Much of the fun in Monster Hunter comes from taking on quests and slaying monsters together with a group of friends, and that holds true for Monster Hunter Rise. Fortunately, the game streamlines the multiplayer interface, making it easier than ever to join up with other players or host your own session. However, if you still need some help connecting with other hunters, here’s a rundown of how to set up a multiplayer session in Monster Hunter Rise.
Online Multiplayer
Before you can play Monster Hunter Rise online with other players, you’ll need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. Individual memberships cost $4 for one month, $8 for three months, and $20 for one year, while an annual family plan runs for $35 and covers up to eight Nintendo Account holders, even across multiple systems.
With that out of the way, the first step to setting up a multiplayer session is speaking to Senri, the Felyne courier who’s stationed near the center of Kamura Village. Senri is responsible for connecting you with other players, so you’ll need to talk to the mailcat each time you want to begin or leave a multiplayer session. (You’ll also need to speak to Senri to claim any DLC, such as the bonus item bundle that you’ll receive if you’ve played the Monster Hunter Rise demo.)
Speaking to Senri
To play with other players over the internet, select Play Online. After that, you’ll be presented with several different options, each of which is fairly self-explanatory. Find A Lobby lets you search through all the multiplayer lobbies that are currently open. If you’re looking for a specific lobby, you can select Search By Lobby ID; this allows you to directly join a particular session by inputting its lobby ID number. You can also select Friend List from Senri’s list of options to quickly find and join one of your Switch friends.
If you’d prefer to host the session, you’ll need to select Create a Lobby. From there, you can adjust the lobby’s settings and set up a passcode if you want it to keep the session private. Once that’s done, you’ll be online and ready to take on multiplayer hunts.
Local Multiplayer
If you have a group of friends gathered together in-person, you can begin a local multiplayer session by selecting Play Locally from Senri’s list of options. Select Find a Lobby to join another player’s game, or Create a Lobby to host your own. There is also a separate option to create a lobby that requires a passcode if you want to keep the session private.
Taking On Quests Together
Once you’re connected with other players, you can embark on some quests together. The missions in Monster Hunter Rise are all categorized either as Village Quests or Hub Quests. The former are only available for solo players, so you’ll need to select from the latter when you want to embark on multiplayer hunts.
To begin a Hub Quest, one player must first accept a quest from Minoto in the Gathering Hub. After that, the other players in the lobby can join the mission by selecting it from the quest board next to Minoto’s reception desk.
Hub Quests support up to four players total, but you don’t need to have that many to embark on one; the quest’s difficulty will scale depending on how many players are in your party. Hub Quests can also be played solo if you prefer, but they will be more challenging than regular Village Quests if you attempt them alone.
There are also no restrictions to the quests you can accept. If another player chooses a quest that you haven’t unlocked in your own game yet, you will still be able to join them. However, these quests won’t be marked as complete for you (although you’ll keep any rewards and materials you’ve earned from them), so you’ll need to complete them again once you’ve unlocked them in your game.
After everyone has accepted the quest and finished any last-minute preparations like grabbing a meal from the canteen, every player will need to press the ZR button to ready up. Once the whole group is ready, the host player can begin the quest. If your squad is able to successfully complete the objective within the time limit (and without fainting three times), everyone will earn the quest’s rewards and be automatically transported back to the Gathering Hub afterward. If you’re ready to end a multiplayer session, simply speak to Senri again to leave the lobby.
Join Requests
If you’ve set off on an online quest with fewer than four people in your group and need a bit of assistance, the host player send a Join Request. This option is found under the Quests tab in the menu, and much like the flares in Monster Hunter World, it sends a signal that will allow other players to join your hunt mid-progress.
Thanks to its complex systems and traditionally convoluted interface, the Monster Hunter series has a reputation for being dense and uninviting. Although Monster Hunter Rise streamlines many elements of the series to make it more welcoming than previous installments, it can still be a bit overwhelming, particularly for greenhorn hunters who are just jumping in for the first time. If you’re new to Monster Hunter, we’ve rounded up some beginner tips to help you out in Monster Hunter Rise, as well as a few advanced tips to keep in mind once you’ve gotten the hang of the basics.
