Monday, November 2nd 2015
AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition Detailed
In the beginning, there were NVIDIA Detonator and ATI Catalyst. Detonator made way for GeForce Software, but Catalyst pulled through for another decade. These are the brand names GPU makers use to label their drivers, because GPUs are devices that warrant frequent driver updates to keep up with new software and performance improvements. AMD, after consolidating most of its visual computing divisions into the Radeon Technologies Group under technocrat Raja Koduri, made its first major announcement, re-branding AMD Catalyst as Radeon Software. Its first release gets a special name - Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.11.
AMD's new nomenclature for its drivers involves firmly placing the Radeon brand name, replacing "Catalyst," followed by "software," indicating that these are not just drivers, but a suite of applications designed to give you control over your visual computing experience; with "Crimson Edition" being the major version for the year 2015-16, and 15.11 denoting November 2015, retaining the date-based version numbering scheme. These could come with extensions such as "WHQL" or "Beta." The first Crimson Edition drivers will be WHQL-signed.
At the center of Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.11 is the doing away of Catalyst Control Center (CCC) and Raptr, and in their place, a slick new application built from the ground up, called Radeon Settings. This app no longer relies on .NET, unlike CCC. Its user interface is minimalist, and keeps up with the Windows 10 theme, but its variations could blend with OS X and Linux GUIs. 
The application is designed for fast startup, and features a ribbon-tab UI design, with a top bar selecting main settings pages, and the bottom one with minor settings and social buttons. With Raptr gone, game-specific optical settings are care of the "Games" tab, in which you can make graphics and hardware overclocking settings specific to a game, besides global settings.
The "Video" tab lets you choose between eight presets specific to viewing situations and content. The "Display" tab gives you settings specific to your display (resolution, refresh rates, Virtual SuperResolution, scaling, etc. There's a tab specific to Eyefinity that shows up when there is more than one display. And finally, the "System" tab gives you information on your current hardware and software environment.
The most important settings from the Radeon Settings app are neatly integrated into the context menu of the tray icon.
AMD will release Radeon Software Crimson Edition later this month.
AMD's new nomenclature for its drivers involves firmly placing the Radeon brand name, replacing "Catalyst," followed by "software," indicating that these are not just drivers, but a suite of applications designed to give you control over your visual computing experience; with "Crimson Edition" being the major version for the year 2015-16, and 15.11 denoting November 2015, retaining the date-based version numbering scheme. These could come with extensions such as "WHQL" or "Beta." The first Crimson Edition drivers will be WHQL-signed.
The most important settings from the Radeon Settings app are neatly integrated into the context menu of the tray icon.
AMD will release Radeon Software Crimson Edition later this month.
70 Comments on AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition Detailed
I think it will bring improvement and refinement overall, and might have things smooth in ways we don't quantify though feel in the seat-of-the-pants. It provides a new basis and beginning for the focus of Radeon Technologies Group, a clear cut from the past. A approach to finally cease the "mantra" that has ran unsubstantiated about their drivers for close to decade now.
I welcome the new focus and the changes. There's been one hand that chanted they aren’t doing enough, then when they have a new emergence to make a clear cut from the past there's still abhorrence... Sure as with most everything we can go in with skepticism, but here’s real invigoration... a new brand focus, and be that as it may "haters gonna hate".
The name change i honestly don't care either way in terms of it changing it from Catalyst to something else, although i find it stupid to use such a long name, convoluted comes to mind.
EDIT: I'm not saying that the current CCC is that good it's middling to crap imo but the answer is not some sleek bloatware.
Now where to find a leaked version to try this out hmm :rolleyes:
Menu on the left side with collapse and expand options and that is it. No need to use some fancy theme with tiles which take too much space and do not offer the tree view of option categories on the left side.
I hope this new software will allow me to overclock HD7650M because every application I tried screwed everything up with restart by losing settings and different profiles for different load (2D, 3D) did not work in any app properly.
if i can do that per game, i'll be damned happy.
It's just ugly and clumsy by todays standards.
Oh well, gotta go with it, until they change it down the road, sometime.
Anyway, I'm happy to report that this hasn't happen for the last 2, maybe 3 years, its all good now, so ... ITS TIME TO BREAK IT :)
When Metro hit in Windows 8, I hated it, but lately I've grown to like the improved Metro / ModernUI style of Windows 10. So graphically this one looks nice to me as well, simple and smooth while having all the necessary options quickly available.
Overall, as long as the new UI isn't buggy, I think it's going to be a big improvement :)
I like the catalyst name. "AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition" Doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well.
"Quick! Before we're bankrupt! Get out the thesaurus and see what comes up for 'red'! CRIMSON! THAT'S IT! This will save us for sure!"