It's a joke they still dont even have Adaptive V-sync. I have overclocked my Monitor for years, and Adaptive Vsync has always been the killer feature for me.
Everything AMD chosed to ignore in a fight with Intel or Nvidia always hit them extremely hard in the end.
Yup , Also you still cant run borderless windows in Crossfirein Direct X titles. With SLI you can ... Mantle is the only exception but what a failure that tech is ..its beyond comprehension.
I wouldn't call Mantle a failure, there are several games out there that use it to great effect (I prefer it in BF4 over DX11), it helped to push DX12 into a desirable direction, and it is being turned into the Vulcan API.
AMD accomplished what they wanted from it, and they no longer need to put resources into it since everyone else is doing it for them.
Honestly, Mantle in BF4 is a joke. There are lots of rendering issues, erratic performance/minimum framerate drops, and the lingering VRAM crashes on cards with 2GB or less, like my R9 380. I would have gone for 4GB, but 4GB is ridiculous for 1080P.
I only play BF4 with Mantle, and I've never noticed a single glitch (I did when it first came out (with colors), so I ran DX11 for a while).
The resolution actually doesn't dictate how much RAM you need as much as people think. A 1080p frame buffer only weighs in at ~8MB, 4k is ~34MB. You need VRAM to store all of the textures and other game data. Your resolution has an effect on VRAM use only for certain features.
Except that you also need room for multiple render targets. Not just RGBA. Typically diffuse, normal, stencil, etc. Plus on top of that you need stencil/Z-buffer. Those buffers can also be 64 bits per pixel, if float16 pixel formats are used.
Additionally sometimes frame buffer width is a bit more than actual resolution due to hardware limitations. So 1920 wide buffer might actually have room for 2048 pixels in real memory layout.
Lower end guess for 1080P is 32 x 2^ceil(log2(1920)) x 1080. So at least 32 x 2048 x 1080 bytes. 67.5 MB per frame at 1080P. For 4k (3840x2160), 32 x 4096 x 2160 = 270 MB.
Plus op top of that you need some RGBA frames for double / triple buffering.
Also, we usually end up aligning just a few pixels on the end (as in two or three).
A 1920x1080 buffer will be allocated as a slightly wider, but no higher, buffer. FOUR bytes per pixel (not 32). That gives 7.91MB per frame buffer.
As for the z coordinate, we usually use the last 8 bits of the above buffer. Why? Because 8-bits per color channel is what anyone usually ever uses. This is called D24S8.
When you increase the resolution of your game yourself, you are increasing the size of the frame buffers, including the flip queue, post-processing buffers, and a few others. Basically, you can generally assume there are 15 frame-buffer linked sized buffers.
So at 1080p, you need 118MB of VRAM for the buffers, and at 4k you need 475MB. This is why you can see VSR running so well on video cards with only 2GB of RAM. You do need more RAM, but it isn't drastic. What can make a more drastic difference is the game using resolution-specific textures. THAT can eat up an extra GB or so, depending on the game developer. Older games, or games meant for 1080p, however, will not have 4k texture packs.
Nvidia drivers have been superior for the last decade, end of story. I suspect in many cases when the silicon battle was close, this is how NVIDIA kept the edge.
If crimson can fulfill it's ambitious vision, things will get might interesting next year.
NVidia's superior drivers are why AMD was bargain binned even during the times when their performance:price ratio was actually significantly better.
Of course we're talking Windows, AMD literally has NO linux presence at all, and literally cripples rolling distributions, and this rebadged driver won't change that.
AMD has their open source driver presence. For a lot of their hardware, it's very stable and performs well. It's pretty slow to support brand new hardware though.
You mean 2D support is pretty stable and performs well. 3D is abysmal performance. There is a reason why not a single Steam Machine configuration out there has an AMD graphic card as an option, and it is because they all have HORRIBLE 3D performance.
As a user of Ubuntu and Debian, and AMD GPUs, I have to agree with Fallen Kell; it's not as bad as it was, but major updates (such as GCC updates, as happened with Ubuntu 15.10) utterly, utterly break things.
It's working now on Wiley-proposed, but jesus, what a pain in the arse.
I'm hoping that this, and other pressure (like not having any realistic Steam Machine presence) might make will force them to up their game. Majorly.
Performance when it works though, is fine - in some cases though, it's just that you have to force it to work. With hard liquor. And swearing. And Fire.
There is one area AMD beats NVIDIA in drivers, old cards. NVIDIA haven't paid as much attention to older cards as AMD has, though it could be because AMD use the same architecture for longer periods of time. At release the NVIDIA 680 was faster than the 7970, but on modern games with new drivers the 7950 can even beat the 680 in some games.
The 7970 trashes the 680 in newer games. Shadow of Mordor is nearly twice as fast on a 7970. In addition, the 7970 has been given increased performance with the Crimson driver, whereas the 600 and 700 series have been left to rot.
I suspect AMD will keep it up for the next few years since they both need the good will and will also still be selling cards based on GCN, so the fixes and improvements should apply almost universally.
I don't like Adaptive V-sync at all, can't stand screen tearing. That, and with 144hz monitor and pushing 100+fps, you won't have any lag of which to speak.
When the system can't keep up with the monitor, you get tearing... not cool. If you're stuck at 60hz or can't push the frames, then you need to reduce settings or buy a better video card and monitor.
144Hz, having constant 100+fps on screen (means a very powerful system), new card, new monitor, those are all hardware. And we're talking about driver optimization, software features.
Reduce settings? You will still need Vsync if the fps goes over 60Hz, and what if somehow the fps still can't keep up with the Hz at reduced settings? Triple buffering will worsen the burden, and introduce more lag.
So, adaptive vsync may seem to be simple at first, but actually has some deep thoughts down inside it.
Why would I have a game fall below 60hz? Not sure I've had that happen since I've bought my R9 290, except for a bugged Crysis mod :p
Even then, V-Sync on a 120~144hz monitor introduces a maximum 8ms latency, which is nominally 4ms (statistics and all), which is well inside the reaction time window. Games already have input lag built in, as well as compensation algorithms (for fast-paced games, like BF4). If the game falls below 60hz (16.7ms/frame), then the game itself is introducing dramatically more input lag than V-Sync.
By turning off V-sync, you actually ARE NOT decreasing input lag, either, you are displaying a PARTIAL FRAME. This causes tearing. Monitors STILL only update at their refresh rate, only now you have to deal with tearing. The nominal benefit of turning off V-Sync, on 120hz display, is only 4ms, since that is the only cost from having V-Sync on.
AMD's FreeSync or nVidia's GSync are more appropriate solutions, since the monitor itself will now respond more quickly. This means that the nominal benefit can be 8ms or more.
They actually do, just for some reason it's not enablable (that's a word from now) in the official interface. Install RadeonPro and tada.wav. Or get a FreeSync monitor.
Why look at that, brown nosing shills on a tech forum! Whod'a thunk it!
Try using AMD on Arch linux. Or linux in general. There basically are no drivers. NVidia sucks donkey balls on linux too, but at least they HAVE DRIVERS that don't cripple your system entirely.
AMD has not REALLY improved their drivers in a good 15+ years, why start now?
Why would AMD put any resources into Linux? That sweet 1% marketshare they're missing out on must really be hurting.them. Wait, .5% or less, since NVidia and Intel are in it, too.
The whiny entitlement of the Linux crowd gets really, really tired after a while.
Although my only GCN card is broken, I'm glad AMD finally dropped pre-GCN support to better support current cards. Hope to see the next graphic architecture in near future..
Not sure where you heard that from, but the 5000 and 6000 series are still fully supported in this update. And although DX12 will not be supported on pre-GCN cards, it would still not be a good idea for them to drop support on them.
