Considering a Laptop Upgrade, Advice Appreciated

[BulletMagnet]

My humble off-the-shelf Staples laptop has served me pretty well, all things considered, but it's starting to show signs of wear and tear (I've found bits of metal rattling around in the fan more than once; no idea where they came from, though the thing still seems to function fine for the moment), and if nothing else I'd rather at least have some idea of where to replace it before it suddenly conks out on me. Moreover, I think I'd like something at least a little more gaming-focused for my next device.

Off the cuff I'm semi-tempted by something like this, which isn't the newest model but would be a decent upgrade over my current machine and wouldn't break the bank; at a glance it seems like a decent deal for my situation, but, well, I AM typing this on a Staples laptop, so methinks I'd better seek some advice.

As I said I do plan to game on the thing, but not in terms of "run the latest stuff at max settings", more along the lines of "can I get a steady 60 FPS without the fan roaring like a jet engine on games I already own"; I'd also be doing the usual web browsing/word processing/etc. stuff on it, nothing terribly fancy. I'll probably need to get a separate hard drive for it at some point (my current laptop has 1 TB of storage, this has a quarter of that, though it's a SSD, which is supposedly faster); size/weight and battery life aren't major factors as I'd mainly be using it at home.

The main things I'd be interested to have folks more tech-savvy than me weigh in on, aside from the obvious overall "based on what I've said above, would this or a similar model be a decent fit?" are as follows:

- I've never owned anything by Acer, does anyone have any firsthand experience with their stuff as far as reliability and such are concerned? If you're not a fan, is there a brand you'd recommend over it?

- I've seen comparable models that offer a faster processor (4.5 GHz vs. 4.1) and fancier graphics card (GTX 1650 vs. 1050) for around 200 bucks more; from what I've read the bottom-line performance doesn't strike me as that different...or am I misinformed? I'd certainly like the specs on whatever my next machine is to be viable for awhile...

- I've also never owned a "gaming" laptop before, so I don't have any experience with overclocking or fan speed or that sort of thing, though apparently the one I linked has a control center for that stuff...is there anything a noob like me should be aware of on this front? On a related note, the page recommends a "cooling pad" (something else I've never used before) as an accessory; worth it, or a waste of money?

Any advice or other input you might want to give on the situation would be much appreciated; thanks in advance for offering this less-than-savvy consumer a bit of enlightenment.

[Classicgamer]

If it's just for gaming them my advice would be to build a desktop PC instead. You'll get greater performance and upgradability for far less cash.

If money is no object and you have to buy a laptop, then buy the highest spec gaming laptop you can find. They become out of date fairly quickly these days and they are harder for most people to upgrade.

If you are up for a project, you could try upgrading a cheaper gaming laptop (with MXM 3b GPUs) yourself. I did that with my workstation laptop. I got the cheapest HP Elite book and upgraded to the fastest mobile CPU at the time and installed a Quadro P5000 gpu.

If you don't care about playing the latest games, you could save a lot with an older gaming laptop. One with an Nvidia GTX 680 or 780 costs very little now but it will play most PC based arcade games and console emulators very well. I was playing Mario Kart DX arcade through Teknoparrot on an eight year old workstation laptop yesterday. It worked perfectly and was awesome.

[BulletMagnet]

Thanks for commenting, let me bounce myself off of a couple of your pointers:

If it's just for gaming them my advice would be to build a desktop PC instead. You'll get greater performance and upgradability for far less cash.

Yeah, in terms of pure numbers a desktop, especially a custom one, would be the top choice, but while I'll be using the thing mostly at home I will need some degree of portability, i.e. to be able to carry it from room to room, so methinks it will end up being a laptop of some kind. I've also never custom-built anything before, so I'm hesitant to attempt that sort of thing without both some ready guidance and a unit I can afford to mess up on.

If money is no object and you have to buy a laptop, then buy the highest spec gaming laptop you can find.

