AMD Fluid Motion frames 2 is now available and gives Radeon users a new AI optimised frame generation option for most games

It's easy to overlook the graphics software that works alongside the upcoming Nvidia GeForce RTX series and AMD Radeon RX 8000 series graphics cards, such as frame-generation. AMD's Adrenalin driver should serve as a good reminder.

AMD has just announced Adrenalin 24.9.1, which is said to include changes that "boost gaming performances by 2.5x". This is primarily due to the second generation of AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF 2), which has been officially released along with this latest driver.

AFMF 2 had been in beta for some time, and we have had the first generation technology since January. AMD's blog failed to hint at a upcoming AFMF 2 release last month. This has now been realized.

AFMF is a driver level frame gen technology, which you can toggle on and off in the Adrenalin Software. It gives you some of the benefits of FSR or DLSS without any game-specific optimizations. This means that no per-game implementations are required, and also no per game performance and quality enhancements.

AMD states that the second generation FMF "adds new enhancements and tunable options for a better frame-generation experience, including AI optimized enhancements for better quality, lower latencies, and better performance on embedded graphics". AFMF is now compatible with Radeon Chill and borderless full-screen mode on 7000-series graphics cards, as well as Vulkan and OpenGL gaming.

AMD's charts indicate that "on average, 2.5x higher frame rate in selected games" when using AFMF 2 This shouldn't be taken too seriously, as the results are from games that use HYPR-RX/FSR 2, and not onlyAFMF 2

This is a standard use-case, as AFMF is used by those who want to generate frames without FSR 3. In this case, you will likely be using other optimizations, such as FSR 2 which doesn't support frame gen, and HYPR RX (which optimises your game settings).

But, whether or not this "2.5x gain" is attributed to AFMF 2, we can't attribute the majority of it to AFMF 2 - even if it was a standard use case. In Nick's tests, which admittedly were of an older build of the technology, he found that AFMF 2 offered a slight improvement in frame rate over first-gen AFMF. It also had other benefits not related to frame rate such as latency and handling of fast-motion.

Don't expect AFMF to be a game-changer. It'll be nice, but not essential, to have for games that don’t support FSR 3. Who's going to complain about free frames? There should be a good market for this, given that most handheld gaming computers come with an AMD Radeon graphics card.

Radeon 7000 series owners can enable this feature by enabling the HYPR RX profile in Adrenalin. Radeon 6000 series owners can activate it under Graphics Options within Adrenalin.

While AFMF 2 may be the most notable change in the latest AMD driver there are also some additions such as Geometric downscaling. AMD explains that Geometric Downscaling is used when videos are played in a smaller window than the native resolution. This helps to reduce visual artifacts, aliasing and smooth out video quality.

Download AMD Adrenalin version 24.9.1 from here.