This weekend AMD invited me to the CNE Gaming Garage at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.
This is place to play and watch video game tournaments, pinball tournaments as well as some tech demos.
There were retro video games like Pac Man, Tetris, and Galaga for those of a certain age who remember going to arcades to play video games.
Here’s the pinball tournament in action.
You could play (in this case Fortnite) for fun, or sign up for a tournament if you want to take things up to another level.
Or you can watch the experts play on the main stage.
A lot of cool looking custom gaming rigs wee on display.
Not to mention some cool VR demos that I tried and found to be very cool.
Just Dance 2018 was on display. You have to match what the on screen characters are doing to score points.
But the thing that was on display and people did not know was on display was AMD’s FreeSync 2 technology. In short the original FreeSync technology essentially allows a display to vary its refresh rate to match the render rate of a graphics processor, so that, for example, a game running at 54 FPS is displayed at 54 Hz, and when that games bumps up to 63 FPS the display also shifts to 63 Hz. This reduces stuttering and screen tearing compared to monitor operating at a fixed refresh rate, say 60 Hz, displaying a game running at an unmatched render rate like 54 FPS. FreeSync 2 steps that up by having monitors that have been validated to have the additional features that are required to have FreeSync 2 to work. I played a couple of rounds of Fortnite (badly) and found that the graphics were incredibly smooth and fluid. Clearly it’s worth the investment to get an AMD graphics card and monitor that both support FreeSync 2.
It was a very interesting experience to watch the tournaments and try out the demos at the CNE Gaming Garage, making this a great Sunday. I’d like to thank AMD for the invitation as it was a very eye opening.