Tuesday, May 27th 2014
AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta Driver Available for Download
AMD has now let loose a new graphics card driver, a fresh Catalyst build which brings performance enhancements for games like Watch Dogs and Murdered Soul Suspect, plus Eyefinity and Mantle improvements.
The Catalyst 14.6 Beta is available for Windows 7 and 8.1 (8.0 users will have to update to 8.1 if they want to install it) and supports Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 7000, HD 8000, R5 200, R7 200 and R9 200 Series desktop cards, and Mobility Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 6000M, HD 7000M and HD 8000M mobile GPUs.Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta Driver for Windows
Performance improvements
The Catalyst 14.6 Beta is available for Windows 7 and 8.1 (8.0 users will have to update to 8.1 if they want to install it) and supports Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 7000, HD 8000, R5 200, R7 200 and R9 200 Series desktop cards, and Mobility Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 6000M, HD 7000M and HD 8000M mobile GPUs.Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta Driver for Windows
Performance improvements
- Watch Dogs performance improvements
AMD Radeon R9 290X - 1920x1080 4x MSAA - improves up to 25%
AMD Radeon R9290X - 2560x1600 4x MSAA - improves up to 28%
AMD Radeon R9290X CrossFire configuration (3840x2160 Ultra settings, MSAA = 4X) - 92% scaling - Murdered Soul Suspect performance improvements
AMD Radeon R9 290X - 2560x1600 4x MSAA - improves up to 16%
AMD Radeon R9290X CrossFire configuration (3840x2160 Ultra settings, MSAA = 4X) - 93% scaling
- Mixed Resolution Support
- A new architecture providing brand new capabilities
- Display groups can be created with monitors of different resolution (including difference sizes and shapes)
- Users have a choice of how surface is created over the display group
Fill - legacy mode, best for identical monitors
Fit - create the Eyefinity surface using best available rectangular area with attached displays.
Expand - create a virtual Eyefinity surface using desktops as viewports onto the surface. - Eyefinity Display Alignment
- Enables control over alignment between adjacent monitors
- One-Click Setup
- Driver detects layout of extended desktops
Can create Eyefinity display group using this layout in one click! - New user controls for video color and display settings
- Greater control over Video Color Management:
- Controls have been expanded from a single slider for controlling Boost and Hue to per color axis
- Color depth control for Digital Flat Panels (available on supported HDMI and DP displays)
- Allows users to select different color depths per resolution and display
- Mantle now supports AMD Mobile products with Enduro technology
- Battlefield 4: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1366x768; high settings) - 21% gain
- Thief: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1920x1080; high settings) - 14% gain
- Star Swarm: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1920x1080; medium settings) - 274% gain
- Enables support for Multi-GPU configurations with Thief (requires the latest Thief update)
- JPEG decoding acceleration was first enabled on the A10 APU Series in AMD Catalyst 14.1 beta, and has now been extended to the AMD AM1 Platform
- Provides fast JPEG decompression
- Provides Power Efficiency for JPEG decompression
37 Comments on AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta Driver Available for Download
A GTX 770 is faster than a 290X
www.extremetech.com/gaming/183095-watch-dogs-analyzing-the-impact-of-nvidias-gameworks-integration-and-amd-performance
Extremetech guy is worried about the Forbes reviewers findings: Concerned enough to write it up, yet couldn't replicate the Forbes numbers (and nor could anyone else)... ...and even referenced the Techspot review that had the 290X decimating the GTX 770, which falls exactly in line with just about every other gameplay review published
PCLab.pl
GameGPU
HardOCP
Guru3D
PCGH
...and then goes on to prattle on about Mantle being open source and not limited to GCN Must have missed the bits where AMD made the Mantle code and SDK freely available (isn't that the definition of open source?), and the API running happily on VLIW4 and 5 architectures. Isn't Mantle already integrated into two shipping game titles ?
Seems like a case of clickbait and getting a juicy quote from an AMD product marketing manager and tailoring findings to fit the conclusion.
So now your complaint in a AMD news thread is what exactly? That your 780's are going to get their asses whooped by cheaper cards with more new features, so you are butthurt and want to incite FUD?
Go play games or with yourself.
I needed a good laugh today :laugh:
...Pitcairn-targeted support in Mantle (in the guise of 8970m)...yay...finally...
I get why they put that wording (because they are probably in amd cpu laptops), but when that is essentially a 270 on the desktop, and 270/265 have got to be one of their main markets now (considering how cheap 760 got versus 7870/270x) and it has little competition in it's price/performance bracket, I would think maybe they'd highlight that...or not.
