[WCCF Tech ] AMD’s Reveals New GPU Power Scaling technology: DFRC

[KaRLiToS]

SOURCE

Usually, you can limit fps to 30 or 60 by using VSync, but that technique has the afore mentioned problem of the GPU not scaling efficiently and some side effects which I wont go into here. The power consumption will scale a little of course (because TDP of the die decreases), but it won’t be quite as efficient. I am kind of surprised that there was no mention of this feature in the Omega Slide Deck, which would have seemed the platform of choice for something like this. The thing closest to this was the DRR (Dynamic Refresh Rate) feature, although this one seems like the superset DRR will belong to. Basically, what AMD is claiming with DFRC is setting the refresh rate to your preferred amount.

Are you not tired of seeing the threads getting locked?

Please let's keep the discussion civil.

"We" all have a responsability in doing so.​

 

[n0x1ous]

This is uninteresting. Give me adaptive vsync or give me death!

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Nice for notebooks if they run games that do not have an ingame fps limiter.

Ingame fps limiter is always best.

 

[antihelten]

This is uninteresting. Give me adaptive vsync or give me death!

Adaptive vsync is kinda pointless if you have an A-SYNC/G-SYNC compatible monitor though (which I would imagine will become widely available sooner than DFRC)

 

[AdamK47]

They are actually hyping this up and twisting it as a "Power Scaling Technology"? Frame rate control is nothing new and nothing this profound. AMD's marketing department really is grasping here.

 

[n0x1ous]

Adaptive vsync is kinda pointless if you have an A-SYNC/G-SYNC compatible monitor though (which I would imagine will become widely available sooner than DFRC)

:thumbsdown:

yeah because soooo many people have those right now......and people should buy a new monitor instead of getting a simple software feature that nvidia has had for a long time.....

 

[antihelten]

:thumbsdown:

yeah because soooo many people have those right now......and people should buy a new monitor instead of getting a simple software feature that nvidia has had for a long time.....

Zero people have DFRC right now, and while AMD could certainly implement their own version of adaptive vsync (and arguably should), it would inevitably be nothing more than a stopgap solution.

 

[caswow]

amd implements new features people post about it amd gets the hate. amd doesnt implement features amd gets the hate. i think it might be a desease

 

[digitaldurandal]

edit nm

 

[digitaldurandal]

Edit: NM

 

[wand3r3r]

SOURCE

Are you not tired of seeing the threads getting locked?

Please let's keep the discussion civil.

"We" all have a responsability in doing so.​

I wish a few persistent thread wreckers would get banned already.

They are actually hyping this up and twisting it as a "Power Scaling Technology"? Frame rate control is nothing new and nothing this profound. AMD's marketing department really is grasping here.

It's never too late to hop on the green "efficiency" marketing campaign. (Sure portables depend on efficiency)

I don't care too much for the feature but why not. It actually sounds very logical to adapt the core to the framerate if there's a limit.

 

[dacostafilipe]

Zero people have DFRC right now, and while AMD could certainly implement their own version of adaptive vsync (and arguably should), it would inevitably be nothing more than a stopgap solution.

And why would anybody want avsync when they'll have DFRC?

 

[Shamrock]

I just bought a Sapphire R9-290 Tri-X, and can't wait for this feature!

Oh, and does anyone else think Ruby is hawt?

 

[WittyRemark]

amd implements new features people post about it amd gets the hate. amd doesnt implement features amd gets the hate. i think it might be a desease

Yup,that pretty much sums it up.

 

[Bateluer]

Awesome job AMD. Can't wait to try that out in a month in Witcher 1 and Risen 1, two games that shoot up to 100+ fps. Ain't no reason my 290X should be pegged at 100% in either of those games.

 

[tential]

Awesome job AMD. Can't wait to try that out in a month in Witcher 1 and Risen 1, two games that shoot up to 100+ fps. Ain't no reason my 290X should be pegged at 100% in either of those games.

Use VSR then. No reason you should be at 100+ fps if you don't want to be! Up those settings!

Not really that interested in this and I could have sworn we had a thread about this earlier didn't we?

 

[bystander36]

Did anyone else read this as not a FPS cap, or not only a FPS cap, but a Refresh Rate adjustment. That could be interesting. Setting your monitor to work at 75hz or 45hz, or what ever refresh rate that would allow you to achieve solid frame rates.

I actually do this now with custom resolutions, but this would certainly be easier.

 

[bystander36]

And why would anybody want avsync when they'll have DFRC?

A-sync allows dynamic, in game adjustments to hz so that the monitor displays every frame when delivered by the GPU. This keeps animation as smooth and accurate as possible, without tearing. You can even use a FPS cap along with it, if you don't want some wild swings in FPS.

DFRC would only allow you to set a single refresh rate, and your GPU is still being held back by what ever that refresh rate is. While this can be useful when you know the minimum FPS you will get, it is not as ideal as A-sync or G-sync are, as you'll still experience the extra latency problems of V-sync, the frames won't animate quite as accurate as A-sync/G-sync would, as well as having to artificially cap your FPS lower than you might otherwise want to.

It is a nice feature, but not better than A/G-sync.

 

[Bateluer]

Use VSR then. No reason you should be at 100+ fps if you don't want to be! Up those settings!

Not the same. And even 3200x1800, the highest I can go with my 290X still has insanely high fps on those games.

Not really that interested in this and I could have sworn we had a thread about this earlier didn't we?

That was the rumor thread, this is the confirmation thread.

