While NVIDIA have been slow to adopt the Adaptive Sync variable refresh rate (VRR) standard, lagging long behind their red-liveried counterparts, they're certainly picking up the pace in 2019. Today seventeen monitors are now listed as officially 'G-SYNC Compatible', by which NVIDIA mean they offer an acceptable experience when paired with an NVIDIA GTX or RTX graphics card. Now word has come down that seven more will join this burgeoning field from five different manufacturers, with support being added via a GeForce driver update scheduled for next week.

Since the Adaptive Sync standard was adopted hundreds of monitors have been released that support the technology, often listed as either Adaptive Sync or more commonly FreeSync compatible. Compared to full-fat hardware G-SYNC the cost to implement is low - G-SYNC replaces the monitor scaler with a high-performance proprietary FPGA that communicates directly with NVIDIA graphics cards, and NVIDIA have a more generally demanding certification process for panel performance. However the relatively low bar to entry has meant that the user experience for Adaptive Sync is variable, not always in a positive way.

NVIDIA are in the process of testing and certifying monitors which meet their performance standards, but this is proving to be a rather drawn-out affair. It's also filtering out plenty of models, starting with those that offer a poor minimum refresh rate or small VRR window, and extending to any that have less optimal idiosyncrasies such as pulsing or flickering backlights. Hopefully this will mean a better experience for all, no matter the flavour of ones GPU.

The seven new models to be granted the title of G-SYNC Compatible are:



Take careful note of the full model ID if you're making a purchase based on this update, only monitors of that specific model will be recognised and operate as G-SYNC Compatible. With that in mind, it's also notable that many of these monitors (such as the Acer XF240H bmjdpr) are particularly affordable compared to fully G-SYNC equipped equivalents, starting from just £199 in the UK.

A new GeForce driver release is scheduled for April 23rd, at which time these monitors will be automatically detected and have optimal settings pre-loaded. As usual you can download the latest driver from geforce.com/drivers or via the GeForce Experience app. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-series and 16-series GPUs as well as RTX 20-series desktop GPUs all support NVIDIA's G-SYNC Compatibility implementation.

SOURCE: TomsHardware