Yes and Nvidia's WHQL drivers come with nice features like browsers crushing and cards running at 3D speeds when sitting idle in the desktop because the user happens to have a 144hz monitor. WHQL stump is NOT the Holly Grail of stability.
I've had to fix issues like that on both sides when using multiple monitors.
This new driver from AMD, though, is awesome! I can now set a simple low global clockspeed, then set speeds per game, without all of my previous profile work. And framerate control is fantastic, I set the default at 60fps, then set just a few games to go faster. My default clocks are -45%, -40% lower power, and 500MHz RAM (default is 1250). It goes back up to stock for BF4 and Hitman. Other than that, nothing I play requires the full power of an R9 290 (not even Crysis), and some games hit stupidly high framerates.
Yeah, that's true. I've used Nvidia and AMD drivers, and while both are actually pretty good, I noticed that Nvidia's faster drivers can be buggier, even if they're WHQL, whereas AMD's instabilities are usually found more in the betas. They may take longer to put out WHQL drivers, but I find that they're more stable because of it.
That said, near about 90% of the time, I've had no trouble with Nvidia or AMD drivers, even the beta ones. I don't use Crossfire / SLI or the latest tech though. That generally leads to more issues, especially if you combine them (using 2 of the just released cards in Crossfire, etc.)
People don't seem to realize that even AMD's beta drivers would probably pass WHQL testing. Doesn't make much sense to have a main branch that isn't in an acceptable state. The beta drivers are just branches of the WHQL'd drivers with a few fixes applied.
This. No drivers, beta or not, are released without running WHQL tests internally. The official WHQL certification matters for OEMs like Dell or HP, but has zero impact on gamers.
Both companies have their ups and downs, but there is no excuse for AMD's crippling rolling release linux distributions because they never update drivers. For months/years on end.
You seem to have fallen for Nvidia's trick of 'gameready' drivers. These aren't WHQL, these are beta drivers, they just don't say the word beta et Voila, users like yourself think they are doing God's work when they aren't.
Yeah, that's just marketing spiel. If AMD called their beta drivers "cutting edge" or "performance optimized" drivers instead of "beta", I bet more people would try them and give them less flack for not making as many WHQL drivers.
I've always said that Nvidia has had better marketing than AMD, and still think they do, which is why I think that even when performance and performance / value were equal or even if AMD was superior, that Nvidia always sold more.
I always try to tell AMD to up its marketing game as much as I can, as I don't want Nvidia to ever become a monopoly and I want the GPU and CPU races to stay competitive. I say this as a former Nvidia fanboy, who realized that no company is my friend and they all want my money, and that they'd probably misbehave if they'd ever become a monopoly. AMD too, but they're the underdog right now, which is why I support them lately. If they ever did become a monopoly or near-monopoly though, that'd change, of course.
Try getting an AMD card working in a rolling release linux distro like Arch, and then tell me that NVidia doesn't already have a monopoly.
Oh wait, you can't. Not without having to disable what makes Arch, Arch, and using 9 months outdated software. And probably smashing a few keyboards/monitor/windows/glass objects/video cards in the process.
What is AMD's interest in getting drivers working in Arch? With the 5 billion Linux distributions out there, there are, what, a few thousand people that are really mad about this? AMD's not exactly what one would call "financially successful", so they're wise to pick their battles.
"Overall the average performance gain at 2560x1440 is just 1%. There are a couple of instances where there are small-but-consistent performance gains – Grand Theft Auto V and Grid: Autosport stand out here – but otherwise the performance in our other games is within the margin of error, plus or minus. Not that we were expecting anything different as this never was pitched as a golden driver, but this does make it clear that more significant performance gains are going be on a per-game basis."
WCCF Tech performance test shows a different story.
"To quickly summarize the results that are below, Fiji see’s the largest increase in performance across all games tested, with between a 2-20% increase actually seen. This is actually astounding. But mostly, all tiers of card seem to have increased in performance, benefiting greatly from the new Crimson driver."
wccftech's results look too good to be true with the BF4 results where they seem to be the only ones getting such a big increase. Either something is up with their setup or they're just making stuff up.
Browsers crusing all over the place and Nvidia posting hotfixes every week only to make a month or more until fixing, Nvidia cards using 70-130W more power when system is sitting idle and running at over 144Hz that wasn't fixed yet, but you came in the conclusion that AMD drivers had serious problems in 2015 because of a memory leak that was fixed in less than 24 hours?
I bought myself a 970. When I got a friend a 1440p monitor and a card to drive it I got her a 290. I'm getting progressively more jealous as I have to OC my card to keep up, it heats my room while running 2D because apparently more than one 1440p screen is difficult to push from desktop in tyool 2015 (nobody told my Surface, it does it just fine with a TDP less than the power my 970 wastes on integrated graphics), and best yet, for the past two or so weeks I can't tab out of a game without spending half my time waiting for my computer to stop being locked up. Best yet, I get to watch the past few years of AMD cards get steady performance boosts to the point early GCN cards have gone up an entire tier and wonder about how my card's going to get supported.
All that for power savings I could get out of a $2.50 light bulb? That isn't even close to worth it. I've owned an 8800GT, 260, 560, 760 and the 970 and the past year's the worst showing I've seen from NV and the one that's made me decide to get AMD next time unless the performance gap is as big as between Fury and an OC 980 Ti, which I seriously doubt will be the case.
Yeah, unless I run a third party utility, I would probably be using more power overall with my 970 than a 290 because of how it decides it has to clock up to push 2D.
My R9 290, with two 1080p monitors, one 144hz (though I run it at 120hz) idles at around 96 to 102 watts, and pulls about 126 to 138 watts while playing video (a nice improvement with the Crimson driver, as I was previously pulling 142 to 152w on the same-ish videos).
In fact, this video card has only become better and better, whereas every nVidia card I've ever had seemed to age poorly. I have a 7870XT in my HTPC and it it easily ~30% faster playing Hitman and BF4 than when I first played either.
They've got a reputation for poor drivers, so it doesn't matter how well their drivers stack up. I'd kill for AMD drivers right about now, I'm about to roll back to drivers that aren't set up for the games I'm playing because all of a sudden I can't alt-tab out of a game without my computer locking up for seconds at a time. I've had three different major annoyances with the drivers in the past year, and none got fixed in under a week. And that's not getting into things like surround not being able to handle heterogenous resolutions or anything.
I'd say the grass is greener, but I don't think green is a sign of quality these days.
Joy eyecandy. Now tell me how the hell do you arrange the position of multiple monitor desktops with this half-ass cluster fuck. I have 2 stacked monitors and a third one on the side so outside of setting up eyefintity how do i change the configuration now
Good write up...nVidia's been playing catch-up lately, though--especially with HBM technology, D3d12 support in hardware, etc. It's an old joke that nVidia engineering is always playing catch-up to nVidia PR...;) Nice driver interface...What nVidia calls "new drivers" released for new games, AMD usually calls "hotifxes"--but this year they'll probably join nVidia and release a new driver for every AAA title that ships--which is all pretty much PR-fluff, imo. There are certain marketing devices that nVidia uses that I hope AMD remains blessedly free of.
Catch up to what? HBM matters nothing with nV still holding the perf crown with DDR. Then their own HMC architecture comes out and it`s even more of an uphill battle for AMD.
The video settings on web video actually does work for me. Only did a quick check, but a website i know uses mp4 (h.264) works and a video YouTube didnt convert to its new VP9 (using video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4d401e) did work as well. Only VP9 Youtube didnt work which makes sense i guess since afaik there are (close to) none hardware decoders out there yet and so naturally the VP9 video wouldnt be funneled through AMD's pipeline. Maybe you could recheck if it works for you the same way?