Unfortunately, it kinda is: as I said, I do want a computer that I won't have to replace for awhile (both in terms of performance and overall reliability), but the latest and greatest seems to be anywhere from 50 to 100% more than I'm looking to spend, so chances are I'll wind up landing somewhere in the middle.

If you don't care about playing the latest games, you could save a lot with an older gaming laptop.

Ol' Staples n' Steady and its Intel integrated graphics actually manages to run quite a lot of the stuff I play with the settings turned down (though I always hesitate once it starts wheezing), so chances are an older graphics card wouldn't hobble me too much, but at the same time I suppose I need to balance what you said above about not locking myself into something that won't be able to keep up with similarly "middling" titles that come out in the coming years (mind you, I have enough of a backlog that I could cut myself off from new purchases entirely and still play 'til the day I die, but you and I both know that's not happening ).

Thanks again, and feel free to elaborate and/or request additional information from this end.

[Classicgamer]

I just watched a YouTube video to build my first gaming pc. It's very easy.

If you're on a budget, you'll have to compromise somewhere. I.e. Put in a little time to research how to build your own pc or put up with something mediocre.

Or, maybe PC gaming is not for you. The original PS4 is fairly cheap now and definitely better for gaming than any PC with just Intel integrated graphics.

[Xyga]

Building a PC the first time isn't too hard, but you will make mistakes, most of the advice you'll receive won't be too sound.
Or say, maybe 2/10 will give you actually good advice with the build in mind, but the others will give you individual opinions, and that's hard to tell apart. You know, just picking the right case and mobo design for interior arrangement and airflow are important steps, and that's typically an area where people will tell you shit, which will have consequences.



If picking a laptop saves you all that trouble, it is also true that you must pick wisely, take a lot of time because they're always around anyway, there's always a better one or better deal around coming.

Display: why only 15" ? definitely go for a 17". gaming/performance laptops are bulky and heavy anyway, whether they're 15 or 17 doesn't make much a difference in that area, except a bigger screen is always better if it's going to be for gaming.
And IPS of course.

Hz and emulators: the newer stuff requires a good GPU, the old stuff like MAME demands a good CPU (4GHz isn't too much). Anyway get both.
Note Intel CPU refreshes can provide a significant boost (like several of the newer coffee lakes are better for the money than the old)

Cooling: defnitely needs to be efficient and not too noisy. Also cleanable without a repair tech degree.

G-Sync: hey double-check that it's featured. because you get a GPU that can do it doesn't necessarily mean the display does too. some cheaper performance laptops just have parts thrown in together without much rationality.

Money: when you start from scratch (like you don't even have the monitor) laptops for common daily multimedia and work aren't more expensive than desktops, even considering the mini-pc builds you'll find around there's not much of a difference.
It's only laptops for gaming (and high-perf sleek design business) that are flat-out luxury products, it's common to read for the same money a desktop will give you like 3x the performance.
Personal appreciation here and final input: all laptops I feel I could manage to live with for many years (considering gaming)...are above $1,000

[Kez]

There's nothing wrong with a gaming laptop as long as you understand the drawbacks (low portability, poor battery life, becomes out of date quickly). I picked up a refurbished ASUS laptop from newegg back in 2015 while I was living in the US, it served me really well. I have a "main" gaming PC but I still use the laptop for gaming on a TV, or taking it round a friend's house.. it's surprisingly capable even 4 years on.

It sounds like your gaming demands are fairly low, so I would attack it from one of two ways:

1) Look around your local area for second hand units.. check FB marketplace, craigslist, etc. and try to find a good deal on a gaming machine. Before committing, look for a review of the specific laptop or, failing that, the GPU.. look at some gaming benchmarks and see if there are games you recognise, it should give you an idea of what "era" of games will start to really push it. Doesn't matter if it is a couple years old, keep an eye out for obvious signs of wear and tear or general lack of care, but if a laptop was a total beast in 2017, it will still be very good now. If it doesn't have an SSD, be prepared to get one separately. The quality of life improvement from using an SSD cannot be overstated. They should also not be too difficult to install on a gaming laptop.

