VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) today has announced the new version 2.1 of the DisplayPort (DP) standard. The new standard is backward compatible with its predecessor, DP 2.0, and supersedes it as well. VESA has been working with partner companies to ensure that all DP 2.0 products including UHBR (Ultra-high Bit Rate) capable products like GPUs, docking stations, monitor scalar chips, and more are also certified to the stricter DisplayPort 2.1 spec.
The new specification now has better alignment with USB Type-C as well as the USB4 platform. This is to facilitate a common PHY repeater that will service both the DisplayPort and the USB4 link. DP 2.1 has also added a new DisplayPort bandwidth management feature to enable DisplayPort tunneling to coexist with other I/O data traffic over the USB4 link.
The increased efficiency is on top of the mandated support for VESA's visually lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC) codec that can reduce DP transport bandwidth in excess of 67 percent without visual artifacts. Panel Replay can also reduce DP tunneling packet bandwidth in excess of 99 percent.
VESA Board Chair Alan Kobayashi stated:
“DisplayPort 2.1 brings DisplayPort into convergence with USB4 PHY specifications to ensure the highest video performance across a broad range of consumer products. Display transport through DisplayPort, with its higher bit rates and proven visual quality of DSC compression even for HDR content, offers ample bandwidth for the needs of virtually every practical application.
Features such as driving multiple displays over a single cable, or enabling multiple functions on a single port like video, power and data transfer, no longer require any compromise in video format choice. The advanced capabilities of the DisplayPort video interface are enabled by the invaluable contributions by our more than 300 member companies from across the electronics ecosystem.”
According to Kyle Benett, former HardOCP journalist and an industry veteran, AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs or Navi 31 (RDNA 3) will be among the first products that will support the DisplayPort 2.1 spec. Unfortunately, Nvidia's high-end graphic card GeForce RTX 4090 will miss out on this chance with its now-outdated DP 1.4a support.
You can find more information on VESA's official website here.
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