AMD Delivers Crimson ReLive Drivers: Yearly Feature Update for Radeon Gamers and Professionals
by Ian Cutress on December 8, 2016 9:00 AM ESTWhat New Features with What New Cards
With Crimson ReLive, AMD is stating that this is their biggest software launch ever, and the joint initiative between consumer, developer, professional and feedback mechanisms will help future software development especially as so many areas overlap. The policy for 2017 will be similar to 2016 for driver updates: around a half-dozen WHQL launches plus updates for every major game launch on the day of launch (or for serious bug fixes).
AMD is putting a lot into open source development, enticing developers to work with the tools provided for better user experiences on AMD or other hardware. However users will notice that throughout this piece there have been a number of features limited to particular hardware, mostly due to the feature set of certain types of hardware. Here’s a tabular breakdown of what works with what, starting with the Pro software.
| AMD Crimson ReLive Feature Support List Pro Level / Creator Features |
|||
| GPU | OS | ||
| LiquidVR | Affinity Multi-GPU | VR Ready Premium VR Ready Creator |
Windows Linux |
| MultiView | |||
| MultiRes | |||
| TrueAudio Next | |||
| Radeon ProRender | VR Ready Creator | Windows macOS Linux |
|
| Radeon Pro Game Engine Integration | Pro WX-Series FirePro W-Series |
Various | |
| Radeon Pro: LiquidVR | Pro WX7100 Pro Duo FirePro W9100 |
Windows 7/10 | |
| Radeon Pro: Linux Driver | Pro WX-Series Pro Duo FirePro W-Series |
Ubuntu RHEL CentOS |
|
| Radeon Pro: vmware vSphere 6.5 | FirePro S7100X FirePro S7150 FirePro S7150 x2 |
- | |
| Radeon Pro ReLive DVR for ISV (streaming at customer request) |
Pro WX-Series Pro Duo FirePro W-Series |
Win 7/10 | |
On the consumer level:
| AMD Crimson ReLive Feature Support List Consumer Level Features |
|||
| GPU | OS | ||
| Bad HDMI Cable Detection | Kabini APU and newer GCN Discrete |
Windows | |
| VP9 4K60 Decode Acceleration | Stoney APU GCN Discrete |
Windows | |
| HDR10 Support | R9 Fury series RX 460/470/480 R9 380/390/390X |
Windows | |
| FreeSync Borderless FreeSync Mode FreeSync Refresh Ramp |
R9 Fury series RX 460/470/480 R9 380/390/390X R9 285/290/290X R7 360 R7 260/260X |
Windows | |
| Skype Acceleration on APU | Bristol APU Carrizo APU Stoney Ridge APU |
Windows | |
| DisplayPort HBR3 Support | RX series | Windows | |
| Radeon CHILL Software (Select Games Only) |
GCN Discrete* | Windows DX9/DX11 |
|
| Radeon WattMan | R9 Fury series RX 460/470/480 R9 380/390/390X R9 285/290/290X R7 360 R7 260/260X |
Windows | |
| AMD XConnect | R9 Fury Series RX 460/470/480 R9 380/390/390X R9 285/290/290X |
Windows | |
| Radeon Software Clean Install | GCN Discrete Pro WX-Series Pro Duo FirePro W-Series |
Windows (Pro: Not Win8) |
|
| Upgrade Advisor | Kabini APU and newer GCN Discrete |
Windows | |
| User Feedback | GCN Discrete | Windows | |
| Crimson ReLive Linux Driver | GCN | Ubuntu 14.04/16.04 RHEL 6.8/7.2/7.3 SLED/SLES 12 SP2 |
|
| Radeon ReLive DVR | GCN Discrete Pro WX-Series FirePro W-Series |
Windows (Pro: Not Win8) |
|
In most cases, owning a GCN discrete GPU gets a user most of the features, and an RX-400 series gets them all. It's worth noting that none of the Pro features work on Windows 8, but also Windows Server wasn't mentioned specifically on the list of support packages - but I would assume that the equivalent Server version is supported for non-server Windows versions.
