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Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition released

Nathan Wasson
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Gaming hardware and peripheral software largely does its job so long as it can be set and forgotten. However, graphics software as of late has seen a shift towards a more active role. AMD is continuing that trend with the launch of an overhaul of its Radeon Adrenalin software.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition aims to be a one-stop-shop for gamers. You can update your graphics drivers, access your game library, connect to other devices, stream and record gameplay, engage in performance tuning, and manage a suite of Radeon software features all within the Adrenalin 2020 interface. While in game,  you can pull this interface up as an overlay with the hotkey ALT+R. The Radeon Software team has even built a browser into this overlay, so you can access guides without tabbing out of the game.

Adrenalin 2020 launches with two new software features, one of which is Radeon Boost. This feature detects mouse movement and dynamically lowers resolution as the details around your character appear to blur with movement. The technique aims to increase performance without noticeably impacting visual detail by reducing said detail when it’s unnecessary.

Integer Display Scaling, on the other hand, enhances detail by scaling single pixels up to four or more. The feature functions as an alternative to Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS) for older games. Speaking of which, an update to RIS expands support to DirectX 11 games, and you can now control the degree of sharpness. Radeon Anti-Lag has also been updated to support DirectX 9 games on pre-RX 5000 series graphics. Additionally, both features are now compatible with GCN-based Radeon discrete graphics and Ryzen 2000 series APUs and newer.

Lastly, some extensive work has been done to Adrenalin’s performance tuning tools, making them a formidable tool-set. GPU voltage and frequency, fan speed, VRAM frequency, and power can all be tweaked, and a suite of graphs and indicators help users understand these variables. For those who aren’t comfortable with manual tuning, the software is capable of auto tuning on a per system basis.

A familiar face will be live with HotHardware today at 4:30 PM CST to discuss these changes and new features.

Question & Answers (9)

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  1. Hey guys, 2020 Review: The overlay sound effect can’t be disabled. Wattman is STILL broken with every feature. It is literally a requirement to use OverdriveNTool to get custom tuning to work. IMO, this is a “bug” that has existed for so long, while 3rd party tools work, that I now think AMD has broken Wattman ON PURPOSE. How else do you explain 3rd party editing works, while driver controls do not? Also, every card since Vega has issues hitting boost clocks without manual overrides. I have steam friends who report the 5700 XT is completely broken, and forums are full of error reports with NO KNOWN WORKING DRIVER. Vega HBCC will crash your system, doesn’t work. FRTC was removed, apparently had “issues” with latency, but EVERYONE would rather use FRTC than CHILL, especially since CHILL is broken garbage, especially on 5700 cards. Drivers have had TDR BSOD’s since 9.x, reportedly now fixed, but forums report settings “TdrDelay” to “8” to fix BSOD’s. Not a good look for AMD. Also to fix black screens, press Win+Ctrl+Shift+B, which is great feature Microsoft has, but proves AMD drivers are garbage. 2020 is generally good driver, but will occasionally TURN THE SCREEN DARK like low brightness, usually after exiting low power. The only fix is to toggle GPU scaling on/off. 5700 has issues with RAM speeds not entering low power modes, which has been a problem ever since AMD broke the 390’s powersaving features and no tech site reported on it, only working cards are Fiji/Vega with HBM (barely). 390 RAM powersaving has been broken since Doom 2016, multimonitor completely disables RAM powersaving, driver team LIES ABOUT THIS, saying it’s a requirement, but IT WORKED BEFORE. You can chase ALL OF AMD’S DRIVER SHENANIGANS BACK TO THE 390. First, 390 had driver optimizations on release not ported to 290, and same with windows 10 optimizations / draw calls not ported to windows 7. Modders ported drivers to 290, and later AMD backported these fixes. This is where Radeon Image Sharpening tactics ORIGINATED. New cards get a SOFTWARE FEATURE, while older cards have to wait for AMD to backport a ReShade clone. This has been a KNOWN SOURCE OF BUGS since AMD bought ATI, when there were 3 driver teams that screwed up the RAGE launch so badly that AMD had to consolidate the driver team from 3 to 1. ARTIFICIALLY SEGMENTING SOFTWARE FEATURES IS BAD, DON’T DO IT. STOP.

