Radeon Software Crimson Edition version 17.4.1 is now live. Along with some bug fixes, the bulk of this release is additional VR support.
AMD is making good on their promise to support asynchronous reprojection for both Oculus Rift and SteamVR. Oculus’ “Asynchronous Spacewarp” is now usable on R9 Fury, 290 and 390 series cards, while SteamVR’s “Asynchronous Reprojection” is usable on RX 480 and 470s with Windows 10.
Oculus and SteamVR asynchronous technologies are different, but they’re based on the same idea: if a system is delivering fewer than 90 frames per second of a game, a separate process can take the last successfully delivered frame and alter it based on head tracking. Spacewarp goes a step further and extrapolates movement to create a “synthetic frame,” reducing juddering in animations. No solution is as good as actually running a game at 90FPS, but this should “provide an overall smoother VR experience” (read: cause less nausea).
Support for DisplayPort 1.4 HBR3 (8.1Gbit/s), 8K 60Hz dual cable, and 8K 30Hz single cable has also been added.
- Patrick Lathan