AMD has launched its annual software update, revealing Crimson ReLive. New features include power-saving features to extend laptop battery life, the ability to broadcast games without any extra software.
So, what’s new?
ReLive
The headline feature is ReLive, AMD’s game capture and sharing tool. With a new menu set inside Crimson software, you’ll be able to set up broadcasting your game sessions on streaming sites, capturing gameplay footage in real time and also using an Instant Replay feature that lets you save up to the last 20 minutes of whatever game you’ve been playing. Handy if you have a ridiculous moment occur when you weren’t capturing.
Related: Radeon Crimson review
This new feature set matches Nvidia’s own GeForce Experience software, which features recording, Instant Replay and broadcasting functions.
But Windows 10 might be about to usurp them both with its own game capture and broadcasting platform that’s coming with the Windows 10 Anniversary update.
Radeon and Chill
This is a genuinely interesting feature, although how it will work in practice will depend on what games you’re playing. Chill will lower the performance of your graphics card dynamically when it reckons you don’t need top-end performance.
The technique is linked to mouse movements, and on-screen motion so if you’re sitting in a staging area of your favourite RPG and you aren’t actively playing the game, instead voice or text chatting, Chill will lower your performance until you need it again. This feature will be most useful on laptops running integrated Radeon graphics, and much less so on gaming desktops that are always plugged into the wall.
Watch: AMD Explains Radeon Chill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKJB47PoRg
In its own internal tests, AMD has seen power consumption drop by nearly a third in some titles including World of Warcraft, but we’ll have to look into this ourselves when we come to test the feature. Only a select few games will be fully compatible from the start, while others will be blacklisted if Chill has a negative impact on performance. Crimson ReLive will also let users vote on new features in a built-in poll system, which is a nice touch.
The Crimson ReLive software is available now to all AMD Radeon graphics users.
Video: AMD Radeon RX 480 review
Do you prefer Nvidia or AMD? Let us know in the comments.