# AMD Catalyst 14.12 Omega Performance Analysis



## btarunr (Dec 8, 2014)

Every two or so years, AMD rolls out a year-end Catalyst driver update, which not only steps up performance and splats bugs, but also expands their own software feature-set. The new Catalyst 14.12 Omega is part of AMD's effort to catch up with and get ahead of NVIDIA's latest software features.

*Show full review*


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## VulkanBros (Dec 9, 2014)

"AMD Catalyst 14.12 Omega is just another driver release from AMD" - says it all


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## Mussels (Dec 9, 2014)

The one website i trust to do accurate driver reviews.


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## alwayssts (Dec 9, 2014)

Pretty saucy review, right there. 

While ofc the performance claims are overblown, they always are (from both companies).

What I find fascinating is calling this 'feature parity'.  For DSR, yes, but for video...no,no,no...no.

Have you seen nvidia's video options?  Even before this they...uh...need some work comparatively.  This further cements AMD as leading in that area.

IMHO, the most useful part of this review is stating the certain scaling enhancement is like MADVR and lower levels of jinc (I'm going to guess not 3 taps).  That's good to know, and very helpful.  Thanks Bta.

While it would certainly we welcome if it were better than what is available, it's important to understand not everyone that launches a video also launches a freaking literal suite of crap with it (madvr, ffdshow, lav, reclock, svp, etc etc), nor should it be a requirement to get decent quality regardless of their monitor or the video.  I think they deserve a lot of credit for this, and hope they move forward with improving the features.  Ain't nothing wrong if they can attempt to add more taps in scaling or work towards a good interpolation algorithm harnessing gpu compute (especially if they keep power/clocks in check).  SVP and MadVR can both be VERY resource intensive (can* any* current consumer cpu run even 1080p svp at 120hz full quality?) if you crank them to high quality settings, the former only really worth it if you do so (and why many people think interpolation sucks...it does if not done really well, which is largely the case).  If AMD can continue to tackle that issue, personally, I would find that a very compelling reason to use their products.  Even as it sits, some of these features may be very helpful to those that don't go all the way setting up the aforementioned programs and filters...which is probably most people.


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## qu3becker (Dec 9, 2014)

Now, I haven't tried yet but hopefully this new version brings the Linux version to par with the windows driver, at least in the performance department. Last time I tried running a game based on the source engine on Steam for Linux it was a stutter fest.


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## mastrdrver (Dec 9, 2014)

I'm pretty sure I'm getting much better fps with Mantle in BF4, though need further testing to make sure.

Wish Mantle support for the GVR would have made it in. Really like Mantle, but no recorder for it sucks.


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## Rowsol (Dec 9, 2014)

This is a review I can get behind, thanks for this.


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## RejZoR (Dec 9, 2014)

Meh. VSR not available for HD7900. Performance boost? Hardly any. Not really impressed...


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## Eroticus (Dec 9, 2014)

RejZoR said:


> Meh. VSR not available for HD7900. Performance boost? Hardly any. Not really impressed...


1 FPS ... nvidia boys bought new cards to get 7 fps more ~.~ ... what did you expected ? same story like always ... =]


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## RejZoR (Dec 9, 2014)

Well, you have to understand that HD7900 and R9-290 gained larger boosts after release. It's how always is. But once you get it up there, you can't really pull much performance out of existing stuff. It's how shaders and compilers are. They are basically as good as they will ever be and you can't optimize that much further.


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## Mussels (Dec 9, 2014)

so now that these are installed - none of these features work in 7970? thats disapointing


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## bogami (Dec 9, 2014)

AMD is real as good as INVIDIA and we forget that INVIDIA has no verticl synchronization. It is offered separately  and even more expensive product we get. In addition relieves the processor. Yes there are various chits for higher FPS but the picture is more beautiful on AMD products. Supports 6 monitors with one element ( vertical synchronization)and also has its own physical support by another name.Mantle es well. If AMD would have a lower power consumption could seriously competed, and only there is a new generation maxwel in advantage. But wait for the new generation of AMD. Only then I will decide what I want to buy.