My specs for reference: Phenom II x6 1075T, HD6870, Radeon Settings Version 2015.1118.123.2413, Chrome 47.0.2526.69 beta-m, youtu.be/V20qDMpKARk (as a reference of a youtube video using mp4)
Actually quite nice to see how flawlessly it works on my now legacy 6870, props to AMD to not dropping right before this update but rather right after! Other than that very nice review, esp on the technical details which im always very curious about!
I wonder if the driver will support automatically lowering fan speed while just in Windows desktop and Internet browsing, and then letting it automatically ramp up when playing games or something that is more demanding? I know newer cards support this, but it would be nice if a driver could do this for older cards, like the 7800 series.
That is usually programmed in the BIOS and all cards I've known for the last decade (?) have that feature (my HD5770 definitely did). The fan speed is tied to the temperature and in Windows dekstop the graphics card does not have to work as hard, keeps cool and thus quiet and when you fire up a game the temperature increases becaues of the higher workload and gradually (or not so gradually) the fans speeds up to keep the temperature in check. If you want to change that fan curve in software, I doubt AMD will release anything in their driver as it can be a severe damage risk. But software like MSI Afterburner and I'm sure EVGA Precision and Sapphire Trixx can alter the curve.
When they say "Up to 6 major WHQL releases.", is that a commitment to do six releases?
Call me cynical, but with ISPs using "up to X MBs!" and meaning it might hit that highwater mark on a good day with a tailwind, "up to 6" could use some defining.
I know what you mean about ISPs being dishonest - my FiOS is rated at up to 50 down and 50 up, and I only get a measly 58 down and 62 up. How dare they give me extra speed for free!!
(they offer lots of faster plans too for not that much more but I just haven't needed the bandwidth)
isn't it to risky to by a AMD product at this time ?? maybe in a half a year you won't get any support for it !! when AMD goes under!! I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy!!
I just downloaded and tested this driver package. It really is much faster to load, and it's easier to navigate. The performance and feature improvements look good, especially FRTC with DX9, shader cache, and better frame pacing.
If this keeps up, I think I'll strongly consider getting a Freesync monitor the next time I upgrade. Probably a 27" 1440p, maybe a 1200p one, if those ever become available.
One of the features highlighted on the download page was: DP to HDMI 2.0 support but there wasn't any mention of that in the review... I keep hearing its such a biggy, what would be its main use?
That shouldn't be an excuse for AMD as two wrongs don't make a right. But they're not making excuses: they made it clear they have bug reporting forum (that would not be the above link), and as HardStyleFlavor suggested, its best if players submit a ticket there. My understanding the interim solution is to install Win 8.1 drivers as these seem to resolve the encountered issue -for now-.
personally I don't like new UI but it is matter of taste and I think most ppl like it, so don't care much. Most important that they work up on driver itself.
However it is a bit shame they didn't manage to fix overclocking bug (at least on HD7950) while having GPU accelerated video playback. Reported in 15.9 and now again, hopefully they fix it. I wonder if it is only 7900/7950 related issue (or my card) or general one but didn't find anyone else on google so could be quite rare bug... If you are bored can you test it and reply me with your gpu if bug occurs? 1. OC your gpu beyond default clock , run gpu-z (to monitor gpu clock) 2. have some gpu accelerated video to play (ie youtube clip in your browser, with gpu accelration) 3. run any game to tax your gpu and check clocks in gpuz to see if they go over default clock or not In my case it never goes over default clock even if gpu load is 100% , when video playback app is not running clocks goes up as expected.
This is an issue with all Tahitis as far as I know. My R9 280X does this as well, something to do with the card forcing low VRAM clocks when UVD is enabled.
The work-around is to run at 60Hz single monitor, turn off powerplay and ULPS, or don't overclock memory
However, with Crimson we can finally set application OC profiles, so that's the way to go about things now
Finally , we get decent drivers in Crossfire for Dx 9 titles. Took long enough. But as an AMD USER and Nvidia user , I know for a fact AMD is still far behind Nvidia in the gpu game. Nvidia Games with Physx , Gamework Enhancements are far surpassed what AMD has to offer. AMD needs and ANSWER to these techs to stay on par with Nvidia. After playing games like Warframe , Mafia 2 , Batman AK with physx , I made a harsh decision to sell off my 10 or so AMD cards and stay strictly with Nvidia. If I wanted to dumb down my graphics.... .. I'd stick to console gaming .
**unlike nvidia, AMD has actually contributed something meaningful and standards based in the form of Vulkan, though it's not like it'll matter when all the stupid devs keep using garbage like DX/Windows. -_-
If physx was not proprietary, and standards based, then we can talk...:rolleyes:
Crimson is fantastic. I am playing Far Cry 4 right now and I was having low frame rate/choppy view and horrible shadow flicker. I had to turn off anisotropic filtering and anti aliasing just to be able to play. Now I have both turned on and graphics set to ultra with almost no trouble maybe a stutter hear and there. I am running a fx 9850, 295x2, 16 gigs ram at 2600mhz. I am running CROSSFIRE with no issue on every game I have, which is a lot!!! 25 new/newer titles loaded currently.
So when is AMD going to realize that Linux exists and is a thousand times better than Windows, and support it "properly" like NVidia? I mean, at least properly enough that you can install the drivers without downgrading half the software on your distro to 9 months out of date, that is.
Just tried this and I still can't force v-sync through the panel. No adaptive v-sync option either. I was hoping framerate control would work like Nvidia's half-refresh rate, but alas -- that didn't work out at all. Only DX9? Tried with Titanfall and Tomb Raider 2013 on an R9 290. Am I doing something wrong?
I was really AMD would achieve parity with Nvidia with this release, but none of the features I enjoyed on Nvidia, such as those described above, work on AMD even with this latest driver release.
why would you downclock severely when you have multiple screens? all cards do that because the card cannot feed both screens if you go beyond the minimum needed.
"To preface this with caution, I don’t think anyone should be expecting massive system-wide performance gains..."
I expect more from a site such as Anandtech.
Tests from OC3D and WCCFTECH show a 2-20% performance improvement, as well as a MASSIVE improvement of the minimum frame rate.
Are you seriously going to let this article stand as is ? It's a disgraceas it is right now, in my opinion. If you choose to write something, at least get it right.
Yes, there are some big differences in benches compared to Anand's. Hard to say if it's only the test bed (Skylake vs. Haswell, etc) or other things...
Article was great. The driver... Not so good. Well, at least for me. It will not install. At first it seemed like it as getting hung up on the C++ redis install. I downloaded the 2012 C++ redis and installed it without issue. However, I am still unable to install the new Crimson drivers.
This is on a relatively new Windows 10 install too. The first driver I ever installed was 15.7.1 and the newest before Crimson was 15.11.1.
I'm going to take another crack at it tonight, but I don't have high hopes. Bad form AMD. I should not be having these issues in the year 2015. Reminds of the days of installing 3DFX, or especially Nvidia, drivers in Windows98.
Broke my OS. Had to re-install. After the install was complete the drivers installed; however, they've been buggy. I put on the latest drivers to resolve the fan issue and ran into the same issue again.
Gets to 2% and stalls. I'm running the 15.11.1 Catalyst drivers again. No issues with those.
So the big question is...with HD5xxx and HD6xxx cards going Legacy, what benefit does the Crimson update provide over the 15.7.1 WHQL? Is there a chance we can find out how much of a benefit Crimson provides to the NON-GCN-based cards?
Just installed new drivers, laughed my ass off when I realized it's literally a frontend for the old catalyst control center (which now loads slow af and is called Radeon Additional Settings). RIP amd, your suck has reached a new height.
Ironically: the new ui/driver is literally nothing more than a frontend for catalyst, which was renamed to "Radeon Additional Settings". And it loads slower than the old Catalyst Control Center.
