While AMD is impressing gamers with its new Radeon RX 480 graphics card, the hardware company is investing more in its software side to improve the playing experience on its hardware.

AMD revealed today that it has acquired 3D-gaming tool developer HiAlgo for an undisclosed amount as part of an effort to make its Radeon Software suite more helpful. The HiAlgo team creates plugins for Radeon GPUs that make games perform better, prevent components from overheating, and can flip between two resolutions at the press of a button. While AMD and Nvidia are best known for their work with semiconductors, the importance of providing software that can unlock the power of those processors is obvious. Nvidia’s excellent GeForce Experience tools are among the reasons why it has a lead in the PC sector of the $140 billion gaming hardware market.

HiAlgo should help AMD close that gap. The developer produces three primary tools, and each of them are ideal for the mass market that AMD is hoping to capture with its $200 RX 480.

  • HiAlgo Boost: This utility monitors your games and actively adapts their resolutions to keep the framerate as high as possible. It works automatically.
  • HiAlgo Chill: A CPU and GPU limiter. This tool puts a governor on the processors to ensure they do not overheat or consume too much power.
  • HiAlgo Switch: Players can use this to set up a hotkey that instantly switches to half the resolution and back again. If players feel like they are entering an area with too much going on, they can go into the lower resolution to ensure they do not lose any frames.

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“Software is an integral part of advancing the science of graphics, enabling us to best harness the silicon of the GPU to maximize performance and deliver outstanding experiences in games and applications,” Radeon chief architect Raja Koduri said in a canned statement. “HiAlgo embodies our spirit of passion, persistence, and play by delivering a number of creative approaches to software that improve gamers’ experiences, and helps future-proof the GPU.”

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