2019 Crimson Feature Speculation Thread

[Despoiler]

It's happening soon!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1067219511676301312

 

[Despoiler]

-DXR support? maybe. Dr. Wang was quoted that they wouldn't do consumer RT until they can provide it top to bottom in a product stack.
-Primative shader support? -unlikely given the comments between a dev and AMD. At least they won't expose it to developers until gfx10. Maybe their auto driver support will get better?

 

[Krteq]

- No DXR support yet - wasting of resources obviously
- Primitive Shader / NGG support has been scraped for GFX9.x

 

[Despoiler]

It was a lot easily to speculate in the past years because they were still chipping away at parity with Nvidia's software stack. They are at parity or better at this point.

 

[meson2000]

So what was the final verdict from the presentation?

 

[Krteq]

No one knows, it's not public yet

 

[Despoiler]

We should know soon though. I think all of the year end drivers publish mid December.

 

[Despoiler]

Here is some of the skinny. I'm pretty excited about the Wattman improvements.
https://videocardz.com/79193/amd-preparing-radeon-software-adreanlin-2019-edition

First things first. The new driver is still called Adrenalin, 2019 Edition, despite the fact that it will launch this year, or so I’m told. The driver will bring a handful of enhancements and features, but I will only mention a few.

Wattman
The driver features new overclocking capabilities, such as one-click overclocking (including the memory – so I’ve heard). This obviously is a direct response to NVIDIA’s Turing OC Scanner, but we have no details on how the AMD tool will work exactly.

Our sources claim that new Adrenalin will also support undervolting, yes you heard that right, fully automatic undervolting. This was quite a topic at Vega launch, so I’m looking forward to how efficient this tool will be.

Last but not least, I have also heard about fan curvature modifications in new Wattman.

Hey Radeon!
Have you ever wanted to talk to your graphics card? Well, guess what, AMD will give you this opportunity with Adrenalin 2019 and AMD Link update. You will be able to issue simple commands, but only in English and Chinese. I don’t have a list of all commands yet, but I heard you can ask the software to display FPS for you, should you need it, or take a screenshot (you get the idea).

Streaming to VR Headsets
The last feature which I found interesting is direct streaming to standalone VR headsets. Think of Steam Link, only for VR headset. I’ve heard the technology is really smooth and lag is hardly noticeable.

 

[Headfoot]

Automatic oc and undervolt is a really cool feature. That being said, it's really hard to get excited about anything when the elephant in the room isn't being addressed: where is the next (nonrefresh...) consumer GPU?

Slightly improving the current lineup through software seems like re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

 

[Shmee]

18.12.1 is out now BTW, hope to see additional features coming soon!

 

[Despoiler]

Videocardz with more on the upcoming release. Supposedly due the 13th!

https://videocardz.com/79307/amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-2019-edition-all-you-need-to-know

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition
Performance
Adrenalin 2019 is not really a performance uplift driver. The only slide with meaningful performance figures compares the new driver to (now) ancient 17.12.1 driver. Most of the games in this comparison were not even out when 17.12.1 was available. A claim is made that average performance increased (up to) 15% for Radeon RX 570.

From my understanding, the new driver is focusing on features rather than performance. However, there are slides devoted to Chill or ResX improvements, which some of you may find interesting.

As for the rest, here are my notes from the whole press deck.

Radeon Advisors

• Game Advisor – “provides game settings guidance for a personalized & improved experience”
  This tool works in conjunction with Radeon Overlay. What it does is rather simple: it suggests how to improve performance and frame rating by adjusting game settings.
• Settings Advisor – this is designed for new users who never used Radeon Settings before. It recommends which features should be enabled (VSR, FreeSync etc.) based on measured performance.
• Upgrade Advisor – system analyzer for “minimum and recommended game compatibility”

Wattman

• Auto-GPU & Memory Overclocking
• Auto-GPU undervolting
• Temperature-dependent fan curves
• Unlocked DPM states for RX Vega
• Memory tuning

Display Technologies

• FreeSync 2 HDR – improved auto-tone mapping for a more detailed experience
• Virtual Super Resolution – support for 21:9 displays

Radeon Overlay

• Display Settings – in-game controls: enhanced sync, FreeSync, per-game settings
• Wattman – in-game adjustment for: gpu frequency, gpu voltage, gpu temperature, memory timing, memory frequency, load/save profiles
• Refined performance metrics – framerate and frametimes – adjust colors, columns, position, size and transparency

AMD Link

• QR Code linking
• Voice Control – streaming, recording, screenshots, instant replay, min/avg/max fps, gpu temp, gpu clocks, mem clocks, fan speed
• Wattman – same settings as in Radeon Overlay
• Enhanced Performance Metrics — detailed analytics (basically turning a phone into a benchmarking tool).
• ReLive – View, Edit, Stream recordings/screenshots from a mobile device

AMD ReLive

• In-Game Replay
• Scene Editor
• GIF Support

AMD ReLive streaming

• Wireless streaming up to 4K60FPS to mobile devices
• Free on Android and IOS
• 70ms (AMD) vs 125ms (competitor) responsiveness
• Works with AMD Link (through Game Explorer tab)
• AMD ReLive for VR: support for HTC Vive Focus, Oculus GO, Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream
  — features: 3rd party Bluetooth compatibility, up to 1440x1440p

 

[Krteq]

Interesting!

 

[Headfoot]

AMD certainly deserves credit for how they've turned around their drivers and GPU software, feature rich and timely consistently for a good while now

 

[Krteq]

I’m full of Adrenalin for tomorrow. Can’t wait for to wake up.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1073039490774654977

Maybe we will see December 2018 big update today