Look who’s back, back again. AMDs Radeon Anti-Lag+ was released in September last year as the company’s latest attempt to reduce dreaded latency times in competitive gaming, but was quickly removed after it was found to draw the ire of some common anti-cheat programs.
Now, just three months later, it’s looking like it may well be on the cusp of a second release (via VideoCardz), and AMD users looking to make use of the new version will likely have their fingers crossed that the second time could well be the charm.
Frank Azor, AMD’s chief Architect of gaming solutions and marketing, was asked on Twitter as to whether there was any news on Anti-Lag+ and a potential reintroduction, and responded “Yes, coming soon”. Well, that’ll be that then.
The first release of Anti-Lag+ seemed to work reasonably well for its intended purpose of reducing latency in supported games for RX 7000 series GPU owners, but caused something of a storm when support was added for the ultra-popular Counter-Strike 2, presumably as a perfect use case for the technology.
Counter-Strike enthusiasts have always relied on twitch reflexes and lighting fast reactions to gain a competitive edge, so anything that keeps latency at bay was always going to be of interest to the playerbase making use of the latest AMD GPUs.
Unfortunately, the tool had a habit of setting off Valve’s anti-cheat system, even getting some players banned if they were found to be using the software. Valve warned that Anti-Lag+ features were “implemented by detouring engine dll functions”, triggering the anti-cheat software to intervene, and advised that AMD customers should not enable the tool lest their accounts be banned in turn.
AMD users could still make use of the original Anti-Lag (non plus edition), as AMD’s frame alignment feature added in Anti-Lag+ was said to be to blame, triggering not just Valve’s anti-cheat software but supposedly some other popular anti-cheat systems too.
Still, here’s hoping for a better reception this time. Presumably if Anti-Lag is making a comeback then these issues will be fixed, as I’m doubtful AMD will want to make the same mistake twice. Getting players banned from their favourite games for using its driver-included software isn’t the world’s greatest look, but let’s hope that the tool has been rehabilitated and is now ready for its second outing.
www.pcgamer.com