AMD Catalyst Omega Driver (14.50) Officially Launched - Brings Performance Improvement To GPUs/APUs, 4K VSR, TressFX 3.0, 5K Monitor Support and Freesync

AMD has officially launched their latest Goad Omega driver which brings several performance updates and a list of new features to AMD'due south Radeon line of graphics family and their A-Series APU family. We reported about the Catalyst Omega driver last week however, nosotros had to pull our commodity since the embargo concluded on December ninth (as reported by AMD). Hence today, we will exist giving you a complete coverage of what to look from the latest addition in AMD'southward Catalyst drivers.

AMD CATALYST OMEGA DRIVER DOWNLOAD LINK

AMD Catalyst Omega Commuter Boosts Performance, Adds Several New Features For GPUs and APUs

While the drivers adds xx new features which we will detail in this article, it as well fixes several bugs and helps better operation in several titles, enhancing Crossfire, Pall, Freesync back up in several electric current and upcoming gaming titles. All the improvements from previously released drivers ((14.2) are carried over to the new ones while adding new features. The new commuter is labeled as 14.50 but is tentatively chosen the Catalyst Omega driver. Then starting off with the new features, beginning of all, nosotros have the latest 4K Virtual Super Resolution engineering.

AMD 4K VSR (Virtual Super Resolution) Applied science

AMD 4K VSR (Virtual Super Resolution) technology is similar to NVIDIA's 4K DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) engineering. AMD focuses on scaling the monitor to resolutions beyond the native resolution for both games and even Windows desktop. This technology has been missing from AMD Radeon cards for quite a while and information technology looks like AMD has finally listened to the audience after much demand of this specific feature. With a like bear on as NVIDIA's 4K DSR, the 4K VSR tech provides downsampling in games past delivering 4K quality on a 1080P monitor that enhances AA relative to SSAA (Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing). VSR also enables higher textures and smoother edges. AMD's Radeon R9 295X2, Radeon R9 290X, Radeon R9 290 and Radeon R9 285 can support this feature without any hassle on single and multi-GPU configurations. You can meet the tabular array below for supported VSR modes:

Target Display Timing	Supported VSR Modes
1920 X 1080 @ 60Hz	2560 x 1440 3200 x 1800 3840 x 2160 (R9 285 simply)
1920 X 1200 @ 60Hz	2048 x 1535 2560 x 1600 3840 10 2400 (R9 285 just)
2560 x 1440 @ 60Hz	3200 x 1800
1920 ten 1080 @ 120Hz	1920 x 1200 @ 120Hz 2048 x 1536 @ 120Hz

How to enable VSR from AMD CCC:

Open up AMD Goad Control Center (CCC)

Use the Preferences to switch to Avant-garde Mode, if it'southward not already running.
Open the 'My Digital Flat Panels' page.
Place a checkmark in the 'Enable virtual super resolution' checkbox and click Use.

Launch a game and use the in-game menus to select a resolution that is HIGHER than the native resolution of your flat panel.

The Windows desktop can also be configured in a like way, if the VSR benefits are desired for applications that run on the desktop or in a window. Right-click on the Windows desktop and choose 'Screen resolution' from the pop-up menu. When VSR is enabled, you lot will run across additional resolutions in the listing. Below is a screen capture of the AMD Catalyst Control Center showing the settings tab to enable VSR.

AMD Freesync, 5K Panel Support and 24 Brandish Eyefinity

The Project Freesync is termed as AMD's effort to bring variable refresh rate monitors to consumers to allow tear costless and lag gratuitous gaming. While their rival NVIDIA already has solutions based on their G-Sync technology out in the open marketplace, AMD is however a few months abroad to launch their first Freesync monitors in Q1 2022. The deviation between K-Sync and Freesync is that Freesync relies on open standard Adaptive-Sync which has been incorporated into Displayport 1.2A on AMD'southward proposal to VESA. This allows for lower manufacturing costs and gives users easy admission to tear free gaming.

Adaptive-Sync capable monitors solve three distinct bug in games. The outset consequence is tearing, tearing occurs mainly whenever the frame charge per unit exceeds the refresh rate of the monitor. The 2nd issue is somewhat related to the start, every bit stuttering can occur if the frame rate exceeds or falls backside the refresh charge per unit. The third outcome is input-lag, which occurs when you enable V-Sync to get rid of tearing and stuttering. So before variable refresh rate monitors had existed, irrespective of whether they were G-Sync or FreeSync enabled. You had to cull between either tearing and stuttering or latency.

FreeSync can back up whatever range of refresh rates, for case 24Hz-144Hz, 24Hz-90Hz or even 24Hz-240Hz. And depending on the monitor maker they tin can opt for whatever range they want. So you tin can have all sorts of FreeSync monitors that span from the very high end 4K models to the 120Hz/144Hz "gaming" 1440p monitors and the more than affordable 90Hz 1080p solutions. Which means that you volition more easily detect something that fits your needs and upkeep. When launched, Freesync will be limited to single monitor while multi-monitor support is planned for afterward. Every bit far every bit compatibility is concerned, AMD'southward Freesync will work with AMD'southward latest FirePro and Radeon R9/R7 GPUs (Radeon R9 295X2, Radeon R9 290X, Radeon R9 290, Radeon R9 285, Radeon R7 260X, Radeon R7 260) and the Kaveri 7000-Series APUs.

