AMD's latest Radeon preview driver adds real-time 'System Lag' latency monitoring for frame gen

As part of the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition Preview Driver for AMD Fluid Motion Frames, it looks like AMD has expanded the real-time monitoring for its Radeon hardware (specifically RDNA 3 GPUs) with the addition of a new metric - System Lag. This will allow Radeon RX 7000 GPU owners to monitor system latency, an important measurement tool for frame generation tech like Fluid Motion Frames.

Frame generation tech involves generating a frame between traditionally rendered frames to present a more fluid and performative image, a perceived performance increase that carries the cost of increased latency. NVIDIA mitigates this with tits Reflex technology, which you can monitor the effect of via GeForce overlays.

On the AMD side, introducing Anti-Lag+ (or using the existing Radeon Anti-Lag tech) is crucial in keeping the overall latency down to ensure that a game still feels great while looking smoother. The ability to look at System Lag via an overlay will make the whole process of enabling AMD Fluid Motion Frames and optimizing settings much easier. However, as of now, the monitoring is limited to Anti-Lag+ titles.

But, one of the best features of the update/inclusion is that you can still view Frame Gen Lag in addition to the new System Lag - which provides a look at the additional latency added by enabling Fluid Motion Frames.

• Read more: AMD's FSR 3 is officially launching in a few hours, with seemingly no early access for media
• Read more: AMD's new driver-level Fluid Motion Frames is available to preview in 20 titles on RDNA 3 GPUs
• Read more: AMD Fluid Motion Frames support for all DirectX 11 and 12 titles comes to Radeon RX 6000 Series

With the arrival of this driver-level support for AMD Fluid Motion Frames for Radeon RX 7000 and RX 6000 graphics cards, covering a bunch of some of the most popular DirectX 11 and 12 titles, the company's software-based and hardware-agnostic approach to frame generation is grabbing headlines, for good reason.

It's a fascinating glimpse at the possibility of turning the effect on or off in any game. Naturally, it's not perfect. AMD notes that there's still work to be done regarding image quality and latency, too, with early looks at the technology outlining issues with VRR and V-Sync, frame time issues, and stuttering.

This is why it's called a 'Preview Driver'. Stay tuned for our AMD Fluid Motion Frames coverage, which will be included in all upcoming Radeon RX 7000 Series GPU reviews.