What is Asynchronous Timewarp & Reprojection for PC?

The idea of using Asyncronous Timewarp & Reprojection for PCs is finally gaining traction! But what is it and how does it work?

Most pcs and standalone VR headsets don’t have enough power to generate 90 high quality frames per second (2x!) in stereoview, so clever people came up with a trick to make you perceive ~30fps as +200fps. This not only makes the experience much better, it is also more economical in terms of power consumption and/or could offer higher image fidelity per frame.

How does Async Timewarp & Reprojection work?

Simply put, Async Reprojection turns your rendered image into a simple floating plane in a threedimensional space, and as soon as you move your camera, it will initially move that plane in anticipation of the next rendered frame (Async Timewarp).

Now, instead of showing black voids all around, it will fill the empty edges of the image with ‘visually similar content’ until the next image comes along (Timewarp borders). This way, it seems that the camera moves extremely smooth and responsive, even if you are only at 25~30 frames per second.

Now someone thought “what if we apply that to PCs?”
And why not? Triple-A-games, heavy BIM visualizations and complex CAD-files… Can bring your GPU to its knees… and smooth/responsive movement is perhaps the most important factor to achieve a good experience.

Even if you want to save energy and/or give your GPU and CPU some extra breathing space (especially in laptops because of heat + the battery), one could cap the framerate without sacrificing “motion fluidity”, thanks to this wonderful innovation.

Download the Async Timewarp border demo

Youtuber “Comrade Stinger” made a very simple demo of this tool, which you can download Here (my mirror)

The video sample below clearly show the Async Reprojection effect

I’ll show you an exaggerated example at barely 15 fps(!) to show just how good it works.

First you will see 15 fps (a very sluggish experience)
Then I activate Async Timewarp; It becomes smoother, but you can clearly see the black edges
Finally I also activate the Timewarp Borders & Reprojection… and suddenly we get to experience a +200fps experience.

This was of course an extreme demo at barely 15fps, so you still see some artifacts. Luckily these disappear almost completely at +30fps.
As you can see, the motion experience instantly becomes buttery smooth & extremely responsive with Async Reprojection, but you can still see that physically moving objects, move in their original frame rate. Perhaps this can be further optimised with tecnologies like DLSS3 or Motion Interpolation.

Hopefully Nvidia, AMD and Intel (Arc) are listening, and will build system-wide support for this technology into their drivers.