Graphical tearing and stuttering are two of the bigger scourges plaguing PC users today. Fortunately, the Video Electronics Standards Assocation, or VESA, announced plans to tackle these problems, and do away with them once and for all.
VESA recently revealed something called Adaptive-Sync, which will be added to DisplayPort 1.2a. Adaptive-Sync will attempt to eliminate this problem by aligning your hardware so that your system’s GPU and monitor’s refresh rate are matched up. On top of that, Adaptive-Sync can draw down refresh rates for less demanding tasks, which would result in decreased power consumption.
The reason why tearing and stuttering exist to begin with is due to the fact that PC monitors are built to refresh whatever is on screen at stable rates, with the most common being 60 Hz. However, if you’re playing a game, the frame rate will be anything but constant, and it’s this misalignment between frame rates and refresh rates which may cause tears and stutters.
However, VESA’s approach isn’t the only one out there that aims to shoo away tearing and stuttering. Nvidia’s G-Sync tech is designed to do so as well, and monitors with G-Sync hardware built in will start shipping soon, well before devices with Adaptive-Sync built in will. Do-it-yourself G-Sync hardware is already available, while Adaptive-Sync monitors won’t hit the market until at least six months from now, and are possibly as much as a year off.
Once G-Sync and Adaptive-Sync are simultaneously on the market, it’ll be interesting to see which anti-tearing/stuttering tech will catch on with PC users and the industry quicker.
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