AMD Radeon Anti-Lag+ is making a comeback with the game that caused it go away in the first instance—Counter Strike 2. The technology is undergoing a rebranding as Anti-Lag 2, to reflect the several under-the-hood changes made by AMD. AMD Radeon Anti-Lag+ was supposed to be AMD's answer to NVIDIA Reflex, a whole-system latency reduction technology that wouldn't just benefit competitive online games such as Counter Strike 2; but also form an essential component of FSR 3 Frame Generation. The technology briefly launched last year before gamers started noticing that the tech would trigger anti-cheat mechanisms in online games, such as the VAC that polices CS 2, forcing AMD to withdraw the technology, and for Valve to manually detect and restore thousands of gamer accounts.

It seems AMD has fixed the way Anti-Lag+ works with the new Anti-Lag 2 technology. The company in particular is testing its stability with Counter Strike 2, so you don't get banned again by VAC. The company worked with Valve to release an update to the game so it supports the tech, and released a special AMD Software Adrenalin Anti-Lag 2 Preview driver based on the recent 24.5.1 version. You'll need the latest patch to CS 2, and this driver to experience the "technical preview" of Anti-Lag 2. The company also released a technology brief of Anti-Lag 2. The most important change with Anti-Lag 2 that sets it apart from the failed Anti-Lag+, is that it is not a driver-based solution, but rather a game engine-based one. This is why you'll need the latest update to CS 2, because it contains the Anti Lag 2 code.Anti-Lag works to reduce whole-system latency by adjusting the pace at with the CPU and GPU generate frames (to ensure they're generating frames at a rate that ensures the least latency in the graphics rendering stack). Earlier, the driver used to be responsible for this frame alignment, and it had the potential to trigger anti-cheat mechanisms as it would be mistaken for aimbots or wallhacks. Now the game engine is responsible for this frame-pacing. There are some performance benefits to this. AMD had originally opted for a driver-based solution probably because it wouldn't be at the mercy of game developers to implement the tech, and could quickly ramp up the technology's adoption.

To use the tech, simply get Steam to update to the latest version of Counter Strike 2, and download AMD's technology preview driver from this page. Once both are in place, you should see Anti-Lag 2 in the game's settings.