As in previous Monster Hunter games, there are two paths of progression in Monster Hunter Rise: Village Quests and Hub Quests. If you’re new to the series, it’s important to know the difference between these before you begin your adventure.
Village Quests are Monster Hunter Rise’s “story” missions. You accept these from Hinoa in central Kamura Village and complete them to advance through the narrative. These missions can only be played solo and are designed to acclimate you to the game, so you can think of Village Quests as Monster Hunter Rise’s single-player mode.
Hub Quests, on the other hand, are Monster Hunter Rise’s multiplayer missions. These are assigned by Minoto, who is stationed in the Gathering Hub in the western part of Kamura Village (just past Yomogi’s tea shop). You can also embark on Hub Quests alone if you prefer, but given that they’re intended for multiple players, they’ll be more challenging than regular Village Quests if you attempt them solo.
Once you’ve completed a sufficient number of Key Quests (important missions that are denoted in the quest list by an icon next to their name), an Urgent Quest will open up. Clearing the Urgent Quest will bump you up to the next Hunter Rank, which in turn will open up a new selection of quests to do and even more challenging monsters to hunt.
Bear in mind that your Village Rank is separate from your Hub Rank; your progress in one will not transfer over to the other, so you’ll need to increase each Hunter Rank separately. However, if you focus strictly on completing Village Quests, you’ll unlock a Special License Test once you’ve hit Hunter Rank 4. Completing this quest will automatically bump up your Hub Rank to the next level, even if you haven’t completed any Hub Quests yet. However, Special License Tests are only available if your Hub Rank is considerably lower than your Village Rank.
Always Grab A Meal Before A Quest
Before you depart on a quest, it’s important to stop at the canteen and grab a bite to eat, as a quick meal could make all the difference between success and failure. There are two tea shops in Monster Hunter Rise–one in the western part of Kamura Village, and one within the Gathering Hub–but they both serve the same dish: Bunny Dango. You can select three flavors of dango per skewer, and each has a chance of granting you a temporary buff for the quest you’re about to undertake, making it a good habit to order a plate before you embark on a hunt.
The canteen
The buffs you get from eating Bunny Dango can range from extra stamina or health to an increased chance of earning more money or harvesting extra materials from the mission. The game will clearly display the percentage chance a certain buff has of activating after you eat a meal, so you’ll want to order a mix of different flavors and potentially reap multiple buffs. As you progress through the game, the canteen will begin stocking additional dango flavors with different attributes and buffs, so it’s a good idea to tailor your meal selections around what environment you’re visiting and monster you’re hunting.
Take Items From The Supply Box
Every locale you travel to for a quest features a base camp, where you’ll find a couple of helpful amenities like a tent and a supply box. The latter is especially important, as it contains various items to assist you on your mission, including first-aid meds (good for restoring health) and rations (good for temporarily increasing your stamina gauge). It’s always a good idea to consult the supply box and take some extra items before you begin your quest, as they’re completely free and are lost after the mission ends–just remember to share the supplies with any other hunters in your party.
Load Up On Subquests
In addition to standard quests, Hinoa and Minoto present a list of optional subquests for you to fulfill. These are additional objectives to work toward while you go about completing regular missions, ranging from harvesting a specific number of materials to slaying certain kinds of monsters, and they’re a great way to earn some extra resources as you play.
In the early going of the game, you can have up to five active subquests at a time. You’ll always want to have a full slate of them underway, as you’ll often complete their objectives just through the regular course of gameplay, and the rewards for these quests often include Kamura Points and Armor Spheres. The latter are especially valuable as they can be used to upgrade pieces of armor, so be sure to load up on subquests as often as you can.
Put Your Spare Buddies To Work
While only two buddies can accompany you on a quest at a time, you can recruit many more additional companions by speaking to Iori at the Buddy Plaza. Even if you don’t intend to bring them along with you on hunts, it’s a good idea to have a nice pool of reserve buddies, as you can send spare Palamutes and Palicoes off on their own gathering quests with the Meowcenaries and the Argosy.
Once the Meowcenaries are unlocked early on in the story, speak to Felyne Chief Kogarashi in the Buddy Plaza to make use of their services. For a small fee of Kamura Points, you can send a squad of four reserve buddies out on a quest. The Meowcenaries can be deployed along one of several gathering routes, each of which will yield different kinds of materials. After you’ve selected the route that appeals to you, the squad will depart, bringing items back after each quest you finish.