 

[Deders]

Zero people have DFRC right now, and while AMD could certainly implement their own version of adaptive vsync (and arguably should), it would inevitably be nothing more than a stopgap solution.

There actually is a setting in Asus GPU tweak that sets Nvidia cards (at least) a framerate target that will use GPU boost to dynamically calculate what power it needs to use to achieve a certain framerate.

Personally I just use Vsync and Triple buffering (adaptive still gives me split images), have been doing so for many years. no point wasting power rendering frames that the monitor won't display.

 

[dacostafilipe]

A-sync allows dynamic, in game adjustments to hz so that the monitor displays every frame when delivered by the GPU. This keeps animation as smooth and accurate as possible, without tearing. You can even use a FPS cap along with it, if you don't want some wild swings in FPS.

DFRC would only allow you to set a single refresh rate, and your GPU is still being held back by what ever that refresh rate is. While this can be useful when you know the minimum FPS you will get, it is not as ideal as A-sync or G-sync are, as you'll still experience the extra latency problems of V-sync, the frames won't animate quite as accurate as A-sync/G-sync would, as well as having to artificially cap your FPS lower than you might otherwise want to.

It is a nice feature, but not better than A/G-sync.

I was talking about AV-Sync ... not A-Sync.

 

[bystander36]

I was talking about AV-Sync ... not A-Sync.

Are you calling adaptive v-sync, AV-sync? I haven't seen that abbreviation, but that works for me. That said, you'd likely want to use both tech's together. Set your hz that your game can maintain 90+% of the time, and leave adaptive v-sync on so if it can't maintain the FPS, it doesn't get choppy on you.

 

[dacostafilipe]

Are you calling adaptive v-sync, AV-sync? I haven't seen that abbreviation, but that works for me. That said, you'd likely want to use both tech's together. Set your hz that your game can maintain 90+% of the time, and leave adaptive v-sync on so if it can't maintain the FPS, it doesn't get choppy on you.

I don't know it AV-Sync makes sense, but lately A-Sync was more related to the Adaptive Sync ... so :/

I'm 100% with you on using both!

 

[ocre]

Does anyone else think DFRC will be a part of how freesync works?

If u look at gsync, all the benefits fall apart once you reach the monitors refresh rate. All of a sudden you have latency and input lag. The gysnc solution to this was to focus gsync on monitors with high refresh rates. It is more of a work around though and it doesn't really solve anything. See while you may be fine in some new titles, there are still plenty of PC games out there that run at ultra high frame rates, well into the hundreds. So the nvidia solution of high refresh rates is not only more expensive, it does not even solve the issue.

And freesync is aiming to be a more wide spread and affordable solution. I have heard of supposed 60hz freesync monitors coming. 60hz=60,fps. From the first time I heard that I thought either it just couldn't be true or that freesync would not be the solution we thought it would be. But now I see this.....and it is all starting to make sense.

I feel pretty strong now that DFRC will be the secret sauce to freesync. And it has me a lot more excited about both. I just want to say that this is speculation on my part, maybe even wild speculation. But it makes perfect sense and has the real potential to solve one gysnc's major limitation. And see, if AMD wants freesync to succeed in their goals of being an inexpensive solution and they wanted it to be good, the pressure to solve this is tremendous. And what an elegant solution.

So, I propose this DFRC will be an underlining function of freesync. That once it was developed, the engineers saw the huge awesome potential outside of freesync and this is why it will exist as a stand alone feature. But it doesn't really matter if that's how it came to be or not, cause what I am betting (and I feel very sure) is that freesync will most likely have this kind of capability and it will make the situation much better when your GPU can outrun the monitors refresh rate.
I think this is pretty huge and I can't wait to see if it turns out like I have proposed.

 

[bystander36]

Does anyone else think DFRC will be a part of how freesync works?

If u look at gsync, all the benefits fall apart once you reach the monitors refresh rate. All of a sudden you have latency and input lag. The gysnc solution to this was to focus gsync on monitors with high refresh rates. It is more of a work around though and it doesn't really solve anything. See while you may be fine in some new titles, there are still plenty of PC games out there that run at ultra high frame rates, well into the hundreds. So the nvidia solution of high refresh rates is not only more expensive, it does not even solve the issue.

And freesync is aiming to be a more wide spread and affordable solution. I have heard of supposed 60hz freesync monitors coming. 60hz=60,fps. From the first time I heard that I thought either it just couldn't be true or that freesync would not be the solution we thought it would be. But now I see this.....and it is all starting to make sense.

I feel pretty strong now that DFRC will be the secret sauce to freesync. And it has me a lot more excited about both. I just want to say that this is speculation on my part, maybe even wild speculation. But it makes perfect sense and has the real potential to solve one gysnc's major limitation. And see, if AMD wants freesync to succeed in their goals of being an inexpensive solution and they wanted it to be good, the pressure to solve this is tremendous. And what an elegant solution.

So, I propose this DFRC will be an underlining function of freesync. That once it was developed, the engineers saw the huge awesome potential outside of freesync and this is why it will exist as a stand alone feature. But it doesn't really matter if that's how it came to be or not, cause what I am betting (and I feel very sure) is that freesync will most likely have this kind of capability and it will make the situation much better when your GPU can outrun the monitors refresh rate.
I think this is pretty huge and I can't wait to see if it turns out like I have proposed.

The description has this as a way to set your refresh rate on your monitor, which will not solve any issues related to freesync or g-sync when it comes to latency. Most people aren't likely to notice it at 144hz anyways, as it is still better than 60hz without v-sync.

That said, the solution for both systems is to set a FPS cap below your refresh rate.