Gsync or not to Gsync...

[phiede]

Afternoon all,

I'm on the hunt for an upgrade as I was a bit of a scrooge when I bought my current laptop... I'm looking to get a RTX2070 and i7-9750h based machine, 1080p and 144hz panel. However, I have found both G-sync and non-G-sync options, with a price difference of approx £130. I don't tend to play AAA games and spend most of my time on non-optimised abominations (cough... Squad) so will likely have to deal with FPS drops. Will I notice the difference??

 

[debiruman665]

If you don't rapidly turn the camera side to side you probably wont notice.

it's essentially just vsync but at the hardware level.

 

[Oussebon]

I don't tend to play AAA games and spend most of my time on non-optimised abominations

That's not mutually exclusive in the slightest tbh. Looking at you, Mafia III.

If you don't rapidly turn the camera side to side you probably wont notice.

it's essentially just vsync but at the hardware level.

. . .

That's.. not advice I'd agree with. And I don't think the characterisation of 'vsync at the hardware level' is helpful though I think I can see what you're trying to say.

It's got nothing to do with turning the Camera (maybe some games are more prone to tearing, or it's more visible when you turn the camera, but you can also get tearing just running in a straight line, moving the camera very slightly in a strategy game.

If your FPS is running at a different rate to the screen's refresh rate, you may get tearing. And sometimes you still get tearing even if you are running at max refresh rate (possibly if frametimes are a bit inconsistent?)

Vsync caps the GPU's frame output so you get a frame for each refresh of the screen, potentially at the cost of input lag.

What you'll get if the framerate drops below the monitor's refresh rate (or the fraction of the refresh rate you have it set to) with vsync is stutter. Because the monitor is only showing complete frames (e.g. 72 per second if a 144hz monitor were capped at half refresh for vsync) and the GPU is outputting fewer than 72 frames per second ...

Gsync seeks to eliminate stutter and tearing, by matching the monitor's refresh rate to the GPU's framerate. So that if the framerate drops to 55 in the example above, the refresh rate matches it so you are still getting (hopefully) smooth and even 55 frames per second, with no duplicate frames being used. Unlike Vsync where if you were, say, capped to 72hz, and framerate went down to 55fps, and you only get 55 frames available for those 72 refreshes of the monitor.

If framerates drop from 100fps to 50fps, you're still going to see and feel the change even with gsync. Though it won't tear at least, and there won't be stutter, beyond what how you experience the framerate undergoing fairly large changes.

It's up to you whether it's worth £130.

I'd strongly consider it.