Speak to Kogarashi to send buddies on Meowcenary missions
The Argosy works similarly. Once it’s unlocked, speak to Rondine in the Buddy Plaza and you can ship a buddy off to barter for specific types of items. Additional resources are always handy in Monster Hunter, so if you’ve got some spare companions just sitting around, be sure to put them to work.
That isn’t the only helpful service you’ll find at the Buddy Plaza. You can also easily level up any spare companions at the Buddy Dojo. Speak to Shirubei the Palico, and you’ll be able to leave up to six buddies at the dojo at a time for training. Each training session will last as long as one quest, and once the training is complete, the buddies will level up and potentially learn new skills, making this a quick way to raise any extra Palamutes and Palicoes you have in your reserve list.
Try Out Weapons At The Training Area
Monster Hunter Rise features 14 different weapon types, each of which has its own distinct feel and moveset. If you’re new to the series, it can be overwhelming figuring out which of these weapons is right for you, but the game makes it a bit easier to decide by letting you test them out in the new training area.
Battling the Toadversary in the training area
While Hinoa gifts you a long sword shortly after you begin the game, you’ll find one of each weapon type waiting for you in your item box right from the outset, giving you a chance to try them all out at the training area. You can access the area from the boat in the Buddy Plaza, and it features a mechanical training dummy called the Toadversary that you can spar against. The Toadversary’s settings and AI are adjustable, so you can tweak its attack pattern as needed, making this a great way to familiarize yourself with the game’s different weapons before you bring them on an actual hunt.
The training area is also a great place to practice using the Wirebug, Monster Hunter Rise’s signature innovation. Not only can you use the Wirebug to launch yourself toward a monster and pull off Silkbind attacks, but it’s also useful for reaching elevated areas around the game’s different locales. The training area is bordered by high cliffs, so take some time to scale them to really get a handle on the Wirebug.
Utilize Endemic Life
Each locale in Monster Hunter Rise is home to a diverse array of flora and fauna, including what the game calls endemic life. These critters come in many varieties and confer some helpful benefits during your quest; pick up the clothfly, for instance, and you’ll gain a temporary defense boost, while the vigorwasp will restore some of your health.
A truckload, one of the endemic life you can find in Monster Hunter Rise
Some endemic life can even be used to gain the upper hand in battle. For example, the Tricktoad releases a scent that draws another monster’s attention to it, making it a great decoy to activate when a monster is bearing down on you. Be on the lookout for all the different kinds of endemic life as you explore each area in Monster Hunter Rise and utilize them to your benefit.
Advanced Tips
Mastering The Wirebug
As briefly touched on, the Wirebug is an important new element in Monster Hunter Rise, and you’ll come to rely on it frequently when playing. This versatile tool makes traversal feel much quicker and more freeing than previous Monster Hunter games. When your weapon is sheathed, you can use the Wirebug to launch yourself into the air at an angle (by pressing ZR and X) or straight ahead (by pressing ZR and A). You can also use the Wirebug to initiate wall-running. Launch yourself at a wall, and your character will automatically run across it when you hold the run button down. This depletes stamina very quickly, however, and your character will do a fancy leap off the wall once your stamina gauge runs out.
When your weapon is drawn, you can use the Wirebug to execute Silkbind attacks–flashy special moves that will deal some serious damage to monsters. Each of the game’s 14 different weapon types has its own distinct Silkbind attacks, and they’ll come in handy in the heat of battle. The Wirebug can also be used to break your fall; if you get knocked back by a monster’s attack, press ZR and B to quickly regain your footing. It’s a lot to remember, but with a little practice, it’ll soon become second nature.
Motley Mix It Up
In addition to Bunny Dango, the canteens in Kamura Village serve up another dish called a Motley Mix. Ordering this allows you to cook up spare materials like raw meat into consumables such as rations. Not only is this a good way to recycle extra items you may have, but Yomogi will also give you a bonus each time you order the Motley Mix: a Dango Ticket. You can redeem these for a free order of Bunny Dango, and you’ll have an increased chance that a buff will activate when you use a ticket–which will come especially in handy as you climb up the Hunter Ranks and take on fiercer monsters.
