Introduction + Breath of Fresh Air
AMD points out that their Radeon Software drivers have been downloaded over 250 million times, with over 70 releases and support for over 75 AAA games with day-one support.
Not only that, but there are over 50 new or enhanced features inside of Radeon Software drivers since their inception three years ago.
Over the next few pages, we'll detail the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers, with some benchmarks including SAPPHIRE's Radeon RX Vega 64 NITRO+ that just arrived today (yay!).
Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition In Full
Page 2 [Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition In Full]
AMD hasn't put as much focus on the performance side of the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers, with around 10% average increased performance over the previous generation Radeon Software drivers.
I'll include the entire deck here so you can go through them at your own pace, and cover the stand out bits in the next couple of pages.
What's New?
Starting with the performance side of things, AMD is providing a 10-15% average performance benefit in some of the latest AAA games like Project CARS 2 and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands.
For the mainstream gamers who are flocking to eSports-ready games like Overwatch, a huge 14% performance improvement is very welcomed.
AMD has reduced the latency in games like Battlegrounds, Titanfall 2 and others when compared to the previous-gen Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.11.1 drivers with their new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers.
There's also borderless windowed multi-GPU support now, which is probably not used that much - but there are some multi-GPU gamers (note, no longer CrossFire) that will love this feature.
Frame Rate Target Control now has support for Vulkan.
Compute-focused performance can be enabled for cryptocurrency miners, enabling up to 15% more performance with the new drivers on a Radeon RX 570 4GB graphics card.
Radeon WattMan has some new abilities, where Radeon owners can now save and load their profiles as well as share your custom profiles and then load community-driven profiles. This is a great tweak and very welcomed.
Radeon Chill has been updated, supporting countless games on the market.
There's also a 60% lower average GPU power consumption with Radeon Chill on the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers.
AMD has also provided improvements to Enhanced Sync, which now works on all GCN-based Radeon products. Enhanced Sync also now works with Vulkan, notebook products, in multi-GPU mode, and in Eyefinity display setups.
Radeon ReLive is used to capture, stream, and share your gaming moments and has now been updated.
There's an all-new 'Connect' tab in the RSAE drivers that lets you access and manage your Radeon ReLive gameplay capture, and then share them on social media.
In the Connect Tab, there's a Gallery that lets you manage, organize, and upload your gaming memories to social media. Not only that, but you can queue uploads to various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and even view/trim your video captures.
You can manage your social media accounts from the Accounts tab.
There's also a Resource Center tab that provides informative articles, how-to videos, and real-time Radeon updates.
Radeon ReLive Upgraded
Radeon ReLive receives huge love from AMD with the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers, with more performance while capturing gameplay footage.
AMD promises small improvements that will optimize screen capture in games like Rocket League and Battlefield 1, beating out NVIDIA's own GeForce Experience software.
There's support for Vulkan, meaning Vulkan-powered games like DOOM and Wolfenstein II are supported in Radeon ReLive.
Radeon ReLive now supports Borderless Region Capture support, meaning you can capture only what you want - and not the entire screen.
There's also support for Chroma Key, meaning you get the beautiful transparent background for recording/streaming. You can remove entire solid backgrounds with AMD providing support for all RGB backgrounds.
Radeon ReLive's new features include Eyefinity support, which is great for multi-display gamers.
There's even separate audio track support so that you can record your mic audio separate from the game audio.
Radeon Overlay + Performance Monitoring
This is what I've been dying for in drivers: performance monitoring. AMD delivers this with Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers.
The new Radeon Overlay takes care of gamers with system info and gaming performance courtesy of the monitoring/recording side of Radeon Overlay, giving you access to Radeon ReLive, Radeon Chill, FRTC, and more.
The performance monitoring side of things is truly a game-changer, with FPS performance monitoring, built-in performance logging (YESSS), and support for DirectX 9/11/12 and even Vulkan.
Radeon Goes Mobile With AMD Link
This is another surprise from AMD that was baked into the Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers: AMD Link.
AMD Link gives Radeon owners the power to track, record, and socialize from their smartphones. You can track your PC system info and gaming performance and even control Radeon ReLive... all from your smartphone.
In order to connect your smartphone with AMD Link, you can do it with a QR code or manually setting it up.
Once you do, you get access to an Overview menu that lets you navigate through AMD Link with ease.
There's performance monitoring included, with bar graphs that let you monitor your FPS and system info.
Radeon ReLive support is included, with one-touch capture, stream and instant replay features.
There's also a News Feed tab that keeps you up-to-date on AMD products including Ryzen and Radeon.
AMD Link is available for both iOS and Android.
Benchmarks Soon & Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Because I was in Hawaii for Qualcomm last week, I didn't have that much time once I was back to get the benchmarks ready for this article, so I thought I'd wrap this up and then properly finish the benchmark results on AMD's fleet of Radeon RX Vega graphics cards.
It worked out well as SAPPHIRE's new Radeon RX Vega 64 NITRO+ graphics card today and will be reviewing that card on AMD's new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers. I'll be benchmarking the new RX Vega 64 NITRO+ against AMD's reference RX Vega 56, RX Vega 64, and the RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition.
All in all the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers are an impressive release with some great new features with the performance monitor and AMD Link, pushing Radeon owners into their smartphones is an awesome step.