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AMD's 'Crimson' Driver Software Released (anandtech.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the gee-i-hope-it-integrates-with-social-media dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday marked the launch of AMD's 'Crimson' driver software. It replaces the old Catalyst driver software, and represents a change in how AMD develops bug fixes, improves performance, and adds features. AnandTech took a detailed look at the new driver software. They say, "By focusing feature releases around the end of the year driver, AMD is able to cut down on what parts of the driver they change (and thereby can possibly break) at other times of the year, and try to knock out all of their feature-related bugs at once. At the same time it makes the annual driver release a significant event, as AMD releases a number of new features all at once. However on the other hand this means that AMD has few features launching any other time of the year, which can make it look like they're not heavily invested in feature development at those points." On a more positive note, the article adds, "Looking under the hood there's no single feature that's going to blow every Radeon user away at once, but overall there are a number of neat features here that should be welcomed by various user groups. ... Meanwhile AMD's radical overhaul of their control panel via the new Radeon Settings application will be quickly noticed by everyone."

4 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Still Crap on Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    And unfortunately this new Crimson driver barely improves performance on Linux...
    http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/the-new-crimson-amd-driver-tested-on-r7-370-4g.6274

    1. Re:Still Crap on Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Phoronix comes to the same conclusion:
      http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-crimson-linux&num=1

  2. Re:I'll believe it when I see it by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Informative

    You say that as a bad thing.

    Read a game developer comment on here and they will say AMD hardware is a joy to use. Especially on the XBOXONE... but on Windows it is hell due to bugs and workarounds due to optimizations from 15 years worth of games loading up.

    Consider it like IE 6 where you need work arounds on work arounds and each new release adds more changes to make some new game cheat on benchmarks. Nvidia is now falling under this trap too. The great thing about FirePro and Quadro cards is the hardware is almost identical to the gaming cards except with ECC ram. It is the drivers that make them pro.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  3. Is there a 'true' test for performance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    AMD gets knocked for their drivers, but you have to wonder how much is due to intervention from the competition? I still remember Unreal Tournament 2003 would start the game with a character breaking through an nVidia logo. If games are optimized for nVidia hardware, can we really tell if performance of AMD is that much worse? Is there a test that is guaranteed not to favor any card?