I've also noticed this trend, an upwards scrolling ad that scrolls a lot slower than my finger, until you realize that you can scroll the ad back to the bottom of the screen from whence it came.
This annoying ad method isn't limited to Anandtech, though.
Some pretty bold claims from Team RED about performance increases with this driver release. I've got 2 computers with crossfired 280x's (holdovers from coin mining craze) and a laptop with 960m graphics and am excited about future graphics from both companies. What I would like to see is some revisited benchmarks from AT with the new driver branch to see if any of these claims hold true, if they due, it would sure bring a lot more parity with Team GREEN.
Nice review ... but it maybe nicer if it includes performance improvement test on games which is claimed by AMD have a major improvement (first figure on last page)
I have no idea why my Crimson only detects like 10 games.. and only in the main hard disk. What did you do to make it detect the secondary hard disk games?
what Jeffery said I am impressed that some one able to make $8960 in one month on the computer . you could try this out............................... .earni8 dot ℭom
Well they certainly made it harder to switch display profiles. I used to be able to assign hot keys to them but you can't now and instead have to open "settings ->preference-additional settings->presets and manually select the profile you want. There is no hot key or even a right click on the CCC menu option like before. Phhhffffffffftttttttttt! Who thought that was an improvement?
I was just about to ask if anyone had figured out an easier way to switch profiles. I have been able to switch between eyefinity and regular mode for the last 5 years with either 2 clicks of the mouse or using hot keys. I can see that there is a profiles folder in the start menu too but it is empty.
Based on the older CCC, save your normal profile first, assign it a hotkey combo (i like alt-shift and a-s-d so I can do it with my non mousing hand). Then make your alternate setup, save that also assigning a different hotkey combo, job done. Youll see 2 profiles in the bank and have 2 combos to turn each on.
That's what I had been doing for the past 5 years, I had 2 profiles that I could switch between very easily. The problem is they have removed profiles (used to be called presets) from the application altogether. They only have individual profiles for games/applications now. They actually do have the ability to launch a game with Eyefinity but it doesn't work for me.
For some reason when I click on GPU Scaling my screen turns black for 2 seconds and makes a sound, but afterwards it still stays off. No matter how many times I do it.
I uninstalled AMD's latest drivers to install the new one just released and to complete the uninstall had to reboot and SURPRISE!!! Corrupted graphics squares and lines galore like a "Yuppy" art gallery. Can't even get in Windows,cant restore or repair! This is the 2nd time this happens. The 1st time I used AMD Driver removing tool and same crap, I had to format my drive and now again? I'm done with these slackers! Polishing a broken tool don't make it work any better. My build next year will be Intel Skylake And Nvidia. I wish you a slow and painful death AMD!!! DIE!!!
This new interface is a complete pos. What's the most difficult setting to find? How to change the effing resolution of your display! Completely illogical in many design choices and will make it even more difficult for users.
If it requires you to google how to find common settings it's a failure. A pretty face does not substitute for easy to use.
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zeeBomb - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Woo awesome! Great rundown Daniel and Ryan!Samus - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Totally. Props on covering this, it's about time AMD brought their A-game to NVidia so they can stop using their drivers as a crutch.Dalamar6 - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Click Display -> additional settings > cringe and wish you didn't just shill there.Literally just a metro style frontend for the old CCC.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
And how frequently does anyone do that? You still get multiple styles in Windows 10, btw.Chaitanya - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Thanks for the review, looks like finally AMD has paid attention to drivers of its graphics hardware.Zeus Hai - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
It's a joke they still dont even have Adaptive V-sync. I have overclocked my Monitor for years, and Adaptive Vsync has always been the killer feature for me.Everything AMD chosed to ignore in a fight with Intel or Nvidia always hit them extremely hard in the end.
Glenn37216 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Yup , Also you still cant run borderless windows in Crossfirein Direct X titles. With SLI you can ...Mantle is the only exception but what a failure that tech is ..its beyond comprehension.
looncraz - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I wouldn't call Mantle a failure, there are several games out there that use it to great effect (I prefer it in BF4 over DX11), it helped to push DX12 into a desirable direction, and it is being turned into the Vulcan API.AMD accomplished what they wanted from it, and they no longer need to put resources into it since everyone else is doing it for them.
Samus - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Honestly, Mantle in BF4 is a joke. There are lots of rendering issues, erratic performance/minimum framerate drops, and the lingering VRAM crashes on cards with 2GB or less, like my R9 380. I would have gone for 4GB, but 4GB is ridiculous for 1080P.nagi603 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Pray tell why 4GB is ridiculous for 1080p. There aren't many AAA-games that use less than 2GB VRAM on 1080p on my 290X.looncraz - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
I only play BF4 with Mantle, and I've never noticed a single glitch (I did when it first came out (with colors), so I ran DX11 for a while).The resolution actually doesn't dictate how much RAM you need as much as people think. A 1080p frame buffer only weighs in at ~8MB, 4k is ~34MB. You need VRAM to store all of the textures and other game data. Your resolution has an effect on VRAM use only for certain features.
i_create_bugs - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Except that you also need room for multiple render targets. Not just RGBA. Typically diffuse, normal, stencil, etc. Plus on top of that you need stencil/Z-buffer. Those buffers can also be 64 bits per pixel, if float16 pixel formats are used.Additionally sometimes frame buffer width is a bit more than actual resolution due to hardware limitations. So 1920 wide buffer might actually have room for 2048 pixels in real memory layout.
Lower end guess for 1080P is 32 x 2^ceil(log2(1920)) x 1080. So at least 32 x 2048 x 1080 bytes. 67.5 MB per frame at 1080P. For 4k (3840x2160), 32 x 4096 x 2160 = 270 MB.
Plus op top of that you need some RGBA frames for double / triple buffering.
looncraz - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
You calculated it for BITS, not BYTES.Also, we usually end up aligning just a few pixels on the end (as in two or three).
A 1920x1080 buffer will be allocated as a slightly wider, but no higher, buffer. FOUR bytes per pixel (not 32). That gives 7.91MB per frame buffer.
As for the z coordinate, we usually use the last 8 bits of the above buffer. Why? Because 8-bits per color channel is what anyone usually ever uses. This is called D24S8.
When you increase the resolution of your game yourself, you are increasing the size of the frame buffers, including the flip queue, post-processing buffers, and a few others. Basically, you can generally assume there are 15 frame-buffer linked sized buffers.
So at 1080p, you need 118MB of VRAM for the buffers, and at 4k you need 475MB. This is why you can see VSR running so well on video cards with only 2GB of RAM. You do need more RAM, but it isn't drastic. What can make a more drastic difference is the game using resolution-specific textures. THAT can eat up an extra GB or so, depending on the game developer. Older games, or games meant for 1080p, however, will not have 4k texture packs.
The_Countess - Friday, November 27, 2015 - link
you just described the game running in directX as well.dsumanik - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Nvidia drivers have been superior for the last decade, end of story. I suspect in many cases when the silicon battle was close, this is how NVIDIA kept the edge.If crimson can fulfill it's ambitious vision, things will get might interesting next year.
Got my fingers crossed for ya AMD.
Dalamar6 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
NVidia's superior drivers are why AMD was bargain binned even during the times when their performance:price ratio was actually significantly better.Of course we're talking Windows, AMD literally has NO linux presence at all, and literally cripples rolling distributions, and this rebadged driver won't change that.
