Getting the most out of your AMD Radeon GPU means diving into AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition and tweaking settings that actually matter. Whether you’re running an RX 6000 or 7000 series card, these settings will help you maximize frame rates while keeping visuals sharp.
The key isn’t cranking everything to maximum—it’s finding the sweet spot between performance and quality. Let’s walk through the settings that make a genuine difference.
First Things First: Update Your Drivers
Before touching any settings, make sure you’re running the latest AMD drivers. AMD releases monthly updates that include performance improvements and bug fixes for new games.
Open AMD Software (right-click your desktop and select AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition). Check the top-right corner for « Drivers & Software » and click « Check for Updates. » If updates are available, download and install them, then restart your PC.
Driver updates sometimes deliver 5-10% performance boosts in newly released games. It’s free performance sitting on AMD’s servers—don’t skip this step.
Gaming Tab: The Essential Settings
The Gaming tab splits into two sections: Global Graphics (applies to all games) and individual game profiles. Start with Global Graphics to set your baseline, then create specific profiles for competitive titles that need different settings.
Radeon Anti-Lag: Enable It
Radeon Anti-Lag reduces input latency by dynamically adjusting frame timing. This means less time between clicking your mouse and seeing the action on screen—critically important for competitive games.
The difference is most noticeable in fast-paced shooters like Valorant, Apex Legends, or CS2. You’ll feel more responsive, especially during clutch moments when milliseconds matter.
Setting: Enabled (for all gaming scenarios)
Note: Anti-Lag+ exists for specific supported games and offers even lower latency, but regular Anti-Lag works everywhere and should stay on by default.
Radeon Boost: Disable for Most Games
Radeon Boost dynamically lowers resolution during rapid camera movement to maintain frame rates. The visual quality drop is noticeable—textures blur when you need clarity most. Keep it off unless you’re genuinly struggling to hit 60 FPS.
Setting: Disabled (enable only if desperate for FPS)
Radeon Chill: Leave It Off While Gaming
Radeon Chill saves power by limiting frame rates when you’re not actively moving. Great for laptops trying to extend battery life, but it creates inconsistent frame pacing during actual gameplay.
When you’re paying attention and need smooth performance, Chill’s frame rate regulation works against you. Save this for when you’re watching videos or browsing while a game sits in the background.
Setting: Disabled for desktop gaming, Enabled for laptops when battery matters
Radeon Image Sharpening: Your Visual Boost
Image Sharpening enhances clarity without tanking performance. Start at 80% sharpening. If edges look oversharpened with unnatural grain, dial back to 60-70%.
Setting: Enabled at 80%, adjust to taste
Radeon Enhanced Sync: Better Than V-Sync
Enhanced Sync prevents screen tearing without the input lag that traditional V-Sync introduces. When your frame rate exceeds your monitor’s refresh rate, Enhanced Sync kicks in to eliminate tearing while letting you maintain high frame rates.
If you have a FreeSync monitor, you don’t need this—FreeSync handles sync better. But for non-FreeSync displays, Enhanced Sync provides smoother visuals than V-Sync alone.
Setting: Enabled if you don’t have FreeSync, Disabled if you do
Wait for Vertical Refresh (V-Sync): Usually Off
V-Sync locks your frame rate to your monitor’s refresh rate to eliminate tearing. The problem: it introduces noticeable input lag, especially in competitive games where responsiveness matters more than slight visual artifacts.
Unless screen tearing drives you crazy, keep V-Sync off. Use Enhanced Sync or FreeSync instead for better results without the latency penalty.
Setting: Always Off (unless you genuinely can’t tolerate tearing)
Graphics Settings: The Advanced Stuff
Click « Advanced » in the Graphics section to access deeper controls. These settings have bigger performance impacts, so adjust carefully based on your GPU’s horsepower.
Anti-Aliasing: Let Games Handle It
Anti-aliasing smooths jagged edges on objects. Modern games include their own AA options (TAA, FXAA, SMAA) that work better than driver-level AA.
Set this to « Use Application Settings » so each game controls its own anti-aliasing. Overriding this from the driver side often causes visual problems or doesn’t work as intended.
Setting: Use Application Settings
If you must override (for older games without built-in AA), choose Morphological Filtering—it’s the least performance-intensive option.
Anisotropic Filtering: Override to 16x
Anisotropic Filtering (AF) improves texture quality on surfaces viewed at angles—think floors, roads, or walls extending into the distance. The visual improvement is substantial, and the performance cost on modern GPUs is negligible.
Override this to 16x. It’s one of the few settings where maximum quality costs almost nothing in frame rate but delivers noticeable clarity improvements.
Setting: Override Application Settings → 16x
Texture Filtering Quality: Performance Mode
This controls how the GPU processes texture filtering. « Quality » mode looks slightly better, but « Performance » delivers higher frame rates with minimal visual difference.
Unless you’re playing at 4K and scrutinizing textures, Performance mode is the right choice. The FPS boost outweighs the barely-noticeable quality difference.
Setting: Performance
Tessellation Mode: Override Application Settings
Tessellation adds geometric detail to surfaces, making flat textures appear more three-dimensional. Games sometimes push tessellation levels unnecessarily high, tanking performance for minimal visual gain.
Override tessellation to x16 or x8. This maintains good visual quality while preventing games from going overboard with x64 tessellation that crushes frame rates.
Setting: Override Application Settings → x16 (x8 for older GPUs)
Surface Format Optimization: Enable
This setting optimizes how textures are stored in VRAM, potentially improving performance without visual downgrades. It’s generally safe and can provide 1-3% FPS gains.
