Intel Smooth Sync Support Being Worked On For Linux Graphics Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Smooth Sync Support Being Worked On For Linux Graphics Driver

While Intel GPUs support VESA Adaptive-Sync, for Arc Graphics Intel announced Smooth Sync as what amounts to a dithering filter to make screen tearing less of an issue when not running with vsync enabled or lacking an Adaptive-Sync display...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Smooth-Sync-Linux

[rabcor]

For all the hype around adaptive sync I've never actually gotten to use it, everytime I went out to buy a laptop or monitor, products without it have won out due to being better products within a lower budget more often than not, wonder if that's still the same, or if the next monitor or laptop i buy will actually have it.

[theriddick]

Its kind of really needed. I can't really play allot of games with dual monitor setup as the second screen triggers frame skipping/syncing issues. Maybe this will solve such problems.

[skeevy420]

For all the hype around adaptive sync I've never actually gotten to use it, everytime I went out to buy a laptop or monitor, products without it have won out due to being better products within a lower budget more often than not, wonder if that's still the same, or if the next monitor or laptop i buy will actually have it.

Same here. Been using a TV as a monitor since the 2000s and my latest TV doesn't have that feature. A month or so later after buying it I learned I could have spent $100 more on a better model with adaptive sync. Oh well, it was a Black Friday impulse buy. My next TV or Display or whatever will definitely have it since a lot of games that I play would really benefit being able to dip down to 45fps occasionally.

[skeevy420]

Is this like Enhanced Sync in the AMD Driver on Windows? It kind of sounds like it.

[Eirikr1848]

This is huge for a lot of low-budget gaming rigs, especially using combinations of used and new parts.

For example: A hobbyist Discord buddy has stocked up on a boatload of FX-8720e CPUs, 32GB GB of DDR3-2133MHz kits and FX-990 NOS motherboards. A local business had gone belly up and they found them behind a bunch of things. Got the whole kit for $50 a piece for 25 of them.

He’s holding out for sales on cool cases, power supplies, SSDs, and…..

Intel GPU availability. He was getting a bit impatient and thinking about grabbing 6500 XTs —- but this might sway a (low volume) customer’s mind. I’m sure the kids that use these budget PCs will enjoy these Intel GPUs more… thanks to less tearing on their budget monitor or TV.

(OS will be Ubuntu 20.04 - doesn’t want the kids to have to deal with snap-related issues in 22.04… hopefully this works fine with the previous LTS release)

[Brisse]

Is this like Enhanced Sync in the AMD Driver on Windows? It kind of sounds like it.

Is that what that does? I always wondered because nowhere have I seen it explained, and I'm not really interested in enabling a feature which I have no idea what it does.

[skeevy420]

Is that what that does? I always wondered because nowhere have I seen it explained, and I'm not really interested in enabling a feature which I have no idea what it does.

I'm not sure if Enhanced Sync adds a blur to hide tearing, just that they both seem to be tearing strategies and are supposed to help when Vsync is off.

Whatever the case, I get more tearing with Enhanced Sync enabled so I disable it and go by my usual rule of tweak the game's settings until it runs at 60 fps with Vsync on (since I'm using a TV as my display). The only exception to that 60fps rule is MSFS 2020 because that game runs like shit on my RX 580....like 20-30FPS using Super Duper Low settings.

[Brisse]

skeevy420 Reading the rather untechnical and barely helpful description on AMD's website leads me to believe it does something else. Mainly, they claim it "delivers a tear-free experience when framerate exceeds your display’s refresh rate at an ultra-low latency". They don't claim it removes or mitigates tearing under the set refresh rate, which I would imagine this Intel-feature does (not remove really, but it might make the tear less noticeable).

[aufkrawall]

Yes, they are not comparable. Enhanced Sync is just some mailbox vsync mode.
It's super terrible that there are still devices without VRR.