AMD wants to ensure that you no longer need so long to download games. (Image: AdobeStock – ภัทรชัย รัตนชัยวงค์)
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Two, three or four hours: Depending on your internet connection and the game, downloading games takes several hours. So it can happen that you spontaneously buy a game on sale one evening and can't even play it that same evening. That's frustrating.
But AMD has now introduced a technology that is intended to combat enormous downloads.
Fewer GB when downloading games
In detail: AMD has announced its own “Neural Texture Block Compression” on the social media platform X, which will be presented in more detail at the Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2024 (EGSR) from July 3 to 5 in London.
How does the technology work? AMD wants to reduce your downloads by automatically compressing textures when you download a game. And how could it be otherwise: Of course, this is made possible by a neural network, popularly known as AI.
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Especially interesting: This method should be possible without changes to the runtime. This has several implications:
- Easier integration: Game developers do not need to make any changes to the way the game processes or renders textures at runtime. Compression is done before the game runs, so normal game execution is not affected.
- compatibility: The technology can be applied to existing games without changing the game's source code, making it easier to adopt the technology for a wide range of games.
- Performance: Texture compression reduces the size of the data required, which requires less storage space and potentially less VRAM. However, the runtime performance of the game remains the same, meaning players should not experience any degradation in image quality or performance.
By the way: AMD has refrained from announcing graphics cards this year, but what's next? Our colleague Alex knows:
After Computex, the situation for new graphics cards is bleaker than expected – but there is also hope
The company has not announced when AMD will release its Neural Texture Block Compression. Exact information will only be available at the presentation at the EGSR.
Until then, we will probably have to download the full 150 to 300 gigabytes that some games require from our SSDs.