AMD is releasing a new feature with its AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series processors called Variable Graphics Memory, and it’ll have some potentially noticeable improvements for gaming. The feature, which is aimed at helping you boost frame rates for games, allows gamers to divert some of their overall system memory to dedicated graphics memory. All of this is done with a single click inside AMD’s Adrenalin desktop app.
The announcement of the feature was part of AMD’s recent blog post about maximizing gaming performance with this new processor. Once enabled, Variable Graphics Memory can divert “up to 75%” of system RAM to VRAM, AMD says. How much you will be able to divert will depend on how much your system comes with. AMD recommends leaving at least 16GB of system memory for the CPU. For example, if you set the VGM feature to medium on a 32GB system, 8GB will be diverted to VRAM for use with the graphics.
In AMD’s example, the company references that systems with integrated graphics have a default allocation of 512MB of VRAM. So using this feature would be a significant boost to help games run more smoothly.
The Variable Graphics Memory feature is only available on AMD laptops for now
While this feature seems incredibly useful for consumers who don’t buy a PC with dedicated graphics, it’s currently only available for laptops. As The Verge reports, specifically for AMD Ryzen AI 300 “Strix Point” laptops. Though it’s entirely possible this will roll out to desktop PC configurations as well. In practice, The Verge says that using this feature had varied results and that how much of a boost you would get depends on the game.
So, keeping that in mind, you could see more significant boosts in one game as opposed to another. This is normal due to the different amounts of VRAM generally required by different games. So this isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. But it should help in many cases.
AMD is also launching its Fluid Motion Frames 2 technology
In addition to the rollout of Variable Graphics Memory, AMD is also launching its new graphics technology called AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2. It’s designed to enhance the frame generation experience. It does this by using AI-optimized enhancements that AMD says deliver “excellent quality, low latency, and amazing performance.” The feature is part of a technical preview at the moment so there are likely things to shift or change by the time it’s fully rolled out.
AMD also encourages feedback from testers. As it will most certainly use this feedback to refine the technology. During internal testing, AMD said AFMF2 and VGM helped quite a bit. Games like Far Cry 6 achieved up to 105 frames per second when the two were enabled. With both turned off, frame rates were about 65 frames per second. So, that’s a pretty noticeable boost in performance.
It should also be noted that this was with graphics settings at the high preset. In addition to the resolution being set to 1080p. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 saw a performance boost too. With the low preset and resolution set to 1080p, along with balanced FSR, the frames per second bumped up to 100.
