AMD prepares new driver with improved rendering times

In recent months, the phenomenon of “micro-stuttering” or micro-delays has received more attention than usual, not least because both AMD and Nvidia have released new graphics cards with dual graphics processors, which are particularly affected by the problems. An example is SweClocker’s review of Asus’ worsting model Ares II, where delays of up to 120 milliseconds were measured in Far Cry 3.

The situation is particularly serious for AMD because even Radeon alone is not spared from the problems, which can also cause high frame rates to be perceived as jerky due to some frames being delayed and taking longer for the graphics card to render.

However, AMD is aware of the criticism and is now working to fix the issue in the drivers. Work began with Catalyst 13.2, which will improve rendering times in Skyrim, Borderlands 2 and Guild Wars 2. Towards the end of spring, more and more general optimizations will be introduced, most recently in Catalyst 13.3.

However, major changes to the software may be required before the issues are resolved. In January, Catalyst developer David Beumann stated that large parts of the memory management for the GCN architecture need to be rewritten.