Wednesday, August 29th 2018
NVIDIA GPUs Can be Tricked to Support AMD FreeSync
Newer generations of NVIDIA GPUs such as "Pascal" and "Maxwell" meet or exceed the hardware requirements of AMD FreeSync, as they feature DisplayPort 1.4 connectors that include the features of DisplayPort 1.2a, required for VESA adaptive sync. In a bid to promote its own G-SYNC technology, NVIDIA doesn't expose this feature to monitors or software that support FreeSync. Redditor "bryf50" may have found a way around this. The trick is deceptively simple, however, you'll need games that support on-the-fly switching of rendering GPUs, and an AMD Radeon graphics card at hand.
When poking around with system settings in "Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth," bryf50 discovered that you can switch the "rendering GPU" on the fly, without having to physically connect your display to that newly selected GPU. You can start the game with your display connected to VGA1 (an AMD Radeon GPU), and switch the renderer in-game to VGA2 (an NVIDIA GPU). FreeSync should continue to work, while you enjoy the performance of that NVIDIA GPU. In theory, this should allow you to pair your high-end GTX 1080 Ti with a $50 RX 550 that supports FreeSync, instead of paying the $200+ G-SYNC tax.
When poking around with system settings in "Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth," bryf50 discovered that you can switch the "rendering GPU" on the fly, without having to physically connect your display to that newly selected GPU. You can start the game with your display connected to VGA1 (an AMD Radeon GPU), and switch the renderer in-game to VGA2 (an NVIDIA GPU). FreeSync should continue to work, while you enjoy the performance of that NVIDIA GPU. In theory, this should allow you to pair your high-end GTX 1080 Ti with a $50 RX 550 that supports FreeSync, instead of paying the $200+ G-SYNC tax.