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AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2019 adds in-home game streaming to phones

AMD's annual update adds the ability to stream games from your PC to your phone, improvements to ReLive, HDR tweaks and more.

Lori Grunin Senior Editor / Advice
I've been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handed out buying advice for what seems like forever; I'm currently absorbed by computers and gaming hardware, but previously spent many years concentrating on cameras. I've also volunteered with a cat rescue for over 15 years doing adoptions, designing marketing materials, managing volunteers and, of course, photographing cats.
Expertise Photography, PCs and laptops, gaming and gaming accessories
Lori Grunin
2 min read
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AMD ReLive Stream 

AMD

AMD's Radeon graphics card fans are getting a nice gift this holiday season: A new version of its Radeon Adrenalin software with hot new perks.

The updated software will allow you to play PC and PC VR games on your phone via a Windows or Linux computer on the same network. Other additions include per-game HDR automatic tone mapping with Freesync 2-supporting HDR monitors and a scene editor to create custom, hotkey-triggered PIP viewports for better streaming. 

Adrenalin 2019 delivers some much-requested tweaks to the software, including more customizable performance metrics that can now show the refresh intervals and frame-time display along with 21:9 display support in Virtual Super Resolution mode. Improvements to its Chill algorithms help boost performance up to 15 percent by letting the GPU run faster but not hotter.

Radeon ReLive, the Adrenalin module with the streaming smarts -- both for mobile gaming and for broadcasting -- works in conjunction with an updated AMD Link app for Android and iOS. 

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The new app also provides voice control and AMD's streaming offers the really handy ability to remotely turn off your PC's display when you're gaming on your phone. Most similar in-home game streaming apps mirror the game on your PC's display, which can be annoying.

According to the company, it can deliver a decent gaming experience with just 5Mbps bandwidth (provided there are no confounding factors, such as a lot of jitter or latency in your connection). In order to stream you'll need a relatively recent AMD GPU. It should work with most Bluetooth controllers.

ReLive also adds in-game instant replay, which can create a 5- to 30-second GIF without leaving the game. The aforementioned scene editor lets you predefine viewport locations anywhere on the screen, for picture-in-picture views of a specific area that you can hotkey to. Twitch streamers get support for the popular 900-pixel resolution as well as multichannel audio.

If you've got a FreeSync 2 HDR-capable monitor, Adrenalin 2019 makes tweaking your HDR settings a little less onerous. It can automatically apply optimal tone maps on a per-game basis. And Adrenalin adds AMD's WattMan software with an in-game overlay. This can automate GPU overclocking and allows control over fan speed graphics-memory timing, and offers enhanced sync on the fly. 

Newbies can just ignore all that and take advantage of the wizards for game tuning and settings.

Radeon ReLive VR is now available in the Google Play store for Daydream and Gear VR and in HTC's Viveport. Since Radeon ReLive for VR requires Steam VR, it does not comply with the requirements of the Oculus Store and therefore will not support Oculus devices. Sad.

Updated Dec. 18, 2018: Clarified support for Oculus devices.

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