    Performance Review: All known performance issues can be directly linked to AMD’s overly aggressive power saving which CAN NOT BE DISABLED. It doesn’t help that most cards are overvolted with power limits, and require undervolting and raising powerlimits to hit boost clocks. The CONSTANT UP AND DOWN BOOST CLOCKING RUINS PERFORMANCE, AND CAUSES STUTTERING. You can never achieve a set clockspeed. Games will bounce clocks up and down depending on usage, including going into a game menu. I have experienced these problems with games with built in dynamic resolution, leading me to believe “Radeon Boost” will be a COMPLETE FAILURE due to boost clocks wildly jumping around for each resolution change. Chill works the same. The agressive powersaving BREAKS EVERYTHING, as performance is NOT STABLE with unstable clocks.

    Vega 56 fix: P6 1560 @ 1048 mV / P7 1666 @ 1072 mV | Mem 880 @ 910 mV | fan 65 % | Power Target 24% Actual GPU MHz: ~1600.
    You can get more powersaving at lower mV, but at the expense of clocks. Same with reverse. This is my ideal compromise for performance / power / stability / 1600 MHz target. You have to pick a MHz target, and tweak for power / stability.
    Powercolor Red Dragon is one of the best Vega 56’s, but uses Hynix HBM. You can not safely bios flash or raise HBM voltage, but it is more power efficient. This is how Vega should have been made, and proves AMD just screwed it up. AMD also screwed up all newer cards by using thermal pads instead of paste. Replacing the pads are not guaranteed easy fix, since the pads are a “fix” for coolers not sitting flush with both HBM / GPU, worst card is Radeon VII.

    Bugs: Multimonitor / Don’t even try it. Breaks everything including FreeSync, and I don’t think AMD cares or tests for it. Borderless window modes still have issues with Overlay. You can only “sorta” get it to work. Custom monitor Overrides still don’t support FreeSync ranges, requiring CRU. Nvidia isn’t reported to support custom LFC ranges, so I think AMD still has the edge here. If they do, it’s not being properly advertised. Freesync is also clearly superior to Gsync at this time, with FS monitors supporting both FS and ULMB simultaneously, as well as having large panel OLEDs cheaper than BFGD. The Gsync shills were wrong. Nvidia is rebranding these monitors as Gsync, because their disinfo campaign was so effective rebranding was necessary. DIAF Gsync shills, even Nvidia admits the truth now, albeit only through rebranding, and lying by omission. Typical Nvidia. Also, I expect less Nvidia shilling here now that site traffic dropped. I fully believe Nvidia was paying people to shill Nvidia, along with the brainwashed fanboys, but site traffic no longer justifies the cost, and reality has gotten through to most people today. Nvidia should fight on their merits, not lies, and there are decent merits today. AMD’s poor power tuning and driver optimization especially.

    Overall: New drivers are nice, but AMD clearly doesn’t care about fixing any of its REAL PROBLEMS, which are mostly all power saving related, as well as the lesser optimization issues. The hardware and software is completely broken, and requires manual intervention for acceptable results. Fixing powersaving would resolve 90% of everyone’s problems, but AMD is instead putting lipstick on a pig with new driver UIs. I will say the new UI is better, but none of the core problems are being addressed.

    Side note: AMD / Nvidia CAN DO RAYTRACING ON NON-RTX HARDWARE, perhaps better than RTX. It is called PTGI, Path Traced Global Illumination, proven to work on existing hardware. AMD has completely FAILED to push developers into using this technology, but it does work on existing hardware. Nvidia on the other hand, may be coercing developers to not use it in favor of RTX.
    https://www.patreon.com/sonicether
    https://youtu.be/nt2iURehGkE

    • Wattman isn’t broken and it has been working since 2018. Boost clocks have always been opportunistic ever since they were implemented (Kepler-GCN-era).

      3rd Party tools simply overclock your GPU to the max boost speed if left unchecked. They waiver any damages or issues that this may cause in their own EULA.

  2. I was fairly confused with the 2020 UI when it came to re-enabling my carefully tuned custom voltage, fan curve and frequency settings to my pair of RX Vega 64s.

    Thankfully, it turns out that I could still load profiles created with the 2019 edition UI.

    The change was a bit uncomfortable, but I suspect I’ll get used to it soon enough.

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Nathan Wasson

Nathan Wasson

Inquiring mind, tech journalist, car enthusiast, gamer.

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