There’s a bit controversy breaking on the web which I wanted to write a few words on. Last week some website posted that Nvidia would be adding VESA Adaptive Sync support to their graphics cards, this misinterpretation or rumor was quickly debunked by Nvidia’s Brian Del Rizzo (Senior PR Manager from Nvidia). 

Now the story is growing as it is clear that the technology is not supported and added by Nvidia in the VESA 1.2a spec of DisplayPort. VESA Adaptive Sync is not a new technology, it however was never implemented. When Nvidia developed their own G-Sync, AMD quickly announced FreeSync aka Adaptive Sync. So you can see how that hurts. Basically a technology that never has been introduced all of the sudden got pushed by AMD. You can reverse that really, if Nvidia would not have developed and released G-Sync, do you believe that AMD would have ever introduced Adaptive Sync aka FreeSync ? We don't think so. So by pushing Adaptive Sync into the VESA DisplayPort 1.2a standard AMD found a way to cannibalize Nvidia's technology and thus sales. Let me quickly state that both technologies are not the same, but then end-result is pretty darn similar.

It has now become apparent that according to specs listed on NVIDIA's website the new VESA DisplayPort 1.2a addendum is not supported, if you look up the latest GeForce GTX 970 and 980 for example, you'll see DP 1.2 and not 1.2a in the spec list. AMD's Radeon R9 and R7 GPUs however support DisplayPort 1.2a and thus (if the monitor supports it) Adaptive Sync aka FreeSync. Such monitors should become available by the end of the year. Nvidia obviously could support the free features, but seems to be not willing to do so, they invested in their own technology and are protecting themselves. Nvidia will focus solely on G-Sync, as they claim they are: "Solely focused on delivering the best gaming experience with G-SYNC-which is shipping today from leading monitor OEMs.".

That's the story as it is today …