We see that in the game console market, AMD can be said to have achieved a worldwide domination, whether it is Microsoft's latest XBOX series or Sony's PS5 series and even Steam Deck, all of which use AMD platform solutions, which is also an incomparable advantage of AMD with high-performance CPUs and GPUs. On the PC platform, AMD also has such advantages, and the "3A" combination of CPU + GPU + Adrenalin driver is undoubtedly the top game solution for PC players.
At AMD's recent technical briefing, Frank Azor, AMD's Chief Architect of Game Solutions and Markets, once again gave a detailed introduction and explanation of the new features of the latest Adrenolian graphics driver.
Adrenalin opens up a new gaming experience
Frank Azor said that AMD's software strategy mainly focuses on three key points of stability, performance and experience, the first of our priority areas is to ensure that our software is stable at all times, stability It not only represents the quality of the software itself, it is also related to the quality of hardware. In the past 12 months, 40 games have been able to support new or updated drivers at the time of its release. At the same time, in 2021, AMD released a total of 26 versions of the Adrenoin driver, and 100% passed this WHQL test, each driver has been repeatedly tested by 6000 hardware and operating system combinations.
Next is the performance aspect, taking "Far Cry 6", "Killer 3", "Psychic Medium", "Mysterious Island", "Resident Evil: Village" 5 games as an example, AMD's new driver (22.3.1 vs. 20.12.2) has achieved at least 14% improvement, on average, from the initial version of the RDNA-enabled driver to the latest driver, the performance has increased by about 15%.
The new features added by the Adrenalin driver are also very useful. First of all, the most eye-catching is of course radeon Super Resolution (RSR), through this feature players can enjoy more popular games similar to FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) frame rate improvement and picture quality upgrade effect. At the same time, AMD has also upgraded the RSR to make it work well with all AMD Radeon RX 5000 series and above graphics cards plus Ryzen™ 6000 series processors. In addition, the latest driver has added a new "Sharp Drawing Slider" to allow players to further adjust the picture quality according to their preferences.
The AMD Link feature has also been further upgraded to convert player computers into personal gaming cloud servers. AMD Link is a free app that supports Apple Android as well as Windows platforms, and players can play games with 3 friends at the same time through the AMD Link server.
AMD Privacy View is the latest addition of a useful feature. It can achieve eye tracking through the computer's webcam, and the player can only show which area on the screen, which means that if someone wants to peek at your screen to steal information, it will become very difficult.
In DX11 games, the latest driver brings a huge performance improvement. As you can see, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey has increased by 28%, GTAV has increased by 11%, Total War: Troy has increased by 17%, Watchdog: Legion has increased by 10%, and World of Warcraft: Shadowland has even increased by 30%!
When it comes to performance improvements, we have to mention AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology, which has supported more than 100 games in just one year of its launch. At COMPACTEX, AMD released FSR 2.0, a new upgrade to FSR 1.0. FSR 2.0 does not require hardware to support machine learning, and can achieve a significant improvement in image quality, with the same or more effective than those that require machine learning hardware. Because there is no need for AI hardware support, FSR 2.0 can support not only the older version of AMD Radeon graphics cards, but also the graphics cards of other companies on the market.
When it comes to referring to amD's emphasis on what benefits the combination of the AAA platform and Radeon Software can bring to gamers. Frank Azor said: "For AMD, we see the AAA platform as a truly unified platform, and what is unique about it is that it combines all of AMD's hardware and software solution technologies over the years to make it the best gaming platform that gamers can choose, and our Adrenoin software actually plays a vital role in this process, and we see it as the third A." And all of our other technologies, like the Smart series, all of which work very well with Adrenalin software. ”
From FSR1.0 to FSR2.0, AMD wants to invite more people to experience a better platform
When it comes to performance improvements, we have to mention AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology, which has supported more than 100 games in just one year of its launch. At COMPACTEX, AMD released FSR 2.0, a new upgrade to FSR 1.0. FSR 2.0 does not require hardware to support machine learning, and can achieve a significant improvement in image quality, with the same or more effective than those that require machine learning hardware. Because there is no need for AI hardware support, FSR 2.0 can support not only the older version of AMD Radeon graphics cards, but also the graphics cards of other companies on the market.
Frank Azor explains: "FSR 1.0 is a space-based upgrade algorithm that allows us to see what should be the best level of image enlargement technology at the moment, but it comes at the cost of losing image quality, and its benefit is that it is very easy for game developers to use, and the process of integrating FSR1.0 into their games is quite simple." FSR 2.0 it is a time domain-based picture enlargement algorithm, through the time domain data provided by the previous frames we can provide more information to the algorithm, which makes FSR 2.0 can do this, that is, to provide much higher image quality, while the impact on performance is negligible. ”
It can be said that FSR1.0 and FSR2.0 are two very good solutions at present
The benefits of FSR 1.0 are that they are very simple, very easy to adopt, very widely applicable, and support thousands of games together with RSR.
FSR 2.0 is suitable for players who do not want to sacrifice image quality and want to achieve a significant increase in frame rate (40% to 50%). For developers, AMD's solutions are very simple and easy to use.
Frank Azor also mentioned that AMD gives customers a lot of freedom not to require them to use a specific brand of graphics card, while achieving a significant increase in performance.
By doing so, AMD's uniqueness will be reflected. AMD doesn't want to lock users into the AMD platform, they just invite more people to experience a better, more outstanding platform. In this platform, AMD has always adhered to the concept of player first, game developer first.
As you can see from the data, the image quality improvement after enabling FSR 2.0 is obvious, very close to the native 4K resolution rendering, while the performance is much higher than the native setting. FSR 2.0 is available in Three Modes: True, Balanced, and Performance, and players can choose a better picture quality or a higher frame rate based on their preferences.
Although FSR 2.0 has just been released, it is already supported by 14 game and game development companies, and FSR and FSR 2.0 are arguably the fastest adopted industry software features in history and the fastest tool EVER adopted by AMD. The above functions have been installed in the latest version of Adrenalin software, and players can enjoy them immediately as long as they download and install. I'm pleased to see that, as of press time, AMD's newly launched blog shows that the number of games that support FSR 2.0 will continue to increase after God of War and Farm Simulator 22, and in addition to the five games of Abyss World, Killer 3, Rescue Party: Live, Super Human, and Kallisto Agreement, there are eleven other games that provide FSR 2.0 support will be launched later, making FSR currently available and will soon be supported The total number of games in 2.0 increased to nineteen.
Through this launch and media communications, it can be seen that AMD's strategy is to build the best game platform and create the best game solutions, and this process needs to be done together with various ecosystem partners. Frank Azor confidently said: "The concept we uphold is the concept of player first, the gaming experience we want to provide them is open, and it is benign and beneficial to the entire market, in other words, we do not require players to have some preconceived notions or impose unnecessary restrictions, so that they have room for choice, so that they can really feel that they are being put first, this is our strategy." ”
For players and consumers, AMD's strategy is worthy of respect and expectation, and a truly open attitude will gain more players who pursue free choice.