Switch Up Your Switch Skills
As you progress through Monster Hunter Rise, you’ll unlock Switch Skills. These are alternate attacks that you can swap in and out of your moveset, not unlike the Hunter Arts in Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate. Each weapon has a different set of Switch Skills that you’ll unlock as you progress through the game, and they can vary pretty dramatically, so be sure to experiment with them often to find the one that best suits your playstyle.
The Great Wirebug
In addition to your two standard Wirebugs, Monster Hunter Rise features a larger variant called the Great Wirebug. You’ll periodically receive a handful of Great Wirebugs from Senior Hunter Hanenaga in Kamura Village, and they can be used to reach remote areas around the game’s different locales. Place a Great Wirebug in a spot where you see jewel lilies glowing and it will launch you much higher than a regular Wirebug could, often to an otherwise inaccessible part of the map. These out-of-reach areas often contain something of note, such as rare materials to harvest, so remember to make use of Great Wirebugs anytime you see the opportunity.
Wyvern Riding
One of Monster Hunter Rise’s key new features is Wyvern Riding, which gives you the ability to hop on top of a monster and temporarily control it. There are two primary ways to set a monster up for Wyvern Riding: You can connect with enough Silkbind attacks until it’s ensnared, or you can lure it into a fight with another monster.
Once a monster is weakened and glowing, press A when near it to initiate Wyvern Riding. This is an important tactic to keep in mind as you hunt monsters; not only can you launch the beast you’re riding into a wall, dealing a lot of damage to it, but you can also command it to attack another monster. This is a good way to soften up tougher foes, and monsters that you attack while Wyvern Riding will drop extra materials on the ground, which will come in handy when crafting equipment.
Monster Hunter Rise is out now on Nintendo Switch, with a PC version coming in 2022. We’ve got a number of other guides to help you out, including a buddy explainer and tips for fighting every monster in the game, so be sure to check those out before you set off on your adventure.
The next game based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy series is The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Developer and publisher Dadelic Entertainment just released a new trailer with gameplay footage during the Future Games Show. Set in the years after The Hobbit and just before The Lord of the Rings, this original game focuses on Gollum’s escape from Barad-Dur in the land of Mordor, where he was forced into slavery by Sauron’s army. Throughout his journey, he’ll sneak, climb, and attack foes from the darkness to evade the legions of Sauron and come to grips with his mental state.
Set for release in 2022, the next game based on the Lord of the Rings forgoes heavy action and the real-time strategy gameplay from other titles and is more about the introspective perspective of the infamous hermit Gollum. In this game, the experience is more of a narrative-driven stealth action title that centers around Gollum in-between the significant events that occurred on Middle-earth. In the newest trailer, we get see some of the locations that Gollum will explore in Mordor, and who he’ll encounter along the way.
Before the trailer’s release, GameSpot had the opportunity to check out an extended preview of the game in action, which focused on an early level in the main story. In this demo, we saw a lengthy sampling of the gameplay pillars of the game, which focuses on stealth, platforming, and traversal, and the many moral decisions that Gollum has to confront. As in the films and the source material, Gollum is an agile and nimble character who can quickly climb walls and even wall jump to reach higher ground. He can also use the shadows to conceal himself to hide from orcs and then pounce on them when their guard is down. But unlike characters like Gimli, Legolas, or Aragorn, Gollum is not a capable fighter, and he can be quickly bested when engaging in a fight head-on. So it’s best to stick to quick attacks from the darkness to overcome the odds.
In addition to platforming stealth and combat, LOTR: Gollum also takes time to examine the character’s unstable mental state, following years of isolation and unnaturally extended life. Throughout key moments during your adventure, Gollum will be presented with moral choices that he’ll have to mull over. In the gameplay demo, we saw this presented as an internal conflict with his negative and positive thoughts, offering either more aggressive or passive solutions. Your choices here can open up some specific gameplay ramifications, such as having to sneak past orcs or choosing to eliminate them one-by-one to make your trek easier. However, as the developers stated during the presenation, some of the “correct” choices may lead to some unintended consequences that could impact Gollum and the other characters he meets on his adventure.