Setting: Enabled
GPU Scaling: Only If Needed
GPU scaling handles resolution conversion when you’re playing at non-native resolutions. If you game at your monitor’s native resolution, this does nothing.
Enable it if you deliberately play at lower resolutions (like 1080p on a 1440p monitor) for better performance. Otherwise, keep it off.
Setting: Disabled unless using non-native resolutions
Display Settings: FreeSync and More
AMD FreeSync: Enable If You Have It
If your monitor supports FreeSync, enable it. FreeSync synchronizes your monitor’s refresh rate with your GPU’s frame output, eliminating screen tearing and stuttering without introducing input lag.
This is one of the biggest quality-of-life improvements for gaming. Check your monitor’s manual to confirm FreeSync support, then enable it in both AMD Software and your monitor’s on-screen display menu.
Setting: Enabled on compatible monitors
Virtual Super Resolution (VSR): Performance Trade-off
VSR renders games at higher resolutions, then downscales to your native resolution—essentially supersampling for better image quality. It looks great but hammers performance hard.
Only use VSR if your GPU has performance to spare and you value maximum visual quality over high frame rates. For most gaming scenarios, native resolution with good settings works better.
Setting: Disabled unless you prioritize visuals over performance
Radeon Super Resolution (RSR): The Smart Upscaler
RSR is AMD’s driver-level upscaling technology, similar to NVIDIA’s Image Scaling. It renders games at lower resolutions, then uses smart upscaling to restore clarity while boosting frame rates.
Enable RSR if you’re struggling to hit target frame rates in demanding games. Set it to 70-80% resolution scale for the best balance—you’ll gain 20-30% FPS while maintaining acceptable image quality.
Setting: Disabled by default, enable with 70-80% scale when you need performance
Performance Tab: Tuning and Monitoring
Smart Access Memory: Enable If Available
Smart Access Memory (SAM) lets your CPU access the full GPU memory bandwidth instead of being limited to 256MB chunks. This can provide 5-10% performance gains in some games.
Enable SAM in AMD Software, but note: you’ll need to enable Resizable BAR in your motherboard BIOS first. Check your motherboard manual for instructions—it’s usually in Advanced PCIe settings.
Setting: Enabled (requires BIOS Resizable BAR support)
Performance Tuning: Undervolting Basics
The Performance Tuning section lets you manually adjust GPU clocks and voltages. Undervolting reduces power consumption and temperatures while maintaining performance—basically free cooling.
For beginners, enable « Automatic Undervolt GPU. » AMD’s software automatically finds stable voltage reductions. Advanced users can manually undervolt by reducing voltage 50-100mV and stress testing for stability.
Be careful with overclocking unless you know what you’re doing. Undervolting is relatively safe, but pushing clocks higher requires proper cooling and stability testing.
Setting: Automatic Undervolt enabled for easy wins
Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC): Power Savings
FRTC caps your maximum frame rate, reducing GPU power consumption when you don’t need unlimited FPS. If you game on a 144Hz monitor, capping at 144 FPS saves power without impacting experience.
This setting also helps if your GPU runs hot or loud. Capping FPS reduces load, which lowers temperatures and fan speeds.
Setting: Enabled at your monitor’s refresh rate (optional but useful)
Creating Game-Specific Profiles
Global settings work fine for most games, but competitive titles benefit from customized profiles. Here’s how to create them:
Click the « Gaming » tab, then « Add » → « Browse. » Navigate to your game’s executable and add it to AMD Software. Click the game tile to customize settings specifically for that title.
For competitive shooters (CS2, Valorant, Apex):
- Anti-Lag: Enabled
- Enhanced Sync: Disabled (use in-game settings)
- Image Sharpening: 60-70% (clarity without distraction)
- Frame Rate Target: Monitor refresh rate
For demanding single-player games (Cyberpunk, Starfield):
- RSR: Enabled at 75-80% if needed
- Image Sharpening: 80% (compensate for upscaling)
- Tessellation: x8 (performance safety net)
- Anti-Lag: Enabled
FSR 3 and Frame Generation
AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 includes frame generation for higher FPS. It’s enabled in-game, not through drivers—look for FSR options in supported titles’ graphics menus.
Choose Quality or Balanced mode for best results. Frame Generation works best above 60 base FPS—below that, artifacts become noticeable.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Enabling everything: More settings enabled doesn’t mean better performance. Features like Boost and Chill can actually hurt responsiveness.
Ignoring driver updates: New games perform poorly on old drivers. Stay current—it takes five minutes and often delivers meaningful gains.
Maxing tessellation: Games sometimes default to x64 tessellation for no good reason. Override to x16 and enjoy better frame rates with identical visuals.
Using V-Sync in competitive games: The input lag will cost you kills. Use Enhanced Sync or FreeSync instead.
Forgetting to enable FreeSync: If you paid for a FreeSync monitor, use it! Enable it in AMD Software AND your monitor’s menu.
The Bottom Line
Start with these baseline settings: Anti-Lag enabled, Enhanced Sync on (if no FreeSync), Image Sharpening at 80%, Anisotropic Filtering at 16x, Tessellation overridden to x16, V-Sync off. These settings work for 90% of games and maximize performance without sacrificing visual quality.
Create game-specific profiles for competitive titles where every frame matters. Use RSR or FSR when you need performance boosts in demanding games, but leave them off when your GPU handles native resolution comfortably.
The best settings depend on your specific GPU and games. An RX 7900 XTX can push higher quality than an RX 6600 XT, so adjust based on your hardware. Test changes in your most-played games and tweak until you find your personal sweet spot between visuals and performance.
AMD’s software gives you the tools—now you know how to use them properly.