 | This article needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(January 2022) |
| GPUOpen | |
|---|---|
 Logo | |
| Original author | Advanced Micro Devices |
| Developer | Advanced Micro Devices |
| Initial release | January 26, 2016 (2016-01-26)[1] |
| Written in | C,C++,GLSL |
| Operating system | Linux,Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Game effects libraries, GPU debugging, CPU & GPU profiling |
| License | MIT License |
| Website | gpuopen |
| Repository | |
GPUOpen is amiddlewaresoftware suite originally developed byAMD's Radeon Technologies Group that offers advanced visual effects for computer games. It was released in 2016. GPUOpen serves as an alternative to, and a direct competitor ofNvidia GameWorks. GPUOpen is similar to GameWorks in that it encompasses several different graphics technologies as its main components that were previously independent and separate from one another.[2] However, GPUOpen is partially[citation needed]open source software, unlike GameWorks which is proprietary and closed.
GPUOpen was announced on December 15, 2015,[3][4][2][5][6] and released on January 26, 2016.
Nicolas Thibieroz, AMD's Senior Manager of Worldwide Gaming Engineering, argues that "it can be difficult for developers to leverage their R&D investment on both consoles and PC because of the disparity between the two platforms" and that "proprietary libraries or tools chains with 'black box' APIs prevent developers from accessing the code for maintenance, porting or optimizations purposes".[7] He says that upcoming architectures, such asAMD's RX 400 series "include many features not exposed today in PC graphics APIs".
AMD designed GPUOpen to be a competing open-source middleware stack released under theMIT License. The libraries are intended to increasesoftware portability betweenvideo game consoles, PCs and alsohigh-performance computing.[8]
GPUOpen unifies many of AMD's previously separate tools and solutions into one package, also fully open-sourcing them under the MIT License.[4] GPUOpen also makes it easy for developers to get low-level GPU access.[9]
Additionally AMD wants to grant interested developers the kind of low-level "direct access" to theirGCN-based GPUs, that surpasses the possibilities ofDirect3D 12 orVulkan. AMD mentioned e.g. a low-level access to theAsynchronous Compute Engines (ACEs). The ACE implement "Asynchronous Compute", but they cannot be freely configured under either Vulkan or Direct3D 12.
GPUOpen is made up of several main components, tools, and SDKs.[2]
Software forcomputer-generated imagery (CGI) used in development of computer games and movies alike.
| Name | API | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| TressFX | DirectX 12,Vulkan | GitHub | This visual effects library allows the creation of realistic hair, fur, and grass. |
| GeometryFX | DirectX 11 | GitHub | This library allows easy access to compute-based triangle filtering. |
| DepthOfFieldFX | DirectX 11 | GitHub | This library grants access to a depth of field implementation optimized for theGCN GPU architecture via a compute shader. |
| ShadowFX | DirectX 11,DirectX 12 | GitHub | This library grants access to an implementation for deferred shadow filtering that is optimized for theGCN GPU architecture. |
| FidelityFX | DirectX 11,DirectX 12,Vulkan | GitHub | FidelityFX is a suite of visual effects and effects-helper libraries. |
| Name | Algorithm | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| FidelityFX CAS | Contrast Adaptive Sharpening | GitHub | This algorithm adaptively sharpens an image or scene while minimizingartifacts. |
| FidelityFX CACAO | Combined Adaptive Compute Ambient Occlusion | GitHub | This algorithm is an optimized implementation ofadaptive sampling ambient occlusion. |
| FidelityFX LPM | Luminance Preserving Mapper | GitHub | This algorithm is used totone map the luma of an RGB pixel rather than tone mapping the color of the pixel. |
| FidelityFX SPD | Single Pass Downsampler | GitHub | This algorithm, optimized for theRDNA GPU architecture, is used to generate 12MIP levels for a given texture. |
| FidelityFX SSSR | Stochastic Screen Space Reflections | GitHub | This algorithm is used to addscreen space reflections to a frame or scene. |
| FidelityFX VS | Variable Shading | GitHub | This algorithm is used to generate image-based variable rate shading using theluminance of samples in the prior frame. |
| FidelityFX Parallel Sort | Radix Sort | GitHub | This algorithm provides a compute-basedradix sort. |
| FidelityFX Denoiser | Shadow & Reflection Denoiser | GitHub | This algorithm providesdenoising functionality forray-traced shadows and ray-traced or screen-space reflections. |
| FidelityFX Super Resolution 1 | Spatial Upsampler | GitHub | This algorithm is used to upsample an image or frame into a higher resolution using only the spatial information provided in the input frame. |
| FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 | Temporal Upscaler | GitHub | This algorithm is used to upscale frame(s) into a higher resolution using the temporal information provided by input frames. |
FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is used to upsample an input image into a higher resolution. There are multiple versions of FSR with distinctive upscaling technique and image quality:
FSR is composed of two main passes:
- An upscaling pass calledEASU (Edge-Adaptive Spatial Upsampling) that also performs edge reconstruction. In this pass the input frame is analyzed and the main part of the algorithm detects gradient reversals – essentially looking at how neighboring gradients differ – from a set of input pixels. The intensity of the gradient reversals defines the weights to apply to the reconstructed pixels at display resolution.