Gigaplex - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
AMD has their open source driver presence. For a lot of their hardware, it's very stable and performs well. It's pretty slow to support brand new hardware though.Fallen Kell - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
You mean 2D support is pretty stable and performs well. 3D is abysmal performance. There is a reason why not a single Steam Machine configuration out there has an AMD graphic card as an option, and it is because they all have HORRIBLE 3D performance.Beany2013 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
As a user of Ubuntu and Debian, and AMD GPUs, I have to agree with Fallen Kell; it's not as bad as it was, but major updates (such as GCC updates, as happened with Ubuntu 15.10) utterly, utterly break things.It's working now on Wiley-proposed, but jesus, what a pain in the arse.
I'm hoping that this, and other pressure (like not having any realistic Steam Machine presence) might make will force them to up their game. Majorly.
Performance when it works though, is fine - in some cases though, it's just that you have to force it to work. With hard liquor. And swearing. And Fire.
FourEyedGeek - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
There is one area AMD beats NVIDIA in drivers, old cards. NVIDIA haven't paid as much attention to older cards as AMD has, though it could be because AMD use the same architecture for longer periods of time. At release the NVIDIA 680 was faster than the 7970, but on modern games with new drivers the 7950 can even beat the 680 in some games.looncraz - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
The 7970 trashes the 680 in newer games. Shadow of Mordor is nearly twice as fast on a 7970. In addition, the 7970 has been given increased performance with the Crimson driver, whereas the 600 and 700 series have been left to rot.I suspect AMD will keep it up for the next few years since they both need the good will and will also still be selling cards based on GCN, so the fixes and improvements should apply almost universally.
Refuge - Friday, November 27, 2015 - link
They just discontinued driver support for all pre GCN GPU's, so much for that good will eh? lolhttp://www.maximumpc.com/amd-ends-driver-support-f...
Oxford Guy - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
I remember the superiority of two versions of its driver bricking cards, including expensive Fermi models.looncraz - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I don't like Adaptive V-sync at all, can't stand screen tearing. That, and with 144hz monitor and pushing 100+fps, you won't have any lag of which to speak.When the system can't keep up with the monitor, you get tearing... not cool. If you're stuck at 60hz or can't push the frames, then you need to reduce settings or buy a better video card and monitor.
Zeus Hai - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
You're off the point, mate.144Hz, having constant 100+fps on screen (means a very powerful system), new card, new monitor, those are all hardware. And we're talking about driver optimization, software features.
Reduce settings? You will still need Vsync if the fps goes over 60Hz, and what if somehow the fps still can't keep up with the Hz at reduced settings? Triple buffering will worsen the burden, and introduce more lag.
So, adaptive vsync may seem to be simple at first, but actually has some deep thoughts down inside it.
looncraz - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Why would I have a game fall below 60hz? Not sure I've had that happen since I've bought my R9 290, except for a bugged Crysis mod :pEven then, V-Sync on a 120~144hz monitor introduces a maximum 8ms latency, which is nominally 4ms (statistics and all), which is well inside the reaction time window. Games already have input lag built in, as well as compensation algorithms (for fast-paced games, like BF4). If the game falls below 60hz (16.7ms/frame), then the game itself is introducing dramatically more input lag than V-Sync.
By turning off V-sync, you actually ARE NOT decreasing input lag, either, you are displaying a PARTIAL FRAME. This causes tearing. Monitors STILL only update at their refresh rate, only now you have to deal with tearing. The nominal benefit of turning off V-Sync, on 120hz display, is only 4ms, since that is the only cost from having V-Sync on.
AMD's FreeSync or nVidia's GSync are more appropriate solutions, since the monitor itself will now respond more quickly. This means that the nominal benefit can be 8ms or more.
xdrol - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
They actually do, just for some reason it's not enablable (that's a word from now) in the official interface. Install RadeonPro and tada.wav. Or get a FreeSync monitor.Dalamar6 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Why look at that, brown nosing shills on a tech forum! Whod'a thunk it!Try using AMD on Arch linux. Or linux in general. There basically are no drivers.
NVidia sucks donkey balls on linux too, but at least they HAVE DRIVERS that don't cripple your system entirely.
AMD has not REALLY improved their drivers in a good 15+ years, why start now?
fluxtatic - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Why would AMD put any resources into Linux? That sweet 1% marketshare they're missing out on must really be hurting.them. Wait, .5% or less, since NVidia and Intel are in it, too.The whiny entitlement of the Linux crowd gets really, really tired after a while.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
The fanbois are just desperate for any pretext to bash. Apparently Linux is now the low-hanging fruit.looncraz - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
I've used AMD on Linux (and HaikuOS) for years. No problems.Not good for gaming, but who the heck games on desktop Linux, anyway?
Nobody, that's who.
Beany2013 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
I'm a nobody :-(Metro Last Light works fine on Ubuntu. You know, once you work around the horrific issues with GCC compatability...
tamalero - Thursday, December 3, 2015 - link
hipsters and their linux.I actually wonder how many games are released for Linux.
hyno111 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Although my only GCN card is broken, I'm glad AMD finally dropped pre-GCN support to better support current cards. Hope to see the next graphic architecture in near future..ishJJx3 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Not sure where you heard that from, but the 5000 and 6000 series are still fully supported in this update. And although DX12 will not be supported on pre-GCN cards, it would still not be a good idea for them to drop support on them.jasonelmore - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
how many WHQL drivers do the competition release? 6 seems like a low number.I know Nvidia has had 3 in November alone, and at least 10 since may
yannigr2 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Yes and Nvidia's WHQL drivers come with nice features like browsers crushing and cards running at 3D speeds when sitting idle in the desktop because the user happens to have a 144hz monitor.WHQL stump is NOT the Holly Grail of stability.
colinstu - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
crushing? it's 'crashing' ...yannigr2 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
You are right...Chaser - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I never get that. Have owned Nvidia GPUs now going on 7 years.tuxfool - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
If You never get that, then clearly it isn't happening to anybody else.Glenn37216 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Me neither .. I have 970's , 980's , 980ti's ... hmm maybe he needs to quit going to pornhub so much !Alexvrb - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Nobody likes a quitter! Besides, it doesn't crash on an AMD GPU- I MEAN-- nevermind...looncraz - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I've had to fix issues like that on both sides when using multiple monitors.This new driver from AMD, though, is awesome! I can now set a simple low global clockspeed, then set speeds per game, without all of my previous profile work. And framerate control is fantastic, I set the default at 60fps, then set just a few games to go faster. My default clocks are -45%, -40% lower power, and 500MHz RAM (default is 1250). It goes back up to stock for BF4 and Hitman. Other than that, nothing I play requires the full power of an R9 290 (not even Crysis), and some games hit stupidly high framerates.
AS118 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Yeah, that's true. I've used Nvidia and AMD drivers, and while both are actually pretty good, I noticed that Nvidia's faster drivers can be buggier, even if they're WHQL, whereas AMD's instabilities are usually found more in the betas. They may take longer to put out WHQL drivers, but I find that they're more stable because of it.That said, near about 90% of the time, I've had no trouble with Nvidia or AMD drivers, even the beta ones. I don't use Crossfire / SLI or the latest tech though. That generally leads to more issues, especially if you combine them (using 2 of the just released cards in Crossfire, etc.)
dkizzy - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Dude forget these haters. I still have that problem on my BenQ XL2420Z 144hz. I have to run it at 120hz to get the card to clcok down on the desktop.looncraz - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
People don't seem to realize that even AMD's beta drivers would probably pass WHQL testing. Doesn't make much sense to have a main branch that isn't in an acceptable state. The beta drivers are just branches of the WHQL'd drivers with a few fixes applied.More WHQL drivers means absolutely nothing.
bolek - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
This. No drivers, beta or not, are released without running WHQL tests internally. The official WHQL certification matters for OEMs like Dell or HP, but has zero impact on gamers.Dalamar6 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Both companies have their ups and downs, but there is no excuse for AMD's crippling rolling release linux distributions because they never update drivers. For months/years on end.Oxford Guy - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Don't forget the magical "mouse does nothing for a while" syndrome that was also a virtue of at least one, if not more, of their driver releases.PixelBurst - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
You seem to have fallen for Nvidia's trick of 'gameready' drivers. These aren't WHQL, these are beta drivers, they just don't say the word beta et Voila, users like yourself think they are doing God's work when they aren't.AS118 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Yeah, that's just marketing spiel. If AMD called their beta drivers "cutting edge" or "performance optimized" drivers instead of "beta", I bet more people would try them and give them less flack for not making as many WHQL drivers.I've always said that Nvidia has had better marketing than AMD, and still think they do, which is why I think that even when performance and performance / value were equal or even if AMD was superior, that Nvidia always sold more.