AMD is working with Samsung on 5 Freesnyc enabled monitors which will be UHD (Ultra HD) compliant with 4K resolution support. These models include two UE590 variants with sizes of 23.half-dozen" and 28" while the UE850 variant will exist available in 23.6", 27" and 31.5" sizes. The prices are non known but AMD is also working on 5K monitor support.

Since 4K arrived, GPU manufacturers have been racing towards 8K. AMD and NVIDIA are the leading graphics makers of the industry and their goal to race for higher resolution is valid merely GPUs however lag behind on 4K so it will accept some fourth dimension for us to see an actual implementation of 8K visuals on a large consumer scale only for now, resolutions like 2K (2560x1440), 4K (3840x2160) and 5K (5120x2880) are going to become more than common. For this purpose, AMD is enabling support for college resolution screens with 5120x2880 @ 60 Hz. The monitor is from Dell and called the UP2715K. It features a pixel count of fourteen.7 million with density of 218 pixels per inch and includes Dual Display Port one.ii input.

Requirements for 5K Monitor Support:

An AMD GPU with at least 2 individual DisplayPort one.2 output ports. GPU output connector configurations vary by make and model. Cheque with your graphics lath manufacturer.
GPUs supported: AMD FirePro, AMD Radeon Hard disk drive 7000-series , AMD Radeon R-serial

How to enable 5K Monitor Back up:

Connect the 5K panel to an AMD GPU with at to the lowest degree 2x DP i.two ports
Boot to Windows 8.i
The monitor should be automatically configured

Finally, an update to AMD's near iconic technology, Eyefinity, has arrived in the form of 24 Display Eyefinity which now gives users the ability to run polish, tear gratuitous video playback with upwardly to 24 displays (through iv GPUs).

AMD TressFX iii.0, OpenCL 2.0, HSA 1.0, Mantle, CodeXL 1.six

On the developer front, AMD has announced the latest TressFX 3.0 Pilus renderer which has been added to the Catalyst Omega driver that adds rendering of pilus on fur on skinned geometries. In that location are several new libraries included for developers to read and render as opposed to the recent TressFX 2.0 update which improved overal performance.

OpenCL 2.0 and support in SDK 3.0 have been updated with the new driver release giving a truly open programming standard for general purposes calculating and heterogeneous systems. OpenCL allows programmers to preserve source code investment and easily target multi-cadre CPUs, GPUs, and APUs. Developed in an open standards commission with representatives from major industry vendors, OpenCL gives users what they take been enervating: a cross-vendor, not-proprietary solution for accelerating their applications on CPU, GPUs and APUs. AMD, an early supporter of OpenCL and leading innovator and provider of high-performance CPUs, APUs and GPUs, has delivered a complete acceleration platform for OpenCL.

AMD Fluid Motion Video, Contour Removal, 1080P Item Enhancement, Ultra-Hard disk drive Like Experience and Full List of Feature Updates

AMD'south Fluid Motion applied science tries to interpolate inferred frames with real frames and increase overall video frame rate and smoothness when watching Blu-ray videos. The feature can be enabled through CCC and volition be supported on AMD's Kaveri lineup (35W+) along with all the GPUs above the Radeon R7 260. Contour removal is a pretty smashing technology that removes artifacts from compressed videos enhancing the detail. It tin can also be enabled via AMD CCC and has the aforementioned hardware support. The other 2 features, 1080P Detail enhancement and UHD-Similar Feel enhance a sub-1080P and sub 4K image to superior detail past processing through an in-built algorithm. 1080P item enhancement works only with Kaveri APU and AMD Radeon R9 285 GPU while the UHD tech will work on Kaveri APUs and Radeon R7 260 or higher GPU. Finally, we have a large list of Omega features to list after which we will motion to functioning:

Compression Artifact Removal 2
Detailed Enhancement 2
Frame Charge per unit Conversion two.0
Virtual Super Resolution
5K x 3K Display Support
Dynamic Refresh Rate (FreeSync)
Frame Pacing for Dual Graphics
AMD CrossFire Frame Pacing improvements
OpenCL 2.0
Driver back up for CodeXL ane.6
OGL ES3.0
Faster Display Manner Enumeration
Color Gamut Remap
VAAPI back up for Phase ane Decode
Rotated Eyefinity Support for Radeon R9 285
Windows Installer Updates
Windows Autodetect Software Utility
Linux Distro Specific Packaging
Configurable UVD Sessions

