AMD adds Radeon Image Sharpening for the RX Vega series and Radeon VII

In connection with the launch of the Radeon RX 5700 series and the new architecture Radeon DNA (RDNA), AMD took the opportunity to introduce a bunch of new technologies. Among these is the Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS), which through upscaling and algorithms for increased image sharpness should provide improved image quality with minimal impact on performance.

In retrospect, AMD added graphics cards with the Polaris architecture, which include the Radeon RX 400 and RX 500 series. However, more modern Vega became without RIS. As the criticism grew, AMD stated in an interview that they are considering adding support for Vega as well, and let users vote on the matter.

Now the driver Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Editon 19.9.3 is launched, where one of the big news is just support for Radeon Image Sharpening for Vega-based graphics cards. These are the quartet Radeon VII, RX Vega 64, RX Vega 56 and Vega Frontier Edition.

Did I say I thought they would say no? If it appeared that way I apologize. I miscalculated the order in which to release support. I assumed that since there were more Polaris users that I would satisfy the greater number of users first. Unfortunately we are human and sometimes we make mistakes, the best we can do is to correct them as quickly as possible.

On Reddit, AMD’s head of drivers, Terry Makedon, writes about the tours around RIS for Vega. Unlike previous statements, he says that the support was planned from the very beginning, but that they chose to prioritize Polaris and its larger customer base. Precisely prioritization is also described as a “mistake”.

In addition to RIS for Vega, the driver provides official support for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint, a couple of bug fixes and as usual a list of known issues. More details about this can be found in the accompanying discussion thread.

Read more about Radeon “Navi” and Radeon Image Sharpening: