AMD drivers for Avatar game brings HAGS support
AMD has released a new graphics driver dedicated to Radeon 5000/6000/7000 GPUs based on RDNA architecture. This driver is optimized for the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora game, which is scheduled to launch on December 7th.
Some people found out on Guru3D forums that this driver can turn on a feature that AMD drivers haven’t had since 2020, called Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) . This feature was last seen on the Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.5.1 driver, which was a dedicated release specifically for this technology, and it supported Radeon RX 5600 and RX 5700 models. But there years later, there were numerous graphics card releases that had this feature missing, at least officially.
In terms of what Hardware GPU scheduling actually is, it’s a special feature introduced for Windows 10 that has a potential to improve GPU responsiveness and allow additional innovation in GPU workloads management. That’s AMD described this feature with the first and last driver that had HAGS support.
RX 7700 XT with Hardware Accelerated GPU enabled, Source: Neve1/Guru3D
Technically speaking, this is not the first ‘modern’ driver to feature HAGS, as the Radeon PRO W7700 driver already offered such support. However, this beta driver is the first one specifically for consumer Radeon RX gaming series. Moreover, various users reported that HAGS became available through some Microsoft distributed drivers, however this is the first one that you can download HAGS supported driver from AMD directly.
AMD HAGS is not supported on Radeon RX 6000 series, and it appears that AMD has no plans to enable this feature. In 2021, AMD confirmed that HAGS does not provide expected performance improvements for RDNA2 GPUs which is why it was omitted in the further driver releases.
As previously beta support was given for some cards with this feature as mentioned in the link but as there is no performance improvement as expected so in latest GPU this feature is not supported and included.
— AMD on HAGS, 2021
In terms of actual performance improvements, synthetic tests conducted by Guru3D members show no benefit, however this feature is not expected to provide double-digit gains, rather something within a margin of error. You can learn more about HAGS through Ancient Gameplays video, who made some first comparisons a few months ago thanks to Microsoft distributed drivers.
AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.30.13.01 for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
New Feature Highlights
- New Game Support
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Known Issues
- Audio may intermittently become out of sync with video when recording from AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition with AV1 codec.
- Intermittent corruption may be observed on the racetrack while playing EA Sports WRC.
- Stars may intermittently fail to appear while playing Crysis Remastered.
- Intermittent micro-stuttering may be experienced when running Chromium-based browsers on systems that pair a Radeon™ RX 7000 series GPU with a secondary display connected to an AMD Ryzen™ 7000 series processor.
Package Contents
- AMD Software: Adrenalin 23.30.13.01 for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Windows® 10 and Windows® 11 Driver Store Version 31.0.23013.1020.
Since this driver is not part of the official branch, it means that users will now have to choose between WHQL, beta driver with AMD Fluid Motion Frames and this driver also released as a separate beta. It is unclear why AMD has so many versions of drivers for the same GPU architectures, and when will the company finally release a stable branch that offers all these features together.
Furthermore, we are still waiting for AMD to enable Anti-Lag+ support back, after failed launch that caused online game account bans. The Anti-lag+ is an important component of AMD FSR3 upscaling enablement, which has basically stopped.
Source and download: AMD Drivers via @harukaze5719