AMD Special Edition Driver: Catalyst Omega

[Red Hawk]

They didn't test with a dual core CPU, though. Eurogamer found that Call of Duty (and The Crew) have severe performance issues when pairing even a high end AMD graphics card with a dual core i3 processor. The issue doesn't occur with Nvidia graphics cards. It doesn't affect me, quad core i5 and all, and I don't expect it would affect most of the user base of AT, but it's going to affect other people.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-hands-on-with-cod-advanced-warfare-multiplayer

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-the-crew-face-off

 

[Gloomy]

I want to do comprehensive benchmarking vs 14.11.2 before installing Omega.

But I'm 2 lazy ATM

How hard is to enumerate 3840x2160 VSR for R9 290/X?
I mean 2GB Tonga has it. And nothing for Tahiti/GCN1.0 ... rly?

Still VSR alone makes this the best driver ever for me

They probably rushed it out for feature parity with Nvidia and didn't make a shader-based scaling fallback. So only the 285 has support for 4k, because it has the hardware for scaling it while the other cards don't. 4k will probably come in another driver.

On the flipside, the scaling is decent quality with little noise so that's good. At least they didn't botch it. :thumbsup:

 

[tential]

Looks like the foreign sites did a far better review than the native English/UK sites.

Got a far better idea of what VSR's effect is on games from those sites.

I think the biggest improvement will be VSR+Freesync for me.

Sadly, I doubt I'll ever see Freesync.

 

[IEC]

VSR is a pleasant surprise. I'm liking the new driver so far.

 

[Erenhardt]

Why do they compare Omega to latest beta drivers performance? It should be basically the same. These are beta for a reason.

It is like playing every closed beta for every game and whining that nothing new comes out - you already played every single of these new releases.

No logic.

 

[Red Hawk]

Oh I'm not complaining that there's no performance increase between 14.11.2 and 14.12 in Dragon Age Inquisition. I just wanted to test to see if there was. Now if there's no performance benefit in the next beta release driver, then I'll be somewhat disappointed.

 

[Mem]

Oh I'm not complaining that there's no performance increase between 14.11.2 and 14.12 in Dragon Age Inquisition. I just wanted to test to see if there was. Now if there's no performance benefit in the next beta release driver, then I'll be somewhat disappointed.

I think some people(not saying you) forget drivers also fix bugs and issues as well,if you get added performance or new features then that's extra icing on the cake so to speak.

 

[Erenhardt]

Oh I'm not complaining that there's no performance increase between 14.11.2 and 14.12 in Dragon Age Inquisition. I just wanted to test to see if there was. Now if there's no performance benefit in the next beta release driver, then I'll be somewhat disappointed.

By any means it wasn't directed to you, to anyone actually. I pointed a flaw in those review.

Ofcourse beta driver will have most (or even all) improvements of the next WHQL that comes sort after. Those are betas - to test the changes made to the last WHQL so the next WHQL can have those implemented.

It is like filling the checkboxes on things that were certified in last beta and passed to WHQL.There is more logic in comparing beta to next beta than this.

 

[raghu78]

The games which are benefiting the most are Bioshock Infinite, Ryse Son of Rome, Metro last Light Redux, Company of Heroes 2, Thief

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-12/...ich/5/#diagramm-company-of-heroes-2-1920-1080

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/AMD-R...pecials/Catalyst-Omega-Test-Download-1144699/

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Catalyst_14.12_Performance/5.html

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/78137-amd-catalyst-omega-driver/?page=3

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...amd-catalyst-omega-details-performance-2.html

http://www.sweclockers.com/artikel/19703-amd-lanserar-drivrutinen-catalyst-omega

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2014/amd_catalyst_treiber_14_12_omega_mit_vsr_im_test/index27.php

 

[SPBHM]

Hello Everyone

is it compatible with windows 8.0?

going by the search on the website, if I select the OS and VGA the newest driver is 14.4 (because of Windows 8.0, selecting 8.1 or 7 gives me the 14.12), but on the main page if I select "Windows 8/7 drivers" it gives me 14.12 as the result,

 

[mindbomb]

Coincidentally, the new 7zip beta can now extract these compressed amd driver packages. I find it more convenient than using the self extractor.

