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.

Intel has been talking up Smooth Sync on the Windows side since earlier this summer to blur distracting screen tears via a dithering filter. In turn gamers could disable vsync in hopes of higher frame rates even if lacking an Adaptive-Sync display and ideally be less annoyed by screen tears while gaming. Intel hadn't commented on Smooth Sync support for Linux until now when this morning seeing some preliminary patches hit the wire for this functionality.

Intel Smooth Sync

The Linux patch confirms that Smooth Sync is basically a blending and dithering filter to smoothly transition from an old image to a new image over a programmable number of scan-lines for use when running with async page-flipping / vsync disabled.

The Linux patch to their kernel graphics driver implementing this software-based filter is less than 100 lines of code... 97 new lines, 6 lines removed. Given the current timing, this Intel Smooth Sync support is likely to appear then for the v6.1 kernel cycle assuming no issues come up during testing.