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
www.nvidia.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html
Huh.... looks like a lack of games and server error, almost like everyone passed on this BS option.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support
WAIT HOLD THE PRESSES!! We almost forgot.......
QQ Dance 2
A quick PhysX + DC google; Personally, I don't see what the fuss is about. AMD already officially snubbed PhysX just after Nvidia acquired Ageia, and thensnubbed it again when the PhysX hack debuted. AMD just aren't interested no matter how hard some people try to paint it as Nvidia withholding something AMD wants. CUDA ports to OpenCL (and vice versa) readily enough. Now, for all the marbles, list all the OpenCL PC games.
Why do you think HavokFX fell into the pit of fail?
And for your other point, Mantle and Gameworks are not the same thing. Consumers can choose to not use Mantle in BF4 and Thief, and still be fine with DirectX. However they can not turn off all Gameworks' features on Arkham City or Watch Dogs, because there is no other solution provided. It is still fine when nVidia prevent AMD from accessing the code of a Gamework title before launch. However, it is not fine when they keep that bar permanently, like in Arkham Origins. It can be fixed if they allow AMD to "work very closely" with the studios for a patch though, but I highly doubt that it would happen.
AMD doesn't want Physx, its dead, they want open standards, as so all sane people. They want to push the mainline developers to embrace the changes hardware is allowing, instead of, ehhh, pile more cores on it.
As far as the PhysX issue. From my understanding Nvidia originaly offered PhysX to ATI with a % of every chip sold so they had to support PhysX through CUDA which they turned down. The Hacks was a 3rd party and had nothing to do with ATI directly rather more of a programmer looking for support.
And you'd find more overall interest if open standard moved at anywhere near the same pace as proprietary. OpenCL has been going almost as long as CUDA, yet had little or no interest when Nvidia were building an GPGPU HPC empire. Why does it need a proprietary solution to lead the way only for everyone to squeal about a closed environment rather than ask why open standard sat around with its collective finger up its butt? Adaptive V-Sync, G-Sync, GeForce Experience, frame pacing, Optimus - and that's just non-Pro stuff, all first to market, all sent their competitors scrambling to the work table. Without the proprietary -and you can go back to SGI's IrisGL, innovation moves at a snails pace.
You don't have to like it - and like you, I don't - but it is a reality that open standard means less bottom line profit, more internal struggle to get anything to market, less financing, and slower reaction time and time to completion. You want people to embrace anything, throwing cash at them works a whole lot better than appealing to an ideal. I've heard it also works that way in other forms of business also.
Feel free to post your impressions of the AMD driver. It's what this thread is supposed to be concerned with after all.
I am using a 290X lightening with 3 x BenQ XL2420Z monitors
I am actually not reaching out for help. Just more giving a general feedback on the beta driver.
Mine isn't having that trouble but it could be my configuration of software and cards or something.
This explain why where is no new games. Simply AMD won't buy new games.
2) Mantle, True Audio.
3) Just like Mantle, True Audio, HD3D, Eyefinity, FreeSync don't work if you have Nvidia GPU. Your point? Yes, you not a cow, but also you don't need a Goat Simulator to be a goat. :P False. You can choose ambient occlusion, shadows, anti aliasing. Unlike AMD shaders bombardment in Hitman Absolution, Dirt Showdown, Sniper Elite 2. Why AMD and scrubs believe that if AMD doesn't support Physx, it's dead? [INDENT][/INDENT]