I always try to tell AMD to up its marketing game as much as I can, as I don't want Nvidia to ever become a monopoly and I want the GPU and CPU races to stay competitive. I say this as a former Nvidia fanboy, who realized that no company is my friend and they all want my money, and that they'd probably misbehave if they'd ever become a monopoly. AMD too, but they're the underdog right now, which is why I support them lately. If they ever did become a monopoly or near-monopoly though, that'd change, of course.
jasonelmore - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Competition in the GPU Market drives Price CutsBut, I think Technology is pushing GPU Innovation and Performance.
VR and 4K alone are pushing GPU Engineers more than competition IMO
Dalamar6 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Try getting an AMD card working in a rolling release linux distro like Arch, and then tell me that NVidia doesn't already have a monopoly.Oh wait, you can't. Not without having to disable what makes Arch, Arch, and using 9 months outdated software. And probably smashing a few keyboards/monitor/windows/glass objects/video cards in the process.
fluxtatic - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
What is AMD's interest in getting drivers working in Arch? With the 5 billion Linux distributions out there, there are, what, a few thousand people that are really mad about this? AMD's not exactly what one would call "financially successful", so they're wise to pick their battles.looncraz - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Do it all the time, what's your problem?jasonelmore - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
The drivers marked WHQL are all certified, i'm not sure what your saying.xenocea - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
"Overall the average performance gain at 2560x1440 is just 1%. There are a couple of instances where there are small-but-consistent performance gains – Grand Theft Auto V and Grid: Autosport stand out here – but otherwise the performance in our other games is within the margin of error, plus or minus. Not that we were expecting anything different as this never was pitched as a golden driver, but this does make it clear that more significant performance gains are going be on a per-game basis."WCCF Tech performance test shows a different story.
"To quickly summarize the results that are below, Fiji see’s the largest increase in performance across all games tested, with between a 2-20% increase actually seen. This is actually astounding. But mostly, all tiers of card seem to have increased in performance, benefiting greatly from the new Crimson driver."
http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-software-performanc...
nathanddrews - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
PCPer tested the DX9 frame pacing fix for Skyrim and it showed an astounding improvement.http://www.pcper.com/files/imagecache/article_max_...
gamervivek - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
wccftech's results look too good to be true with the BF4 results where they seem to be the only ones getting such a big increase. Either something is up with their setup or they're just making stuff up.psychobriggsy - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
WCCFTech compared the previous AMD WHQL release to the new one.Anandtech compared the most recent AMD beta release to the new one.
Which one is more uesful, for users of non-beta drivers?
gamervivek - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
WCCFTech compared these drivers as listed on their first page of the review.Drivers AMD - 15.11.1 Beta
AMD Crimson
So your question is moot.
Teizo - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
You are going to take WCCF Tech's numbers over Anandtech? Holy heck, what is the world coming too....iamkyle - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Why are we even talking about this? Comparing reviews from a joke of a website being WCCFtech is laughable at best.yannigr2 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Browsers crusing all over the place and Nvidia posting hotfixes every week only to make a month or more until fixing, Nvidia cards using 70-130W more power when system is sitting idle and running at over 144Hz that wasn't fixed yet, but you came in the conclusion that AMD drivers had serious problems in 2015 because of a memory leak that was fixed in less than 24 hours?YOU HAVE TO BE JOKING.
Chaser - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Vague. Baseless, fanboy, FUD. Maxwell mops the floor with AMD's winter space heaters.xthetenth - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I bought myself a 970. When I got a friend a 1440p monitor and a card to drive it I got her a 290. I'm getting progressively more jealous as I have to OC my card to keep up, it heats my room while running 2D because apparently more than one 1440p screen is difficult to push from desktop in tyool 2015 (nobody told my Surface, it does it just fine with a TDP less than the power my 970 wastes on integrated graphics), and best yet, for the past two or so weeks I can't tab out of a game without spending half my time waiting for my computer to stop being locked up. Best yet, I get to watch the past few years of AMD cards get steady performance boosts to the point early GCN cards have gone up an entire tier and wonder about how my card's going to get supported.All that for power savings I could get out of a $2.50 light bulb? That isn't even close to worth it. I've owned an 8800GT, 260, 560, 760 and the 970 and the past year's the worst showing I've seen from NV and the one that's made me decide to get AMD next time unless the performance gap is as big as between Fury and an OC 980 Ti, which I seriously doubt will be the case.
psychobriggsy - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Until you use a 144Hz monitor, or multiple monitors, it seems.xthetenth - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Yeah, unless I run a third party utility, I would probably be using more power overall with my 970 than a 290 because of how it decides it has to clock up to push 2D.looncraz - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
No doubt you would.My R9 290, with two 1080p monitors, one 144hz (though I run it at 120hz) idles at around 96 to 102 watts, and pulls about 126 to 138 watts while playing video (a nice improvement with the Crimson driver, as I was previously pulling 142 to 152w on the same-ish videos).
In fact, this video card has only become better and better, whereas every nVidia card I've ever had seemed to age poorly. I have a 7870XT in my HTPC and it it easily ~30% faster playing Hitman and BF4 than when I first played either.
xthetenth - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
They've got a reputation for poor drivers, so it doesn't matter how well their drivers stack up. I'd kill for AMD drivers right about now, I'm about to roll back to drivers that aren't set up for the games I'm playing because all of a sudden I can't alt-tab out of a game without my computer locking up for seconds at a time. I've had three different major annoyances with the drivers in the past year, and none got fixed in under a week. And that's not getting into things like surround not being able to handle heterogenous resolutions or anything.I'd say the grass is greener, but I don't think green is a sign of quality these days.
SunLord - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Joy eyecandy. Now tell me how the hell do you arrange the position of multiple monitor desktops with this half-ass cluster fuck. I have 2 stacked monitors and a third one on the side so outside of setting up eyefintity how do i change the configuration nowRyan Smith - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
That's one of the display options that will take you into CCCSlim.SunLord - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Save it's not there I can't find any way to move around monitor positions in CCCSlim or the new applooncraz - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Just do it in the Windows' screen settings like you're suppose to.piroroadkill - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Slim my ass, it stays in RAM once you close the window, and also spawns MOM which also remains active.It looks like they just haven't finished it, which is ugly.
