AMDVLK Still Hasn't Yet Adopted FreeSync Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMDVLK Still Hasn't Yet Adopted FreeSync Support

While the AMDGPU kernel driver has shipped with the long-awaited FreeSync support since the Linux 5.0 release earlier this year and was quickly wired up for the RadeonSI Gallium3D OpenGL driver in Mesa 19.0 while the recent Mesa 19.1 update brought FreeSync for the RADV Vulkan driver, AMDVLK as AMD's official open-source Vulkan driver isn't yet supporting this variable rate refresh technology...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMDVLK-No-FreeSync-Yet

[aufkrawall]

Vsync is broken too:

https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers/AMDVLK/issues/96

This btw. also applies to the proprietary amdvlk on Linux.

[Morbis55]

Is there a simple way to check whether FreeSync is active or not?
I am running Kubuntu 19.04 with Kernel 5.0 and Mesa 19.2, have a FreeSync compatible 144Hz Monitor and a Vega 56

However I am still not sure if my games are synced. On Windows you can simply activate or deactive FreeSync in the AMD driver
On Linux there is no simple on/off switch.
Do I have to activate V-Sync in Games for FreeSync to be active?

In general I would appreciate a(nother but more) in depth article on FreeSync.
thx

[slavikgenes]

Morbis55, you better check your monitor's OSD (enable FPS counter, it should show actual monitor refresh rate and not ingame one). As far as I know, there is no way you can get this info in OS. Also, VSync and Freesync are independent of each other.

[Brisse]

Is there a simple way to check whether FreeSync is active or not?
I am running Kubuntu 19.04 with Kernel 5.0 and Mesa 19.2, have a FreeSync compatible 144Hz Monitor and a Vega 56

However I am still not sure if my games are synced. On Windows you can simply activate or deactive FreeSync in the AMD driver
On Linux there is no simple on/off switch.
Do I have to activate V-Sync in Games for FreeSync to be active?

In general I would appreciate a(nother but more) in depth article on FreeSync.
thx

The best way to see if it's working is to look in the monitors OSD and see if the refresh rate varies according to the frame-rate. Sadly, very few monitors has this feature and most will show a fixed rate at all times.

The on/off switch on Windows doesn't guarantee anything. It's set to "on" by default nowadays if you have the hardware required and it should work right out of the box so to speak, but the only way to know for sure is to check the monitor OSD for a varying refresh rate. Some monitors will flicker noticeably in brightness at low frame-rates which is another sign that it's "working", even though the flickering is an unwanted side effect seen on many cheap displays.

GNU/Linux also has an on/off switch. It currently defaults to off and it's hidden in some x.org configuration file which I don't have off the top of my head right now. You can probably find it by searching among comments of older Freesync-articles here on Phoronix.

[Nuc!eoN]

Adaptive Sync is broken on Linux anyways, I wonder why nobody talks about this.

I was really hyped after I read those articles that Adaptive Sync finally works, only to find out that the X Window Sytem will never support Adaptive Sync if more than one monitor is connected to the machine. Since nowadays it is rather a standard, especially for linux users to use multi monitor setups, this is really disappointing.

So really great to call Adaptive Sync being "supported" but only a fraction of user can actually use it. That's why I still switch to Windows for gaming.

[humbug]

Sad situation. more than 4 years after freesync came out on windows.

[shmerl]

Do drivers need to do anything to support adaptive overdrive? Modern FreeSync monitors can adjust their overdrive based on the dynamic value of the refresh rate, to prevent over and undershoot. Not sure whether that's all on monitor side, or drivers need to communicate anything over DisplayPort for it.

See: https://www.blurbusters.com/faq/lcd-...ive-artifacts/

[Brisse]

Not sure whether that's all on monitor side

Pretty sure it is.

[shmerl]

Pretty sure it is.

Sounds good. There is an interesting upcoming FreeSync monitor - LG 27GL850, that claims to have 1ms GtG response time, and good colors due to their "nano"-IPS. But I wonder whether it has adaptive overdrive or not when used with FreeSync. That info is surprisingly hard to find.