 

[Leyawiin]

Bummer. The one problem I reported when we were asked to months ago by Warsam71 is still there. Interior vertical sync stuttering in Skyrim (forts, ruins, caves) even at 60 FPS. Yeah, I know its a three year old game but millions still play the heck out of it. Been on all three of my AMD cards (HD 7850, HD7950, R9 290) and doesn't affect Nvidia cards at all. Have to use an FPS limiter like RiverTuner Statistics Server to get rid of it. Even with that Radeon cards are never as smooth in Bethesda's games (Oblivion, Fallout3 and NV, Skyrim) as Nvidia cards.

 

[Skurge]

Doesn't seem to work in the technical preview, unless I am doing something wrong.

Installation goes through, but the driver doesn't seem to install at all. I know i'm running a beta OS, but it odd that 14.11.2 works fine.

 

[AdamK47]

Bummer. The one problem I reported when we were asked to months ago by Warsam71 is still there. Interior vertical sync stuttering in Skyrim (forts, ruins, caves) even at 60 FPS. Yeah, I know its a three year old game but millions still play the heck out of it. Been on all three of my AMD cards (HD 7850, HD7950, R9 290) and doesn't affect Nvidia cards at all. Have to use an FPS limiter like RiverTuner Statistics Server to get rid of it. Even with that Radeon cards are never as smooth in Bethesda's games (Oblivion, Fallout3 and NV, Skyrim) as Nvidia cards.

Have you tried a framerate limiter? Rivatuner has it built in. Try locking it to 58 to 60 fps.

 

[.vodka]

The installer doesn't detect my R9 290 Tri-X (display/HDMI audio/trueaudio drivers don't show up in the list), a reference board. It never happened with my 6850 which I had for 4 years.... but did happen once with a reference 4850 back in the day, next driver update detected it just fine.

Used the latest DDU to remove all traces of 14.11.2, no difference. Did a fresh W8.1.1 install as a final measure but had no success either. It seems 14.12 doesn't like this particular 290 flavor.

Manually installing the driver from the device manager works (so the driver itself is fine), and installing CCC/other stuff the usual way did the trick but it bugs me that I had to do it this way since there still are some components missing that the wizard won't install.

Oh well, games seem to work fine so it's good enough for me until the next WHQL/beta.

 

[psolord]

Seeing none of the review sites say anything about how much better Assassin's Creed Unity runs, has gotten me thinking. I am afraid I did something wrong! :S

Still I am going to post this.

A while back I posted my 7950 benchmark video with the 14.11.2 driver (spicy wallpaper alert).

ASSASSIN'S CREED UNITY 1920X1080 CUSTOM ULTRA RADEON 7950 @1.1Ghz CORE i5 2500k

The benchmark result was 36.5fps.

Today I retested with the Omega and just uploaded the video (spicy wallpaper alert).

[omega] ASSASSIN'S CREED UNITY 1920X1080 CUSTOM ULTRA 7950 @1.1Ghz CORE i5-2500k

The benchmark result was 57.5 fps.

Now this is a 57% performance increase and I am trying to find out what I did wrong.

I am using the same settings, same game version, same gpu frequency, same cpu frequency, I loaded the same location and followed the same path, as humanly possible on a dynamic game.

The only other thing that changed, is that now I have 16GBs of RAM, while previously I had 8GBs (same speed for both), but this cannot be it, since the game did not use more that 5GBs in both tests.

The game does run unbelievably better!

I even put together a link on Youtubedoubler that shows a location that the two videos are somewhat in sync.

Still here are two frame caps, from the two respective videos, at the same location. Huge difference!



So what do you guys think? Did I do something stupid or the reviewers did not catch it?

 

[tential]

Reviewers didn't test every graphics card. They mostly focused on the R9 290/x it seems. Hd7950 wasn't tested on most sites. So maybe I'll see even bigger increases on my end since I have this card too. Makes me want to test my difference between 14.11.2 and 14.12 on games now with my HD7950.

 

[DiogoDX]

Impressive performance increase. Must be because the better CPU eficiency since ACU is heavy on CPU.

 

[DiogoDX]

Hey Warsam71, do you know when we'll get a crossfire profile for Far Cry 4?

Reading in other foruns that SLI is still a bug fest. So I wouln't hold my breath for a crossfire profile.

 

[Bearach]

The installer doesn't detect my R9 290 Tri-X (display/HDMI audio/trueaudio drivers don't show up in the list), a reference board. It never happened with my 6850 which I had for 4 years.... but did happen once with a reference 4850 back in the day, next driver update detected it just fine.

