AMD officially launches Anti-Lag 2 with AMD Software 24.6.1

Anti-Lag 2 support has officially added to AMD’s GPU drivers with AMD Software 24.6.1

Last year, AMD launched their Anti-Lag+ technology, a new driver-based lag mitigation technology that lowers the click-to-response latency of games. This technology expanded on AMD’s existing Anti-Lag technology made games feel more responsive. Now, AMD has released Anti-Lag 2 with their latest Radeon GPU drivers (version 24.6.1). This new game-integrated technology that takes AMD’s anti-lag strategy one step further.

What went wrong with Anti-Lag+?

After launch, it was found that AMD’s Anti-Lag+ technology was triggering the anti-cheat technologies of some online multiplayer games. As a result of this, Anti-Lag+ users were being banned from their favourite games, forcing AMD to remove the feature from their drivers. Thankfully, developers reversed these unintended bans. Even so, it was clear that Anti-Lag+ needed to be reworked before it was re-introduced to AMD’s driver stack.

Anti-Lag 2 is a game integrated technology

With AMD Radeon Anti-Lag 2, AMD has made their anti-lag tech a game-integrated technology. Consequently, this makes Anti-Lag 2 a direct competitor to Nvidia’s Reflex technology. AMD has partnered with Valve to integrate this technology into Counter Strike 2. In due time, we can expect more games to feature this tech in the future.

Anti-Lag works by controlling the pace of CPU work to ensure that it aligns with a user’s GPU. This restructuring of work allows for decreases click-to-response times and delivers more responsive gameplay. Since this new version of AMD Anti-Lag is game integrated, it can enable lower levels of latency than AMD’s older driver-based anti-lag solutions.

Radeon Anti-Lag 2 vs. Anti-Lag

Radeon Anti-Lag technology controls the pace of the CPU to make sure it aligns with the GPU, reducing the amount of CPU work that gets queued up. This decreases input-to-display response times, making games more responsive. As a driver-based solution, the initial version of Radeon Anti-Lag has long been available in AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition and can be enabled in any game, delivering lower latency for more responsive gameplay.

With the game-integrated Radeon Anti-Lag 2, the frame alignment is also applied in the game code itself and works in conjunction with the CPU pacing controlled by the driver to allow for better frame syncing. This leads to even lower click-to-response latency than what an in-driver only solution like Radeon Anti-Lag can deliver. Since Radeon Anti-Lag 2 is an in-game technology, it does require game developers to add it to their games, with Counter-Strike 2 being the first.

In time, we expect more multiplayer titles to support AMD’s Anti-Lag 2 technology. It is likely that we will see more game integrations this summer.

AMD’s new 24.6.1 GPU drivers also come with game-specific optimisations for The First Descendant and One Human, and new HYPR-Tune profiles for several new games. Full release notes for this GPU driver are available here.

You can join the discussion on AMD’s Anti-Lag 2 tech becoming a part of their mainstream Radeon GPU drivers on the OC3D Forums.