AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Arrives With In-Game GPU Overlay And Smartphone Integration

by Brandon Hill — Tuesday, December 12, 2017, 09:48 AM EDT

Late last month, AMD teased the release of its Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition GPU driver suite. The company did little more than confirm the name of the software, that it would be released sometime in December, and that we should expect continual refinements through next year.

Today, AMD is opening the floodgates, so to speak, with regards to information on Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. There are plenty of new features to comb through, but one of the most interesting one for gamers is the new Radeon Overlay, which provides a new UI that can be called upon in real-time during a game to give you access to things like GPU vitals.

Radeon Overlay is invoked by pressing ALT+R and gives you access to GPU information like FPS, GPU temperature, GPU fan speed, GPU core/memory clocks and GPU utilization. You will also have direct access to features like Radeon ReLive (which replaced the ReLive Toolbar), Radeon Chill, Frame Rate Target Control, FreeSync and Color Settings from the menu, which peaks out from the right-hand side of your screen. Radeon Overlay is available in windowed, full screen, exclusive full screen and borderless display modes.

AMD hasn’t given a full list of all Radeon hardware that is supported, but it notes that it encompasses a wide range of its product SKUs.

Another big addition is the AMD Link mobile app, which is available for both Android (version 5.0 and above) and iOS (version 10.0 and above). As long as your smartphone is connected to the same network as your PC, you'll be able to access vitals for your Radeon graphics cards.

This "second screen" access give you GPU clock/memory speeds, allows you to monitor FPS, allows direct control of Radeon ReLive, provides social interactions via an AMD News Feed (complete with AMD social feeds and product announcements), and sends real-time notifications about Radeon Software updates.

We should note that Radeon Chill has been enhanced with support for games that utilize the Vulkan API and DirectX 9 through 12. Radeon Wattman gains the ability to save and recover custom GPU profiles (these profiles can then be shared with the greater Radeon user community). In addition, Enhanced Sync gains support for Vulkan-based games, multi-GPU configurations, Radeon GCN architecture and AMD EyeFinity.

And for those of you running Linux, AMD announced Radeon Software for Linux, which includes both open- and closed-sourced software stacks. There's also a new Vulkan Open-Source driver for Linux that is incoming.

The Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 17.12.1 drivers are available to download right now, so if you have a compatible Radeon graphics card in your gaming rig, get moving! You can either download them through the Radeon Settings tab, or direct from AMD's driver download page.

Tags: AMD, (nasdaq:amd), radeon software adrenalin edition

Brandon Hill

Brandon received his first PC, an IBM Aptiva 310, in 1994 and hasn’t looked back since. He cut his teeth on computer building/repair working at a mom and pop computer shop as a plucky teen in the mid 90s and went on to join AnandTech as the Senior News Editor in 1999. Brandon would later help to form DailyTech where he served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008 until 2014. Brandon is a tech geek at heart, and family members always know where to turn when they need free tech support. When he isn’t writing about the tech hardware or studying up on the latest in mobile gadgets, you’ll find him browsing forums that cater to his long-running passion: automobiles.

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