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## Hayder_Master (Dec 9, 2014)

it's *Ryse: Son of Rome *Improvement driver


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## GhostRyder (Dec 9, 2014)

I have not downloaded it yet, what I think was most interesting was the new features for 4K users mostly because I think that's a better highlight of the release than anything.  I think we all knew that improvements were coming in games but in reality there would probably be only one game that had the "Up to 19%" performance increase.  Still this is a nice driver and I cannot wait to download it!


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## Danteska (Dec 9, 2014)

Funny how the actual CCC and display driver versions differ from release notes.







Also, back to 14.4 as ever since 14.9 my FPS dropped substantially in many games.

For example, Tomb Raider Benchmark gives me these results with 14.4 and Ultra settings:
(Anyone else got a Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-X boost edition here to compare?)
- minimum FPS: 58.0
- maximum FPS: 84.0
- average FPS: 71.4
These are the results with 14.12 (and with 14.9 and with 14.11.2 beta):
- minimum FPS: 50.0
- maximum FPS: 72.0
- average FPS: 61.4
Difference might not seem that big, but for me it changes from almost 70 fps most of the time to barely reaching the 60 fps zone in that game.

Did a benchmark on my system  and equal settings while playing The Crew too. My EVGA GTX 670 is able to maintain 60 fps with everything maxed out (well, not everything: vsync off and FXAA instead of 4xMSAA as that drops fps to 30) and the 7950 can -with either 14.4, 14.9, 14.11.2 beta or 14.12- barely reach 42-45 FPS, when both cards are almost equal performance wise in many games. Hope to see an AMD driver with The Crew improvements one day.


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## Casecutter (Dec 9, 2014)

Hey btarunr what gives!  In your front-page article you mentioned "specific performance improvements target Batman: Arkham Origins, Bioshock Infinite, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Grid 2"... Although, here you choose not to substantiate those claims? 

As 3 of those are from W1zzard own B-M regime, I’d be interested in those particular title improvements and their power usage. While they may have increase gameplay enough we might see altering of the summary though perhaps at the expense of perf/w. If AMD made those games play better and with not as aggressive clocks we might reassess the older data somewhat.


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## R00kie (Dec 9, 2014)

Don't know about you guys, but VSR is my favourite thing now. Anyone agrees?


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## The Von Matrices (Dec 9, 2014)

GhostRyder said:


> I think we all knew that improvements were coming in games but in reality there would probably be only one game that had the "Up to 19%" performance increase.


The 19% is also due to comparing this release to year old drivers.  Marketing wouldn't have any significant performance improvement to talk about if AMD compared these drivers to the last release.


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## vega22 (Dec 9, 2014)

gdallsk said:


> Don't know about you guys, but VSR is my favourite thing now. Anyone agrees?



what since cru?

nice to be able to do in the drivers i guess but it is not a new feature to some of us....


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## R00kie (Dec 9, 2014)

marsey99 said:


> what since cru?
> 
> nice to be able to do in the drivers i guess but it is not a new feature to some of us....



CRU never allowed me to change anything. VSR is the only thing that works properly for me.


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## HumanSmoke (Dec 9, 2014)

Casecutter said:


> Hey btarunr what gives!  In your front-page article you mentioned "specific performance improvements target Batman: Arkham Origins, Bioshock Infinite, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Grid 2"... Although, here you choose not to substantiate those claims?


Here's a thought....maybe bta doesn't have the games to hand


Casecutter said:


> As 3 of those are from W1zzard own B-M regime, I’d be interested in those particular title improvements and their power usage.


Unless you're under the impression that TPU's staff all live together, it stands to reason that W1zzard's benchmark suite will likely differ from that of other staff members. Wouldn't it be more apropos to PM W1zzard regarding these games rather than hit up a staff member who maybe doesn't have the games in hand? It's also fairly likely that at the next round of graphics card reviews in the new year, W1zzard would be applying the driver - or its successor, no? Since AMD themselves have said that the driver will be more fully inclusive in January/February ( bug fixes, feature support - resolutions, first generation GCN series (HD 7900, 7800/R7 etc) it is reasonable to assume that this future release will be more representative.
Seems a little pointless to run a comprehensive review of the features when not all models within the current product stack are supported. For every satisfied customer you could end up with a few frowns from those left on the sidelines.


