AMD seems committed to developing open-source alternatives to Nvidia’s proprietary technology, with its latest objective being to replicate Nvidia’s Reflex Analyzer tool. The newly released FLM is a software application designed to measure the delay or latency between moving your mouse cursor and observing the corresponding action on your display screen, empowering users to fine-tune their systems for optimal performance and minimal lag.
The arrival of this new AMD software program is likely to be a significant advantage for owners of the company’s most powerful graphics cards, as it enables them to obtain system latency measurements similar to those achievable with Nvidia GPUs and displays equipped with Nvidia Reflex Analyzer tools.
What happens when interacting with your computer is often characterized by a multitude of unforeseen pauses between initiating a task and seeing its outcome displayed on the screen? The mouse may experience a gradual decline in polling charge, while a sluggish CPU or poorly optimised code can also hinder performance; further complications arise from faulty drivers or other hardware malfunctions. By pinpointing the exact latency, individuals possessing this capability possess a foundational understanding with which to initiate the process of identifying potential errors within their system.
While comparing FLM to Nvidia’s Reflex Analyzer may seem like an apples-to-apples evaluation at first glance, these two packages actually differ significantly in their underlying technologies and functionality. Nvidia’s technology embeds its device within displays, physically manifesting itself in the output of the display only when it detects a change in the image resulting from user interaction. While using a mouse that is properly connected to a compatible system, you need the cord plugged directly into the monitor.
Although FLM is a software-only system, it may not account for the latency inherent to your monitor. As a substitute, this metric solely measures the latency between detecting a mouse event through the software and the resulting visual response on the display, from the moment it’s processed by the GPU. According to AMD’s documentation, the application operates within the following parameters:
- The application continuously records frames and performs frame-by-frame comparisons within a designated region, tracking any changes in human bodies over time.
- The application subsequently triggers a mouse movement event, characteristic of native Windows behavior, and pauses until the content changes.
While AMD’s variations are significant, what’s truly remarkable is the lack of an industry-standard software feature within their portfolio that is specifically designed to minimize system latency in gaming applications. NVIDIA Reflex is an option available in many video games that can potentially reduce system latency. Using an Nvidia Reflex Analyzer-enabled monitor, you can directly measure these changes. This is not an immediate feedback loop available with FLM.
What’s lacking about FLM is its lack of personal appeal. The interface is rudimentary, making it challenging to navigate, and the output is presented in a CSV file rather than being easily digestible. What’s more, we initially made a swift effort to implement it, but the attempts were unsuccessful as it kept crashing repeatedly, making it impossible for us to obtain accurate results from our tests.
Discover the benefits of AMD’s software solutions by exploring our comprehensive guide to AMD FSR, which details how this technology can boost performance without additional hardware investments.