Wreckage - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Do they rebadged their drivers now?K_Space - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
read the review and then come backnightbringer57 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
What about the R5 230 and R5 2XX OEM models? Are they retired as well?Cryio - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
If they're GCN based, no. If they are pre-GCN, then yes.piroroadkill - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Wrong. The page says the new driver supports the R5 230, but it's actually a TeraScale 2 card!This is a scandal that no website seems to have picked up on.
silverblue - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
...but I thought all cards from the 5000 series onwards were supported in this driver release?tamalero - Thursday, December 3, 2015 - link
pretty sure that they are "supported". You just wont see improvements of bug fixes anymore.tipoo - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Well that's a lot more than a facelift! Interested in game load time and frame pacing tests vs Nvidia instead of vs themselves.WaltC - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Good write up...nVidia's been playing catch-up lately, though--especially with HBM technology, D3d12 support in hardware, etc. It's an old joke that nVidia engineering is always playing catch-up to nVidia PR...;) Nice driver interface...What nVidia calls "new drivers" released for new games, AMD usually calls "hotifxes"--but this year they'll probably join nVidia and release a new driver for every AAA title that ships--which is all pretty much PR-fluff, imo. There are certain marketing devices that nVidia uses that I hope AMD remains blessedly free of.Michael Bay - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Catch up to what? HBM matters nothing with nV still holding the perf crown with DDR.Then their own HMC architecture comes out and it`s even more of an uphill battle for AMD.
jasonelmore - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Each Game Ready Driver is not fluff, they have SLI profiles buddragonsqrrl - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Nice spin XDBateluer - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Hmm, I have an AM1 based Athlon 5350 machine. Will need to check out the Crimson drivers on it.Jaytn - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
The video settings on web video actually does work for me.Only did a quick check, but a website i know uses mp4 (h.264) works and a video YouTube didnt convert to its new VP9 (using video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4d401e) did work as well. Only VP9 Youtube didnt work which makes sense i guess since afaik there are (close to) none hardware decoders out there yet and so naturally the VP9 video wouldnt be funneled through AMD's pipeline.
Maybe you could recheck if it works for you the same way?
My specs for reference:
Phenom II x6 1075T, HD6870, Radeon Settings Version 2015.1118.123.2413, Chrome 47.0.2526.69 beta-m, youtu.be/V20qDMpKARk (as a reference of a youtube video using mp4)
Actually quite nice to see how flawlessly it works on my now legacy 6870, props to AMD to not dropping right before this update but rather right after!
Other than that very nice review, esp on the technical details which im always very curious about!
romrunning - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I wonder if the driver will support automatically lowering fan speed while just in Windows desktop and Internet browsing, and then letting it automatically ramp up when playing games or something that is more demanding? I know newer cards support this, but it would be nice if a driver could do this for older cards, like the 7800 series.Death666Angel - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
That is usually programmed in the BIOS and all cards I've known for the last decade (?) have that feature (my HD5770 definitely did). The fan speed is tied to the temperature and in Windows dekstop the graphics card does not have to work as hard, keeps cool and thus quiet and when you fire up a game the temperature increases becaues of the higher workload and gradually (or not so gradually) the fans speeds up to keep the temperature in check. If you want to change that fan curve in software, I doubt AMD will release anything in their driver as it can be a severe damage risk. But software like MSI Afterburner and I'm sure EVGA Precision and Sapphire Trixx can alter the curve.Mr Perfect - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
When they say "Up to 6 major WHQL releases.", is that a commitment to do six releases?Call me cynical, but with ISPs using "up to X MBs!" and meaning it might hit that highwater mark on a good day with a tailwind, "up to 6" could use some defining.
lordken - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
who really cares for whql?Alexvrb - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I know what you mean about ISPs being dishonest - my FiOS is rated at up to 50 down and 50 up, and I only get a measly 58 down and 62 up. How dare they give me extra speed for free!!(they offer lots of faster plans too for not that much more but I just haven't needed the bandwidth)
LarryBarry - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
isn't it to risky to by a AMD product at this time ?? maybe in a half a year you won't get any support for it !! when AMD goes under!!I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy!!
K_Space - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
AMD won't go under next year.... Come 2019 and then we can definitely begin to prognosticateAS118 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I just downloaded and tested this driver package. It really is much faster to load, and it's easier to navigate. The performance and feature improvements look good, especially FRTC with DX9, shader cache, and better frame pacing.If this keeps up, I think I'll strongly consider getting a Freesync monitor the next time I upgrade. Probably a 27" 1440p, maybe a 1200p one, if those ever become available.
K_Space - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
One of the features highlighted on the download page was: DP to HDMI 2.0 support but there wasn't any mention of that in the review... I keep hearing its such a biggy, what would be its main use?xthetenth - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
I'm pretty sure a major use of that would be hooking an AMD card up to a 4K TV that uses HDMI 2.0 only.LeoKesler - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
New interface, same bugs. The players of Elite Dangerous still have the same AMD bug for months and AMD dont fix it.56 pages of angry players:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=170...
looncraz - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
There are forums like that for nVidia bugs as well.K_Space - Friday, November 27, 2015 - link
That shouldn't be an excuse for AMD as two wrongs don't make a right. But they're not making excuses: they made it clear they have bug reporting forum (that would not be the above link), and as HardStyleFlavor suggested, its best if players submit a ticket there. My understanding the interim solution is to install Win 8.1 drivers as these seem to resolve the encountered issue -for now-.lordken - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
personally I don't like new UI but it is matter of taste and I think most ppl like it, so don't care much. Most important that they work up on driver itself.However it is a bit shame they didn't manage to fix overclocking bug (at least on HD7950) while having GPU accelerated video playback. Reported in 15.9 and now again, hopefully they fix it.
I wonder if it is only 7900/7950 related issue (or my card) or general one but didn't find anyone else on google so could be quite rare bug...
If you are bored can you test it and reply me with your gpu if bug occurs?
1. OC your gpu beyond default clock , run gpu-z (to monitor gpu clock)
2. have some gpu accelerated video to play (ie youtube clip in your browser, with gpu accelration)
3. run any game to tax your gpu and check clocks in gpuz to see if they go over default clock or not
In my case it never goes over default clock even if gpu load is 100% , when video playback app is not running clocks goes up as expected.
hat1324 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
This is an issue with all Tahitis as far as I know. My R9 280X does this as well, something to do with the card forcing low VRAM clocks when UVD is enabled.The work-around is to run at 60Hz single monitor, turn off powerplay and ULPS, or don't overclock memory
However, with Crimson we can finally set application OC profiles, so that's the way to go about things now
Glenn37216 - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Finally , we get decent drivers in Crossfire for Dx 9 titles. Took long enough. But as an AMD USER and Nvidia user , I know for a fact AMD is still far behind Nvidia in the gpu game. Nvidia Games with Physx , Gamework Enhancements are far surpassed what AMD has to offer. AMD needs and ANSWER to these techs to stay on par with Nvidia. After playing games like Warframe , Mafia 2 , Batman AK with physx , I made a harsh decision to sell off my 10 or so AMD cards and stay strictly with Nvidia. If I wanted to dumb down my graphics.... .. I'd stick to console gaming .http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/6431022/fs/346680...
Dalamar6 - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
As much as I like to rag on AMD for being a joke, physx is just another proprietary gimmick, and actually hurts the general consumers.Remember kids, proprietary/exclusive is bad.
Standards, Linux and open source good.
Dalamar6 - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
**unlike nvidia, AMD has actually contributed something meaningful and standards based in the form of Vulkan, though it's not like it'll matter when all the stupid devs keep using garbage like DX/Windows. -_-If physx was not proprietary, and standards based, then we can talk...:rolleyes:
Fanatical Meat - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
They're still packaging that gaming evolved app crapware in the driver package. remember to check what is being installed.Oxford Guy - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
failworks?Fanatical Meat - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Installed and tested 7 days to die, no more funky looking artifacts. So far I approve.fiasse - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Freesync Improvements: Low Framerate Compen-stationRyan Smith - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
*facepalm*Thank you for pointing that out. That's what we get for making a last-second addition.