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## GLD (Dec 10, 2014)

The Omega drivers didn't work for my system. Tried twice. Went back to 14.9. What gives?


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## ap4lifetn (Dec 10, 2014)

is it possible for a registry edit to allow 3840 x 2400 on a R9 290?


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## btarunr (Dec 10, 2014)

GLD said:


> The Omega drivers didn't work for my system. Tried twice. Went back to 14.9. What gives?



HD 7850 isn't supported.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDCatalystOMEGAWINReleaseNotes.aspx


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## Primalz (Dec 10, 2014)

GLD said:


> The Omega drivers didn't work for my system. Tried twice. Went back to 14.9. What gives?


did you use display driver uninstaller or did you just reinstall over 14.9? Sometimes that can make all the difference.


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## RCoon (Dec 10, 2014)

Casecutter said:


> In your front-page article you mentioned "specific performance improvements target Batman: Arkham Origins, Bioshock Infinite, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Grid 2"... Although, here you choose not to substantiate those claims?





HumanSmoke said:


> it stands to reason that W1zzard's benchmark suite will likely differ from that of other staff members. Wouldn't it be more apropos to PM W1zzard regarding these games rather than hit up a staff member who maybe doesn't have the games in hand?



I'm happy to run a host of prior and post Omega driver benchmarks for those game titles.

Just send me a 290X and we're golden


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## Casecutter (Dec 10, 2014)

HumanSmoke said:


> Here's a thought....maybe bta doesn't have the games to hand
> 
> Unless you're under the impression that TPU's staff all live together, it stands to reason that W1zzard's benchmark suite will likely differ from that of other staff members. Wouldn't it be more apropos to PM W1zzard regarding these games rather than hit up a staff member who maybe doesn't have the games in hand? It's also fairly likely that at the next round of graphics card reviews in the new year, W1zzard would be applying the driver - or its successor, no? Since AMD themselves have said that the driver will be more fully inclusive in January/February ( bug fixes, feature support - resolutions, first generation GCN series (HD 7900, 7800/R7 etc) it is reasonable to assume that this future release will be more representative.
> Seems a little pointless to run a comprehensive review of the features when not all models within the current product stack are supported. For every satisfied customer you could end up with a few frowns from those left on the sidelines.


 
They don't need to live together they just need to let the resident staff member that does GPU testing do that testing.  The staff should've made a concerted decision to present quantifiable testing, rather project this as pertinent data that we've come to trust from TPU.  I look forward to W1zzard evaluating these claim on both the performance and power.


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## tomkaten (Dec 10, 2014)

btarunr said:


> HD 7850 isn't supported.
> 
> http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDCatalystOMEGAWINReleaseNotes.aspx



?? AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series, it's in your link. Am I missing something ?


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## GLD (Dec 10, 2014)

axis007 said:


> did you use display driver uninstaller or did you just reinstall over 14.9? Sometimes that can make all the difference.


I always uninstall the drivers through the control panel and install fresh. I did a fresh dl both times. I may try the Omegas again on my AM2 board with a 5750 gpu running Win 7 basic. (Win 7 basic isn't half bad tweaking it with the God Mode folder)


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## KainXS (Dec 10, 2014)

tomkaten said:


> ?? AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series, it's in your link. Am I missing something ?



tried it on one of my 7850's, works fine, sucks that almost every new feature is only for apu's and the newer R7/9 chips and not the Radeon 7K series, still gonna sit with my 7970's though.


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## spydir (Dec 11, 2014)

KainXS said:


> tried it on one of my 7850's, works fine, sucks that almost every new feature is only for apu's and the newer R7/9 chips and not the Radeon 7K series, still gonna sit with my 7970's though.



I have downloaded the software twice, uninstalled the old drivers the first time with driversweeper, and I still can't get the driver to install with my xfired 7850s. what did you do to get them installed?


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## btarunr (Dec 11, 2014)

Casecutter said:


> They don't need to live together they just need to let the resident staff member that does GPU testing do that testing.  The staff should've made a concerted decision to present quantifiable testing, rather project this as pertinent data that we've come to trust from TPU.  I look forward to W1zzard evaluating these claim on both the performance and power.



