AMD’s HiAlgo acquisition brings gamer-friendly tools to Radeon Software experience

shankly1985 · 30 Jun 2016 at 04:43

Very interesting read/watch here

While AMD is impressing gamers with its new Radeon RX 480 graphics card, the hardware company is investing more in its software side to improve the playing experience on its hardware.

AMD revealed today that it has acquired 3D-gaming tool developer HiAlgo for an undisclosed amount as part of an effort to make its Radeon Software suite more helpful. The HiAlgo team creates plugins for Radeon GPUs that make games perform better, prevent components from overheating, and can flip between two resolutions at the press of a button. While AMD and Nvidia are best known for their work with semiconductors, the importance of providing software that can unlock the power of those processors is obvious. Nvidia’s excellent GeForce Experience tools are among the reasons why it has a lead in the PC sector of the $140 billion gaming hardware market.

HiAlgo should help AMD close that gap. The developer produces three primary tools, and each of them are ideal for the mass market that AMD is hoping to capture with its $200 RX 480.

HiAlgo Boost: This utility monitors your games and actively adapts their resolutions to keep the framerate as high as possible. It works automatically.
HiAlgo Chill: A CPU and GPU limiter. This tool puts a governor on the processors to ensure they do not overheat or consume too much power.
HiAlgo Switch: Players can use this to set up a hotkey that instantly switches to half the resolution and back again. If players feel like they are entering an area with too much going on, they can go into the lower resolution to ensure they do not lose any frames.

they are entering an area with too much going on, they can go into the lower resolution to ensure they do not lose any frames.

Universal HiAlgo BOOST (ver 4.0) tech demo

“Software is an integral part of advancing the science of graphics, enabling us to best harness the silicon of the GPU to maximize performance and deliver outstanding experiences in games and applications,” Radeon chief architect Raja Koduri said in a canned statement. “HiAlgo embodies our spirit of passion, persistence, and play by delivering a number of creative approaches to software that improve gamers’ experiences, and helps future-proof the GPU.”

Raja Koduri Talks about it here 44.37

Gregster · 30 Jun 2016 at 08:31

I wish they would sort out their recording software... Actually, I wish they would have some recording software. Geforce Experience is a massive plus for NVidia and ShadowPlay just works. I am not looking forward to Raptr recording for my review but might well have to have a play with something else.

shankly1985 · 30 Jun 2016 at 12:12

Gregster said:
I wish they would sort out their recording software... Actually, I wish they would have some recording software. Geforce Experience is a massive plus for NVidia and ShadowPlay just works. I am not looking forward to Raptr recording for my review but might well have to have a play with something else.

I do agree, but in saying that Greg you should check out Action.
It has everything you need for AMD and Nvidia full support. Best recording software I have ever used to date.

I do like the idea of this software AMD is adding into the drivers, if you played Forza on Windows 10 it has features called dynamic you just set a target frame rate and the game will auto change settings on the fly to try and keep that frame rate.
I can see this being very useful for people.

GoogalyMoogaly · 30 Jun 2016 at 12:33

It's a nice addition, although as I understand it the 3 applications are already available (for free). This feels partially like it's just to stop Nvidia users having access to it, but hopefully they'll also fund it better to improve it faster.

Also the website says that Boost only works with 2 games at the minute (oddly not the ones in the video). Apparently there is beta support for Dx9 games but many need individual tweaking.

Hopefully with AMD's backing they'll add DX11, DX12 and Vulkan support.

AllBodies · 30 Jun 2016 at 12:34

Gregster said:
I wish they would sort out their recording software... Actually, I wish they would have some recording software. Geforce Experience is a massive plus for NVidia and ShadowPlay just works. I am not looking forward to Raptr recording for my review but might well have to have a play with something else.

Strongly agree with this.

With the rise of streaming and youtube, and people wanting the best bang-for-buck, if AMD had really decent hardware capture (and work with OBS and Xsplit to make it compatible) they'd have such a strong offering.

Also I don't know if Nvidia have talked about making Shadowplay work with VR, but if the GPU is doing the capture then I imagine it'd be much easier to record in VR (by which I mean record in VR format, to be viewed back with a VR headset, not capturing the regular monitor version of the VR game).

I feel like this is a very important area for growth. And imagine if they even incorporated HDMI/Displayport passthrough! Say bye bye to needing an Elgato for console capture.

fs123 · 30 Jun 2016 at 12:35

This does stuff like the dynamic resolution on Xbox One Witcher 3, etc. I use shadow boost on Fallout4 and that makes a big difference to performance without really noticing it. Good stuff.

shankly1985 · 30 Jun 2016 at 12:35

GoogalyMoogaly said:
It's a nice addition, although as I understand it the 3 applications are already available (for free). This feels partially like it's just to stop Nvidia users having access to it, but hopefully they'll also fund it better to improve it faster.

Also the website says that Boost only works with 2 games at the minute (oddly not the ones in the video). Apparently there is beta support for Dx9 games but many need individual tweaking.

Hopefully with AMD's backing they'll add DX11, DX12 and Vulkan support.

That's the aim without extra work this won't work for dx12 or Vulkan.

locodice · 30 Jun 2016 at 23:40

Gregster said:
I wish they would sort out their recording software... Actually, I wish they would have some recording software. Geforce Experience is a massive plus for NVidia and ShadowPlay just works. I am not looking forward to Raptr recording for my review but might well have to have a play with something else.