Gallery
The other characters he’ll meet in the game are a combination of original characters and known figures from Tolkien lore. During the presentation, Gollum encountered a Dwarf named Grashneg, who is also trapped within Barad-Dur. During some key moments, Gollum and other allies will have to work together to overcome the odds, and in this case, Grashneg’s increased size and strength give Gollum the means to pass certain obstacles. Along with new characters, noteworthy villains like Shelob will also make an appearance in the game. While the character of Gollum is well-established, we haven’t seen a game focus on his experience of being an outcast, and this game looks to offer an exciting portrayal of one of Lord of the Rings’ most compelling characters.
Developer GoldFire Studios has revealed its next game: Arctic Awakening. This first-person episodic narrative-driven adventure game is scheduled to launch for PC, Mac, Xbox, and PlayStation in 2022.
In Arctic Awakening, you play as Kai, a pilot who’s been issued a court-mandated therapy companion named Alfie. On a routine trip over the Arctic, a sudden storm destroys your plane, separating you from your co-pilot Donovan and stranding you without a means of calling for help. Alfie survives the crash too, acting as a voice of reason as you track down Donovan and try to find a way home.
“Kai is desperate to find Donovan, but the AI drone isn’t about to just let him wander off into a blizzard without first starting a fire,” Goldfire Studios director James Simpson said during 2021’s Future Games Show Spring Showcase. “Part of Alfie’s job is never letting Kai out of his sight, and this tends to get under Kai’s skin.”
As seen in the trailer for Arctic Awakening, the game is choice-driven, with your actions resulting in different consequences. Your dynamic with Alfie will change depending on how you interact with him. While struggling to survive and find Donovan, you’ll also discover that there’s more to the story as to why your plane suddenly split in two.
Arctic Awakening is currently available to add to your wishlist on Steam.
Welcome to Nintendo Voice Chat! It’s Monster Hunter Rise launch week, and Seth Macy is joined by Casey DeFreitas, Tom Marks, and Logan Plant to discuss the new entry in Capcom’s long-running franchise. Plus, hear about even more Super Nintendo Switch rumors, Mario’s impending doom, IGN’s Super Nintendo World review, and a whole lot more. Finally, the panel wraps up with another edition of Question Block.
You can listen to NVC on your preferred platform every Thursday at 3pm PT/6pm ET. Have a question for Question Block? Write to us at [email protected] and we may pick your question! Also, make sure to join the Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast Forums on Facebook. We’re all pretty active there and often pull Question Block questions and comments straight from the community.
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Logan Plant is the Production Assistant for NVC. You can find him on Twitter at @LoganJPlant.
Gollum is one of the most memorable characters in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, no question. We all watched those movies. We mimicked his voice: “Sneaky little hobbitses” and “My preciousss” — that’s good stuff. But he’s not exactly a typical video game hero. I mean, this is Gollum we’re talking about. He’s scrawny and unwashed! He wears a loincloth! He kills his friend and bites off Frodo’s finger!
But Daedalic Entertainment isn’t letting little things like that stop them from making a game about him anyway. It’s called The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, and it’s coming to all the major gaming platforms in 2022. And after sitting in on a 20-minute hands-off demo of an early level, I have to say, I may be coming around on Gollum as a star. That’s because, despite how slimy and tragic he is as a character, his limitations could lead to an enjoyable game.
First, what it’s not. This is not a massive open-world game like Middle-earth: Shadow of War. You won’t lead armies into battle or fight hordes of orcs head on. Gollum just isn’t that kind of guy. He’s more likely to slip through the shadows and try not to be seen by anyone. So it makes sense that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is all about stealth and platforming.
At the start of the demo, Gollum had just escaped imprisonment in the pits of Barad-dûr. (That’s Sauron’s tower — you know, the one topped with a giant fiery eye. It’s hard to miss.) But you, as Gollum, aren’t out of danger yet, as you’re now faced with having to escape a fortress that’s teeming with orcs.
You do this by sneaking around, sticking to shadows, and climbing all over the place in search of routes that will let you remain undetected. Sneaking, climbing, jumping, and wall-running to avoid enemies — that’s what this game is about, along with some environmental puzzle-solving.