Nah, W1zzard did't want to do this. You don't find my review sufficient (five tests at three resolutions, for two drivers, tested thrice each (that's 5*3*2=30 data points, 90 individual tests)), you choose with your browser.


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## Mussels (Dec 11, 2014)

KainXS said:


> tried it on one of my 7850's, works fine, sucks that almost every new feature is only for apu's and the newer R7/9 chips and not the Radeon 7K series, still gonna sit with my 7970's though.



i read elsewhere that some of these features will be back ported to older cards later, still no idea if our 7970's count for that.


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## vega22 (Dec 11, 2014)

gdallsk said:


> CRU never allowed me to change anything. VSR is the only thing that works properly for me.



sorry dude but you must be doing it wrong :/


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## HumanSmoke (Dec 11, 2014)

Mussels said:


> i read elsewhere that some of these features will be back ported to older cards later, still no idea if our 7970's count for that.


AMD have said that January/February is the time frame....so, mark February 28th on your calendar.

Couldn't find the Catalyst driver team(?) announcement for Jan/Feb, but another site put a few specific questions to AMD and their replies seem to indicate the same (see the update at the bottom of the page).


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## Casecutter (Dec 11, 2014)

btarunr said:


> Nah, W1zzard did't want to do this. You don't find my review sufficient (five tests at three resolutions, for two drivers, tested thrice each (that's 5*3*2=30 data points, 90 individual tests)), you choose with your browser.


I apologize it's not that it isn't sufficient in its own right, it's just that with W1zzard have established historical data, it would've been nice to see those specific titles ran on that developed test set-up.  More not to just see FpS, but power and if there's a specific change in the power to garner those scores.  With each game having the driver written to offer specific boost profiles, if they offer improvements along with really jockeying around with the max boost it might not be all that impressive.


Anymore they probably work hard to "optimize" just a few titles that reviewers use to establish power.  If you know that Metro Last Light, Hitman or BF4 are what most of the prominent reviewers' use to establish power and use that to arrive at average perf/watt.  I'd surrender a few FsP especially it a title may architexture has a large advantage, if it provides all my "boosted" titles the appearance of enhanced efficiency.  Going forward I see both sides juggle a few known titles that reviewers use for efficiency, while the bulk of the others are let to run unbridled.  I guess my problem is I'd like to see power numbers pulled for every game going forward, as there's ways to fiddle with the impression of efficiency.


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## KainXS (Dec 11, 2014)

spydir said:


> I have downloaded the software twice, uninstalled the old drivers the first time with driversweeper, and I still can't get the driver to install with my xfired 7850s. what did you do to get them installed?



installed right over the old catalyst betas with no problem

But I did hear from some people that if you installed Windows Update KB3004394, This update will fail on some radeon 7K cards but was I had both and it worked anyway.


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## Rhamape (Dec 12, 2014)

brand new here so sorry if i'm in the wrong thread 
OK i've tried this driver on both my pc and my daughters
i have a gigabyte wind-force R9 290 rev 1
my daughters pc has an amd apu 5800k
as i would always do, i removed all evidence of amd drivers on my pc prior to install 
the screen went black during install and would not recover until i forced my pc to restart 
on boot up no aero and faulty catalyst software and drivers, tells me no drivers are installed for my gpu 
even though when you right click on the desktop it shows catalyst control centre 
reverted to my old driver and everything sweet, well as sweet as you can get with a gigabyte r9 290 (86 degrees under load temp bull) lol

on my daughters pc not so easy an install as you have chipset drivers too (were combined in the old driver package)  but the omega driver doesn't come with the chipset and has to be downloaded and installed separately
so not knowing what to do here, i installed the omega driver without uninstalling anything 
didnt get the black screen but did say the driver had installed correctly but the pc needed to be restarted for the driver to take effect 
restarted and same as my pc. no functional driver or catalyst software 
reverted to old driver 

i can only imagine i'm doing something wrong as the install failed on both pc but ive owned amd gpu's for years and never experience a driver failure @ install
any ideas


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## AsRock (Dec 12, 2014)

Fill in your system specs so it be easier for people to help you.