Final Thoughts
A year under the new AMD software strategy has yielded significant benefits for user experience, especially when good performing drivers are launched day one. The ethos for the original Crimson has worked well, and will continue into 2017 with ReLive, however there is a large number of new features and it may be tricky for AMD to balance so many new features with a good user experience. The ability to upvote new future features will be an enablement step for AMD to get a live glimpse into their users, but such a feature rarely produces a paradigm shift in thinking. The prominent focus into open source tools and Linux development, especially with technologies such as Freesync or ReLive for ISV certified applications, opens up potential for those markets.
AMD has promised a yearly cadence for major updates. In the last set of updates, Ryan said:
"This project has clearly been in the works longer than 3 months – but at the same time this is the RTG making their mark. It’s a new direction for AMD’s graphics group and a new look to match. And if the RTG can meet their stability, performance, and release goals going forward with the new Crimson driver, then they should be able to make 2016 a good year for the Radeon user base."
The same thing applies for 2017: execution is critical. 2016 ended up being a good year for AMD, helped in part with the RX-series launch, but similarly 2017 launches will be aided by a good user experience through both the drivers and the features. Something as large and complicated as the ReLive recording software can be a key product feature going forward, when done right.
Where to Download
The new ReLive drivers (16.12.1) should be available to download from today at AMD's driver page, or the Pro driver page.
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psychobriggsy - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link
AMD has been shipping proprietary AMDPRO drivers on Linux for quite some time, and if you want open source then AMD is the only choice really given Nvidia won't provide Pascal firmware images for Nouveau, and even then the AMD open source drivers are faster (in fact they compete very well with AMD's blobs on Linux now, they just don't provide OpenCL and Vulkan yet).Sure, if you game on Linux the Nvidia blobs are a bit faster than AMD overall, but it certainly isn't like a few years ago.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link
Phrononix is my usual source for GPU benchmarks in Linux. I'm a regular reader over there and much of my current opinion was based on their performance analysis.YukaKun - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link
Benchmarks don't tell the day-to-day story. I have used both throughout the years and AMD has gotten ahead of the game now. People's complaints took some time, but they got their stuff together and they have zero things to have envy of nVidia's drivers.Performance not-withstanding, AMD is in a great shape now in the Linux world. In fact, I have to say it works wonders with SteamOS. Maybe I am a lucky one, but my 7970Ghz did not have a single issue playing all of the Linux ported titles and now the RX480 doesn't either. Outside of gaming, no issues either. It's been quiet sailing so far and I hope it remains that way.
I can't say the same thing with nVidia in my laptop. I still, after 10 years aprox, still don't have switchable graphics and I am scared of upgrading the proprietary binary, since I've had issues with it, even using genkernel.
Cheers!
BrokenCrayons - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link
Thanks for the information. I've been running a few older Nvidia GPUs (NVS 160m and 8400m GS) in my laptops without problems, but I don't use open source drivers. They experience has been very "sane" for my usage. I've yet to move my desktop with its GT 730 off Windows 7 which is largely a laziness thing as I already have an unused drive sitting in the case that just needs to be plugged in.I haven't personally tinkered with AMD graphics under Linux since I retired a couple of older laptops, one with a C-70 and another with an E-450 and their integrated GPUs. They were a pain to get working under Arch and Mint. I'm glad to hear that a current gen RX480 is working out for you. I might grab a RX460 in the next month or three and at that point I'll probably be more interested in transitioning to Linux and moving the system into a smaller case (microATX board in a full tower case...kinda a waste of space).
mr_tawan - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link
Bad news is, the latest AMD's RFC for DAL/DC get slammed today.psychobriggsy - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link
Yeah, I definitely sense that AMD's Linux devs were being held back by a higher up PHB regarding the HAL that was being imposed. Hopefully this major burn will allow them to do things properly at the kernel level even if it needs some linux-specific stuff in the drivers.IntoGraphics - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link
No.Read Phoronix for "It Looks Like AMDGPU DC (DAL) Will Not Be Accepted In The Linux Kernel" :
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&am...
VisS - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link
What Crap ?Colin1497 - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link
Out of the box this looks really impressive. Time to start the download.One question: Technical reason that rebadged r9-2xx series cards get HDR10 in their r9-3xx guise while the original r9-2xx's don't? BIOS or marketing?
Colin1497 - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link
Just realized how old I sound saying "start the download" like this was 1993 and it was going to take a week. It took a few seconds...