AMD’s FreeSync technology is coming to HDMI monitors; this means monitors can add support for the standard without having to add an extra port. The company is also working on bringing High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology to gaming by offering support for it in the latest Radeon drivers.
HDR is a technology show you the entire range of color view-able by the human eye. This makes it possible to display to better contrast light and dark colors in a way that’s hard to describe but stunning to see.
“Existing Radeon R9 300 Series GPUs will be compatible with HDR displays in 2016 for gaming, while our 2016 GPUs will extend support to both gaming and movies,” says an AMD press release, which adds that it’s working with games publishers to encourage them to offer HDR support.
FreeSync is an effort to keep the framerate of a computer and monitor in sync. This prevents screen tearing, a distracting visual artifact that happens when the graphics card outputs frames at a rate different than the monitor. Basically, the monitor adjusts its refresh rate to stay in sync with your game.
Unlike Nivida’s G-Sync, FreeSync will support without having to pay for custom AMD hardware. Currently, AMD has 40 displays under its portfolio which support FreeSync right now, and AMD claims that this is twice as many as support G-Sync. The specific release dates have not been revealed as yet but AMD says that these enhancements will be rolled out as driver updates in next year.