AMD’s Revival of Fluid Motion Video: Introducing the Fluid Motion Frames in RDNA 2 GPU’s
AMD’s RDNA Architecture: A Shift in Video Enhancement
With the advent of AMD’s RDNA architecture, a significant change occurred in the Adrenalin Software stack. AMD chose to discontinue support for one of its key features, known as AMD Fluid Motion Video. This technology closely resembled AMD Fluid Motion Frames, which had just been introduced for gaming. Fluid Motion technology is essentially a frame generation technology akin to NVIDIA’s DLSS3, but AMD has plans to make it available on a wider range of graphics architectures, including RDNA3 and RDNA2.
It’s important to note that AMD has yet to release a stable version of the Adaptive Frame Rate Management (AFMF) driver. It isn’t part of the official or beta branches either. Instead, AMD offers a dedicated driver for this feature, catering to gamers who specifically require it, especially in games where it is supported.
Fluid Motion Video (FMV), on the other hand, operated similarly but was focused on enhancing video playback. This motion smoothing technology generated new video frames, resulting in a higher video frame rate and delivering a more lifelike viewing experience. FMV was particularly useful for older videos and those recorded at a cinematic 23-24 FPS.
Fluid Motion Video, Source: AMD
However, when FMV was introduced in 2014 for Catalyst Omega drivers, it was only compatible with Polaris and some GCN1 graphics cards. Although it was officially introduced with GCN 2.0, Bluesky made it available as a filter for wider use. Initially, Adaptive Frame Rate Video (AFV) was exclusively accessible through PowerDVD software, lacking a public API for other developers to utilize. Furthermore, AMD did not extend support for this technology to RDNA series GPUs, making it inaccessible in current drivers for most modern GPUs.
Interestingly, it seems that AFMF can be repurposed to function as AFV. A detailed guide by Reddit user “uncycler825” suggests using the preview driver in combination with the MPC-HC video player and the DXVK translation layer. This setup allows videos to be streamed through the Vulkan API, enabling AFMF to function. It’s important to note that this will only work with the “Preview 2” driver, the one released without Radeon RX 6000 support because AFMF doesn’t work with Vulkan API on the “Preview 3” driver.
Fluid Motion Frames used for MPC-HC, Source: uncycler825
This feature holds promise for AMD GPU users, although it remains uncertain whether AMD plans to officially reintroduce FMV to RDNA1-3 generations. Ideally, AMD would provide an easy-to-use API for video software developers, making it more accessible and versatile.
Similar projects based on NVIDIA Optical Flow, a feature responsible for generating frames on NVIDIA hardware, aim to interpolate videos with a higher frame rate. NVIDIA also has RTX Super Video Resolution, a feature capable of upscaling video in a supported browser in real time.
Source: Reddit
