AMD Fluid Motion Frames comes out of preview, claims up to 97% more FPS at 1080p in first full Radeon driver release

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24.1.1 is the first WHQL driver to have AFMF.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
(Image credit: YouTube - AMD)

AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) has officially been fully released through the 24.1.1 version Radeon Adrenalin driver. AFMF is AMD's driver level version of the frame generation technology that it uses for FSR 3, and trades off visual quality for compatibility spanning thousands of games using the DX11 and DX12 API. AMD claims AFMF will boost performance by up to 97% at 1080 and 103% at 1440p, but results will certainly vary by the title. 

Although FSR 3 with frame generation technology launched back in September, we've been waiting for the full release of the driver-level AFMF feature ever since. The feature arrived for RX 6000 and 7000 series graphics cards in October as part of a preview driver, and then for Radeon 700M series integrated graphics in a new preview driver earlier this month. The WHQL-verified drivers that came out today mark the first time AFMF has come out of beta status.

AFMF is basically FSR 3 frame generation but without the upscaling technology that comes bundled with FSR. You can still expect frame generation to nearly double your framerate, just like with FSR 3 compared to FSR 2, but the visual quality is certainly going to be lower with just AFMF enabled. The driver release notes mention that frame generation dynamically turns off during fast visual motion in order to keep image quality as high as possible, but generated frames are inherently lower quality than the original ones. AMD additionally recommends using variable refresh rate technology like FreeSync.

Additionally, frame generation increases latency, and AFMF is no different. AMD recommends users enable Radeon Anti-Lag or Anti-Lag+ and also keep the framerate at 60 FPS or more whenever using AFMF in order to achieve a reasonable level of latency. AFMF also requires games to be played in fullscreen.

The upside with AFMF is that it should work in basically all DX11 and DX12 titles, though it is conceivable that there could be bugs in specific instances. This is significantly different from DLSS 3, which only works on RTX 40 series GPUs and only then in games that specifically support DLSS 3. Compatibility is generally the biggest selling point of AMD's performance-boosting technologies, as FSR works on several generations of AMD, Nvidia, and Intel GPUs, though AFMF is limited to AMD GPUs only and, at that, only three different families.

With a claimed boost of performance of 97% at 1080p and 103% at 1440p, AMD is talking a big game with AFMF, though it is on par with the performance claims of FSR 3 and DLSS 3 frame generation. Of course, these figures are qualified with an "up to," and these gains will certainly depend on specific games and quality settings.

Matthew Connatser
Matthew Connatser

Matthew Connatser is a freelancing writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes articles about CPUs, GPUs, SSDs, and computers in general.

18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • vanadiel007
    Time to do an in depth test of this, both based on numbers and on playability and compatibility with a large set of gaming titles.

    That and I am first!
    Reply
  • d0x360
    AMD has proven without question that Nvidia is full of crap when they say you NEED a 4000 series card
    Reply
  • Gururu
    This will be interesting. Does anyone know what the preview might have looked like?
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    AFMF is AMD's driver level version of the frame generation technology that it uses for FSR 3, and trades off visual quality for compatibility spanning thousands of games using the DX11 and DX12 API.

    So in other words, instead of lowering your IQ settings and resolution for more frames, you get to "claim" you're playing at high settings instead?
    Reply
  • valthuer
    d0x360 said:
    AMD has proven without question that Nvidia is full of crap when they say you NEED a 4000 series card

    Depends on what you need the card for.

    If you 're only gaming at 1080p, you can definitely skip this generation.

    But, if you 're a fan of the 4K Ultra eye candy, then you definitely need an RTX-40 series GPU - and a very specific one at that: the 4090.
    Reply
  • tamalero
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    So in other words, instead of lowering your IQ settings and resolution for more frames, you get to "claim" you're playing at high settings instead?
    Bingo, the whole thing is so full of bull... a total placebo.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    Admin said:
    AFMF is basically FSR 3 frame generation but without the upscaling technology that comes bundled with FSR. You can still expect frame generation to nearly double your framerate, just like with FSR 3 compared to FSR 2, but the visual quality is certainly going to be lower with just AFMF enabled.
    This doesn't make sense to me. Why would rendering at native resolution result in worse quality than rendering at a lower resolution and upscaling (using frame generation in both cases)? I don't know why you'd assume that you're still running at a lower resolution even if you're not using FSR upscaling.

    Performance would obviously be worse at native vs lower resolution, but you should still be getting significantly better fps than without frame gen (albeit with some of those frames being 'fake').
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    blacknemesist said:
    Yes but also no. The best exemple that one can use is a TV : watch a video on you computer and then watch the same video on a TV and the internal upscaling system the TV uses will make you monitor look like it was broken.

    FG and DLSS/FSR/XESS do indeed render at a lower resolution and then upscale it and doing so creates a few artifacts that may or may not be tolerable(don't find out what they are as you won't be able to unsee them) but they do provide a much higher quality than the render quality so for 4k it upscaler from 2k but the result is extremely close to 4k. Needless to say that the lower you go the worst it gets.

    Yes, but like the article says AFMF doesn't do any upscaling

    AFMF is basically FSR 3 frame generation but without the upscaling technology that comes bundled with FSR. You can still expect frame generation to nearly double your framerate, just like with FSR 3 compared to FSR 2, but the visual quality is certainly going to be lower with just AFMF enabled.

    And to use your TV analogy, it seems to be the same thing that many TVs do and just duplicates frames to make for a smoother look, which increases latency (stated it does), and requires Radeon AntiLag and 60fps+ to work, so it also sounds like anyone with a 60hz monitor can't use it else face possible tearing and artifacts from generating frames in exceess of their refresh rate.
    Reply
  • Sleepy_Hollowed
    I mean, cool I guess for those that like high numbers and latency on all AMD cards vs just certain NVIDIA cards.
    Reply
  • purpleduggy
    Sleepy_Hollowed said:
    I mean, cool I guess for those that like high numbers and latency on all AMD cards vs just certain NVIDIA cards.
    "just certain Nvidia cards" are the vast majority of Nvidia cards if you look at Steam hardware survey. Most dont have a 4000 or even 3000 series card, but rather a GTX1060. on these cards, the frame generation tech from AMD is a huge deal, since Nvidia has abandoned their old cards, AMD made them playable again.

    https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/
    Reply