Nvidia’s bringing HDMI 2.1 VRR support to its RTX 20 Series GPUs
Nvidia’s bringing HDMI 2.1 VRR support to its RTX 20 Series GPUs
Nvidia’s move came as a result of several factors. Firstly, G-Sync modules are expensive and limited Nvidia’s VRR options to a relatively small number of gaming monitors. Secondly, VESA Adaptive-Sync and HDMI 2.1 VRR were getting introduced to a growing number of TVs and monitors. The writing was on the wall, Nvidia needed to support alternative VRR standards, or hand their competitors an advantage.Â
Today, Nvidia announced that it planned to bring HDMI 2.1 VRR support to their RTX 20 series of graphics cards. This announcement came in an LG press release which announced that their 2019 series of OLED TVs were becoming G-Sync Compatible screens; thanks to an upcoming firmware update.Â
Note that Nvidia’s Matt Wuebbling, head of GeForce marketing, stated that HDMI VRR support was only coming to RTX 20 series graphics cards. No mention of GTX 16 series graphics cards has been made in Nvidia’s announcement. Remember that all GTX 16-series GPUs are Turing-based and are less than a year old. HDMI VRR support will release with a new Geforce driver, where we expect to learn more about the limitations of Nvidia’s VRR support.Â
– Update – Nvidia has now confirmed that LG’s Press Release is incorrect and that they are ” enabling GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX 16-Series gamers to connect their PCs via HDMI to validated G-SYNC Compatible LG TVs.”
  We are excited to bring G-SYNC Compatible support to LG’s 2019 OLED TVs and HDMI Variable Refresh Rate support to our GeForce RTX 20-Series GPUs. Gamers will be blown away by the responsiveness and the lifelike visuals on these TVs when playing the latest PC games featuring real-time ray-tracing powered by GeForce.
With HDMI 2.1, VRR support becomes a mandatory feature of the standard, forcing both TV makers and device makers to adopt support for variable refresh rates. Let’s be clear, this is why Nvidia is supporting HDMI VRR. They have to support it to fully support HDMI 2.1.Â
Nvidia has done what they have done with VESA Adaptive-Sync. They have put the feature under their G-Sync banner by adding HDMI 2.1 VRR screens to their G-Sync Compatible rating system. With this move, Nvidia has inserted its branding into what is nothing more than HDMI 2.1’s VVR support, albeit what appears to well-implemented VRR support. Â
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AMD has already promised to add HDMI 2.1 VRR support to its Radeon Software drivers. At the time of writing Radeon FreeSync and FreeSync 2 support is already available on a number of Samsung TVs.
– Update – Nvidia has confirmed that LG’s Press Release is incorrect and that they are “Â enabling GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX 16-Series gamers to connect their PCs via HDMI to validated G-SYNC Compatible LG TVs.”
You can join the discussion on Nvidia adding HDMI 2.1 VRR support to its RTX 20 series of graphics cards on the OC3D Forums. Â