It syncs the refresh rate with the GPU frame rate

Feb 18, 2015 07:42 GMT  ·  By

Vertical synchronization, or V-Sync for short, has been the main (and sometimes only) solution for screen tearing for a long time, but NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync are now taking its place. Acer has even released a monitor featuring the latter.

Vertical Synchronization is an option on most systems that prevents the video card from doing anything visible to the display memory until after the monitor finishes its current refresh cycle.

That means that during the vertical blank interval, the driver makes the video card to either treat both memory areas as displayable (switching back and forth between them) or to rapidly copy the off-screen graphics area into the active display area.

The main problem is that this option turned on causes latency in most games, perhaps even sluggish mouse cursor and camera movements.

G-Sync and FreeSync make it so that the monitor refresh rate is synchronized to the frame rate of the graphics processing unit. Acer has just released a monitor that supports the latter.

Acer XG270HU gaming display

This particular monitor has a native resolution of WQHD, or 2560 x 1440 pixels, which means that it lies right between Full HD and 4K UHD.

However, it has a faster refresh rate than the majority of both, at 144 Hz. Makes it kind of unfortunate that 3D support is not mentioned anywhere in the press release.

The XG270HU is an edge-to-edge frameless display. The phrasing isn't altogether literal, since there are two black lines on the right and left sides, as well as the top, but that is only because the backlight needs to be anchored somehow. Compared to most other monitors and smart TVs, it really doesn't have much of an edge.

Moving on, the response time is as good as it could possibly be at 1ms, making it ideal for fast-paced shooters and real time strategies. No smearing or ghosting effects to be had here.

All in all, the 27-inch Acer XG270HU WQHD monitor is about as good as any display can be without support for 4K resolution.

Availability

The Acer XG270HU 27-inch gaming monitor, with its two 2W speakers, dual-link DVI, HDMI 1.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, should be up for sale soon, if it isn't already, with ComfiView technology reduced ambient reflections) and EyeProtect (stable power supply leads to less screen flicker). Sadly, the price is still unknown.

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