Drivers & Software

[Flyfisherman]

I find somewhat strange that AMD doesn't tell You the full requirements, one has to search for it.

SAM (Smart Access Memory).
Some games actually will see a performance loss, and in most games that support SAM will only gain somewhat between 5-10 FPS and that is in particular high resolutions 1440 or more.

If you are on a 1920x1080 60Hz monitor- don't even think about it, SAM will not gain any performance improvement, it will rather downplay the performance as I have been seeing on my tests setups (which is by all means just personally and not professionally done).

However if one will try, there are several requirements that must be fulfilled and its just not about the BIOS settings.

And here I'm just talking about AMD chipset.

1. Make sure that your motherboard chipset and CPU can support SAM from the beginning.
If necessary, install latest chipset from: https://www.amd.com/en/support

2. Only GPUs from AMD RX6000 series support SAM.

3. You will need to update your BIOS with latest Agesa version.

4. In Bios setup >Boot menu => CSM (Compatibility Support Module) has to be disabled.
Then save and enter BIOS setup again.

5a. In Bios setup > Boot option UEFI mode must be enabled, however I have tried without, but as a quest from SAM support, I suggest to have UEFI enabled.

5b. And that makes a whole new requirements. In order to have Windows UEFI fully enabled and CSM disabled, the systems disk/ssd partition must be in GPT (link to MS) and Not partitioned in MBR mode.
If it not, then one have to first re-partition in GPT mode and then reinstall Windows.

6. After restart of the system Enter Bios setup again to enable Above 4G Decoding and then enable Re-size Bar support (SAM).
You will find it under BIOS > Advanced menu.

7. You can check if SAM is enabled in AMD Adrenalin s/w > Performance tab > Tuning => Smart Access Memory

8. One good thing about AMD Adrenalin s/w is that You can turn off SAM directly there, if You play games that actually are not beneficial of this feature.

My rig:
GPU: ASUS TUF Gaming AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT OC 16GB
Extended monitor setup: Gigabyte AORUS-FI27Q27" 2560x1440 @165Hz, Philips IPS 24" 1920x1080 @60Hz
Mobo: Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero
SAM: Enabled and fully functional.
CPU: Ryzen 9 3950X
Ram: 16GB @3200 MHz
CPU Cooler: NH-D15-Se AM4
Storage: M2 Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, SSD Samsumg 950 Pro 1 TB
Temp: overall 36C deg.

[Nagrenol · Accepted solution]

Sorry but I'm confused, you say AMD don't 'tell' you what the requirements are and you had to search for it.

It's listed here with the requirements are and how to enable it - https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/smart-access-memory 

Which you search for and find by typing AMD SAM into Google

How are you expecting AMD to 'tell' people exactly, this post is confusing as to your point here?

[Flyfisherman]

If You read my post above, it will tell somethings that are Not listed on AMD support site you just added.
Then again I just wanted to make an instruction of what is needed and how to do it, since I find posts allover this forum as well on other forums of people have certain problem of how to get it to work, despite your link to AMD, in which I'm sure most people are well aware about.

Best Regards from Sweden

[Nagrenol]

OK, well the way your post is worded is that amd don't give any info at all oh the requirements or how to enable it.

It seems your post is more around the effectiveness of having it enabled.

Not wrong there, it's a minor upgrade at beast and a minor negative in other cases. Hopefully it will be something that will have a bigger effect down the road.

People got very upset about not being able to 'access' it but in the end, it's not really a selling point for performance

[Anonymous]

YOUR operating system, games and apps must be compiled with it enabled. You can then type in for the display driver function and chipset drivers from AMD and VULKAN and whatever apps are running to ENABLE it in a config.ini or settings.ini text file or in windows registry. You need to type things like EXTREME or INFINITYSAM and then EXTREMESMARTACCESSMEMORY .. and not just smart accessmemory.. you can type SMARTACCESSMEMORY2 and SMARTACCESSMEMORY9 and then x99999x999999x9999x9999x99999 or ZZZZZ x FFFF .. and try and get a single thing AMD to actually be enabled. Also you want to compile in higher bit depth than binary. Just because intel and nvidia are sort of more like a japanese movement pocket watch rather than a rolex or a torbillion watch.. and more like a cash register or calculator but not actually as good as a calculator and spamming stuff and faking everything with software they invented like CUDA.. your AMD functions if they ever function at all will need to be enabled on highest beyond ultra settings about 50 times over.