2) Set a hard budget, and start researching laptops in that price range. Personally I would focus on the GPU, look at all the laptops you can which are near your budget and you should start seeing the same few GPUs again and again. At that point, figure out which one of those is best and target that, then try to find the best combination of other specs (CPU in particular) at your price point. The best thing to do is just research everything you find. Look for professional reviews on the specific laptop you're looking at. You don't need to understand all the technical details, but most good reviews will leave you with a good idea of whether the machine provides bang for buck.

[Xyga]

addendum: Among the 'budget' gaming laptops flirting with $1000 the Lenovo L340 Gaming is a good example.



It exists in many different configurations, 15" or 17", some TN...or a 1080p IPS.

An interesting variant is:
. 17" (apparently w/ a 1080p IPS)
. i7-9750H
. GTX-1650

That's certainly no shit power @ under $1000 !

However, I've seen it with different storage configs;
1TB SSD
128GB SSD + 1TB HDD
256GB SSD + 1TB HDD
etc

Obviously the one with the 128GB SSD is a bit short. But that's upgradeable.

They seem to commonly come with 8GB RAM, but that should be upgradeable too if needed.

Last important points I'm not sure will bring entire satisfaction:
. the cooling fan vents are on the belly and therefore maybe not the best for long sessions at high load
. even if the 1080p IPS option is a plus for sure, that doesn't mean it's stellar either, only detailed reviews like on notebook-check.com would tell
. no mention of G-Sync support despite the good GPU




That's only an example to show you what to expect with 'budget' gaming laptops: you have to be VERY careful with the details.
Even if you're on a tight budget that's still a lot of money, and for it you don't want a machine crippled by one or two subpar specs that will annoy you for years.
Often, throwing a few hundred more $ puts you in the safer area because you get to touch models that are specifically advertised for their good IPS screen, G-Sync support, efficient cooling, etc.

[RGB0b]

I screwed up ROYALLY last year and ended up buying a really nice laptop...with a graphics card that wasn't compatible with Adobe Premiere ;/ I finally had time to sell it and buy a new one: https://amzn.to/2KVzQfs
I also added a new RAM chip: https://www.newegg.com/p/0RN-001H-00UZ3 ... B0Z9AX1814
...and SSD (the mounting bracket comes with the laptop, in the accessory box): https://amzn.to/2zbFZi4

Learn from my mistake: Double, triple and quadruple check the specs on any laptop and make sure it's exactly what you need. So far, I vouch for this setup though - It performs better than expected and while you can get an equally as fast desktop for cheaper, this worked great for me as a "power laptop".

[Xyga]

Lol yeah, another story: at one point I was considering an HP Omen 17 with a nice 1080p 120Hz IPS, and I wanted G-Sync (which was often listed in the specs by retailers)

So I've investigated, finding maybe over 10 different SKU's (sometimes mixing in the 15" version in the series) and no surprise: a complete mess including on the HP forums, where G-Sync support over the built-in display could be confirmed only for one SKU by a user, a model which unfortunately was already out of stock, but I couldn't have purchased anyway as it was much more expensive than the other SKU's.

Some were saying a BIOS trick or Win 10 update was necessary for the other SKUs, but without feedback about if it really worked for them, etc.
The conclusion of one was "you can only buy and try".
Oh, yes, the support via an external compatible monitor was invoked, but even that wasn't certain.

In short: the only laptops REALLY supporting very specific features like that, are the ones for which it is clearly and loudly advertised by the manufacturer for an unmistakable model SKU.
And of course most of the time they're premium devices way over $1000.

[Classicgamer]

If you want the option to upgrade the GPU, the brand matters more than I would have thought. I.e. MXM 3 gpu's usually require brand specific drivers. HP and Dell are typically good for upgrades as they sell a broad range of options and have excellent driver support on their website. So, if you bought a laptop with a 1060, you can upgrade to a 1080 if there was an OEM 1080 option.

