AMD Radeon Boost – faster gaming performance at the click of a button

kac77

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There's a whole bunch of new stuff in this driver. That hothardware link is worth a read!
 
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Thanks, that's a good watch. Can't believe we are on the cusp of 4K being doable with relatively decently priced cards.
 
Boost only appears to work in GTA V when rotating view, straight runs it seems to be off. While turning frame rate goes up from 70 to over 100fps+ at 1440p with pretty much maxed out settings, 4xMSAA. I did not notice any significant degradation unless I was really looking for it. Will have to play around with this more.

I can now use the image sharpening filter, before for me it was added texture noise, now at 50% sharpness it improves the textures, at least in GTA V.

The interface even further distances itself from the Nvidia clunky and very outdated panel. I like the new OCing controls and monitoring as well. The per game profiles while there before is even easier to do now.

There is a FPS average on the Home screen on last game played, very interesting. Button to go straight to the profile, launch button as well. Very handy. The built in Browser, yes Browser can be used ingame not sure the point but could be interesting to use it to cheat a little if one got stuck in a game rather easiliy. Streaming now gets it's own tab and page which looks well organized. Have not tried AMD Link yet with a phone to see if the same options and monitoring are available like before.

In short, outstanding!
 
It is a start. Guess what advance tech the new consoles will have "almost" perfected by launch, and will be standard issue by 2022? This is a new and limited tech which PC users are going to "beta" for the new consoles. No problem with that. PC should get shit first ya. I think this is all about the low cost card and especially the APU's.
AMD's APU's are already pushing E-Sports into mainstream. How far can they go before bumping into the low end GPU? Do they care?
Is APU the new low end?
What is Intels game if not low end in CPU? Then of course GPU.
How does Nvidia survive all this?
 
Boost only appears to work in GTA V when rotating view, straight runs it seems to be off. While turning frame rate goes up from 70 to over 100fps+ at 1440p with pretty much maxed out settings, 4xMSAA. I did not notice any significant degradation unless I was really looking for it. Will have to play around with this more.

I can now use the image sharpening filter, before for me it was added texture noise, now at 50% sharpness it improves the textures, at least in GTA V.

The interface even further distances itself from the Nvidia clunky and very outdated panel. I like the new OCing controls and monitoring as well. The per game profiles while there before is even easier to do now.

There is a FPS average on the Home screen on last game played, very interesting. Button to go straight to the profile, launch button as well. Very handy. The built in Browser, yes Browser can be used ingame not sure the point but could be interesting to use it to cheat a little if one got stuck in a game rather easiliy. Streaming now gets it's own tab and page which looks well organized. Have not tried AMD Link yet with a phone to see if the same options and monitoring are available like before.

In short, outstanding!

the boost function reads your mouse movements and only mouse movements.. so the more your mouse moves the lower it'll scale thinking you're in a high action area that requires higher frame rates.
 
It is a start. Guess what advance tech the new consoles will have "almost" perfected by launch, and will be standard issue by 2022? This is a new and limited tech which PC users are going to "beta" for the new consoles.
Current consoles have been using dynamic resolution tech for years. Numerous games. Cross platfrom games, not only exclusives. All 3 consoles.
 
the boost function reads your mouse movements and only mouse movements.. so the more your mouse moves the lower it'll scale thinking you're in a high action area that requires higher frame rates.
That seems to work rather well and would be simple to impliment or simplier maybe is the right word. Thanks
 
the boost function reads your mouse movements and only mouse movements.. so the more your mouse moves the lower it'll scale thinking you're in a high action area that requires higher frame rates.

I do wish it wasn't limited to mouse imput, that it recognized also, say, controller input.

Otherwise, it works quite well. While traveling I play Destiny 2 on a Ryzen 3 3200U laptop (aka one of the lowest things you can throw at it) and it's always been just barely enough for 'comfortable' gaming (I'm being forgiving here, I just couldn't find a GPU/CPU/battery/screen/weight combo I found acceptable, so I bought the least offending option to hold until next year). Boost made it feel decently more responsive, even if 720p reduced by %50 is noticeably blocky. I typically played D2 at 720p %30 resolution scale, so boost is allowing me to play it at %50 scale and only %50 that (= %25 of 720p) when it absolutely needs to.

I don't have an AMD GPU on my main rig currently, but if this feature gains widespread support... I'd definitely consider an AMD desktop GPU again. I could set 1440p and forget about it, knowing that Boost will smooth out any drops. That said, I find myself playing with my XB1 controller more and more - except shooters - so expanding Boost to controllers would be quite desirable.
 
