Chief Blur Buster visits AMD's FreeSync room at CES 2015
Posted: 08 Jan 2015, 19:12
I visited AMD's room at CES 2015, at The Venetian showroom meeting rooms (found location via their press release), and got to see several displays in action, relating to FreeSync, ultrawides, and LG's MOTION240!
- LG 34UM67 ultrawide monitor, with FreeSync
- LG 24GM77 120Hz monitor with MOTION240 blur reduction strobe backlight.
- Samsung 4K FreeSync monitor (similar spec to ASUS ROG PG278Q)
- BENQ XL2730Z QHD monitor with FreeSync
Entering AMD's showroom:
And me (Chief Blur Buster) presenting myself in front of a few FreeSync monitors, with UFO mascot placard:
Looking closer at the LG 34UM67 ultrawide with FreeSync:
It was running actually running beautifully smooth FreeSync in ultrawide mode:
I moved over to look at a Samsung 4K FreeSync (model unknown) monitor running a windmill demo. This is essentially AMD's equivalent of NVIDIA's pendulum demo.
The monitor label:
And then, as seen below, I played around with the options of the windmill. It had an option to sweep the framerate. The sweep was seamless, seeing framerate bounce around from 40fps through 60fps without stutter. It looked every bit as good looking at G-SYNC at the same rates (40-60fps in Pendulum Demo). Disable FreeSync and VSYNC brought about ugly tearing and stutters, so it was certainly cool to see FreeSync doing its job.
There was also a BENQ XL2730Z monitor next to it, displaying a Tomb Raider style animation, in FreeSync at a very high fluidity (It looked 120Hz, but may not be 120Hz, because the animation was spinning so slowly; and GSYNC/FreeSync often makes fluidity look better than its framerate)
Then I noticed a series of LG24M77 monitors, which I know has the TURBO240 blur reducing strobe backlight:
And the on-screen menu option of MOTION240:
LG MOTION240 Impressions
I was able to sneakily run TestUFO. I was able to visually observe it to be about 2-3ms persistence (based on TestUFO Panning Map Test readability), with far less strobe crosstalk than unoptimized/untweaked BENQ Blur Reduction, but more strobe crosstalk than optimized/adjusted BENQ Blur Reduction, ULMB, or LightBoost. Colors looked far better than LIghtBoost. It's a fairly good, even if basic, implementation, of a motion blur reducing strobe backlight.
Initial FreeSync Impressions
Now, my initial impressions of FreeSync is that it's on an equal footing to GSYNC in motion quality. At least by first impression, without looking closely at them "under a microscope". FreeSync certainly eliminated stutters and tearing, just like GSYNC does, even if the methods/technologies work somewhat differently. A future article will probably compare GSYNC and FreeSync. Many sources have reported various pros and cons of GSYNC and FreeSync, but a major one that sticks out: Lower cost of implementing FreeSync.
Also, coincidentially, I ran into an AMD employee who lives in Hamilton (where I live now), so there will be more connections.
Oh, and yes -- to be fair -- I am definitely also going to be visiting NVIDIA (likely tomorrow). Keep tuned!
- LG 34UM67 ultrawide monitor, with FreeSync
- LG 24GM77 120Hz monitor with MOTION240 blur reduction strobe backlight.
- Samsung 4K FreeSync monitor (similar spec to ASUS ROG PG278Q)
- BENQ XL2730Z QHD monitor with FreeSync
Entering AMD's showroom:
And me (Chief Blur Buster) presenting myself in front of a few FreeSync monitors, with UFO mascot placard:
Looking closer at the LG 34UM67 ultrawide with FreeSync:
It was running actually running beautifully smooth FreeSync in ultrawide mode:
I moved over to look at a Samsung 4K FreeSync (model unknown) monitor running a windmill demo. This is essentially AMD's equivalent of NVIDIA's pendulum demo.
The monitor label:
And then, as seen below, I played around with the options of the windmill. It had an option to sweep the framerate. The sweep was seamless, seeing framerate bounce around from 40fps through 60fps without stutter. It looked every bit as good looking at G-SYNC at the same rates (40-60fps in Pendulum Demo). Disable FreeSync and VSYNC brought about ugly tearing and stutters, so it was certainly cool to see FreeSync doing its job.
There was also a BENQ XL2730Z monitor next to it, displaying a Tomb Raider style animation, in FreeSync at a very high fluidity (It looked 120Hz, but may not be 120Hz, because the animation was spinning so slowly; and GSYNC/FreeSync often makes fluidity look better than its framerate)
Then I noticed a series of LG24M77 monitors, which I know has the TURBO240 blur reducing strobe backlight:
And the on-screen menu option of MOTION240:
LG MOTION240 Impressions
I was able to sneakily run TestUFO. I was able to visually observe it to be about 2-3ms persistence (based on TestUFO Panning Map Test readability), with far less strobe crosstalk than unoptimized/untweaked BENQ Blur Reduction, but more strobe crosstalk than optimized/adjusted BENQ Blur Reduction, ULMB, or LightBoost. Colors looked far better than LIghtBoost. It's a fairly good, even if basic, implementation, of a motion blur reducing strobe backlight.
Initial FreeSync Impressions
Now, my initial impressions of FreeSync is that it's on an equal footing to GSYNC in motion quality. At least by first impression, without looking closely at them "under a microscope". FreeSync certainly eliminated stutters and tearing, just like GSYNC does, even if the methods/technologies work somewhat differently. A future article will probably compare GSYNC and FreeSync. Many sources have reported various pros and cons of GSYNC and FreeSync, but a major one that sticks out: Lower cost of implementing FreeSync.
Also, coincidentially, I ran into an AMD employee who lives in Hamilton (where I live now), so there will be more connections.
Oh, and yes -- to be fair -- I am definitely also going to be visiting NVIDIA (likely tomorrow). Keep tuned!