Another thought... If the gaming laptop will stay in the house, they have adapters to allow you to use more powerful desktop GPU's when needed. In theory, you could get a regular slimline and lightweight laptop for travel and turn it into a gaming machine with the desktop GPU at home.

[Hoagtech]

Keep in mind the “beast” laptops like ROG and Alienwares are designed to dissipate heat generated by your gpu. Your graphics card and CPU are only as good as the temperature it’s allowed to go up to and bigger bodies allow for more cooling.

I am a sucker for brands so I spend unnecessary money getting the latest intel processors and GeForce cards, so if conventional use is more important than gaming I would opt for an AMD option on both gpu and cpu.

The only experience I have with Acer is my 2 27” monitors and one didn’t work out of the box and required an exchange and both lost their “whites” in less than a year and turned green on one monitor and purple on the other so I would say my experience was not a good one.

If going with gtx avoid anything ending in a “50” or a “60”. They are pretty much on par with latest on board graphics and do little to help with your gaming.

CPU is very important if you are going to use this on a 4K hdcp.

Good luck on your purchase.

[BulletMagnet]

A Huge BUNCH OF REPLIES Is Approaching Fast! Thanks everyone, let me try to reply to some of this:

Or, maybe PC gaming is not for you. The original PS4 is fairly cheap now and definitely better for gaming than any PC with just Intel integrated graphics.

I have a PS4, but I tend to prefer the PC for downloadable stuff, especially if I can get it DRM-free, so I do intend to do at least some of my gaming on some manner of computer.

Display: why only 15" ? definitely go for a 17".

It is true that bulk doesn't make much difference in my case, but price does, so that's always a consideration...also, while I've never done it before myself, it's possible to hook a laptop up to a separate monitor and use that, I would imagine it's not too hard to do...

G-Sync: hey double-check that it's featured. because you get a GPU that can do it doesn't necessarily mean the display does too.

Had to Google that, but sounds handy, I'll keep an eye out for that bullet point.

Look around your local area for second hand units.. check FB marketplace, craigslist, etc. and try to find a good deal on a gaming machine.

That would definitely save some money if I lucked out, though I'd have to put in a bit of legwork...not sure what kind of secondhand availability there'd be around here.

The quality of life improvement from using an SSD cannot be overstated.

I'd heard they load considerably faster, it sounds like at least one person recommends them...off the cuff, how is their reliability compared to "regular" hard drives? Do they tend to last any longer or vice-versa?

Among the 'budget' gaming laptops flirting with $1000 the Lenovo L340 Gaming is a good example.

Had a quick look around Lenovo's site and bookmarked it, definitely a possible fit.

If you want the option to upgrade the GPU, the brand matters more than I would have thought.

Offhand I'm not that concerned about having to keep up with graphics card advancements with the sort of gaming I do, as I'm tempted to guess that by the time I'd need a fresh card I'd probably need a quicker CPU and whatnot too anyway, but I'll keep this and your suggestion concerning adapters in my back pocket.

If going with gtx avoid anything ending in a “50” or a “60”. They are pretty much on par with latest on board graphics and do little to help with your gaming.

Huh, is that so? I'll have to look into the alternatives and see what the performance/price difference is...

CPU is very important if you are going to use this on a 4K hdcp.

Not for the foreseeable future, I'd wager; my current laptop's display isn't even 1080, so I'd probably be good with one of those for some time.

Thanks again everyone, and feel free to tack on whatever else you can think to add, I'll take all the help I can get.

[vol.2]

I know there are plenty of options out there, and you may find a better deal, but I think that the basic alienware M15 with a GTX 1060 would be fine. It can play stuff at 1080p and has an i7 in it. They go on sale a lot. It's under 1k$ right now, and that's not bad for what it is. Also, they have a vested interest in providing driver support for a longer time. Maybe not forever, and it's not perfect, but I have found them to be better than the lenovos I used to buy. (I purchase a lot of laptops for work purposes that get sold to other people with equipment)

The 1060 isn't really bad, it's got enough gusto to play anything from like last year at 1080p, on slightly lowered detail settings. A 1070 will get you 1080p with flying colors and high detail. Anything more expensive is basically for 3k-4k.


