AMD has launched a brand new model of its Fluid Movement Frames function, a body technology tech to hurry up body charges with PC video games, and the sequel seems like a promising step ahead – albeit it’s solely in preview for now.
AMD Fluid Movement Frames 2, or AFMF 2 for brief, works with RX 6000 and RX 7000 GPUs, and is described as a ‘important improve’ benefiting from substantial optimization work for higher high quality and efficiency.
Particularly, one of many key upgrades right here is decrease latency for the body technology course of (which is the insertion of additional frames to artificially enhance the body price) – much less latency means a better total smoothness with the outcomes of AFMF 2.
AMD additionally observes there’s now higher consistency throughout quick movement, when the motion is hotting up in a shooter, for instance.
That is tied up in a brand new setting referred to as ‘Search Mode’ which, as Crew Purple notes, enhances the general picture high quality, and likewise improves how ‘fallback’ works in AFMF 2. Fallback is when body technology is quickly turned off throughout quick on-screen motion, to keep away from the jitter which may in any other case be seen when issues are shifting in a short time in a sport.
We’re instructed AI has been employed to fine-tune AMD’s algorithm for body technology, and there’s an ‘auto’ setting in Search Mode that robotically reduces the prevalence of fallback to enhance smoothness at 1440p or 4K resolutions. (This measure isn’t utilized when operating at 1080p, because it gained’t produce the very best outcomes right here).
There’s a second new mode, particularly ‘Efficiency Mode,’ which provides a brand new ‘efficiency’ setting as a substitute for ‘high quality,’ the latter of which was the default for AFMF 1. Efficiency is designed to scale back overheads and it’s the default setting for an built-in GPU (on supported Ryzen CPUs with built-in Radeon graphics), serving to to maintain body charges greater on these lesser GPUs – whereas high quality stays the default alternative for these with a discrete graphics card.
Additionally new is assist for Vulkan and OpenGL video games (alongside present DX11 and DX12 assist), in addition to assist for borderless full-screen gameplay.
Lastly, now you can allow AMD Radeon Chill and use it with AFMF 2 to stop the body price from exceeding the utmost refresh price of your monitor (and subsequently any hazard of picture tearing or different glitches).
AMD recommends AFMF 2 is used with Radeon Anti-lag once you don’t count on body charges to exceed the monitor’s refresh price (after they’ve been boosted, that’s), however to make use of Chill as an alternative if the body price goes to leap greater than the refresh price. It’s a alternative of 1 or the opposite, and Anti-lag helps to scale back latency, and as famous, AFMF 2 already does some good work on this entrance.
Evaluation: AFMF ache killers
Observe that proper now, that is nonetheless a technical preview, and AFMF 2 is just accessible in a preview driver which, as ever with pre-release software program, could possibly be a bit wonky. It shouldn’t be too lengthy earlier than it progresses to the completed model of AMD’s Adrenalin graphics driver, although. (It took 4 months for the unique AFMF to go from preview to launch, however we count on the sequel to progress extra rapidly).
As we talked about above, there are some key enhancements right here. Diminished enter lag is big, as an excessive amount of in the best way of lag just about spoils the graceful really feel of gameplay when utilizing body technology, and has been a serious grievance concerning the tech previously. In line with AMD, the enhancements listed below are within the order of 28% decrease latency, on common, primarily based on testing at 4K decision in Cyberpunk 2077 (with the ‘ray tracing extremely’ setting).
In-house benchmarks, after all, must be taken with some warning, and we’ll need to see how AFMF 2 performs ourselves – when it’s absolutely completed, after all.
Do not forget that AFMF is a standalone tackle body technology, which is utilized at a driver-level (as a part of the Adrenalin driver). Additionally it is part of FSR, but it surely’s to not be confused with FSR 3.1 – it’s only one component of the latter, and AFMF will also be used by itself. The important thing distinction is FSR should have assist coded for it in video games, however standalone AFMF (or AFMF 2) is baked into the motive force, and so works for all PC video games (with newer AMD graphics playing cards, that’s – cross-platform assist for the finest rival GPUs is misplaced, clearly, as this can be a driver tech).
There are caveats, as you may think – don’t count on the outcomes to be nearly as good as FSR 3, as they gained’t be. However for a cover-everything resolution, AFMF is a nifty piece of tech, and model 2 helps to handle a number of the larger obstacles with the unique function. Specifically these worries about elevated enter lag affecting some video games particularly, reminiscent of fast-paced shooters, and the tweak to handle fallback and motion-related issues, too.
Through VideoCardz