The level I saw was huge, with lots of vertical space to traverse. Lava pits littered the bottom of an underground area, with rock walls reaching up to the base of the tower, and plenty of wooden scaffolding to traverse. The developers say all the levels are similarly expansive, with multiple pathways through each one. Some of the routes are more stealth-oriented, while others emphasize platforming.
The demo mostly featured platforming, with Gollum clambering up walls, shimmying along ledges, swinging from poles, and leaping across pits. The traversal reminded me of an Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted game.
Despite the focus on stealth and platforming, combat isn’t entirely out of the question here. You can manage stealth kills if you’re sneaky. At one point during the demo, Gollum needed to get past a lone orc, so he crept up behind it, leaped on its back and, after a brief struggle, brought it down silently.
Things don’t always go smoothly, though. Everything you do makes some amount of noise, and the enemies are always listening. At one point, an enemy heard Gollum and alerted other nearby orcs to come look for him. He scurried away and hung from a ledge until the trouble blew over (classic Gollum).
To help you stay alive, Gollum has an ability to “see” where sounds are coming from. This “sound vision” wasn’t available in the build used in the demo, but the developers say it will play a prominent role in the final game.
It’s a story-driven game, so reaching various points causes cut scenes to play out. In the level I saw, Gollum meets up with a stocky prisoner named Grashneg and sets him free. Grashneg accompanies you for a while, helping do things our gaunt hero couldn’t do on his own, like break through heavy obstacles to reach new pathways.
Gollum also talks to himself even when he’s alone, outside of cut scenes. When coming upon a room with guards, for instance, he’ll say, “Too many orcses. We hate orcses,” or he’ll call out a distant door you need to reach. His voice sounds similar to Andy Serkis’s performance in the films, though it’s obviously handled by a different actor here.
Just like in the source material, Gollum has a split personality that comes into play during choices the player needs to make. If you want to lean toward the Gollum side, you can make choices that harm others but help you. If you’re feeling more humane, you can side with the Smeagol part of him and choose the moral path.
While no other familiar characters appeared in the demo, the developers promise you’ll meet some “very known characters” in the full game, including Gandalf “(meddling, of course, like he always does).” If you’re familiar with the source material, the developers hint, you can probably guess some of the other characters you’ll encounter during the journey as well.
Though The Lord of the Rings: Gollum isn’t the sprawling open-world action-RPG you might be expecting, it sure seems suited to the character of Gollum. And come to think of it, sneaking and parkour-ing through Middle-earth has its appeal too.
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Chris Reed is a commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
One of PC gaming‘s biggest advantages over consoles is the ability to push frame rates higher than 60 and 120fps and utilize adaptive sync technology to keep that gameplay looking smooth, no matter how much the frame rate fluctuates. That’s why if you’re looking to jump into the world of PC gaming or get more serious about your setup, you’ll want to know the difference between FreeSync and G-Sync, two important types of adaptive sync tech that will keep your gameplay looking and feeling as smooth as possible.
Adaptive sync technology like FreeSync and G-Sync synchronize your monitor’s refresh rate with the frame rate outputted by your graphics card. That means if your gaming monitor is 144Hz, but your graphics card is pushing 100fps, your monitor’s adaptive sync tech (either FreeSync or G-Sync) will bring your display’s refresh rate down to 100Hz to keep your image feeling smooth and your inputs free of latency. FreeSync and G-Sync can be found in both gaming monitors and gaming TVs.
VSync, which stands for vertical sync, is a graphics option available in the vast majority of video games. This stabilizes your frame rate so that it never goes beyond your monitor’s refresh rate. While this can help with keeping your gameplay free of screen tearing, it can cause performance issues and input lag that comes from the frames buffering. Adaptive sync tech like FreeSync and G-Sync take over for VSync, providing a much smoother, tear-free experience without needing to limit your refresh rate.
Adaptive sync is quite the game-changer, especially as more PC and console gamers adopt displays with higher refresh rates. But what exactly is the difference between FreeSync and G-Sync? What do you need to make sure you’re getting the best experience? And why should you care? There are a lot of questions that definitely need to be answered before you jump in, so we’ve built this guide to help.
What is FreeSync?
