VESA announces the new Adaptive Sync 1.1 specifications for the latest generation displays: what they are and what are the main innovations.
VESAacronym of Video Electronics Standards Association, is an industry association dedicated to developing and promoting standards in the field of video electronics. Founded in 1989, VESA is made up of a group of companies working together to establish technical standards in the field of video technologies. Its primary goal is to create open, interoperable standards that allow video device manufacturers to develop products that are compatible with each other.
VESA announced in May 2022 an update to its specifications by adding AdaptiveSync and MediaSync certificates. The first is oriented towards panels that insure high refresh rates and low latency while the latter is geared towards media playback without jitter. Now the company has “tightened” the specification by releasing Adaptive-Sync Display 1.1: the main novelty concerns the control of the response time in the pass grey-to-grey (G2G).
Il test G2G is a measure used to evaluate the response time of a monitor’s pixels during the transition from one gray tone to the next (from the dark gray state, usually defined as 10% of the maximum, to the light gray state, which is 90% of the maximum , and viceversa). A slow G2G response time means that pixels can transition from one state to another more quickly and as a result, the monitor can show asharper image and no blur during fast-moving scenes. On the other hand, long response times can cause blurs or effects of ghostingthat is, when the image persists longer than it should.
The updated VESA specification, Adaptive-Sync Display 1.1, provides for more comprehensive and robust testing, including extending G2G from a 5×5 matrix to a much larger subset of the 9×9 test matrix, resulting in more than triple the number of scenarios.
More precise limits are also introduced in order to more effectively relate the performance of the monitor with the human sensitivity to light.
Ma cos’รจ Adaptive Sync? Traditionally, monitors operate using a fixed refresh rate, such as 60Hz, which means that the image on the screen is refreshed 60 times per second. In some circumstances (think of the gaming), however, the value of frames per second (fps) generated can vary greatly depending on the complexity of the scene to be generated. The optimal display is obtained when the fps are identical, in value, to the refresh rate. Any discrepancies, on the other hand, can cause phenomena such as screen tearing e stuttering.
Active Sync aims to solve this problem by allowing the monitor to dynamically adapt to the fps generated by the graphics card. This means that the monitor can vary its refresh rate in real time to match the fps.
Initially, Adaptive Sync was developed by AMD but later it was adopted as open standard from VESA, making it also compatible with NVidia graphics cards (G-Sync Compatible).
Monitor manufacturers can start requesting the certification their display according to the new specifications; VESA will continue to allow products to be certified to the legacy Adaptive-Sync Display 1.0 specification until the end of August 2023 to allow for products already in development that have been designed to meet the original May 2022 specification to market. .
A complete list of Adaptive-Sync Display 1.0 certified displays and newer devices adhering to the 1.1 specification can be found on the VESA Certified Products page.
It’s still worth mentioning that G2G response times offer a rough measure; other factors affect image quality such as refresh rate, backlight, and the technology used in the monitor panel. To determine which PC monitor to choose, you can refer to our dedicated article.