VESA “pleased” AMD and in the new Display Port 1.2a standard will be added technological support for the variable frame synchonization. Basicaly this means, that the frame drawn by GFX card will show on screen ASAP, w/o waiting for the fixed time, as it is now.
This is a bit of blow to nVidia G-Sync, that require additional hardware module. FreeSync is much more cost-effective approach and when even DisplayPort 1.2a and later – as a standard display connection – will support it, the market for nVidia G-Sync seems non existing now. At least not in the cost-effective world.
AMD even claims, that some current LCD monitors are just a little firmware tweak from being compatible with FreeSync, which should please for sure their owners – if there will be the firmware update, of course. Since AMD is quiet about it since January 2014, since then we have not known what displays will have these features.
Also variable frame rate could pose a challenge to testers. When the AMD cards render more frames just because they did not wait for the fixed framerate (eliminating delays will really boost framerate), then they will have clear advantage over their competition, that have to wait. This simply means that once AMD realize this then they could get artificial advantage in tests when FreeSync is enabled. It will not mean that their hardware is suddenly faster that competition, it will just be used more effectively in time.
That could also raise temperatures (wait = cooldown) and power requirements, but probably only a slight amount…
We also have to see, how nVidia catch up on this development as well.
