. A testing suite spec is in place by VESA, and the monitors passing the certification can have the "Adaptive-Sync" logo somewhere on the product.

Free-sync is an AMD marketing term for whatever they are doing in GPU and drivers, to control these VESA adaptive-sync displays in an optimal manner. All of this proprietary tech resides entirely in the GPU and drivers.

 

[3DVagabond]

The main reasons why I've been buying Nvidia cards is less hassle with drivers and much, much better support for Hackintosh. AMD cards are a bitch to get properly working on a Hackintosh, Nvidia is very easy despite AMD GPUs being more common on real Macs.

So for me buying a G-Sync display was a nobrainer as it had all the features I wanted and I knew I wasn't likely to jump to the AMD camp anytime soon.

That said, I think it's really low to deliberately leave out DP 1.2a so Freesync displays don't work on Nvidia cards. I understand keeping G-Sync Nvidia exclusive but limiting users' choices is never ok.

Another interesting aspect is that apparently Freesync works globally - on the desktop, videos etc instead of just in fullscreen 3D. That is a big plus and I'm interested to see if Nvidia will combat this by suddenly releasing a driver that enables G-Sync on desktop (if it's not a technical limitation with the G-Sync module).

Like most proprietary solutions I see G-Sync eventually being phased away as more Freesync displays come to market but by the time driver support is dropped I'll probably have bought something else altogether.

Always got to have someone throw in nVidia having superior drivers. It doesn't have to even be remotely accurate or on topic. How does nVidia offer support for Hackintosh? I'm sure Apple would be interested in this? They love companies making money off of their IP by circumventing them.

DP1.2a is not Freesync. Freesync is what AMD does with DP1.2a to offer real time variable refresh rate. nVidia is not leaving off anything. They are choosing not to do what they would have to to implement variable refresh through DP1.2a on their cards.

As a side note for people like you who only want to buy nVidia. Freesync will make GSync more affordable. nVidia won't be able to attach a $300 premium to the monitor price once there is open competition in the market place. You and every other GSync proponent will be advantaged because of Freesync.

I think that at first companies will charge a premium for it as they will with any technology.

To people saying AMD is charging this premium that is not true. They are not licensing the product it is using VESA standard and they have made it an open standard. I don't understand the logic except to just bash the company? It is honestly a very pro consumer move. I think most of the people complaining that freesync monitors will probably cost a premium (due to the monitor makers charging it, as they do for any new feature) were never going to consider purchasing one in the first place.

I hope that like other new technologies this will drop in price rapidly once more brands come out with monitors. Hopefully there will be no price fixing shenanigans as we all know this technology was very cheap to include. I would like to use the technology for sure but I would need to replace 3 monitors to do so, so I cannot afford to pay 100 premium x 3.

I will wait a year and see where prices are.

I hope more people actually understand this and stop listening to the nVidia marketing stating otherwise.

 

[kasakka]

Always got to have someone throw in nVidia having superior drivers. It doesn't have to even be remotely accurate or on topic. How does nVidia offer support for Hackintosh? I'm sure Apple would be interested in this? They love companies making money off of their IP by circumventing them.

Nvidia, just like AMD, offers drivers that are delivered in OSX updates or at least in the case of Nvidia, also as a downloadable web driver. Both vendors have device IDs in their drivers for many GPU models that are not in any Apple computer. What I meant by support is that Nvidia GPUs and drivers are far more likely to work in non-Apple configurations.

The main difference comes from how non-Apple hardware combinations and bootloaders manage to get the GPU working. With AMD this has required anything from modded kernel extensions to having dongles in a particular display connector - weird and often complicated and half-working fixes. By comparison with Nvidia even the new GTX 980 is easy to get working with full 3D acceleration. If that isn't less hassle with drivers then I don't know what is.

Apple really doesn't care about people running Hackintoshes. They are few considering it takes educated hardware purchases and decent technical prowess to be able to do a fully working Hackintosh setup. Over the years Apple have done pretty close to nothing to disallow this.

By not including DP1.2a in their cards, isn't Nvidia pretty much dropping even the possibility of Adaptive-Sync support?

 

[Rvenger]

Yeah, we are done here now. If you receive an infraction, it was well deserved on your part. It's sad that a certain few members have to ruin a discussion for everyone.

-Rvenger