I like the fact they seem to be on a feature role this month. Next stop, incorporating John Mautari's (old) stuff into Catalyst?
Quit it, let me dream.
Unlike them, a certain firm tried to make everything proprietary and charged a premium on consumers. That firm even go as low as restricting its partner studios from working with AMD drivers, in order to cripple the performance of AMD's cards in their sponsored games. :mad:
And could you please give a feature from AMD that is prevented from being optimized for others then?
Just admit it, nVidia is full of proprietary stuff. PhysX cards refuse to run PhysX if the main GPU is not nVidia, 3Dvision requires nVidia glasses and GPU to work, Gsync ask extra money for an addition board on your monitor, which is useless if you don't use nvidia GPU. Is that enough? No, they just "invented" Gameworks to restrict the involved developers working with AMD for drivers. They would go as low as possible to beat cheaper solutions, in order to milk more from their loyal cows. Heck, I'm smart and I'm not a cow though.
If Mantle is open source and available to anyone why do the applicants have to sign a non disclosure agreement? It.Makes.No.Sense.
Open Source means just that. It doesn't mean that there is a restriction on who can view the code, and it doesn't mean that a commercial company has the final say in whether you can use it. Yup, Nvidia is the very definition of proprietary, but that's their business model. They have (more or less) only have one string to their bow, so they make sure that they sell a hardware+software ecosystem rather than just components. Leaving your fate to others tends to be business suicide - see what effect Intel denying Nvidia access to QPI/DMI and AMD ditching Nvidia chipsets had on iGP market share. That's your opinion, not fact. If Gameworks restricts AMD driver access then it should be a simple matter to review the game code to see if the allegation is true - all I see at the moment is people acting like chimps tossing shit at each other.
It was my understanding that Gameworks was more aimed at optimizing for Nvidia with engines such as UE4. Both companies tend to play fast and loose with letting the other see code as early as possible- I believe the last instance was AMD's sponsored Tomb Raider that Nvidia had no access to final game code to.
Looks like I could use Mantle with my old 1100T and a newer card and not have any issues. So I am wondering where the failure is here, I agree both companies try to get the upper hand, its business. But overall, the adoption of open software has been handled much better by AMD than Nvidia.
2. It's not "letting your fate to others". It is shutting down options of others, including the consumer. For example a guy buys a nVidia's card because he believes that it could run PhysX. It can for sure, but it is not allow to run, because that guys has an AMD as his main GPU. Lame.
3. Whether or not it crippled AMD's performance is not confirmed. But it is clear that Gameworks restricts developers to share the code related to that library with AMD. With no idea how an important library works in those games, no way can anyone optimize them to non Gamework games' level. The same story happened when Intel x86 compiler decide to play bad with AMD cpu. Well, we are lucky that AMD gpu has better market shares than their CPU department though.
In Tomb Raider's case, a patch for nVidia's GPU was released around 2 weeks after launch. However, nVidia "worked very closely to Crystal Dynamics" in order to achieve that. For Gameworks' games, it will take a long time for an AMD patch, or maybe never like in Arkham Origin's case
Only a limited set of developers are provided access to the Mantle NDA Developer SDK and access is subject to a selection process.
NDA is a must have for the healthy development of Mantle ???? You think that software developers not being able to discuss the SDK with others for their thoughts and input is healthy development ? But then go on to deride Nvidia for doing much the same thing: :shadedshu: Why would he think that? The only people likely to do that are the kind that don't bother researching before buying, or listen to forum posters with a miniscule knowledge base that think that a driver hackis an easy option (the fact that the driver needs hacking should be a giveaway). Ain't no cure for stupid (or lack of research before buying as the case may be). A very quick look at Nvidia's PhysX FAQwould tell you the answer. Don't see it as an issue personally. AMD themselves and most of the AMD fanboys don't rate PhysX at all, so why should anyone care- least of all Nvidia. Nvidia paid around $150 million for Ageia to acquire PhysX- you think it's viable to shell out for the tech just to give it away to your competitor, especially when the same competitor couldn't be arsed to buy the same techa year earlier. Kind of reminds me of the "mates" you have that never put in for the keg, and always show up once the foods already ordered.
Just for interests sake, if PhysX was allowed to run on AMD GPUs who would be responsible for maintaining compatibility with changing drivers/µarchs? You trust AMD to make sure it runs OK, or do you expect AMD to give Nvidia access to their driver code to ensure compatibility? Didn't really help on launch day when all the sites did their GPU performance evaluations did it?
Though that link doesn't mention anything about it being open to acceleration outside of CUDA.