Used the latest DDU to remove all traces of 14.11.2, no difference. Did a fresh W8.1.1 install as a final measure but had no success either. It seems 14.12 doesn't like this particular 290 flavor.

Manually installing the driver from the device manager works (so the driver itself is fine), and installing CCC/other stuff the usual way did the trick but it bugs me that I had to do it this way since there still are some components missing that the wizard won't install.

Oh well, games seem to work fine so it's good enough for me until the next WHQL/beta.

This happened to me earlier today when going through their site http://game.amd.com and selecting the driver from the drop down list.

It was cause it actually linked to the Windows 7 driver, and so would only install CCC and stuff like that.

They've fixed the link now, and you should be able to download the correct driver for Windows 8.1.

Link to Windows 8.1 driver: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+8.1+-+64

 

[Elixer]

Shamelessly ripped from ]-[ http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041282073&postcount=1 because they answer some questions that are popular about these drivers...

Update on 12/9

Hello everyone, I culminated all the questions you had from this thread in regards to Catalyst Omega and sent those questions over to AMD to get you guys answers. I have the responses. A big thank you to Robert Hallock for the answers.

Question: Any updates on a CrossFire profile for Far Cry 4?
RH: We have currently disabled CrossFire support for Far Cry 4, as the developer must make additional client-side updates before mGPU will provide a smooth experience.

Question: Will it be possible in the future to support VSR on 1440p displays at greater than 60Hz? Is this a bandwidth issue, or something that can be supported?
RH: We are exploring additional resolution/refresh combinations beyond what was provided in AMD Catalyst Omega, but we have not determined the complete matrix. However, we do intend to extend 4K downsampling to all R9 and R7 Series products, 260 and up, with a driver in the Jan/Feb timeframe.

Question: In regards to PLP Eyefinity, which GPUs support this, is it only R9 285 and if so, will there be support on other GPUs in the future?
RH: This is a hardware-level capability, and is therefore limited to the R9 285 at this time.

Question: Will VSR work on 21:9 ratio displays? If not now, in the future?
RH: We are exploring additional resolution/refresh combinations beyond what was provided in AMD Catalyst Omega, but we have not determined the complete matrix. However, we do intend to extend 4K downsampling to all R9 and R7 Series products, 260 and up, with a driver in the Jan/Feb timeframe.

Question: Will Catalyst Omega be the only WHQL certified driver once a year, or will you release other subsequent WHQL certified driver releases throughout the year in addition to Omega?
RH: There will be other WHQL releases throughout the year.

Question: Is Windowed gaming CrossFire mode supported? If not, will it be in the future?
RH: Windowed CrossFire is not supported at this time, however we well understand that community desires this feature.

Question: Will there be support of 4K VSR (3840x2160) on Hawaii R9 290X/290 in the future?
RH: We do intend to extend 4K downsampling to all R9 and R7 Series products, 260 and up, with a driver in the Jan/Feb timeframe.

Thank you to Robert Hallock for the answers.

 

[Hitman928]

Seems like the linux drivers got a pretty big revamp. Ran into some issues trying to get it installed as the dependencies and process are now different. Working through it now, will report back later.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Apparently no update needed......:\

 

[.vodka]

This happened to me earlier today when going through their site http://game.amd.com and selecting the driver from the drop down list.

It was cause it actually linked to the Windows 7 driver, and so would only install CCC and stuff like that.

They've fixed the link now, and you should be able to download the correct driver for Windows 8.1.

Link to Windows 8.1 driver: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+8.1+-+64

I didn't pay attention to the driver I'd downloaded earlier. Now that you mention it, it says win7 in the file name. I'd specified 8.1 in the drop down list, went with that.

Well, at least it did work somewhat under 8.1.. now it's all fine with the actual 8.1 driver. It makes me wonder if that only other time I had this very same problem with my 4850 some years ago, was this same thing.


Thank you very much!

 

[Silverforce11]

Computerbase.de has comprehensive, and very positive review of Omega, inlcuding perf. vs 14.11.2.

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-12/amd-vsr-nvidia-dsr-downsampling-catalyst-omega-vergleich/

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-12/...-omega-vergleich/5/#diagramm-rome-2-1920-1080

That is a very substantial improvement in CPU overhead.

Also its strange that AMD's VSR provides a better IQ than NV's DSR without the texture blurring nor the foliage flickering.

Performance wise, no improvements for most games outside a few, its what one expects when marketing says "Up to X%!".

But I'm happy with the new features & bugfixes.