AMD Releases Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition: Streaming for Videos, Games, & VR

A Helping Hand with the 'Radeon Advisors' Recommendation Tools

With the annual feature updates, AMD has taken particular note of the UX and its ease-of-use as part of their driver software development. Naturally a software package offers a lot more than basic drivers and raw settings. Also new features are being added in regular fashion, the result is that many newer or non-enthusiast users are bound to overlook or confuse the options at hand.

In that sense, a sleek UI doesn't solve this issue, and to better address this aspect, Adrenalin 2019 is introducing new user-friendly Radeon Advisor tools, aimed at assisting entry-level gamers: Game Advisor, Settings Advisor, and Upgrade Advisor.

The first, Game Advisor, is tied to Radeon Overlay. While running a game in exclusive full-screen, selecting ‘Start Monitoring’ in the Game Advisor tab will measure and analyze performance for 90 seconds. Once complete, returning to the Game Advisor tab will show the performance log and subsequent recommendations, making suggestions such resolution/quality reductions when performance is lacking, or suggesting resolution/quality increases when performance headroom is ample.

The tool doesn’t apply the changes itself, but offers entry-level users guidance in tweaking the various knobs of in-game quality presets, performance-taxing rendering settings, resolution, and in-game render scale.

Similarly, Settings Advisor seeks to clarify the major features available to a user and offers suggestions best suited for the given system. Especially with the major feature updates over the years, Radeon Software now includes and governs E-Sync, Chill, FreeSync, and more. Combined with advances in display technologies with higher refresh rates and HDR support, the slew of options may be overwhelming or unfocused to entry-level users, who might overlook or not be aware of certain potentially helpful settings.

With a specific icon on the Radeon Settings taskbar and automatic scan on first installation, Radeon Software will offer system-based recommendations in enabling certain features and functionalities.

Lastly, Upgrade Advisor rounds out the new trio, being a revamped version of a pre-existing but somewhat out-of-the-way feature in Radeon Settings.

Now located under the Gaming tab, the Adrenalin 2019 Upgrade Advisor now offers AMD hardware recommendations based on whether the system meets the minimum or recommended specifications of installed games.

Partnering with Can You RUN It and System Requirements Labs, AMD is comparing the system’s hardware and scanned games with CYRI’s hardware and games database, highlighting potential deficiencies and upgrade recommendations.

While full-featured graphics driver software is always detecting and collecting system information, clicking on the hardware upgrade suggestions leads to an Amazon page by way of CYRI affiliate link. Be that as it may, some enthusiasts may not appreciate this feature or its undisclosed nature, and AMD stated they had no plans to highlight that connection within Radeon Settings by an asterisk, notification, or the like.

In any case, within Radeon Settings Preferences there is an option to toggle ‘Show Upgrade Advisor’ off, though it is not clear if that setting fully disables the functionality and detection.