afmf-linux

AMD Fluid Motion Frames for Linux

afmf-linux is an open-source frame generation layer for Linux gaming: the equivalent of AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) as a Vulkan implicit layer. It generates one interpolated frame between every two frames a game presents, so the frame rate on screen doubles. Any game, Proton or native. No kernel module, no driver patch.

Install Source on GitHub

2×frames on screen: one generated for every real frame
0.7 msGPU time per frame at 3440×1440 on an RX 9070 XT, flow at full resolution, off the game's queue
~10 µsof the game's thread per frame; the rest runs on the layer's own threads
1:1pacing: each generated frame lands halfway between two real ones, as with AMD's AFMF

What it does

AMD’s AFMF is not a hardware feature: on Windows it is compute-shader work the Radeon driver inserts at present time, for any game, from the colour buffer alone. afmf-linux does the same on Linux:

  1. It hooks swapchain creation and asks for a few extra images.
  2. On every present it runs FidelityFX Optical Flow (AMD’s own shaders, vendored under MIT) between the previous frame and the new one, and synthesises the frame in between.
  3. A presentation thread of the layer shows the generated frame at once and the real frame half a frame later, so both land evenly spaced. The game’s own thread only queues the frame; a work thread of the layer records and submits, and the GPU work runs on a compute queue of the layer’s own.

It works with DirectX games under Proton (DXVK, vkd3d-proton) and native Vulkan titles, on RADV / AMD RDNA GPUs and, in principle, any Vulkan 1.1 driver.

Get started

# Fedora
sudo dnf install ./afmf-linux-1.3.1-1.fc44.x86_64.rpm
# Steam launch options for the game
AFMF_ENABLE=1 %command%

DEB, Arch and a plain tarball are on the release page; the install guide covers every route, including building from source.

Tested hardware

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (RDNA4) and RX 7800 XT (RDNA3), Mesa 26.1.8 RADV, KDE Plasma Wayland, 3440×1440 at 165 Hz, with five games under vkd3d-proton, DXVK and native Vulkan. Users have reported it working on an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti with The Witcher 3 (DXVK). Every case, ours and theirs, with its result: tested hardware and games. Other GPUs and compositors: reports welcome.

In games

Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing on Linux: MangoHud shows 243 fps on screen with afmf-linux while the game's own counter shows 116 real frames per second
Cyberpunk 2077, RT Ultra, FSR 4 Quality: the game's own counter (top centre) says 116 real frames per second; MangoHud (top left) counts what reaches the screen, 243. Click to open at 3440×1440.
Game (RX 9070 XT, 3440×1440, 21:9) On screen with afmf-linux
Monster Hunter Wilds, max settings + RT, Native AA (vkd3d-proton) 265 fps (120 without the layer)
Cyberpunk 2077, RT Ultra, FSR 4 Quality (vkd3d-proton) 243 fps (116 real, per the game’s counter)
DOOM: The Dark Ages, Ultra Nightmare, FSR Quality (native Vulkan) 268 fps
DOOM: The Dark Ages, Ultra Nightmare, Native AA + VRS (native Vulkan) 255 fps
Overwatch 2, Epic, FidelityFX Quality, Reduced Buffering (DXVK) 449 fps (223 real, per the game’s counter)
Borderlands 4, Badass, FSR Quality (vkd3d-proton) 125 fps
Cyberpunk 2077 on an RX 7800 XT (RDNA3), same settings ~120-220 fps (60-110 real)

Every capture with its graphics settings and the exact launch options: screenshots.

Monster Hunter Wilds at max settings with ray tracing and Native AA on Linux, 265 fps with afmf-linux DOOM: The Dark Ages at Ultra Nightmare with FSR Quality on Linux, 268 fps with afmf-linux Borderlands 4 at Badass settings with FSR Quality on Linux, 125 fps with afmf-linux Overwatch 2 at Epic with FidelityFX Quality on Linux: 449 fps on screen with afmf-linux, 223 real per the game's counter

The ceiling is 2× the base the game reaches on Linux without the layer; the layer costs 0.7 ms of GPU time per frame and about 10 µs of the game’s thread. Details, per-stage numbers and how they were measured: performance.

FAQ

Is afmf-linux really AMD Fluid Motion Frames? It is the same idea built the same way, driver-level frame generation from the colour buffer at present time using AMD’s FidelityFX Optical Flow for the motion and an interpolation pass, applied to any game. It is not AMD’s code for the interpolation and it is not affiliated with AMD.

Does it add latency? Not noticeably, as with AFMF on Windows. The pacing holds the real frame back by half a frame time so the generated one lands in between, the same thing AMD’s implementation does. AFMF_PACING=0 removes the hold at the cost of an uneven cadence.

Does it work with Proton and DirectX games? Yes. DXVK and vkd3d-proton present through Vulkan, which is where the layer sits. It has been measured with DirectX 12 titles under Proton.

Does it need an AMD GPU? No. It needs a Vulkan 1.1 driver with subgroup basic, arithmetic and quad operations in compute, 32-bit image atomics and r8ui/rg16i storage images; every Mesa driver has them, and a device without them gets a log line and no generation. Tuned on RDNA4 and verified on RDNA3, both with RADV; a user reports it working on an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti. RDNA2 and Intel are untested.

Is it a kernel module or a Mesa patch? Neither. It is a Vulkan implicit layer, installed like MangoHud, enabled per game with AFMF_ENABLE=1.

More in the full FAQ.