AMD Releases Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition: Streaming for Videos, Games, & VR
by Nate Oh on December 13, 2018 9:01 AM ESTPlaying on Streams: Streaming PC Games to Mobile and VR
For all the emphasis on streaming, the marquee feature of Adrenalin 2019 is not about streaming gameplay for an audience but streaming games rendered on the PC to play remotely on another device. The GCN-accelerated ReLive technology underpins this, but by-and-large this is really a different use case from streamers.
The ReLive-powered wireless game streaming service comes in two flavors, one for streaming games/desktop to a mobile device, and another for streaming SteamVR titles to standalone VR headsets. The former is integrated into AMD Link, while the latter is part of a separate Radeon ReLive for VR app.
Being part of AMD Link, then, makes streaming games or desktop straightforward to access. Navigating to AMD Link’s new Game Explorer menu displays the game list of the connected Radeon Settings. Accessing the triple-dot settings brings up performance/quality options and stream-testing, as well as configuring options to turn off PC sound and display when streaming to the mobile device. Pressing the play button in the top right corner immediately starts to stream the desktop, where any video playback receives AMD Perfect Picture enhancements. If a game is currently running and active, then the mobile device will continue that game.
For launching games from AMD Link, simply tapping the icon will launch the game, utilizing any Bluetooth controller connected to the mobile device. Otherwise, it will start in a trackpad mode, and selecting the appropriate in-game menu icon is needed to toggle on-screen controls. Both on-screen controllers and Bluetooth controller bindings may be customized in the separate Controllers tab. The in-game menu also permits keyboard input as well as streaming secondary monitors or only the contents of the active window.
As for wirelessly streaming VR titles to headsets, the picture becomes a little more complicated. AMD utilizes SteamVR, AMD ReLive, and a ReLive for VR app on the VR device. At launch, the ReLive for VR app is available on HTC VivePort and Google Play Store, with Oculus Store availability expected shortly.
Similarly, Radeon VR streaming is only currently supported on the HTC Vive Focus, or any Google Daydream compatible phone/headset. The wireless VR streaming feature is only supported on the RX 470/480, RX 570/580/590, and RX Vega cards, as it is enabled by unspecified low-level hardware acceleration to record and stream the game, supporting up to 1440x1440p per eye.
Both PC and headset/phone connected to the same router/AP, but any wired HMD needs to be disconnected from the host PC.
Both PC and headset/phone need to be connected to the same router/AP running on an 801.11ac network. Within the Radeon ReLive ‘Game & VR Streaming’ tab, Remote Play and SteamVR Integration toggles need to be enabled. Then, after running SteamVR on the PC, running the ReLive VR app on the VR device will detect and automatically connect to the PC running SteamVR.
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evernessince - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
Many laptops use custom hardware so reference drivers will only work for models that use reference products. You should read the disclaimer Nvidia puts for it's mobile drivers"As part of the NVIDIA Notebook Driver Program, this is a reference driver that can be installed on supported NVIDIA notebook GPUs. However, please note that your notebook original equipment manufacturer (OEM) provides certified drivers for your specific notebook on their website. NVIDIA recommends that you check with your notebook OEM about recommended software updates for your notebook. OEMs may not provide technical support for issues that arise from the use of this driver."
It's pretty clear that Nvidia does not intend these drivers to work with all laptops nor is that a reasonable assumption. I'll re-iterate, there are tons of custom configurations in laptops that makes it unreasonable to expect drivers to work with each and every one. This is why laptop OEMs provide custom drivers. This isn't something new either, they've been doing this for over 2 decades now.
Manch - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
Ref NVidia drivers work pretty good on ASUS Zen Book(current laptop). Actually a reason I got a Zen Book over a couple others. I detest waiting on the NB manufacturer to customize. I've been burned regardless of GPU vendor. Fortunately both Nvidia and AMD have supported with generic drivers eventually and the communities are helpful dealing with the quirks. The APU situation will get sorted. It sucks that you have to wait but it will get done.limitedaccess - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
You seem to be dodging the issue.The reference driver is provided by everyone except in the case of AMD specifically for Raven Ridge mobile. AMD even provides reference drivers for other mobile products whether APUs or discrete GPUs. This is the problem.
The choice is provided in all cases except this one. And that choice by most cases works better than relying on OEM specific drivers.
Manch - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
The old A8/10 APUs were in the same situation at first and it got sorted.JasonMZW20 - Saturday, December 15, 2018 - link
They're blacklisted by installer for stability and operational reasons. You can force install the drivers via Device Manager, but some issues arise after doing so. Some laptops will no reinitialize display after it sleeps, while others become resolution locked in games (newer games need resolution reductions for acceptable performance), others simply present a black screen after restart, etc. etc. It's a problem, but AMD can't force OEMs to play nice with reference drivers without some sort of opt-in program like Nvidia or Intel. They all have disclaimers, and even AMD's older mobile GPUs don't always work correctly with reference drivers. My old Acer laptop black screens at times (with reference drivers) and I have to use the built-in function keys to turn off/on display to get it back. It's dumb.Mobile/laptop market has always been locked down. Many IT admins prefer that to reduce issues.
abufrejoval - Thursday, December 20, 2018 - link
Never even checked to see if there *was* any OEM drivers for a couple of GigaByte P35X v6 with GTX1070 I'm running. I guess that's because they run CentOS as a primary OS and are used mostly for CUDA stuff. But I also run Windows 2016 and Windows 2019 as a secondary OS on some of them, and I just use the same "desktop" driver I use for my tower workstations (they are bit-by-bit the same, even if the filenames differ when you download them btw.)That's another unforgivable driver development sin AMD has committed in my personal view as a long time "dual stack" operator: Ever since one of these "revolutions" they refuse to install on Windows server editions, which I used to run on APUs for standby backup servers (MSDN developer license, otherwise it would be insane).
Over the last 20 years, ever since I risked replacing an Intel 80486DX with an AM486 DX4-120, they have always gone somewhere beyond the 90% mark, only to hit you with something really hard or impossible to fix, before going to 100% functionality or reliability. I really believe it's necessary to support them, if only to keep Intel from absolute supremacy, but my conviction has cost me dearly for a very long time and I guess I tire more easily these days.
Saabensippen - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link
I have a Vega 56 red dragon and the zero fan does not work. 25% is the lowest you can set it. The fans never ran (actually zero rpm) unless I was gaming with the previous most recent driver. There was another guy on wccftech who mentioned the same thing although I think he said he couldn’t get the fans below 35% super annoying now I can hear the fans running all the time.Manch - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
Did a clean install of this yesterday in an attempt to get AMDREWARDS to recognize my game code. Support Service fixed it within an hour. While waiting I tinkered around a bit. One big change I noticed is in Wattman. before when doing custom profiles, I could only see the last two steps. FE cards were allowed a few more. Now I can can see the voltages and clockspeed for all steps which is great. I was able to undervolt significantly and after playing around I was able to overclock even more and even out the ramp up. As a result I evened out the frame rate @ 4k for a few games. Normally, driver update...yay. For this update I'm like YAAAASSSSSS!!! I'm glad theyre putting work into their drivers.Manch - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
theirHaawser - Saturday, December 15, 2018 - link
You had it right the first time, 'they're' is the correct contraction of 'they are'. The word 'their' is completely wrong as it means 'belonging to them'.