Gaming graphics hardware continues to improve

Computer technology has been evolving and improving ever since it was invented. We have seen more and more powerful computers being produced, with better functionality and capabilities than ever before. Gaming has become one of the key abilities for computers today, with specific gaming laptops and PCs being sold to allow users to be able to play the best games. These games all need extremely powerful machines to run their advanced graphics, and so there has also been a lot of development in the graphics card segment of the computer industry, as the big manufacturers keep on releasing new features to make their products compatible to run the latest games. In fact, many times you will see game studios collaborating with graphics card manufacturers to ensure that their games will be able to run smoothly, thus showcasing the graphics in the best way possible.

Online games, however, rarely need as much computing power. It depends on the game though, with those simple ones available on websites, such as casino games, being able to work in your browser itself. However, there are versions of games known as massively-multiplayer online (MMO) games, which do need high-powered graphics to run, especially as they are played over the internet with up to hundreds of other players concurrently. Such games, like DOTA, World of Warcraft, Rift and Skyforge, to name some of the popular ones, all require good gaming computers to run well.

Speaking of graphics cards or graphics processing units (GPU) as they have become known, as they are literally now packed with so much processing power that it is akin to having another CPU on your computer, but the GPU only handles the rendering and frame rate and so on for your computer’s graphics, especially when playing a game. AMD and Nvidia are the two leading GPU developers in the market right now, and there have been new launches by both companies this week. Nvidia launched its first Hardware-Accelerated GPU scheduling-enabled card driver last week, and now AMD has posted its version of the same as well.

This is a direct result of the latest update to the Windows OS, where hardware acceleration for GPU scheduling was added as a function for Windows display drivers. This allows GPUs to be able to manage their VRAM more effectively and directly, while earlier, Windows itself used to manage most of the VRAM for GPUs, thus making this a more linear and direct operational flow for GPUs.

Both Microsoft and the two graphics companies have been low-key about this change, with AMD’s release notes only stating that “By moving scheduling responsibilities from software into hardware, this feature has the potential to improve GPU responsiveness and to allow additional innovation in GPU workload management in the future”. However, this is something to keep an eye on.

AMD has been a little cautious with regard to this update to their drivers, only posting it for a specific set of drivers at present. Nevertheless, it is still a welcome update, and in the gaming world, where even minor incremental gains are cherished since they can make a world of difference to game performance, this is expected to go down well. It remains to be seen as to what the long-term benefits of hardware accelerated GPU scheduling are, and we can only wait for more clarity from either Microsoft or GPU developers in terms of how this change to GPU technology is meant to do, how it will improve gaming, and why it was only introduced now instead of earlier. Till then, we need to be satisfied with the improved performance we shall hopefully see in our games once we use the updated drivers.