Edit: If you get some gusto about it and you want to check things out on your own, this site is well organized and lacks sensationalism. https://www.anandtech.com/ It used to be the best PC-side tech site on the internet when Anand was still running it, but it's occupying a "tried and true" role at this point. If you are curious, read the old articles Anand wrote about the way flash memory works or the development on the SSD. It's good reads.

[Xyga]

It is true that bulk doesn't make much difference in my case, but price does, so that's always a consideration...

Well as you may have seen, 17 inchers aren't necessarily more expensive than 15's.
Sure, you can use an external display. Just thought the portability meant you wanted an all-inclusive solution, but if not then yeah a 15's fine too then.

Had to Google that, but sounds handy, I'll keep an eye out for that bullet point.

summarized:
. laptops with nVidia supporting G-Sync on the built-in display: mostly models that are already +/- $1,500 and up (maybe some cheaper exception but I haven't seen them)
. laptops with nVidia supporting G-Sync over an external display: more choice and more affordable, but you gotta double check even that. Also naturally the external display must support G-Sync itself, with matching connectivity. if you don't already have a G-Sync display then nevermind, they're expensive.

Of course if you don't care about G-Sync at all then nevermind, the purpose here though was to warn you not to be fooled by the specs listed, by retailers but also manufacturers who don't make things very clear about such desirable features on laptops (same story with AMD and their FreeSync equivalent)

[Classicgamer]

Keep in mind the “beast” laptops like ROG and Alienwares are designed to dissipate heat generated by your gpu. Your graphics card and CPU are only as good as the temperature it’s allowed to go up to and bigger bodies allow for more cooling.

I am a sucker for brands so I spend unnecessary money getting the latest intel processors and GeForce cards, so if conventional use is more important than gaming I would opt for an AMD option on both gpu and cpu.

The only experience I have with Acer is my 2 27” monitors and one didn’t work out of the box and required an exchange and both lost their “whites” in less than a year and turned green on one monitor and purple on the other so I would say my experience was not a good one.

If going with gtx avoid anything ending in a “50” or a “60”. They are pretty much on par with latest on board graphics and do little to help with your gaming.

CPU is very important if you are going to use this on a 4K hdcp.

Good luck on your purchase.

I always wonder if it's really true that certain brands are better at gpu heat control. MXM GPU's use passive heat syncs that are specific to the model, not the laptop. If you switched an MXM 3 Gpu from one laptop to another, you'd install it in the new one with the same heat sync.

All that is really left is how good the air flow is with one laptop VS another. I'm sure you'd be able to detect small differences in performance with the same gpu in different laptops using software. I am skeptical if there is a noticeable difference to users in real world gaming though.

I usually ignore branding with PC hardware (aside from driver support) because they all use the same Intel CPU's and Nvidia or AMD GPUs inside and they dictate performance more than the name on the plastic.

[BulletMagnet]

Well hey there, remember me?

Long story short, in the year-plus since I asked around for laptop advice, I've kept on with my old one, but recently the display has started to come apart and the battery is completely kaputz, and as I said before I'd like to at least have something in the wings for whenever it goes for good. So, when I saw what looked to my none-too-well-trained eyes like a halfway decent deal, I finally caved:

HP Omen
i710750 CPU
GeForce RTX 2060
512GB SSD
15.6" 1080 300 MHz Display

Paid 1250 USD before tax; hopefully it'll last me awhile, feel free to offer your thoughts on whether I did okay or got gypped, as I've got 2 weeks to return the thing.

Moreover, I'm still putting it through its paces to see what it's capable of gaming-wise, and have a few additional queries for anyone in the know while I'm at it:

- I've currently tested out a handful of titles which, while not terribly demanding in the grand scheme of things, gave my old laptop some degree of trouble; all of them run fullscreen (which I could rarely utilize on the old one) at high settings, though some tax the (rather noisy) fan a bit and tempt me to turn the fancy effects down to keep the bluster in check.

