Radeon Chill, Radeon ReLive and more.
In recent times, AMD has been at the center of attention mainly with regard to the new processors equipped with Zen architecture, which will see the light in the course of 2017 and promise 40% more performance than current CPUs. Waiting for their official launch date, AMD also has some interesting surprises in store from the side of ready-to-use graphics cards: the new driver Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition (16.12), in fact, brings with it several new features that will appeal to many players.
First of all, the driver in question optimizes performance in various titles, as is usually the case for every new graphics update. The first big news, which lends its name to the software, is instead the function Radeon ReLive: this feature allows you to capture and share the best moments during games as well as stream, all in a simple and fast way thanks to the handy in-game pop-up toolbar.
Radeon ReLive includes the following options:
- In-game screen / toolbar
- Instant replay
- Register
- Stream
- Screenshot
After enabling it from the Radeon Settings menu, you can change different settings to your liking: the hotkeys for each individual function, resolution, frame rate, encoding type, instant replay duration and much more. In short, Radeon ReLive will prove very useful to all owners of an AMD GPU who like to record their games or are used to streaming.
One of the doubts that often arise when it comes to recording software, when activated, is what their impact on the performance of the graphics card is, but AMD has nothing to fear in this respect: in a benchmark carried out with an RX 480 8 GB at 1080p resolution and Ultra graphics settings, the tested titles record a maximum of -4% in terms of performance decrease compared to a gaming situation with ReLive disabled.
The Radeon Software Crimson, therefore, adds a new piece to its functionality with a capture / streaming system that has comfort and ease of use on its side.
The second novelty from AMD is called Radeon Chill, which also debuts with this driver and aims to reduce the excessive power consumption of the GPU without going to undermine the final game experience of the players. In practical terms, the algorithm of this system monitors the use of commands by users to determine if the game action is hectic or quiet. If a player is stationary and the picture is mostly static, the Radeon Chill feature quickly decreases the frame rate to a lower frequency to save power. On the other hand, when shooting movement or interacting with the scene, the system responds by instantly increasing the frame rate to offer the right game fluidity.
As can be guessed, the benefits of this new feature are many, among which the energy saving and the reduction of temperatures stand out. The company has already created gods predefined profiles for titles that are optimized for AMD graphics cards, but users can freely customize the settings to suit their needs. To demonstrate the efficiency of this system we think the results of the test carried out on World of Warcraft always with the RX 480:
- Average GPU power consumption decreased by 31%, from 108W to 75W
- Average GPU temperature decreased by 13 ° C
- Reduced noise and fan speed
Currently, the APIs supported by Radeon Chill are DirectX 9, 10 and 11, while it will take some time to implement this function also on Vulkan and DirectX 12. Furthermore, at least for now it is not possible to exploit this feature in titles other than those already predefined by AMD, the list of which is shown in an image of the gallery at the bottom of the article. Last but not least, AMD has also made several improvements to FreeSync technology (such as support for HBR3 technology) and implemented support for HDR 10 and Dolby Vision technologies for the new HDR displays.
Finally, the Californian company has also thought about the content creators and designers who have powerful workstations by creating the version Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition, which is compatible with the Radeon Pro WX-series, Radeon Pro Duo and FirePro W-series product family.
In conclusion, the Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition driver turns out to be full-bodied and full of interesting features, and among the rest it also brings with it a brand new installer with a more elegant and intuitive interface. In short, AMD is working hard and the next big step on the roadmap should be the launch of the Zen CPUs: we can't wait to find out how they will behave!