I just installed over the old drivers as i don't like to mess around with crap DDU and a like and had no issue's.


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## Mussels (Dec 12, 2014)

i installed over the top. i always say in all of these threads: those cleaners do more harm than good. they break things so that you NEED to use them.


I dirty upgrade every time unless the release notes say not to, and i never have issues.


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## olstyle (Dec 12, 2014)

ap4lifetn said:


> is it possible for a registry edit to allow 3840 x 2400 on a R9 290?


No it isn't.
This is a technical limitation since (in the moment) AMD uses the rescale SIP of the GPU to scale down back to desktop resolution. I expect the next update (the one which is said to support all GCN cores) to enable shader-downscale which would in theory work with all resolutions.


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## Athlonite (Dec 12, 2014)

btarunr said:


> HD 7850 isn't supported.
> 
> http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDCatalystOMEGAWINReleaseNotes.aspx



um they installed fine here and I have two HD7850 cards so must be something else perhaps try using DDU first before installing


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## Rhamape (Dec 12, 2014)

OK I've filled in my pc specs sheet if you guys wouldn't mind having a look with the possibility of some insight into my problem with this driver 
can't see what you will get unless you know of something i dont but thats the point right haha
as for installing clean 
i did it manually, as im sure many of you guys have done many a reinstall you find out where all the amd stuff is 
ive not tried installing over my old driver yet 
may be i should try that and get back to you ?


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## wiak (Dec 12, 2014)

was nvidia or futuremark first with downscaled 4k? like VSR?
i did notice 3dmark got a render at 4k and scale down feature


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## Mussels (Dec 13, 2014)

must have been posted in anothre thread, but the reason it wont install for some people in win 7 is a windows update issue. install the latest updates and it should be resolved.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 13, 2014)

Awesome, this driver totally breaks the already buggy HDMI scaling.

How is it that AMD can't get something so simple right and are actually going backwards...


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## Mussels (Dec 13, 2014)

newtekie1 said:


> Awesome, this driver totally breaks the already buggy HDMI scaling.
> 
> How is it that AMD can't get something so simple right and are actually going backwards...



whats your problem with the scaling? its working fine for me here, HDMI is all i use


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## newtekie1 (Dec 13, 2014)

Mussels said:


> whats your problem with the scaling? its working fine for me here, HDMI is all i use


The OverScan/Underscan slider is grayed out so I can't adjust it and it is set all the way up.  So I have black bars all the way around my screen.


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## Mussels (Dec 13, 2014)

not greyed out here, works fine.

image goes a bit funky when i slide it around (flickers) but it works as intended.


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## Steevo (Dec 16, 2014)

newtekie1 said:


> The OverScan/Underscan slider is grayed out so I can't adjust it and it is set all the way up.  So I have black bars all the way around my screen.


Are you pushing it into a monitor or a TV? I have to choose Game mode on my TV to get it to quit over scanning and then I don't have to adjust anything in CCC


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## VulkanBros (Dec 16, 2014)

Mine works fine as well, and in conjunction with Gigabyte´s OC Guru it just works great...


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## revin (Dec 18, 2014)

Have *any* driver's made improvements for *HD5870* since 10.12 ?

 I'm using the {14.9 } Driver Packaging Version 14.301.1001-140915a-176154C.  Not sure when newer is better................

My XFX XXX Edition card is still working very well, but PlanetSide 2 pretty much newest game, custom settings Maxed out , HAWX 2, maxed,  Rail Works 2013, I do stutter slightly at 4 X.


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## DeathtoGnomes (Jan 4, 2015)

As a bit of a gamer, I'd really like to know if the VSR feature will apply/work to R9 280X. I hope so or I'll be one very unhappy camper since I just bought one about month ago...


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## Athlonite (Jan 4, 2015)

DeathtoGnomes said:


> As a bit of a gamer, I'd really like to know if the VSR feature will apply/work to R9 280X. I hope so or I'll be one very unhappy camper since I just bought one about month ago...



No it wont as the 280x is just a rebadged 79xx gpu you'll have to wait for amd to get it going for all GCN cards for it to work good news is you wont have to wait to long


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