A few weeks ago AMD has announced a total renovation of its drivers: goodbye and Catalyst Control Center, space Radeon Radeon Software and Settings . The new direction of the software support video cards Radeon is the need to make up ground on Nvidia, which in this respect has been shown to not be perfect but much more accurate, but also from the objective of customers Radeon desire to have something more.
Last year, at this time, we were to talk about the Catalyst drivers Omega, release a “special” which was very well received. Since then the Catalyst drivers were more than 60 million times, picking up a customer satisfaction rate of 19% higher than in past versions. Everything perfect then? No, at home and AMD they are the first to know.
The 2015 was indeed the year of only three releases WHQL , accompanied by nine other versions Beta. For 2016 a promise: will be published up to six versions WHQL , with obviously more Beta releases. With AMD Radeon Software Crimson wants then change pace.
The first word that the company says when talking about the new software is “ stable “. It is a word that hides many facets, from a consistent user experience up to a complete set of features to get the efficiency and performance.
The new graphical interface, thanks to rewriting software in QT (a software development framework with libraries and tools modular cross-platform), promises boot times up to 10 times less the Catalyst Control Center and a rate three times greater in the initialization of a screen. In addition there are 12 new or improved features . All guaranteeing up to 20% more performance and improved energy efficiency by 1.8 times, according to the technicians.
All this should add even fewer bugs, a goal that AMD aims to hit not only with the most rigorous internal testing, but also relying on the suggestions of its customers and to a closer relationship with the software company. To start, Radeon Crimson Software solves 10 of the most common bugs experienced by owners of Radeon graphics cards.
The new drivers are also the first to support the technology LiquidVR , the AMD initiative that will allow developers of software, games and even manufacturers of viewers to use the best video cards Radeon in order to play in virtual reality with good performance and without problems such as motion sickness (seasick effect) that can emerge with experience not optimized.
Radeon Software also introduces a better experience FreeSync , technology antagonist Nvidia G-Sync allows monitors have a refresh rate in sync with the FPS products from boards. Among the innovations we count support for CrossFire configurations in DirectX 9 games.
AMD has also made known to be working with manufacturers to monitor to enable FreeSync via HDMI . Those who follow us constantly know that the company showed a prototype of FreeSync through HDMI. To date, the technology is available through DisplayPort 1.2a.
Also concerning technology FreeSync, Radeon Software introduces the “Low Framerate Compensation ” (LFC). What is it about? It is a solution that allows you to enjoy a gameplay more fluid when “the application frame rate drops below the minimum refresh display supported by AMD FreeSync”.
An adaptive algorithm works automatically by activation FPS produced by the GPU and the refresh rate to prevent tremollii linked to sudden drops in frame rate. The Low Framerate Compensation automatically activates on all monitors FreeSync “where the maximum refresh rate is at least 2.5 times the minimum refresh”: No configuration required by the user. The following table helps to understand when LFC comes into play:
Another good news for users comes from AMD frame pacing , the company’s solution to render frames in steady cadence – we talk about milliseconds, but if an image is rendered in 2 ms and 16 ms in the next, there is the so-called micro stuttering. Well, AMD has enhanced its solution for also support DirectX 9.
Radeon Software also allows you to create custom resolutions for each screen , setting individually timing, refresh rate and pixel clock. About screens, technology VSR, Virtual Super Resolution allows you to use a larger desktop resolution on a screen physically smaller. For example on a Full HD screen 150 DPI you can set a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels to have a workspace more.
The new drivers bring the APU and FX-8800P A10-8700P new features to improve the vision of video , with reduced motion blur and image movement more fluid and sharper images thanks to Advanced Detail Enhancement.
On video cards X Fury, Fury and Nano, AMD has implemented the Directional Scaling , which improves the vision of the edges of images when viewing videos in Full HD screens 4K. All this is possible due to better scaling of content, the directional adaptive filtering and the reduction of the staircase, or jagged edges. On video cards R9 380 and above, as well as the APU and A8-8600P latest AMD has improved the algorithm of dynamic contrast for better viewing experience.
The startup speed of Radeon Software and Settings is not the only new performance of the new driver. AMD has also improved shader cache (Nvidia offers a solution by the same name), a function that reduces startup times of the games along with stuttering and latency. It works with DX10 games and DX11 and second tests of AMD reduces loading times of a title such as Star Wars Battlefront up to 33% compared with previous Catalyst.
AMD also said that drivers enable you to get more performance with DirectX 12. Testing Fable Legends with a Fury X in Full HD, the company recorded a higher frame rate up to 20%. Finally AMD has implemented optimizations for the latest headlines , promising better performance up to over 10% compared to the Catalyst 15.10 beta. A season all the promise of performance improvements even with games on Linux.
AMD has also focused on the issue of latency, so improve the responsiveness of the keyboard and mouse games with DX9, 10:11 . The company also worked on the Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC) broadening support for DX9 titles, 10 and 11 and giving more control over the interval of the frame rate from 30 to 200 FPS.
FRTC saves a lot of energy because setting a maximum frame rate if the video card should be able to achieve higher performance, it allows the GPU to consume less. And speaking of consumption AMD says that only the installation of new driver saves 20% of energy on average . Finally, to complete the picture, we point out that drivers integrate optional features of 2.0 and OpenCL 1.9 support CodeXL.
You can download the new software from this address. It is compatible with Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. AMD also offers a Clean Uninstall Utility to remove the previous Catalyst drivers, deleting files and entries in the system registry. To download it, go here.
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