After the FSR 3 demo, AMD wanted us to show us something new and very interesting. Prefaced with the caveat that there will be obvious image quality issues in some scenarios, we saw an early demo of AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF), which is a driver-level frame generation option for all DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 titles. We saw it demonstrated on The Last of Us Part 1... and it works.
This is using optical flow only. No motion vector input from FSR 2 means that the best AFMF can do is interpolate a new frame between two standard rendered frames similar to the way a TV does it - albeit with far less latency. The generated frames will be 'coarser' without the motion vector data but the effectiveness of those frames will scale according to content and the base frame-rate. A slower moving game, for example, makes it easier to interpolate content as there is less difference between the two standard rendered frames. Meanwhile, the higher the base frame-rate, the less time a generated frame persists on-screen - with the lower quality interpolated frames 'strobing' between standard rendered frames. Typically, all frame-gen solutions benefit from higher base frame-rates, but this is especially important with AMFS.
However, what we saw in the demo was clearly worthwhile. The bottom line is that we did indeed see The Last of Us Part 1 running at circa-160fps and higher, albeit with v-sync off, so there was screen-tearing (we suspect this is because it was running outside of the screen's VRR range). Right now, AFMF works with v-sync off, but AMD is looking to add v-sync support. Initially, AMD asked us not to share our thoughts on AFMF until closer to release, but a little while later, we received word that we could talk about it - excellent news! We also received a series of data points on the technology.
First, AFMF can provide frame-rate improvements in excess of 90 percent, depending on the hardware and the game. AFMF is intended to be run on games that are already able to hit a smooth frame-rate (70fps, for instance), with the goal of maxing out a 120Hz or 144Hz panel, with higher frame-rates resulting in higher image quality, for the reasons previously stated. Similar to the Radeon Boost driver-level dynamic resolution scaling feature, the tech is automatically disabled in response to rapid mouse movement, presumably to prevent obvious visual anomalies that will occur in frame generation when the two source frames have so little in common.
AMD was a little guarded when they showed us the TLOUp1 demo, because it was early and an optical flow-only solution will not match the quality of FSR 3 or DLSS 3 in most content. This is a tech with obvious limitations. Outweighing that, we think, is the fact that it should work with any DX11 or DX12 game - and one of the best things about PC gaming is the wealth of options given to users. And soon we'll have another, potentially potent one. The only slight downer? AMD is integrating it into its HYPR-RX package, which is exclusive to RDNA 3 GPUs - a touch strange bearing in mind that FSR 3, the more complex frame-gen solution, is more broadly compatible.
Even so, we were genuinely excited by the AFMF concept because it's another feature available to gamers that'll find utility on high refresh rate screens, which are basically the norm in the PC market these days. AMD is perfectly clear about the strengths and weaknesses of AFMF and at the very least, RDNA 3 users will have a fascinating new tool to experiment with. At best, you have an 'after-market' frame generation solution that could work really well on a huge number of games. Then there's the Asus ROG Ally - a handheld with RDNA 3 graphics and a 120Hz VRR screen, where the artefacts could well be far less noticeable. Again, we should stress that we were 'hands off' for this demo, so the proof of the pudding will be in the tasting/testing, but we're certainly looking forward to checking it out.