But why isn’t this just enabled by default? Is there any downside?
Now you may be wondering, if Radeon Anti-Lag improves input lag in games, why isn’t this just enabled by default? Is there any downside? And the answer to that is yes, but it’s not a significant downside.
We tested a number of games with Radeon Anti-Lag on and off to see the performance impact. Several of these had a negligible performance drop: 1 FPS in Metro Exodus, 3 FPS in Rainbow Six Siege, less than 1 FPS in Resident Evil 2, and no difference in Battlefield V, all looking at average frame rates. The impact to 1% lows could be anywhere from delivering a consistent improvement, to lowering performance.
However there were also some titles were the performance impact was more substantial. In Fortnite we saw a 6% drop to performance, or 7 FPS, looking at average framerates with an even larger drop to 1% lows. The hit was even larger in Hitman 2 at over 11 percent. AMD says it isn’t unusual to see a performance impact in some titles but not others, so your mileage will vary. Certainly some times you can enable Anti-Lag without worrying, but others the hit will be noticeable.