AMD promises AGESA fix for 2nd Gen Ryzen glitches

AMD has addressed performance issues between selected models of its latest second-generation Ryzen chips, based on the tweaked Zen+ microarchitecture, and popular games including PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Overwatch, promising to smooth things out - literally - with a pending AGESA update.

AMD's Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA), a fancy term for microcode updates which can be loaded to modify how a processor or its chipset operates without physically changing the silicon, is frequently used by the company to address problems and glitches - 'errata' in semiconductor lingo - with newly-released processors. Back in March 2017, when the first Ryzen chips were still new and shiny, an AGESA update was used to fix a hard-crash condition encountered when programs attempted to execute a three-operand fused multiply add instruction (FMA3), and later added RAM tweaks and virtualisation capabilities as well as support for new Raven Ridge accelerated processing unit (APU) chips.

Now, the company is using AGESA to address reported performance issues when running selected titles on its latest second-generation Ryzen processors. 'AGESA 1002a BIOSes are coming out now for Ryzen 5 2400G & Ryzen 3 2200G with performance and smoothness improvements for PUBG, Overwatch, and Minecraft,' AMD confirmed in a Twitter post late on Friday. 'Keep an eye on your mobo vendor’s download page.'

The company has not detailed exactly what changes have been made in AGESA 1002a, nor the underlying cause of the performance issues. The company is also silent on exactly when the update will be made available, which is out of AMD's hands: AGESA updates must be tested and rolled into motherboard firmware updates by AMD's board partners, a process which can take considerable time and which is entirely dependent on said vendors being on-the-ball.

AMD has not confirmed whether AGESA 1002a will have any performance impact on other Ryzen parts beyond the Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G named in the Twitter post.