- On a related note, so far the 300 MHz display seems like it'll largely be wasted on me. When I first started testing games out it ran them at 250-350 FPS, and the laptop's fan went completely nuts; I ended up reducing it to 60 Hz (the only other available setting), so stuff runs a lot quieter. Seeing as I'm not playing anything competitively, would the extra FPS even make any difference in my case?

- Xyga was right about G-Sync, in the worst possible way; determining whether this laptop, or ANY laptop, supports it is an exercise in frustration. Reviews frequently state or suggest it does, but the accompanying spec sheets don't specifically mention it; I even found a document from HP for my specific model which has the G-Sync logo at the bottom alongside the other stuff it contains, but again doesn't list it in display features or anywhere else. And of course, whether the laptop's display itself can actually make use of it is an entirely different matter.

As of the moment, I've switched over to the dedicated NVidia card but don't see anything about enabling Gsync in the control panel, where Google suggests it should be; however, I've encountered forum comments and such which suggest that on a laptop it's just kind of automatically on all the time and doesn't need to be manually activated. I haven't noticed screen tearing on most of the stuff I've tested, though in one or two cases I'm pretty sure there was some; anyone have any ideas for determining whether or not my model (15-EK0013DX) actually supports/utilizes G-Sync, and if/how I need to activate it if it does?

Feel free, of course, to offer any other tips or insight you might have into taking full advantage of a laptop with at least a middling degree of gaming capability, as it's a new experience for the likes of me. Many thanks!

[vol.2]

Well hey there, remember me?

Long story short, in the year-plus since I asked around for laptop advice, I've kept on with my old one, but recently the display has started to come apart and the battery is completely kaputz, and as I said before I'd like to at least have something in the wings for whenever it goes for good. So, when I saw what looked to my none-too-well-trained eyes like a halfway decent deal, I finally caved:

HP Omen
i710750 CPU
GeForce RTX 2060
512GB SSD
15.6" 1080 300 MHz Display

Paid 1250 USD before tax; hopefully it'll last me awhile, feel free to offer your thoughts on whether I did okay or got gypped, as I've got 2 weeks to return the thing.

I went over to the HP site, and I think it's a good rig that you will plenty of enjoyment out of. The main thing for me is that it has an IPS screen (seems like the only standard 300 Mhz display option is IPS). That's pretty standard now, but there are still gaming laptops with TN screens because they can push lower response times and twitch-shooter egamers sometimes want to compromise image quality for a few nanosecond advantage. I could care two shits about it and I would much prefer to have the decent viewing angles that an IPS provides.


As far as Gsync goes, the tide has turned on freesync adaptation, so you may want to look into freesync support on the laptop instead. Things like driver support are always going to be a bigger headache for laptops because you have a lot more bespoke controllers and such in them. Over the past 5 years, Nvidia in particular has been making moves to reduce driver stratification by minimizing hardware differences between their desktop and mobile stacks for their gaming and productivity level chipsets. With any luck, there will be a long life of driver updates for your 2060, and the SYNC support will work itself out.

[BulletMagnet]

Thanks for offering your take, hopefully it turns out to be right.

As for FreeSync, if my quick search is correct it's only "officially" supported by AMD stuff, though there are supposedly ways to utilize it even on other devices...I doubt it'd work on an NVidia setup, though, and am hesitant to attempt anything too outlandish with something I just bought as it is, heh. I've tested out a handful more games, and screen tearing doesn't seem to be an issue with most of them, though it definitely shows up on a couple. Of course, my backlog is more than sizeable enough to wait and see if it eventually does end up supported on this thing, though I'll happily accept any other suggestions for mitigating the situation in the meantime.

[vol.2]

Thanks for offering your take, hopefully it turns out to be right.

