AMD reveals their Radeon Software 17.7.2 driver
AMD reveals their Radeon Software 17.7.2 driver
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Radeon Relive – Less overhead, more options and higher bitrates Â
One of the key improvements to AMD’s Radeon Software 17.7.2 release is in its ReLive gameplay recording functionality, adding new features to AMD’s recording/streaming functionality while also decreasing the feature’s impact on performance.Â
To start off, AMD’s Radeon Software 17.7.2 driver will come with the ability to record gameplay at higher bitrates, doubling ReLive’s maximum bitrate to 100Mbps.Â
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Alongside this increase in Bitrate, AMD has optimised ReLive to decrease memory usage and decrease the feature’s impact on game performance. AMD states that Radeon Software Relive will offer up to a 33% decrease in the performance impact of recording gameplay with ReLive.  Â
This update will be particularly useful for streamers who have 4GB of VRAM or less, as AMD’s memory optimisations will have the most impact in more VRAM constrained systems.Â
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With this new driver, AMD has also added new features like webcam transparency, which will allow the UI of games to be more visible and refined ReLive notifications to better inform the user of when gameplay is being recorded/saved and when there are any network connectivity issues.Â
AMD has also added more audio control options to ReLive, making it easier for streamers to fine-tune their setup.Â
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Wattman and Chill
AMD’s Wattman and Chill functions are relatively new to AMD’s driver stack, allowing users to overclock or underclock their systems from within AMD’s Radeon Software and utilise power saving features in a wide variety of games.Â
Wattman is AMD’s GPU power management engine, which allows users to adjust GPU voltage, GPU/engine clock speeds, memory clock speeds and fan/temperature profiles.Â
With Radeon Software 17.7.2, AMD will be adding new memory underclocking functions to Wattman, which will allow users to potentially improve their GPU core overclocks by downclocking their memory to decrease its power consumption. This new update will also offer users with more GPU power stare controls, but only for AMD RX 500 and 400 series or newer GPUs.
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Back in December, AMD introduced a new feature called Radeon Chill, which is a feature that can be used with most games to deliver lower average frametimes and lower GPU power consumption and thermals.Â
This new feature was designed to make AMD’s GPUs more competitive in the mobile market, increasing battery life and the user’s electric bill as well as reduce thermal load and best of all it is designed to improve the user’s gaming experience.Â
To put things simply Radeon Chill a software algorithm which reduces power consumption without negatively affecting the game experience.Â
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In basic terms, if you are standing still in a game Radeon chill will decrease your framerate to conserve power, but automatically increase framerate back to normal when you begin moving again. During high framerates (above your display’s refresh rate) Radeon Chill will also regulate performance for reduced frametimes and increased responsiveness.Â
The major benefit of Chill is that users should not be able to notice the difference between Radeon Chill being on or off.Â
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With the release of Radeon Software 17.7.2 AMD is bringing Chill support to DirectX 12 and Vulkan games and has added Radeon Chill controls to game graphics profiles, allowing the function to be enabled and adjusted easily on a game-by-game basis.Â
AMD has also added Chill support to Multi-GPU configurations and to external GPUs what use Radeon XConnect Technology.Â
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AMD Enhanced Sync – Increased responsiveness and less shutter
We all know that V-Sync is far from a perfect option, allowing stuttering to take place when a game isn’t played at your display’s refresh rate and allowing a lot of additional latency to take place when framerates could be higher.Â
This has prompted AMD to create their new “Enhanced Sync” technology, which is designed to minimise frame latency while also reducing stuttering and minimising screen tearing. Â Â
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Enhanced sync runs at an unlocked frame framerate and effectively sits between VSync and FreeSync, working to minimise latency and decrease stuttering. This technology will not offer an experience that is as good as FreeSync, but it is a marked improvement when looking at the user’s gameplay experience.Â
Beyond that Enhanced Sync will work with FreeSync when your display is working outside of its FreeSync range, allowing even FreeSync users to benefit from this technology.Â
Performance Gains – Lower Input LatencyÂ
Over the past number of years, AMD has worked to improve their drivers with day-0 performance optimisations for modern games, increasing both the quantity and the quality of their drivers over time.Â
This has allowed AMD to offer more competitive gaming performance with their latest Radeon Software releases but gaming relies on more than framerate, prompting AMD to look into other places where they can improve the gameplay experience of their users.Â
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The next major step for AMD’s Radeon Software is to tackle Latency head on, to minimise driver wait-times “from CPU drawcalls to GPU Presents”, reducing the time between an input and an action onscreen.Â
This new focus has allowed AMD to decrease the response times of games by up to 31%, a change that will no doubt make games feel more responsive and allow players to react faster to actions on-screen. While these changes cannot be measured using standard framerate analysis tools, they will no doubt have an impact on the gameplay experience of Radeon users, especially on online/competitive games. Â
Sadly these changes will only affect DirectX 11 and DirectX 9 titles, making these optimisations useless in modern Vulkan and DirectX 12 releases. That being said most games today use these older APIs, so it is still a huge improvement.Â
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AMD has also extended their Shader Cache feature to some older titles, allowing load times to be reduced in certain titles. AMD uses Starcraft II, a very popular online RTS, as an example here, reducing load times by around 10%.Â
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GPU Open – Radeon GPU Profiler Â
One of the most important programs that AMD’s Radeon Technology Group operates is their GPU Open program, which facilitates the development of open source tools like TressFX 4.0, the Vulkan Memory Allocator, OCAT and a large number of other developer tools.Â
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Now AMD has created a developer tool that will allow developers to analyse, adjust and accelerate their performance on Radeon GPUs, utilising a new tool called the Radeon GPU Profiler.Â
This tool is designed to make PC development more similar to consoles, giving developers greater insight into their games by allowing them to access low-level hardware thread tracing data with ease.  will allow game developers to make low-level optimisations for AMD’s Radeon hardware, allowing developers to optimise workflow and deliver enhanced game performance.Â
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AMD’s Radeon GPU Profiler will allow game developers to make low-level optimisations for AMD’s Radeon hardware, allowing developers to optimise workflow and deliver enhanced game performance. PC gamers can finally benefit from console-like optimisation!
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This tool will support Windows 7, Windows 10 and Linux in titles using DirectX 12 or Vulkan. This tool can be used with AMD’s Radeon Developer Driver, which will make the creation of trace files easier.Â
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Conclusion
AMD’s Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.7.2 driver is a major release in every sense, delivering gamers new and updated features, increased performance and a boat load of bug fixes. Â
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This new release also provides AMD with a great opportunity to gain additional support from developers, with their new Radeon GPU profiler promising to facilitate console-like optimisations on Radeon hardware. Â Â
The Radeon Technologies Group has been able to provide their users with another major leap within their driver ecosystem, enhancing their Radeon Settings for ease of use and decreasing the performance overhead of features like Radeon ReLive.Â
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One of this most important changes to AMD’s Radeon Software drivers is their work on decreasing game response times, which will increase the responsiveness of games while having no noted effect on framerate. This shows that AMD is dedicated not only to offering great in-game performance but also to offering a great gameplay experience, a sentiment that is also shown with the release of AMD’s “Enhanced Sync” option.Â
The timing of this driver is also significant, given its proximity to the launch of the Radeon RX Vega. This driver shows a clear commitment to their existing users, that they will continue to improve existing products and that they will not be locking these new features to Vega exclusively. Not once did AMD mention Vega in their driver briefing, or in their end notes, with all of these Radeon Software improvements coming to AMD’s existing GPU lineup. Â Â
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You can join the discussion on AMD’s Radeon Software 17.7.2 driver on the OC3D Forums.Â
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