From Catalyst is Crimson, otherwise nothing will change – I was wrong, because AMD has renewed its graphics card driver software from the ground up. What changes the chip maker has made and whether the impact on performance is, learn in our detailed driver check.
With Radeon Software Crimson AMD introduced its completely redesigned graphics card driver software before – hence, also the familiar Catalyst driver history. And AMD will have made an effort: to be stability, based on the four pillars of the foundation of the entire software: user experience, functionality, performance and efficiency. The extent to which the chipmaker reserves in reality right answer our driver check.
Threesomes, prettier and easier
From the first launch of Radeon Crimson software we already pointed out that the new driver is not only faster to the screen, but also the navigation within the program felt more responsive fails. The reason is that AMD is no longer in the programming of Crimson as Microsoft .NET, but the Qt framework. According to AMD, this programming framework should be adapted better and work more efficiently.
The design is completely new and looks much fresher and clearer: The most important functions are now in the form of tabs in the upper part of Crimson, takes place in the middle of the presentation of the respective menus, while at the blank window-bottom find the settings. When designing AMD puts on a slightly transparent, anthracite user interface that comes much more modern than the stale Catalyst. For reasons of clarity and user guidance of the Crimson can thus already clearly points!
Individual profiles for games and applications
Under the menu item games can now be make for games and applications individual settings. By clicking on the respective program once the “profile graphics card” appears. There are various graphic settings can be made, such as the anti-aliasing mode, the quality of texture filtering or options for vertical synchronization. “Shader cache” Shader stores on your hard drive in order to achieve a lower CPU usage and thus less stuttering – but the game must support this technology. The “Frame Rate Target Control” is a function to set the frame rate (ie frames per second) using the slider to limit to any maximum – in Crimson AMD has lifted the restriction to 200 frames per second. These frame rates limit the graphics card will consume less power.
This lends itself to especially in less complex games such as Moba à la Dota 2 or older titles, in which the graphics card no longer unnecessarily has to calculate hundreds of frames per second. What is new with the Radeon Crimson software, that this feature can now also activate for older DirectX 9 games. Under “Global Settings” can be created that then applies to all applications and a general profile.
Next comes the “Profile overdrive”: Here you can adjust the clock frequencies and fan speeds individually the graphics card for each application. Besides the new design here has not changed much from the operator forth. As before, the current values as GPU utilization, frequency and temperatures can be monitored in real time and adjust exceed respectively underclock and fan speeds.
Display optimization and Freesync
The profile for video optimization combines AMD naturally in the “Video” tab. For this purpose, the manufacturer offers already some predefined profiles to represent content due: Movies look then probably best described as “Classic Cinema”, Actioncam recordings with “Helmet Video”. Under “Custom” you put yourself on hand. But these profiles not only affect the color intensity or brightness, but also deeper adjustments can perform using the AMD GPU: For example, the technology Steady Video stabilizes shaky Video Clips. Fluid Motion Video adjusts the frame rate of moving content to the refresh rate of the screen for smoother playback.
The settings made to sets Crimson immediately via “Demo of” disable the real-time preview. Speaking of video optimization: The A-Series APUs (Accelerated Processing Unit) FX 8800P and A10-8700P are with the new driver now can display videos liquid, sharper and with less motion blur.
In the display settings, everything revolves around your monitor and how to display content. Among them, for example, falls the scaling of content or the downsampling technique VSR (Virtual Super Resolution): This content in a higher number of pixels can be represented when the monitor actually dominated natively. The image synchronization technology Freesync donated AMD several innovations: A smooth ironing motion video is now possible even at frame rates that fall below the lowest monitor refresh rate.
AMD calls this “low framerate Compensation” (LFC): If the frame rate and the respective minimum Hertz number, just done a doubling of the image to a doubling of the Monitor -Refresh rate reached. A prerequisite is that the maximum refresh rate of the screen is twice as high as the lowest frequency. For example, a monitor with a maximum of 60 Hertz and 30 Hertz minimal LFC can therefore apply.
