NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Launch Review - PAGE 3

The Kepler series comes with a host of new technologies, some of which are exclusive to the new architecture, while others affect current generation NVIDIA hardware via quick driver update.

The first of the new technologies added to NVIDIA based hardware is Adaptive Vsync. Before going into how the new technology works, let’s first examine the issue it addresses. To create a smooth gaming experience, many gamers rely on Vsync to cap their frame at 60FPS. This prevents issues such as screen tearing which happens at higher frame rates, and also should prevent the frame rate from dipping below what would be considered smooth. The issue however is that Vsync syncs with the screen's refresh rate, so when the frames dip below 60FPS, Vsync dips to the next lowest refresh rate of 30FPS. This dip causes what is known as frame stutters.

To address this, NVIDIA has added a new feature to their latest R300 drivers dubbed Adaptive Vsync. Essentially what this feature does is dynamically turn Vsync off if the frame rate dips below 60FPS. With Vsync disabled, the frame rate more smoothly transitions to lower frames-per-second instead of dropping to a lower refresh rate altogether. This helps prevent the in-game stutter and tearing mentioned earlier, thus creating a smoother gaming experience.

As you can see from the graph below, Adaptive Vsync allows the frames to drop and rise at a smoother rate than traditional Vsync. The frames in the graph did at times nearly reach 30FPS, but the difference is the drop is gradual, which prevents stuttering when the frame rate drops too fast as opposed to the frame rate dipping to around 30FPS.

The R300 drivers also add FXAA to the NVIDIA Control Panel. This opens up the technology to hundreds of games, because it is no longer up to developers to implement it in order for it to utilized.

FXAA is a technology developed by NVIDIA to reduce visible aliasing in games. This is done by applying FXAA along with other post processing steps such as motion blur and bloom. Additionally, since FXAA is post processing shading technology and not a deferred shader (like MSAA) it improves the performance while reducing the strain on the memory.

On top of this, NVIDIA has also added an entirely new anti-aliasing technology called TXAA. TXAA is a film style anti-aliasing technology designed to utilize the high texture performance of the Kepler architecture. The technology is a GC film style AA that combines hardware anti-aliasing to achieve smooth edges. In the case of 2x TXAA there is an optional temporal component for even better image quality. In total, TXAA can be used in 1x and 2x configurations and between the two, TXAA 1 offers image quality similar to 8x MSAA but with a much lower impact on performance. TXAA 2 meanwhile offers higher in-game aliasing, and the impact at running the technology at maxed out results is equivalent to running MSAA at 4x.

Lastly we have another Kepler exclusive, an update to the NVIDIA Surround technology. Like Fermi based hardware, Kepler supports both 3D Vision and Surround functions, but Kepler can run both technologies on a single graphics card. In the case of the Fermi, two graphics cards were required to run more than two displays, but this is no longer the case with Kepler, which can simultaneously drive up to four displays out-of-the-box, without need for adapters.

NVIDIA has also optimized the Surround technology to utilize the best available interface. This was achieved by using the middle screen as the main display, putting the task bar in an easy to access location. Currently the main display is located to the center screen, but a future update could add manual support to allow the user to adjust the setup to best fit their needs.