- A sharpening pass calledRCAS (Robust Contrast-Adaptive Sharpening) that extracts pixel detail in the upscaled image.[12]
The standard presets for FSR by AMD can be found in the table below. Note that these presets are not the only way in which the algorithm can be used, they are simply presets for input/output resolutions. Certain titles, such asDota 2, offer resolution sliders to fine tune the scaling percentage or dynamically scaling the internal render resolution depending on the FPS cap. AMD has also created acommand-line interface tool which allows the user to upscale any image using FSR1/EASU as in addition to other upsampling methods such asbilinear interpolation. It also allows the user to run various stages of the FSR pipeline, such as RCAS, independently.[15]
| Release[a] | Release date | Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 /1.0.1 | Jun 2021 | FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) launch, source code available July 2021.[16][17] |
| 1.0.2 | Nov 2021 | Robust Contrast-Adaptive Sharpening (RCAS) oversharpening hotfix.[18] |
| 1.1 | Jul 2023 | Available as part of FidelityFX SDK.[19] |
| 2.0.1 /2.0.1a | Mar 2022 | FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2) launch, source code available June 2022.[20][21] |
| 2.1.0 | Sep 2022 | Reduced ghosting and improved upscaling quality.Farming Simulator 2022 was one of early adopters with patch 1.7.1.[22] |
| 2.1.1 | Sep 2022 | [23] |
| 2.1.2 | Oct 2022 | [24] |
| 2.2.0 /2.2.0a | Nov 2022 | HDR range improvements, ghosting and flickering artefacts reduction. Source code available February 2023.[25] |
| 2.2.1 | Jun 2023 | [26] |
| 2.2.2 | Jul 2023 | Available as part of FidelityFX SDK.[19][27] |
| 3.0 /3.0.3 | Sep 2023 | FSR 3 adds frame generation combined with FSR 2 and Anti-Lag+ and supports GPUs from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. FSR 3 is also compatible with theninth generation of video game consoles.[13] Source code available December 2023 as part of FidelityFX SDK.[28] |
| 3.0.4 | Mar 2024 | [29] |
| 3.1.0 | Jun 2024 | Reduced ghosting, flickering and shimmering and improved temporal stability. Decoupled frame generation from upscaling. Made source file easily upgradable for developers. Vulkan and Xbox Game Development Kit (GDK) support. Source code available July 2024 as part of FidelityFX SDK 1.1.[30] |
| Quality preset[b] | Scale factor[c] | Render scale[d] |
|---|---|---|
| Native AA (since v3.0) | 1.00× | 100% |
| Ultra Quality (v1.0 only) | 1.30× | 77.0% |
| Quality | 1.50× | 66.6% |
| Balanced | 1.70× | 58.8% |
| Performance | 2.00× | 50.0% |
| Ultra Performance (since v2.0) | 3.00× | 33.3% |
FSR 2 can also be modded into nearly any game supporting DLSS by swapping the DLSS DLL with a translation layer DLL that maps the DLSS API calls to FSR 2 API calls.[34]
FSR 3 adds frame generation, a technique that creates new frames in between existing ones by usingmotion interpolation. Launching in September 2023, FSR 3 uses a combination of FSR 2 and optical flow analysis, which runs using asynchronous compute (as opposed to Nvidia's DLSS 3 which uses dedicated hardware). Because FSR 3 uses a software-based solution, it is compatible with GPUs from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel as well as theninth generation of video game consoles. To combat additional latency inherent to the frame generation process, AMD has a driver-level feature called Anti-Lag, which only runs on AMD GPUs.[13]
AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) is a driver-level frame generation technology launching in Q1 2024 which is compatible with all DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games, however it runs on RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 GPUs. AFMF uses optical flow analysis but not motion vectors, so it can only interpolate a new frame between two traditionally rendered frames. AFMF currently is not compatible with VSYNC.[13]
The official AMD directory lists:[35]
| Name | Source code | API | OS | Task |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CodeXL | CodeXL | Direct3D, OpenGL, OpenCL,Vulkan | Linux Windows | software development tool suite that includes a GPU debugger, a GPU profiler, a CPU profiler, a static OpenCL kernel analyzer and various plugins.[36] |