Added to this is that Freesync now soon to work over HDMI – so far, the technique was limited to the DisplayPort interface. Compatible Monitors should also come on the market soon.
Other improvements and features in Crimson
- Multi-monitor mode: AMD Eyefinity now recognizes autonomously the ideal monitor configuration and provides a sensible arrangement of the LEDs on. According to AMD, the hit rate for the configurations should be at about 90 percent.
- Mikroruckler: Frame Pacing, AMD technology to micro stuttering when using two or more graphics cards to reduce, now also works with DirectX 9 games.
- Custom Resolutions: With Crimson, it is possible to define your own resolutions and to define timing, refresh rates and pixel rates of screens.
- 4K upscaling: The adaptive directional scaling to 1080p content represent to 4K screens smooth and minimize the podium effect at the edges.
- Automatic Contrast: improved The algorithm for the dynamic contrast is now be and adapt automatically each video. The result will be stronger contrasts, without lighten the dark areas.
- more responsive entries: The so-called flip QueueSize wants AMD have optimized by only one frame is precalculated instead of three. In this way, games are to implement inputs from mouse and keyboard more quickly.
- user feedback: AMD wants to enhance its quality assurance and provides a own contact willing to report errors in the driver. The manufacturer wants to continue to hear claims to the users and eliminate errors.
- Driver uninstall: With the AMD Clean Uninstall Utility program now remove the AMD graphics driver completely from the system, including registry entries. This has actually held before each driver update.
Improved performance and less power consumption
It is already known that Radeon graphics cards with DirectX 12 better performance achieve as Geforce graphics cards. With Crimson another increase of up to 20 percent compared to the last Catalyst version there should be. Improves AMD wants the performance in current games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 or Rainbow Six: Victory and gives an increase of five to 15 percent. Also under Linux should now run faster games with Crimson. At the same time it should be better to energy efficiency, AMD talks of up to 23 percent improvement in performance per watt ratio.
practical test: Catalyst against Crimson
We have taken the test and compared the frame rate and power consumption with the latest Catalyst drivers and the new Radeon Crimson Software , the results are shown in the table below. While in Battlefield 4 and Witcher 3, the frame rate is hardly increased, something has done in electricity consumption: In Battlefield 4, the consumption of 411 drops to 393 watts, in Witcher 3 it increases contrast of 377 to 388. In the synthetic benchmark 3DMark we start Firestrike and visit Crimson a somewhat better result. The results are therefore significantly depends on the game and fluctuate significantly. For test method: We used in the test a Gigabyte 290X R9 OC and the Catalyst driver version 15.8.
| Comparison: graphics driver Performance | ||
|---|---|---|
| Catalyst 15.8 | Crimson 15:11 | |
| Battlefield 4: frames per second (average) | 74 frames / s | 75 frames / s |
| Battlefield 4: Power consumption (entire test platform, maximum value) | 411 Watt | 393 Watt |
| Witcher 3: frames per second (average) | 43 frames / s | 44 frames / s |
| Witcher 3: Power consumption (entire test platform, maximum value) | 377 Watt | 388 Watt |
| 3DMark Fire Strike | 10810 points | 10869 points |
Summary for AMD Radeon Crimson Software
The big driver update of Catalyst on Crimson knows how to please: The user interface has undergone a long overdue redesign which is now very modern and fresh acts. In addition, the navigation is now clearer, bringing even laymen should find their way quickly: Useful functions such as the image rate limiting framerate Target Control are now brisk tangible.
Also applying the application profiles just goes out of hand. Total Crimson also works much faster than its predecessor. That does not turn out too starkly the performance gains in games is not so bad: AMD wants to publish several more driver updates in the future and therefore has time to rectify. Even the more efficient power consumption is not omnipresent, but depending on the application.
Nevertheless: A step in the right direction, which had long been needed. And from a forced registration for the latest driver updates is fortunately (yet?) Nothing to see.
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