Let’s start with Nvidia. G-SYNC is a hardware solution built directly into the monitor. Therefore, these monitors also cost significantly more than FreeSync monitors. Yes, I’m afraid so! But since the RTX 2000 generation, Nvidia has opened up regarding FreeSync monitors and made this open standard possible for Nvidia graphics cards. The whole thing works retroactively up to the GTX 1000 generation so Pascal. After all!
![](https://www.igorslab.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Bild-4-980x524.jpg)
At this point, a very general and also only brief explanation of what these adaptive synchronization technologies do. Whether FreeSync or G-SYNC, both adjust the current FPS of the frame rate. Which has the advantage of less to no tearing on the monitor. Maybe one or the other has heard the term VRR? Variable Refresh Rate (Ex: FreeSync Premium)! So if you have a true G-SYNC monitor, you also have VRR support from 1 – XXX Hertz. From here on, it really gets down to business and requires a separate article. On the other hand, I’m going to bore you with a lot of technical blah blah now. I plan to write an article on this in more detail.
But now let’s take a look at what happens with an Nvidia G-SYNC monitor in terms of latencies. Here are a few graphics. What was I doing here? Nvidia LDAT strapped to the MSI Oculux and used the game Overwatch to measure latencies. Here I tested different settings and different frame rates. For reference, I always disabled G-SYNC and V-Sync first. Then both technologies are activated sequentially. Finally I limited the frame rate with the IGFL (Ingame Frame Limiter) and RTSS (Rivatuner Statistics Server) to show how V-Sync affects the latencies.
Overwatch with RTX 3080 and G-SYNC Monitor MSI Oculux NXG252R
Here are the settings in the game.
The good old Ryzen 7 2700X combined with the RTX 3080 brings it to an average of 325 FPS in this DX11 game. No Nvidia driver overhead – 240 Hz monitor easily maxed out! Note: The server latency was between 30 – 40 ms.
First insight? G-SYNC has no influence on the latency. Greetings to all rumor spreaders!
I can take this opportunity to clear up the mystery surrounding this claim. When Nvidia came around the corner with G-SYNC, both G-SYNC and V-Sync were enabled by default in the driver. Thus, it was probably clear to the e-sportsmen, G-SYNC makes tearing go away, but I have a latency disadvantage. Rumor born and to this day it still stubbornly persists. In that case, Nvidia brought this on themselves! If you look at the driver settings today, you’ll notice that only G-SYNC is enabled by default when a corresponding monitor is detected. Dear e-Sportsmen, for a better gaming experience (less tearing) – just leave G-SYNC on! Let’s take a look at a few more slides. We’ll read each other again soon!
Learned something again? Wherever possible, use the IGFL! An outside intrusion, affects the latency. In this case, RTSS causes a latency that is about 5 ms worse.
What I’m sure you’ve also noticed is that when using an IGFL or RTSS properly, the latency only gets worse by about 2ms when using V-Sync. That’s because I’m staying 4 FPS below the monitor refresh rate with the limited framerate here. If I were to go down a few more FPS, the difference here (with/without V-Sync) would most likely be within the range of the measurement tolerance. Why I’m so into the topic of V-Sync? Neither G-SYNC nor FreeSync can completely avoid tearing.
Tearing may still occur in the lower third of the screen! At least when significantly more FPS are unleashed on the monitor than the frame rate allows. If you don’t want that, you have to limit the FPS (min. 4 FPS < Hz of the monitor) and activate V-Sync! You lose about 10-12 ms latency here if you compare the values without FPS limitation. Ultimately, everyone has to decide for themselves! The e-sports players certainly won’t do this, but for a single player game this would be a useful optimization to get the best image.
For the sake of completeness, here are the graphics for 144 Hz and 60 Hz.
What can we learn from the graphs? Firstly, the obvious is confirmed, as the monitor refresh rate decreases – the latency increases, despite the same FPS (Ø 325). The values on the following graph are rounded to 0 behind the decimal point!
Greetings to all 60 Hz gamers: 35% lower latency on a 240 Hz panel at 325 FPS. So much for that, a 60 Hz monitor is good enough for me! This means that not only does the 60 Hz player lose out in terms of end-to-end latency, but more importantly, the 240 Hz player can see you on average about 35% faster than you can see the opponent on the 60 Hz monitor. What the 60 Hz player then still sees: You were killed by player XXX! Haha. So it’s not just the FPS that makes the difference. Here, the rest of the hardware does as well. Skill can’t replace hardware though! It’s a pity.. On the other hand, we still see that IGFL is much more suitable than RTSS in terms of latency reduction. And that V-Sync at low frame rates affects latency even more drastically than it already does. Ok, at this point we’ll change the subject – now it’s time for FreeSync.
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