AMD working on major Crimson ReLive video card driver update

AMD is going to release a major update of its Crimson drivers for GPUs. The Crimson ReLive Edition includes game capture and streaming software and several new features and improvements. Older video cards can also be overclocked with WattMan.

The official release of the AMD Crimson ReLive Edition is scheduled for December 8, but Wccftech and Videocardz have put the full presentation of AMD online, making all information available early. ReLive is AMD’s answer to Nvidia’s ShadowPlay. The tool allows gamers to record or broadcast their adventures via popular streaming platforms such as YouTube and Twitch.

In addition to the streaming software, Crimson ReLive includes several new features, bug fixes and performance improvements. For example, according to AMD, the performance with the driver in combination with the RX 480 GPU is up to 8 percent better compared to the 16.6.2 driver that was available when that graphics card was released.

A completely new feature in the driver is Radeon Chill. The function is intended to save energy and to let video cards consume less power by dynamically adjusting the frame rate in games according to the movements in the image. In static scenes, the video card will not run at full speed and waste energy unnecessarily. This should also ensure lower temperatures and less noise production.

Also new is the possibility to use the WattMan tool in combination with Radeon cards from the 300, 200 and Fury series. At the moment the overclocking software only works in combination with the new RX video cards.

Furthermore, the update adds hardware acceleration for decoding the VP9 codec. Radeon cards also get support for Dolby Vision and HDR 10 playback. AMD also adds support for displayport hbr3 with the driver update, enabling 4k at 120Hz, 5k at 60Hz and 8k at 30Hz with a single cable.