I do wish it wasn't limited to mouse imput, that it recognized also, say, controller input.

Otherwise, it works quite well. While traveling I play Destiny 2 on a Ryzen 3 3200U laptop (aka one of the lowest things you can throw at it) and it's always been just barely enough for 'comfortable' gaming (I'm being forgiving here, I just couldn't find a GPU/CPU/battery/screen/weight combo I found acceptable, so I bought the least offending option to hold until next year). Boost made it feel decently more responsive, even if 720p reduced by %50 is noticeably blocky. I typically played D2 at 720p %30 resolution scale, so boost is allowing me to play it at %50 scale and only %50 that (= %25 of 720p) when it absolutely needs to.

I don't have an AMD GPU on my main rig currently, but if this feature gains widespread support... I'd definitely consider an AMD desktop GPU again. I could set 1440p and forget about it, knowing that Boost will smooth out any drops. That said, I find myself playing with my XB1 controller more and more - except shooters - so expanding Boost to controllers would be quite desirable.
It works with controllers. It would be real weird if it didn't.
 
How far are we from getting this feature to only downscale the resolution of certain regions of the screen?

I see a common complaint is that the IQ drop is hardly noticeable, except when there's a static object on the screen, like your weapon/gun model in a FPS game. While the moving areas are an indescernable lower resolution, the relatively static weapon model will suddenly and noticeably become aliased when the player's view is panning. I believe in the VR area we have implementations of dynamic resolution within regions of the frame, and combined with eye tracking inside the HMD, the tech can get away with downscaling the resolution of regions the player is not phyiscally looking at.
 
It works with controllers. It would be real weird if it didn't.

I can assure you, it does not. AMD themselves specify that it works solely with mouse input:

upload_2019-12-11_14-25-51.png


Also, I just tried it yesterday like I said, with the controller plugged in while testing Destiny 2. When I moved the mouse, Boost activated perfectly, when I moved the camera on the controller, it did not.
 
I can't play any Uplay title. The screen just locks up with the music playing in the background . The only work around I found is to play windowed mode very annoying.

Figured it out. I have to unplug my second monitor.
 
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Is APU the new low end?

Yes. Though that's actually been true for quite a while now, as integrated graphics from Intel has improved significantly while strapped to CPUs you'd actually want to use.

What is Intels game if not low end in CPU? Then of course GPU.

They're still faster in gaming, so ;)

How does Nvidia survive all this?

By actually producing faster GPUs and pushing performance and features forward? When's AMD getting RT, or reaching at least 1080Ti speeds again?

;)
 
This is why Warhead looked so clean I guess. That sharpening feature is pretty nice.
 
I can assure you, it does not. AMD themselves specify that it works solely with mouse input:

View attachment 206357

Also, I just tried it yesterday like I said, with the controller plugged in while testing Destiny 2. When I moved the mouse, Boost activated perfectly, when I moved the camera on the controller, it did not.
I think the video up above said it did. The mouse control comment is basically describing how the technology works. Most people especially when playing FPS use a mouse and keyboard. So I think it's more of a marketing misunderstanding than anything.
 
By actually producing faster GPUs and pushing performance and features forward? When's AMD getting RT, or reaching at least 1080Ti speeds again?

;)
In what context? AMD has the R7 which already beats a 1080ti. In DX11 it will trade blows but in DX12 especially newer titles it beats a 1080ti and even gets close to a 2080 numerous times.

What games you play matter quite a bit when it comes to GPU benches.
 
I think the video up above said it did. The mouse control comment is basically describing how the technology works. Most people especially when playing FPS use a mouse and keyboard. So I think it's more of a marketing misunderstanding than anything.

Did you even read the message you just quoted? I did literally say that playing Destiny 2, moving the mouse would activate boost, moving the controller a moment later would not.

It doesn't get much more empirically clear than that. Boost does not react to the controller, only to mouse input.
 
Hothardware's link in the OP confirmed via wording in their article, that Shadow of The Tomb Raider's boost works with controller input, mouse input, and keyboard input. They didn't specifically mention gamepads during the GTA5 testing portion of the article.

This is early days for support of this feature. If its not working properly with one or more games, I would assume it will improve as new drivers come out. Its also likely that most Destiny 2 PC players won't be using gamepads. So, they may have left out gamepad support for boost with that game, for now.
 
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This is early days for support of this feature. If its not working properly with one or more games, I would assume it will improve as new drivers come out.

