AMD Adrenalin 2020 Driver Gets Dynamic Resolution Support

The first details about the upcoming AMD Adrenalin 2020 drivers have been leaked. This would show that the software will receive support for dynamic resolutions, among other things. This information was temporarily on the AMD website.

Reddit user PKBeam64 noted that AMD’s website showed some details about the Adrenalin 2020 software. AMD has since taken the webpage offline, but not before some users saved images. A feature called Radeon Boost was mentioned on the website, among other things. This brand name is already mentioned on packaging of recent Navi video cards, notes Reddit user Angryhobbit.

Presumably, Radeon Boost is a dynamic resolution technique, which may be based on a technology from a company called HiAlgo. AMD took over HiAlgo in 2016 and previously integrated the HiAlgo Chill technology to automatically limit the frame rate of games in order to save energy. That technique is called Radeon Chill in the AMD software. HiAlgo also makes a technology for dynamic resolutions called HiAlgo Boost. Presumably Radeon Boost is based on this.

HiAlgo Boost is a technology that adjusts the resolution of games during gameplay to improve the frame rate. “When players move the camera, Boost decreases the resolution to increase the frame rate. Once the image is still, full resolution is restored,” the HiAlgo website reads.

Dynamic resolutions have been used in games for some time, but until now the technique has mainly been used on consoles. For example, many games for the Nintendo Switch use a similar technology. In this way, developers got demanding games like The Witcher 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2 working on the console, despite the relatively weak hardware.

Radeon Boost isn’t the only new feature Adrenalin 2020 is adding. According to previous rumors, the software will also receive support for integer scaling. That’s a method that improves low-resolution games or pixel art. Twitter user Komachi_Ensaka came across a changelog for Adrenalin 2020, which mentions integer scaling.

It is still unclear when the new driver suite from AMD will be released. AMD usually releases major updates around the end of the year. Adrenalin 2020 is therefore expected to be released in the coming weeks.

AMD’s changelog mentions integer scaling. Photo by @Komachi_Ensaka on Twitter