AMD acquires performance-tweaking specialist HiAlgo

June 30, 2016 | 10:57

Tags: #radeon #raja-koduri

Companies: #amd

Despite an undeniably shaky financial footing, AMD has announced the acquisition of gaming software specialist HiAlgo in an effort to bolster the GPU side of its business.

HiAlgo boasts of three core technologies: Boost, Switch, and Chill. Boost, the company claims, reduces lag and improves the framerate of games through a system which 'intercepts and on the fly modifies commands sent from the game to the graphics card, optimising performance frame by frame' to dynamically scale the rendering resolution: during motion-heavy moments, the resolution is dropped to boost the framerate; during relatively calm moments, the resolution is increased to boost the visual quality of the scene. Switch, meanwhile, offers manual control over the HiAlgo Boost system: pressing the hot-key immediately switches the game into a 50 per cent resolution rendering mode. In both cases, the company claims, all overlays - including in-game menus and head-up displays - remain at full resolution.

HiAlgo Chill, by contrast, is designed primarily for mobile gamers. Rather than modifying the resolution, it modifies the framerate using the same principles as Boost: high-motion scenes get a high framerate, while low-motion scenes get a lower framerate. This, the company claims, results in lower power draw and heat output from both the CPU and GPU compared to running the game sans-Chill.

'Software is an integral part of advancing the science of graphics, enabling us to best harness the silicon of the GPU to maximise performance and deliver outstanding experiences in games and applications,' claimed Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect of the Radeon Technologies Group at AMD. 'HiAlgo embodies our spirit of passion, persistence and play by delivering a number of creative approaches to software that improve gamers' experiences, and helps future-proof the GPU.'

AMD has hinted that it plans to integrate Boost, Switch, and Chill technologies into its Radeon Software bundle in the future, though it has one major hurdle to clear first: HiAlgo's technologies are currently only compatible with selected DirectX 9 titles. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Discuss this in the forums
YouTube logo
MSI MPG Velox 100R Chassis Review

October 14 2021 | 15:04

TOP STORIES

SUGGESTED FOR YOU