Performance Updates

Performance updates with a new driver release are almost taken for granted these days, with support for new games and optimizations for older ones resulting in a general increase in average FPS. AMD in particular has been able to extract more out of their hardware with subsequent driver releases relative to NVIDIA, and this could be due to a number of things that are out of the scope of this article.

Of note here, however, are the significant improvements in Linux, and these results are taken from Phoronix, an independent media website, adding further credence to the claims. In addition to the average FPS number metric, improving the game experience by also lowering stuttering/tearing and input latency is important, and we saw how Enhanced Sync aims to help with this. Other areas of improvements to PC gaming in this driver include a reduction in game load times as well as a further latency reduction from CPU draw calls for multiple, albeit older, titles on DX9 and DX11 APIs.

Stability Updates

As with any major driver release, a bug fix list comes attached, and the takeaway point here is that they listen to user feedback. In fact, they welcome it so much that they are creating a beta testing program for Crimson VGA drivers called the Radeon Software Vanguard, which invites interested enthusiasts to participate by going to the Vanguard program page, which is not active yet as of the time of this article. To be clear, this is a volunteer program only and will only be available in certain as of yet unnamed regions, so think hard before applying.