FreeSync is an adaptive sync technology that was created by AMD for use with variable refresh rates and its graphics cards. When a monitor supports FreeSync, it can work with your AMD graphics card to match a display’s refresh rate with your gameplay’s frame rate. This AMD exclusivity was the case for some time, while Nvidia had its own version called G-Sync. However, Nvidia now supports FreeSync, allowing owners of FreeSync displays to use this tech with Nvidia’s graphics cards–this is a certification called G-Sync Compatible. Nvidia provides certification for monitors to market themselves as G-Sync Compatible, but many non-certified FreeSync monitors are still compatible with Nvidia graphics cards–though to be safe, you’ll want to make sure the monitor is certified G-Sync Compatible.
There are also a number of different versions of FreeSync. FreeSync is the base version, while FreeSync Premium is for displays that run at a minimum of 120Hz and 1080p. Premium also adds low frame rate compensation (LFC). This makes it so your gameplay will remain smooth even if the frame rate goes lower than the minimum supported refresh rate of your monitor. Premium Pro, the highest tier of FreeSync, has all of FreeSync Premium’s benefits with the added benefit of using them with HDR turned on.
FreeSync monitors are much cheaper than those that have true G-Sync support as they utilize cable protocols in HDMI and DisplayPort as opposed to Nvidia’s proprietary G-Sync processor that’s built into its monitors. Many manufacturers have opted for FreeSync and G-Sync Compatible certification for this reason as they’re able to put the G-Sync logo on the box of a monitor if it’s compatible.
FreeSync monitors to consider:
What is G-Sync?
G-Sync is Nvidia’s proprietary adaptive sync technology that works exclusively with its own graphics cards–there’s no G-Sync Compatible alternative. Similar to FreeSync, it supports variable refresh rates and low input lag, though it has an extra bonus to boot: It features ultra-low motion blur (ULMB), which works to decrease motion blur during gameplay. This’ll reduce the ghosting effect that sometimes appears when games run at high refresh rates. Like FreeSync, G-Sync also has a premium tier called G-Sync Ultimate. This is much like FreeSync Premium Pro as it supports HDR in addition to the other features G-Sync provides.
G-Sync monitors are tested extensively to work flawlessly with Nvidia graphics cards. If you typically buy Nvidia graphics cards, you’ll get the most use out of a G-Sync monitor. G-Sync Compatible monitors, which feature FreeSync that works with Nvidia graphics cards to provide variable refresh rate smoothness, are not tested as extensively. That means the monitor won’t support all of G-Sync’s features, including ULMB.
Because G-Sync monitors use a proprietary processor to achieve their various features, they are always more expensive than their FreeSync counterparts.
G-Sync monitors to consider:
G-Sync vs. FreeSync: What’s the difference?
G-Sync vs. FreeSync is less a question of which is better and more a quandary of what PC gaming hardware you already have or intend to buy and how much you’re willing to spend. If you own or plan to buy an Nvidia graphics card, you can go with a monitor that has either G-Sync or FreeSync (G-Sync Compatible) and have an excellent setup–though a more expensive one, if you choose G-Sync. AMD graphics card owners will want to stick exclusively to FreeSync monitors.
I purchased my G-Sync Acer Predator XB271HU in 2016 when FreeSync was not supported by Nvidia graphics cards, though when it came time to get a new monitor in 2020, I purchased the LG GL850-B, a FreeSync monitor that’s G-Sync Compatible. Both monitors are exceptional and have provided a great experience regardless of their adaptive sync tech, though the LG is a better performer overall. That makes sense considering it’s a newer model, but even then, it’s still normally $100 less than the Acer–not counting any discounts or deals.
Final thoughts: FreeSync or G-Sync?
In the end, G-Sync and FreeSync are key to a high refresh rate gaming experience, but adaptive sync isn’t the only important feature when looking into a gaming monitor. There are plenty of great displays out there, and while some may be FreeSync, G-Sync Compatible, or dedicated G-Sync, the quality of the screen is the most important factor. From all the different monitor technologies to the display panel types, there’s a lot that comes into play and assists adaptive sync in providing the best image and motion. Thankfully, both AMD and Nvidia users have a lot of great options to choose from, so while it may be a hard decision, there are a lot of solid choices.