As for FreeSync, if my quick search is correct it's only "officially" supported by AMD stuff, though there are supposedly ways to utilize it even on other devices...I doubt it'd work on an NVidia setup, though, and am hesitant to attempt anything too outlandish with something I just bought as it is, heh. I've tested out a handful more games, and screen tearing doesn't seem to be an issue with most of them, though it definitely shows up on a couple. Of course, my backlog is more than sizeable enough to wait and see if it eventually does end up supported on this thing, though I'll happily accept any other suggestions for mitigating the situation in the meantime.

So, Nvidia is officially supporting FreeSync. They don't want to say they are, so they are calling it "adaptive sync." The FreeSync standard was developed by AMD (EDIT:no it wasn't, it was VESA and AMD chose to implement it) and it's free to use. Because it's freeware, Nvidia can rebrand it whatever they want.
The reason they caved is probably the licensing from the monitors. Because Nvidia was trying to charge big fees to the monitor manufacturers to support Gsync, it was eating into everyone's profits.
If you can imagine: You need a new monitor and video card. You have the choice between two monitors, they are both completely equal in specs, but one supports Gsync and the other supports Freesync. The Gsync monitor costs like $300 more. Will you buy an AMD card or an Nvidia card? Depends on how much of an Nvidia fanboy you are and how much is in your budget. Turns out lots of people just want the best performance for the best cost.

Edited to correct AMD-VESA development

This article is a bit old now, but it's got the gist of it, and support should actually be much better now.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13797/nv ... e-branding

Your specific monitor, I don't know about though. (what it does or doesn't support)

[makar1]

So, Nvidia is officially supporting FreeSync. They don't want to say they are, so they are calling it "adaptive sync." The FreeSync standard was developed by AMD, but they immediately released it to the public to hasten adaptation.

The original technology is called Adaptive Sync (previously Panel-Self-Refresh) and it was developed by VESA, not AMD. Freesync is AMD's brand name for their implementation of Adaptive Sync, which in the case of Freesync over HDMI is a proprietary non-standard protocol.

Nvidia GPUs only support G-Sync, Displayport VESA Adaptive Sync, and HDMI VRR. Displays that use Freesync over HDMI may not be compatible.

[vol.2]

So, Nvidia is officially supporting FreeSync. They don't want to say they are, so they are calling it "adaptive sync." The FreeSync standard was developed by AMD, but they immediately released it to the public to hasten adaptation.

The original technology is called Adaptive Sync (previously Panel-Self-Refresh) and it was developed by VESA, not AMD. Freesync is AMD's brand name for their implementation of Adaptive Sync, which in the case of Freesync over HDMI is a proprietary non-standard protocol.

Nvidia GPUs only support G-Sync, Displayport VESA Adaptive Sync, and HDMI VRR. Displays that use Freesync over HDMI may not be compatible.

I stand corrected. It's been awhile. I just remembered the part about it being an open-standard and AMD basically championing it. My crappy memory switched the details around.

[BulletMagnet]

I'm certainly learning something new every time I stop in here, heh.

If I interpret makar's statement correctly, I'd only be able to enable FreeSync (or whatever its more official name is) from my Nvidia'd laptop if I hooked it up to a compatible monitor via a Displayport connection; I doubt the laptop's own screen is compatible, and since I can't even find hard evidence as far as its G-Sync support is concerned I'm sure it'd be a real bear to find out.

I happened upon this video offering instructions on how to enable FreeSync on a laptop that doesn't "officially" support it, but it seems to assume that said laptop has an AMD card in it to tinker around with, so that's also a no-go. Hopefully it won't be too big of an issue, as most of the stuff I've tested seems to run pretty well.

Thanks again for the help.

[makar1]

If I interpret makar's statement correctly, I'd only be able to enable FreeSync (or whatever its more official name is) from my Nvidia'd laptop if I hooked it up to a compatible monitor via a Displayport connection

The majority of current-gen Freesync Displayport monitors have now been re-branded as "G-Sync Compatible" so you'd be safe with any of those.