Im waiting for this to...it will happen eventually.

PhoenixUK · 1 Jul 2016 at 00:17

Gregster said:
I wish they would sort out their recording software... Actually, I wish they would have some recording software. Geforce Experience is a massive plus for NVidia and ShadowPlay just works. I am not looking forward to Raptr recording for my review but might well have to have a play with something else.

I haven't used it recently but it worked fine last time I tried it and a friend who recently started putting stuff on YT was recording a lot of Overwatch and it worked fine too for him.

Not sure what the problem with it is?

tommybhoy · 1 Jul 2016 at 00:23

Imo, Raptr must have one of the worst interfaces ever, GE is massively superior in that regard, Raptr's recording>Shadowplay, but that interface just kills it for me.

N19h7m4r3 · 1 Jul 2016 at 00:33

tommybhoy said:
Imo, Raptr must have one of the worst interfaces ever, GE is massively superior in that regard, Raptr's recording>Shadowplay, but that interface just kills it for me.

In my case I avoid both, and just use DXTory for recordings, when that doesn't play well in the few OpenGL games I encounter there's always OBS with some custom settings.

GoogalyMoogaly · 1 Jul 2016 at 01:11

In the recent AMA on Reddit didn't Robert say they were sticking with Raptr when he was asked about it?
So anyone expecting AMD to come up with their own may be in for a long wait. That or AMD aren't in a position to announce it yet so are sticking with the line "Raptr is awesome" (not an actual quote).

Dicehunter · 1 Jul 2016 at 06:04

Gregster said:
I wish they would sort out their recording software... Actually, I wish they would have some recording software. Geforce Experience is a massive plus for NVidia and ShadowPlay just works. I am not looking forward to Raptr recording for my review but might well have to have a play with something else.

shankly1985 said:
I do agree, but in saying that Greg you should check out Action.
It has everything you need for AMD and Nvidia full support. Best recording software I have ever used to date.

I do like the idea of this software AMD is adding into the drivers, if you played Forza on Windows 10 it has features called dynamic you just set a target frame rate and the game will auto change settings on the fly to try and keep that frame rate.
I can see this being very useful for people.

I have to 2nd Shanks, Action by Mirillis is fantastic, Lets you use the AMD or Nvidia codec, Records up to 4K 60FPS and the bitrate is around 20-25MB/s no matter the resolution you record at, Even gives you the option to record using the new HEVC H.265 codec for really good quality.

Audio is also REALLY clean, Records up to 512kbps, Costs £18 as of right now on Steam but it is one hell of an investment, I can't recommend this enough.

meldarthx · 1 Jul 2016 at 11:06

Dicehunter said:
I have to 2nd Shanks, Action by Mirillis is fantastic, Lets you use the AMD or Nvidia codec, Records up to 4K 60FPS and the bitrate is around 20-25MB/s no matter the resolution you record at, Even gives you the option to record using the new HEVC H.265 codec for really good quality.

Audio is also REALLY clean, Records up to 512kbps, Costs £18 as of right now on Steam but it is one hell of an investment, I can't recommend this enough.

I'll have to check that out......though I've had no real issues recording with Raptr - when it works; it works beautify. Interface is lacking; what I can't record with raptr I can with OBS......

does Action also do streaming?

Dicehunter · 1 Jul 2016 at 11:14

meldarthx said:
I'll have to check that out......though I've had no real issues recording with Raptr - when it works; it works beautify. Interface is lacking; what I can't record with raptr I can with OBS......

does Action also do streaming?

It does streaming to any service, Benchmarking, Custom overlay insertion when recording, Screenshots, Recoding, Audio capture only, A good number of options.

Made a video for a demo -

SiDeards73 · 1 Jul 2016 at 11:17

That stuff in the OP looks a gimmick at best tbh, and given AMD have bought it, i guess it will get adopted into Raptr and will just become more bloatware i ignore...

That Raptr thing was only any use when i could get gold tickets from it for free games, since they stopped it, its now basically worthless bloatware as far as im concerned.

GoogalyMoogaly · 1 Jul 2016 at 11:21

OBS and XSplit can both do recording and streaming too. XSplit uses the Nvidia and AMD codecs and OBS uses the Nvidia one and the new rewrite may support the AMD one too (both also use QucikSync). Both are free although XSplit locks out some features unless you have a subscription.

The thing that neither of these do, not sure about Mirillis, is that they don't give you the facility to not be recording but then if something good happens record the previous X minutes of footage.

flowrider99 · 1 Jul 2016 at 11:28

What's the benefit of this? Looking at the video in the OP it doesn't look any different

meldarthx · 1 Jul 2016 at 11:34

Dicehunter said:
It does streaming to any service, Benchmarking, Custom overlay insertion when recording, Screenshots, Recoding, Audio capture only, A good number of options.

Made a video for a demo -

thank you good sir.......as I've just been paid think I might have to pick it up

while I like free - paying 18 for more functional software I have no problem doing

N19h7m4r3 · 1 Jul 2016 at 11:42

flowrider99 said:
What's the benefit of this? Looking at the video in the OP it doesn't look any different

The benefit is better overall performance. If you can't notice the difference it's prefect for you. It dynamically scales res and textures during scenes of movement to a lower amount to help stabilize FPS, then back up to normal afterwards; so it prevents lag spikes and stutter when moving quickly.