Radeon Chill Actually Works!

cybereality

cybereality

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I tried Radeon Chill when it first game out, and all it seemed to do was hurt performance, so I wrote it off.

However, today I was looking into setting a frame cap with AMD software only (having problems with MSI Afterburner, but that is for another thread). I found Chill actually works!

I needed to stay within my FreeSync range on a 165Hz monitor. Also, I find diminishing returns after 100fps, so I set a Chill range of 102 to 162. It's perfect.

Tried a few games like Forza Horizon 4 and Doom Eternal (both games I can normally get 165fps). The fps was lower, more like 140 - 150 but it was butter smooth with FreeSync (also reduced temps by about 10C).

And it didn't feel any slower, it still felt totally smooth and I feel better knowing it's in the AMD driver and I don't need a third party app. I would say it might be better than frame cap in RivaTuner, but I will need to test more games.

If you have an AMD GPU, check it out. Seems like a win to me.
 
Yes, Chill is rather good, if you want consistent frame times, set the range lower or closer to each other with capability of the GPU and it works really well. It is far better than any frame limiter I've ever used. What I also notice is you can get higher lows since the GPU is cooler and can ramp up higher for an increase load vice going full out all the time at a much higher temperature.
 
I tried setting a smaller range, but I found this to introduce brief choppiness when going from an idle scene to lots of action.

With both min and max at 162 (which someone else suggested) it wasn't working well, often going above 162 and getting the stutter like I mentioned.

I also tried 144 to 162, and that was better but there were still some brief stuttering. With 102 to 162 everything was smooth though so I'm rolling with that.
 
cybereality said:
I tried setting a smaller range, but I found this to introduce brief choppiness when going from an idle scene to lots of action.

With both min and max at 162 (which someone else suggested) it wasn't working well, often going above 162 and getting the stutter like I mentioned.

I also tried 144 to 162, and that was better but there were still some brief stuttering. With 102 to 162 everything was smooth though so I'm rolling with that.
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Try setting something like 120, this can get a little tricky and mostly not so beneficial except maybe in twitch shooters where consistent frame times aids in more consistent player performance. I've not seen that on the few games I've tried it on, I mostly do exactly what you do but I normally cap it to less than the FreeSync range and lower than the max game frame rate I see. If I see the game max is 130fps, consistent around 115fps, I will set it to 115fps for max and probably around 100fps for low. Has to be per game bases which the drivers allows you to do with drivers profiles (awesome feature).
 
Hmm... maybe I'll have to try it again, as it wasn't working when I tried it not to long ago (less than a month ago). Maybe it's the game (miecraft) but I turned it on, and I was hitting 200+fps with a cap of 72 turned on :p (my monitor has a small freesync range of like 48-75 so I set to like 50 - 72). Alas, it seemed to do absolutely nothing though. When my motherboard comes back from RMA I'll try it out again.
 
I'm a big fan of AMD Chill. I am at 1440@144 monitor, and truth be told, i don't see a huge difference from 120fps to 144fps. So I set the Chill range to 90-120fps for my 5700xt. This works perfectly for me, and it decreases the temps of my 480x (arctic Twin Turbo 2 cooler, 7V), with the range here at 60-60fps since its paired with a hdtv.

Stock thermal paste:
Before: 66C core
After: 62C core

Noctua NT-H1
Before: 56C core
After: 55C core
 
Maybe I mistake but I think that Chill didn't work with Anti-lag and because I prefer the second, when I need low FPS I just lower the P6-7 state (MHz) in the game profile.
 
That's different Anti-lag mean to click with mouse/kbd and to see it done/on monitor.
 
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