What is vertical synchronization?

About what is vertical synchronization and how it affects the performance of the graphics subsystem, was told more than once. It can even be said that the topic is "bearded", because it originated in the time of the appearance of the first three-dimensional accelerators, when speed-hungry users began to struggle for every extra frame per second. Since then, not a single decade has passed, but the question of how vertical synchronization in games can be turned off still excites the minds of many computer 3D applications enthusiasts. This is because during the years of the evolution of the video subsystem, there have not been any global changes in the principle of image construction: the same frames, triangles, even the bitterness of the external color space is the same.

What is vertical synchronization? To understand this question, it makes sense to recall the fundamentals of the work of the graphic component. As you know, to get a whole image on the screen, the video card gives a whole series of static pictures - frames. To create the illusion of movement of some elements, some of them change. Due to their rapid change it seems that the picture is whole and, if changes are made, there are displacements on the screen. It is much easier to understand what has been said, if we look at the analogy with children's play, when similar pictures are created on the sheets of the notebook, and with the subsequent rapid flipping it seems that the picture "comes to life." Although the appearance of liquid crystal (LCD) monitors made their own adjustments to the image, the principle remained unchanged. The speed at which the monitor can output the above-mentioned still images is called the frame rate. However, it is impossible to understand what vertical synchronization is without clarifying another point.

Schemes of the monitor just display what is transferred to them by the video card. Its performance depends on how many elementary static images can be changed per unit of time (usually a second is meant).

Video processors of past generations did not have unprecedented speed, but monitors, on the contrary, tried to make them so that their sweep was not less than 85 hertz (frames per second). As a result, the number of pictures transmitted by the video adapter to the monitor was less than what the latter could output. But now the situation has changed. The frequency in LCD monitors rarely exceeds 60 Hertz (except for devices that support a hardware 3D image), and video cards when working with many applications now form more frames. Vertical synchronization is the driver's ability to reconcile two frame frequencies between each other by reducing the number of images the card displays on the monitor. This allows you to get smooth when displaying dynamic scenes. On the other hand, vertical synchronization of ati (NVidia, Intel) is a kind of fetter that does not allow the card to work in maximum performance mode.

You can manage synchronization in the driver settings of the video adapter. It can be activated, disabled or automatically selected in accordance with the requests of the application itself.