AMD Catalyst 15.7 Drivers are Out!

[Ex14]

 

Overall here are the major additions to AMD’s drivers that Radeon owners will want to be aware of:

• Performance improvements for older cards
• Frame Rate Target Control for older cards
• Virtual Super Resolution has been extended to the 7000 series and AMD APUs
• Crossfire Freesync is now supported
• Preliminary “technical preview” Windows 10 support (WDDM 2.0)

The driver build, 15.20.1046, is based off a slightly newer branch than the one used for the 300 series launch (15.15). As that driver already incorporated most of these improvements, for new 300 series owners the changes compared to the 15.15 launch driver will be minimal other than the fact that WDDM 2.0 drivers are now available.

Source

Overall I'm just happy that they have some Windows 10 support out (finally),  although VSR is still not working on my 280X running Windows 10 not sure why...

Also Glad they're reining in the drivers and the forks we saw with the beta and the 300 series cards.... maybe @LinusTech could see if the drivers really do make any sort of difference as reported Also would be interesting to see if the 300 series refreshes perform any better than the 200 series one as some have claimed or whether AMD BIOS locked perf.

[Nav1tech]

So they release the crossfire freesync driver as soon as a sold my 295x2......Great!

[jbslayer]

repost  :unsure: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/403142-new-amd-driver-157/

[Nonco]

repost  :unsure: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/403142-new-amd-driver-157/

Everything on this site is reposted though haha

[Ex14]

repost  :unsure: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/403142-new-amd-driver-157/

gdi. I went through the pages and saw nothing >_> must have missed it sorry OTL

[Humbug]

They had windows 10 support for a long time and there were visible performance improvements. The beta drivers have been good.

 

WHQL certifcation shouldn't matter to gamers but still there seem to be some people who care a about WHQL certificaiton, and for them this release will make them happy. Even though WHQL is no guarantee of driver quality.

 

Linux gamers guys have also been reporting some openGL performance improvements in some games with these.

 

Also people who bought 7xxx GPUs back in 2011 must be very happy that they are still getting new features and aggressive performance tuning. 

[Me1z]

What a coincidence. My computer just so happened to crash for absolutely no reason and when I restarted this very update popped up on my desktop. Gotta love the new assertive update notification system. Hopefully this update fixes all of the 'features' I've been encountering.

[You_are_a_cunt]

FRTC, for those wondering (like I did) limits your framerate (kinda like VSync) to avoid your graphics card wasting power.

Think of it like VSync that saves you power while capping your FPS to whatever you set it to (55 to 95 FPS. No 144? Y U DO DIS?). This could actually give your GPU a longer life, since it doesn't go full load to only show you <insert refresh rate cap with vsync on> when your card is capable of more than that and you're bottlenecked (of sorts) by your display.

I actually like the idea of FRTC. Now I just hope it actually works. Will test it after I get home and update my drivers

[GrimNeo]

Everything on this site is reposted though haha

LinusRepostTips

[WereCat]

So they release the crossfire freesync driver as soon as a sold my 295x2......Great!

Well.. we knew it was to be relased any time soon so I dont know why you sold it

[Dabombinable]

Long story short, Windows 10 support means windows 8.1 drivers rebagded fof Windows 10 (don't worry, Nvidia does the same thing with their Windows 10 drivers).

[PerfectTemplar]

Long story short, Windows 10 support means windows 8.1 drivers rebagded fof Windows 10 (don't worry, Nvidia does the same thing with their Windows 10 drivers).

Yeah but only because they work. They both tested them incase changes were required for compatibility. Can't expect any more than that really.

[Lethal Seraph]

So they release the crossfire freesync driver as soon as a sold my 295x2......Great!

Aww lol

[pbenologa]

FRTC, for those wondering (like I did) limits your framerate (kinda like VSync) to avoid your graphics card wasting power.

Think of it like VSync that saves you power while capping your FPS to whatever you set it to (55 to 95 FPS. No 144? Y U DO DIS?). This could actually give your GPU a longer life, since it doesn't go full load to only show you <insert refresh rate cap with vsync on> when your card is capable of more than that and you're bottlenecked (of sorts) by your display.

I actually like the idea of FRTC. Now I just hope it actually works. Will test it after I get home and update my drivers

So this is like setting the target frame rate right? What if your system cannot achieve the set frame rate?

[ThreePinkApples]

So this is like setting the target frame rate right? What if your system cannot achieve the set frame rate?

 

Then you can't reache that frame rate. FRTC does nothing before you reach the targetet framerate, then it slows down the GPU to keep it there. If Framerate drops lower then it turn up the GPU again. 

[Damir]

So this is like setting the target frame rate right? What if your system cannot achieve the set frame rate?

 

then it cannot... it is just there to prevent from going over a certain FPS limit. Similar to vsync, but it supposedly reduces input lag, and reduce micro stuttering sometimes when your framerate skyrocket and drop wildly in certain situations.

 

But ultimately, this is ideal for TVs really, since most are 60hz input limited, and most TVs do not support sync.

[Ashaira]

Godamit. Why can't i down sample from 8k on my 280x?

[Ex14]

Godamit. Why can't i down sample from 8k on my 280x?

i cant even use vsr lol

[Le Lion de Barreras]

I tried out VSR, it's actually pretty neat. You can even change your desktop resolution if you want to.

[Diceair]

I tried out VSR, it's actually pretty neat. You can even change your desktop resolution if you want to.

 

I tried that but it looks really bad. I would rather have my desktop on native 1080p

[DEDRICK]

I wish I could do 4k VSR on my 290 but my native is 2560x1440 so it maxes out at 3200x1800p which isn't bad, I only use it in certain games anyways

[RedRound2]

I tried out VSR, it's actually pretty neat. You can even change your desktop resolution if you want to.

 

Could you tell me how to do it? I could'n't find any option called VSR in my catalyst control center 15.7

[MEC-777]

Could you tell me how to do it? I could'n't find any option called VSR in my catalyst control center 15.7

 

It's under one of the display option pages. Will say "enable virtual super resolution" or something like that. Just check the box, hit apply, then jump into a game and you'll see additional resolution options in the graphics settings. 

[Fetzie]

then it cannot... it is just there to prevent from going over a certain FPS limit. Similar to vsync, but it supposedly reduces input lag, and reduce micro stuttering sometimes when your framerate skyrocket and drop wildly in certain situations.

But ultimately, this is ideal for TVs really, since most are 60hz input limited, and most TVs do not support sync.

It is also good for games with static loading screens - my 7950 gets coil whine on minecraft`s start-screen because it is running at hundreds of FPS.

[Dietrichw]

Long story short, Windows 10 support means windows 8.1 drivers rebagded fof Windows 10 (don't worry, Nvidia does the same thing with their Windows 10 drivers).

Actually these are not. With the past couple of Windows 10 versions the Windows 8.1 drivers wouldn't install properly on windows 10. Even the Windows 8.1 15.7 drivers didn't install on Windows 10. Luckily a few hours later AMD released the Windows 10 version and it installed perfectly. Before this AMD user had to use Engineering Sample drivers distributed through windows update