Xbox ‘Scorpio’ gets HDMI 2.1 connection and support for FreeSync

Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox ‘Scorpio’ console will be equipped with an HDMI 2.1 connection and will support AMD’s FreeSync technology. This concerns FreeSync over HDMI, with many current monitors the technology only works over displayport.

One of the additions to the upcoming HDMI 2.1 standard is support for dynamic refresh rate, which should prevent image tearing and stuttering. The Xbox Scorpio console will be able to take advantage of this. HDMI 2.1 was introduced at the beginning of this year and the standard will be published in the second quarter.

Current consoles don’t support techniques like FreeSync. As a result, games often use v-sync, which prevents tearing, but produces stuttering in the image if the frame rate target of 30 fps or 60 fps is not reached. With implementations such as FreeSync and the vrr function of hdmi 2.1, the use of v-sync is no longer necessary to prevent tearing.

Scorpio will also receive support for FreeSync 2, which was announced by AMD in January. The second version of the FreeSync standard adds HDR support. A large part of the current monitors with FreeSync provide that functionality via the displayport connection and not via the HDMI port. Televisions with support for AMD technology are not yet available.

The arrival of hdmi 2.1 and FreeSync to the new Xbox has been announced by Eurogamer. That website has received a lot of information from Microsoft about the upcoming console, which will be released in the fall. Last week, the technical specifications of the gpu and cpu were discussed in detail.