ThePug - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
Crimson is fantastic. I am playing Far Cry 4 right now and I was having low frame rate/choppy view and horrible shadow flicker. I had to turn off anisotropic filtering and anti aliasing just to be able to play. Now I have both turned on and graphics set to ultra with almost no trouble maybe a stutter hear and there. I am running a fx 9850, 295x2, 16 gigs ram at 2600mhz. I am running CROSSFIRE with no issue on every game I have, which is a lot!!! 25 new/newer titles loaded currently.Mugur - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
That's good to know. Previous Beta crashed my Far Cry 4 when starting the game. I had to go back to last WHQL in order to play it...Dalamar6 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
So when is AMD going to realize that Linux exists and is a thousand times better than Windows, and support it "properly" like NVidia? I mean, at least properly enough that you can install the drivers without downgrading half the software on your distro to 9 months out of date, that is.looncraz - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Linux doesn't exist. Especially for AMD.AMD needs to focus on the 98% of the market that buys their product - which, sadly, is a Windows world.
yhselp - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Just tried this and I still can't force v-sync through the panel. No adaptive v-sync option either. I was hoping framerate control would work like Nvidia's half-refresh rate, but alas -- that didn't work out at all. Only DX9? Tried with Titanfall and Tomb Raider 2013 on an R9 290. Am I doing something wrong?I was really AMD would achieve parity with Nvidia with this release, but none of the features I enjoyed on Nvidia, such as those described above, work on AMD even with this latest driver release.
RoLleRKoaSTeR - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
AMD still has not fixed the eyefinity screen flickering issue due to the GPU/memory being severely underclocked when idle.tamalero - Thursday, December 3, 2015 - link
why would you downclock severely when you have multiple screens? all cards do that because the card cannot feed both screens if you go beyond the minimum needed.Jaksi - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
"To preface this with caution, I don’t think anyone should be expecting massive system-wide performance gains..."I expect more from a site such as Anandtech.
Tests from OC3D and WCCFTECH show a 2-20% performance improvement, as well as a MASSIVE improvement of the minimum frame rate.
Are you seriously going to let this article stand as is ? It's a disgraceas it is right now, in my opinion. If you choose to write something, at least get it right.
ViRGE - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Haven't read OC3D, but WCCFTech has the 380X (Tonga) beating the 290X (Hawaii). That alone should raise some massive red flags in their testing.Mugur - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Yes, there are some big differences in benches compared to Anand's. Hard to say if it's only the test bed (Skylake vs. Haswell, etc) or other things...Sirk77 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Article was great. The driver... Not so good. Well, at least for me. It will not install. At first it seemed like it as getting hung up on the C++ redis install. I downloaded the 2012 C++ redis and installed it without issue. However, I am still unable to install the new Crimson drivers.This is on a relatively new Windows 10 install too. The first driver I ever installed was 15.7.1 and the newest before Crimson was 15.11.1.
I'm going to take another crack at it tonight, but I don't have high hopes. Bad form AMD. I should not be having these issues in the year 2015. Reminds of the days of installing 3DFX, or especially Nvidia, drivers in Windows98.
Sirk77 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Typo... I meant 2013 C++ redis.erple2 - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Funny, I was excited that and was starting to use redis, but then realized that you were talking about something far less interesting.http://redis.io
Sirk77 - Friday, December 4, 2015 - link
Broke my OS. Had to re-install. After the install was complete the drivers installed; however, they've been buggy. I put on the latest drivers to resolve the fan issue and ran into the same issue again.Gets to 2% and stalls. I'm running the 15.11.1 Catalyst drivers again. No issues with those.
PatrThom - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
So the big question is...with HD5xxx and HD6xxx cards going Legacy, what benefit does the Crimson update provide over the 15.7.1 WHQL? Is there a chance we can find out how much of a benefit Crimson provides to the NON-GCN-based cards?Dalamar6 - Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - link
Just installed new drivers, laughed my ass off when I realized it's literally a frontend for the old catalyst control center (which now loads slow af and is called Radeon Additional Settings). RIP amd, your suck has reached a new height.Oxford Guy - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Like Windows 10 is a new front-end for Windows 7?Dalamar6 - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Ironically: the new ui/driver is literally nothing more than a frontend for catalyst, which was renamed to "Radeon Additional Settings".And it loads slower than the old Catalyst Control Center.
RIP AMD, only good at spinning PR.
mikato - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Wow that ad (on mobile) you have to scroll out of the way to continue reading is annoying as hell. Straight to comments for me. Later.erple2 - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
I've also noticed this trend, an upwards scrolling ad that scrolls a lot slower than my finger, until you realize that you can scroll the ad back to the bottom of the screen from whence it came.This annoying ad method isn't limited to Anandtech, though.
waltsmith - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Some pretty bold claims from Team RED about performance increases with this driver release. I've got 2 computers with crossfired 280x's (holdovers from coin mining craze) and a laptop with 960m graphics and am excited about future graphics from both companies. What I would like to see is some revisited benchmarks from AT with the new driver branch to see if any of these claims hold true, if they due, it would sure bring a lot more parity with Team GREEN.Ikyuchi - Thursday, November 26, 2015 - link
Nice review ... but it maybe nicer if it includes performance improvement test on games which is claimed by AMD have a major improvement (first figure on last page)Ikyuchi - Sunday, November 29, 2015 - link
nice review, but can you include performance test for selected game by AMD (first figure on last page) ? I really want to know the claim from AMD ...tamalero - Thursday, December 3, 2015 - link
I have no idea why my Crimson only detects like 10 games.. and only in the main hard disk.What did you do to make it detect the secondary hard disk games?
juliabrown943 - Thursday, December 3, 2015 - link
what Jeffery said I am impressed that some one able to make $8960 in one month on the computer . you could try this out............................... .earni8 dot ℭompiiman - Saturday, December 5, 2015 - link
Well they certainly made it harder to switch display profiles. I used to be able to assign hot keys to them but you can't now and instead have to open "settings ->preference-additional settings->presets and manually select the profile you want. There is no hot key or even a right click on the CCC menu option like before. Phhhffffffffftttttttttt! Who thought that was an improvement?iamezza - Monday, December 7, 2015 - link
I was just about to ask if anyone had figured out an easier way to switch profiles.I have been able to switch between eyefinity and regular mode for the last 5 years with either 2 clicks of the mouse or using hot keys.
I can see that there is a profiles folder in the start menu too but it is empty.
MadAd - Sunday, December 13, 2015 - link
Based on the older CCC, save your normal profile first, assign it a hotkey combo (i like alt-shift and a-s-d so I can do it with my non mousing hand). Then make your alternate setup, save that also assigning a different hotkey combo, job done. Youll see 2 profiles in the bank and have 2 combos to turn each on.iamezza - Tuesday, December 15, 2015 - link
That's what I had been doing for the past 5 years, I had 2 profiles that I could switch between very easily. The problem is they have removed profiles (used to be called presets) from the application altogether.They only have individual profiles for games/applications now. They actually do have the ability to launch a game with Eyefinity but it doesn't work for me.
Tekniik - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
For some reason when I click on GPU Scaling my screen turns black for 2 seconds and makes a sound, but afterwards it still stays off. No matter how many times I do it.Porxster - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
I uninstalled AMD's latest drivers to install the new one just released and to complete the uninstall had to reboot and SURPRISE!!! Corrupted graphics squares and lines galore like a "Yuppy" art gallery. Can't even get in Windows,cant restore or repair! This is the 2nd time this happens. The 1st time I used AMD Driver removing tool and same crap, I had to format my drive and now again? I'm done with these slackers! Polishing a broken tool don't make it work any better. My build next year will be Intel Skylake And Nvidia. I wish you a slow and painful death AMD!!! DIE!!!santiagodraco - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
This new interface is a complete pos. What's the most difficult setting to find? How to change the effing resolution of your display! Completely illogical in many design choices and will make it even more difficult for users.If it requires you to google how to find common settings it's a failure. A pretty face does not substitute for easy to use.
PabloAriel - Saturday, June 18, 2016 - link
Qt is probably the worst choice ever and also the Radeon Settings program is not working on my computer because of it.