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Ask ten different gamers what aspect of their rig performance matters most to them, and you’ll get ten different answers. Today’s modern displays,graphics cards, and CPUs are putting in overtime to deliver the most refined PC gaming experience imaginable. What is possible today on a high-end gaming setup was unthinkable just five years ago. In recent years,gaming consoleshave also pushed the envelope on the visual tech held within their cases, offering technologies once reserved for PC systems.
Just one of the technologies regularly used by avid gamers on PC and console alike is AMD FreeSync. We’ll examine what it is, how it works, and why it matters. First, let’s break down the key visual components of the gaming experience.
What is AMD FreeSync?
FreeSync allows your monitor to dynamically adjust its refresh rate to match your GPU’s within a certain range. Because it synchronizes the frame rates between your GPU and monitor, you experience less screen tearing and a smoother image.
This feature and the range within which it operates properly can vary across different combinations of monitors and GPUs. Not all monitors support AMD FreeSync and not all that do support the full range of possible frames. While AMD FreeSync primarily comes up in the context of PC gaming, the technology has also recently found its way into current-generation XBOX consoles.
It’s worth mentioning that AMD FreeSync is not the only game in town. NVIDIA also offers its own proprietary sync technology that it callsG-Sync. Most monitors that support AMD FreeSync also support NVIDIAs G-Sync.
What is a refresh rate?
You can think of the graphics in your video game as a journey of images from GPU to monitor in the same way vinyl is all about the journey of audio from needle to speaker. A powerful GPU cranks out millions of calculations per second while your CPU crunches numbers to make your video game run. From there, that information travels to your monitors as quickly and with as much information as possible. The higher the frame rate your monitor supports, the more you are demanding of your system for the game to match that frame rate.
Most monitors today are offered in 60Hz, 120Hz, 144Hz, and 240Hz. A few ultra-high frame-rate monitors areon the market, but most gamers settle for one of those at varying resolutions. This allows them to game at 60FPS, 120FPS, or 144FPS, respectively. These figures are the number of frames per second displayed on these monitors. To put this into perspective, a standard television show or movie is shown at 24 frames per second. Serious gamers require much more visual information per second by comparison.
What is screen tearing?
If your GPU and CPU can deliver more frames per second than your monitor can show you, you may wonder what happens to the extra frames. One of the possible outcomes here is something called screen tearing. Screen tearing is when a new frame is rendered before the monitor displays the previous one; parts of both frames can be displayed simultaneously. This results in a visible tear or split between two images on the screen. Capping the frame rate at the maximum refresh rate will prevent this from happening (as does correctly using FreeSync).
What is stuttering in the context of gaming?
Alternatively, there may be times in a game when your system can’t keep up with the frame rate your monitor is demanding. For instance, every gamer has experienced the following scenario: You’re playing a really graphically intensive game on a 144Hz monitor, so you’d be trying to achieve a steady frame rate of 144fps. If your system exceeds this frame rate, you might experience screen tearing but say you come across a particularly straining sequence for your system. Maybe it’s a lot of explosions or a huge crowd of characters in one place.
At this point, your system may temporarily only be able to produce 120 or 130 frames in a second, falling below your monitor’s 144 frames per second rate. When this happens, you can experience what’s called stutter or judder. Because your monitor has to refresh at 144 times per second, but it only has 120-130 frames to show for that second, it has to repeat some frames multiple times. This makes the image look jittery or choppy instead of smooth.
How does AMD FreeSync actually work?
Without getting too deep in the weeds, let’s look at how AMD FreeSync actually functions. Adaptive-sync technologies have been around in one form or another since approximately 2014, when VESA introduced it as part of DisplayPort 1.2a, and FreeSync is AMD’s implementation of this technology. This syncing tech was achievable primarily via DisplayPort up until the advent of HDMI 2.1, which brought adaptive sync capabilities to HDMI.
The technology is a go-between for your powerful gaming GPU and your monitor of choice that supports AMD FreeSync. When your GPU can’t keep up with the frame rate demand, FreeSync asks your monitor to slow down its refresh rate and wait until the next frame is fully rendered and available to be shown before moving on to the next frame. Conversely, when your GPU can generate more frames than your display can handle, AMD FreeSync will strategically hold off on trying to send the next frame until your monitor has finished displaying the most recent one.
If you look hard enough, you will find some purists who prefer to keep any frame-syncing technology turned off. They swear by having the most recent information displayed to them as quickly as possible, even if it means a bit of screen tearing. Perhaps for extremely high FPS competitive shooters like CS:GO, Apex Legends, Valorant, etc., this may hold water, but for those playingstory-driven gamesin beautiful fantasy worlds, a smooth visual experience free of screen-tearing or frequent stuttering is worth its weight in gold, especially when playing at high resolutions.
To sum it up, depending on your style of play and personal preference, AMD FreeSync and technologies like it can greatly enhance your experience.