I do hope that's true, because it seemed pretty stupid that it wouldn't work with controllers, and I only had D2 available to test when I did. It would make sense that boost's supported methods vary on a per-game basis. I don't have TR installed on that Ryzen laptop and I don't really feel like re-doing the giant download just to try how much it'd affect smoothness on the low-end GPU, but I am tempted. Either way, hopefully boost becomes more supported soon.
 


6:45 - Alex says that Borderland 3 also doesn't boost via gamepad. 30 seconds later, he shows how boost activates while moving the mouse on a menu, despite little change happening on screen. The same thing happened to me on Destiny 2, so again it seems boost has nothing to do with on-screen movement, but mouse input.

Unless of course we're talking about support limitations. Then again, mouse input is what AMD explicitly said, and we now have 2 out of 2 games with the same mouse-centric behavior.
 
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6:45 - Alex says that Borderland 3 also doesn't boost via gamepad. 30 seconds later, he shows how boost activates while moving the mouse on a menu, despite little change happening on screen. The same thing happened to me on Destiny 2, so again it seems boost has nothing to do with on-screen movement, but mouse input.

Unless of course we're talking about support limitations. Then again, mouse input is what AMD explicitly said, and we now have 2 out of 2 games with the same mouse-centric behavior.
I guess I'll have to quote hothardware

Regarding Shadow of The Tomb Raider
The only thing that changed in game during this testing run is whether Radeon Boost was on. It didn't even require moving the mouse; just touching a key on the keyboard was enough for the driver to register that there was input and start boosting frame rates.

Toggling Radeon Boost worked just as well with an Xbox controller, too. Whatever your preferred input method, Radeon Boost, in this case, was able to pump frame rates upward by around 25%, and at these somewhat lower frame rates, that was a very perceptible feeling.
Read more at https://hothardware.com/reviews/radeon-software-adrenaline-2020-edition#DH07K8HbG7GrsZCF.99[/quote}

Right after this, they showed results for GTA5. They did not mention anything about the input method. I assume it was the same behavior, otherwise it probably would have been mentioned that GTA 5 did not work with a gamepad. However, I'm not saying that's absolutely the case. As I stated, its an assumption.

My guess is that Tomb Raider and GTA are well suited to gamepads and therefore support for that was included during this first driver release. Whereas Destiny 2 and Borderlands 3 are likely to be played via Mouse and Keyboard, by the majority of PC gamers. So they left out gamepad support for now.
 
I mean it's possible, but it's not like there aren't people playing Destiny 2 on controllers - look at the millions of console gamers that turn on cross-save and may prefer to play the game still on a controller. We're basically getting conflicting reports from different games. This does suggest it's a support issue, but I wonder why AMD didn't specify this clearly instead of obscuring what's actually happening.
 
I mean it's possible, but it's not like there aren't people playing Destiny 2 on controllers - look at the millions of console gamers that turn on cross-save and may prefer to play the game still on a controller. We're basically getting conflicting reports from different games. This does suggest it's a support issue, but I wonder why AMD didn't specify this clearly instead of obscuring what's actually happening.
Its what....8 games right now?----with rudimentary support. It seems to me that this is very early and AMD probably preferred not to wax on about specifics. There will be more support over time. Since it requires game specific support. Its likely that they will soon cover most of the currently relevant games, to some degree of support. And as new games release, those will have full support.

A question I have is why no DX12 or Vulkan? If they can't get those working, this feature seems like it will die real soon.
 
I can't play any Uplay title. The screen just locks up with the music playing in the background . The only work around I found is to play windowed mode very annoying.

Figured it out. I have to unplug my second monitor.

I had the same issue in World of Warships. Unplugged my 2nd monitor and working fine. Definitely won't be installing this one on my racing PC just yet
 
For those having lockups with the new drivers, use Standard mode and not Gaming mode (Gaming mode turns on Anti-lag, ImageSharpening, Enhanced Sync.). You can use Custom mode and individually turn on these which for me seems to work without issue so not sure what else Gaming mode is doing behind the scenes.
 
Did you even read the message you just quoted? I did literally say that playing Destiny 2, moving the mouse would activate boost, moving the controller a moment later would not.

It doesn't get much more empirically clear than that. Boost does not react to the controller, only to mouse input.
Do you understand that there could be such a thing as bugs? All I can tell you is what the video said.
 
Tried it with BFV and it was very noticeable. I've got it turned off now because I got the shimmering effect a little too much and it was distracting

I didn't know this required game support, is that even true ?
 
Do you understand that there could be such a thing as bugs? All I can tell you is what the video said.

Yup, it's been settled already. I figured trusting AMD over a reviewer made more sense. Turns out that was too optimistic. What a company...
 
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