It almost feels like a gimmick given industry support, but I guess it must have been a free/easy feature. Or something.
From the sounds of it, devs don't have to do anything already, and it's just a matter of display support.
Don't get me wrong, it's a cute feature for PC enthusiasts for the time-being, but far into the future (when folks upgrade their television sets) vs now is kinda eh.
Yeah, on the surface it seems kind of odd, but a good marketing point.
On PC, variable refresh makes sense as there as gamer's make up a significantly large buying block and they'll often pay a premium for a display suitable to gaming.
For TVs, however, console gaming isn't as much of a focus when a family is out buying a TV.
So it makes sense that, for example, Samsung offers adaptive sync across a wide variety of computer displays but will they have the incentive to offer it across a wide range of TVs?
One factor that could play into it is whether there will be a relatively miniscule cost different between TV scalers with and without adaptive sync support as there is for computer display scalers. It could just end up being something TV manufacturers throw in just because, why not?
And then, of course, it also relies on people upgrading their TV. Something that is done far less frequently than computer displays. Speaking for myself, my average TV gets upgraded every ~8-12 years whereas my average computer display gets an upgrade in half that time.
Either way, it's still good for people that want a smooth presentation. I used to be really hyped for variable refresh until I actually got to try it. While the presentation is much better, the variable display rate is still easy to feel when playing games, and for me, I don't like it. Just like I can't stand 30 FPS gaming (so horrible for controls and presentation) I can't stand frame rates that vary between say 30-60. VFR makes the presentation better, but does nothing for precise and consistent controls.
The only time I've found VFR to be of an overall benefit (for me) is when the game is locked to 60 say 95% of the time and VFR makes the dips below 60 less visually noticeable.
Regards,
SB