| static analyzer forAMD CodeXL | amd-codexl-analyzer | Direct3D, OpenGL, OpenCL | Linux Windows 64bit | Off-line compiler and performance analysisCLI-tool for processing: OpenCL kernels,HLSL shaders andGLSL shaders part of the AMD CodeXL tools suite Requires eitherRadeon Software Crimson Edition orAMD Catalyst to be installed to run this tool.[37] |
| D3D 12 plug-in forGPU PerfStudio | amd-gpuperfstudio-dx12 | Direct3D 12 | Windows | a plug-in toGPU PerfStudio GPU perfstudio[38] |
| Tootle | amd-tootle | agnostic | Linux Windows | Triangle Order Optimization Tool; originally developed in 2006; can be easily integrated as part of a rendering or mesh pre-processing tool chain[39] Cf.http://mgarland.org/files/papers/quadrics.pdf |
Having been released by ATI Technologies under the BSD license in 2006HLSL2GLSL is not part of GPUOpen. Whether similar tools forSPIR-V will be available remains to be seen, as is the official release of theVulkan (API) itself. Source-code that has been defined as being part of GPUOpen is also part of the Linux kernel (e.g. amdgpu and amdkfd[40]), Mesa 3D and LLVM.
| Name | Source | API | OS | Task |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced Media Framework (AMF) SDK | GitHub | DirectX 12 | Linux, Windows 64-bit | Light-weight, portable multimedia framework that abstracts away most of the platform and API-specific details. |
| AMD GPU Services (AGS) SDK | GitHub | DirectX | Windows 64-bit | |
| LiquidVR SDK | GitHub | Direct3D 11 | Windows | improves the smoothness ofvirtual reality.[41] The aim is to reduce latency between hardware so that the hardware can keep up with the user's head movement, eliminating the motion sickness. A particular focus is on dual GPU setups where each GPU will now render for one eye individually of the display |
| Radeon Machine Learning (RML) SDK | GitHub | DirectX 12,Metal,OpenCL | Linux, OS X, Windows | |
| Radeon ProRender SDK (formerly FireRender) | GitHub | OpenCL | Linux, macOS, Windows | physically-based rendering engine |
| RadeonRays SDK (formerly FireRays) | GitHub | DirectX 12,Vulkan | Linux 64-bit, OS X, Windows 64-bit | A high efficiency, high performance heterogeneousray tracing intersection library for GPU and CPU or APU on any platform. |
| RapidFire SDK | GitHub | DirectX,OpenGL | Windows | facilitates the use of AMD's video compression acceleration SIP blocksVCE (H.264 encoder) andUVD (H.264 decoder) for "Cloud gaming"/off-site rendering |
| True Audio Next (TAN) SDK | GitHub | OpenCL | Windows 64-bit | SDK for Radeon GPU accelerated and multi-core high-performance audio signal processing. |
| This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(January 2022) |
As of 2022, AMD compute software ecosystem is regrouped under theROCm metaproject.
amdgpu (Linux kernel 4.2+) andamdkfd (Linux kernel 3.19+)Software aroundHeterogeneous System Architecture (HSA),General-Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU) andHigh-Performance Computing (HPC)
AMD's "Boltzmann Initiative" (named afterLudwig Boltzmann) was announced in November 2015 at the SuperComputing15[42][43][44][45][46] and productized as the Radeon Open Compute platform (ROCm). It aims to provide an alternative to Nvidia'sCUDA which includes a tool to port CUDA source-code to portable (HIP) source-code which can be compiled on both HCC andNVCC.
GPUOpen are available under theMIT license to the general public throughGitHub starting on January 26, 2016.[4]
There is interlocking between GPUOpen and well established and widespread free software projects, e.g.Linux kernel,Mesa 3D andLLVM.
FSR 3 is a frame generation solution that operates along similar lines to Nvidia's DLSS 3 - combining frame generation (Fluid Motion Frames) with super resolution upscaling (FSR 2) and latency reduction (Anti-Lag+) in a small number of supported games, with Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum set to first debut the technology. FSR 3 will work on Radeon graphics cards, as well as Nvidia and Intel GPUs.