AMD CrossFire Frame Pacing improvements
‒ Designed to reduce stuttering from graphics memory intensive applications: Tomb Raider, Hitman Absolution, Watch Dogs, Far Cry 3
Display Manner Enumeration
Designed to improve on "Plug a brandish -> Run into the display" time
OpenMP iii.1 on HSA APUs
AMD and SUSE Linux take collaborated to create a GCC compiler allows OpenMP 3.1 applications to accelerate compute on HSA devices
Rotated Eyefinity Support for AMD Radeon R9 285
Enables a mix of portrait and landscape oriented displays
VAAPI back up for Stage one Decode
Embedded production feature to enable Video Dispatch API (VAAPI) for Linux®.Enables video decoding in the AMD Goad Linux Commuter
Configurable UVD Sessions
Embedded product characteristic to enable upwardly to 20 simultaneous video streams (eg. Video Surveillance showing many photographic camera streams)
Color Gamut Remap
API to permit OEMs enablement of sRGB images on wide gamut displays for more natural colors
OpenGL ES3.0 Back up
Support for Windows and Linux
Improvements to AMD Catalyst Windows Installer
Less clicks to go through an install. Installer Windows resizing to match detected display
Windows Autodetect Software Utility
Improved detection of the hardware on which the install is taking identify
Linux Distro Specific Packaging
Ubuntu and Red Chapeau Enterprise Linux distribution specific packages – much easier for users of those distributions to install AMD Catalyst Linux drivers

AMD Catalyst Omega Driver Performance Results:

With all the new features listed and explained, we now come to the performance results. As expected, the Omega drivers bear over all the improvements from previous drivers delivering much better gaming and application experiences. The functioning improvement is rated at up to nineteen% for AMD Radeon R9 290X, 29% for AMD A10-7850K APU and a large listing of issues fixes eliminating the crashes and black screen issues which occurred to several AMD users over the previous few months. Compared to the xiv.9 drivers, the 14.50 Omega is around xv% better in performance notwithstanding nosotros will take a closer look.

Showtime of all, we have detached graphics functioning where a Radeon R9 290X is tested with its launch drivers (Catalyst 13.12) versus the Omega drivers (Goad 14.50). The event is an increase in all possible gaming tests such as ten% improvement in Batman Arkham Origins at 4K, 16% improvement in Bioshock Space at 4K and eleven% comeback in Call of Duty Ghosts at 4K. You can see the table below for a more detailed view of the functioning results:

On the APU side, Catalyst Omega brings a good round of performance benefits to GCN powered Kaveri APUs. In this test, a A10-7850K with Radeon R7 graphics (512 stream processors) running on Windows viii.1 and 8 GB ram was tested with Goad xiv.fifty versus Catalyst 14.ii. The results yield a 29% improvement in Batman Arkham Origins at 1080P, 16% improvement in DOTA 2 at 1080P, ten% improvement in Call of Duty: Avant-garde War fighter and 5% improvement in StarCraft Two at 1080P. You can meet the table below for a more detailed view of the performance results:

The Catalyst Omega commuter also brings a round of improvement for CrossFire Multi-GPU setups and frame pacing enhancements for dual graphics. In this scenario, an AMD A10-7850K was paired with a Radeon R7 250 graphics card allowing dual graphics offer. To test the validity of the performance update, the operation was tested against the fourteen.301.1001 commuter where Goad xiv.50 Omega pushed for a 75.39% better frame time in Sniper Elite three, 45.10% better frame fourth dimension in Conflicting Isolation and 12.85% amend frame time in Metro Last Low-cal. The gaming FPS also received an average 3-four% improvement. AMD Catalyst Omega Driver 14.50_Frame Pacing Enhancements

AMD Catalyst Omega Driver Issues Fixes:

Problems/Problem	Status
xiv.9 Install issues for intermittent crash or black screen after install	Stock-still
14.ix Catalyst Control Center issues have occasional AMDMantle64.dll error popups during install	Fixed
Online video can sometimes crash when watching Youtube videos with hardware acceleration enabled	Fixed
Watching online flash videos in Google Chrome sometimes causes the browser to hang when hardware acceleration is enabled	Fixed
Displays that go in to sleep style intermittently causes the display to not wake up	Fixed
AHCI Chipset Drivers tin sometimes cause the system to crash on bootup	Stock-still
144Hz displays in AMD CrossFire configurations tin cause intermittent crashing when launching D3D Applications	Stock-still
Game stuttering or screen tearing in Quad CrossFire	Stock-still
State of Disuse textures can intermittently extrude beyond their boundaries or be corrupted	Stock-still
HDMI sound stays disabled when a connected Television is disabled and and then reenabled	Fixed

Alienware Graphics Amplifier Back up For AMD Graphics Cards

Last calendar month, Alienware announced their graphics amplifier for notebooks which is an external graphics adapter which can support a discrete level graphics bill of fare to add more functioning for gaming without the need to use SLI or Crossfire configurations in mobility solutions that bleed a lot of bombardment. The graphics amplifier can suppor both AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards with commuter updates and AMD fifty-fifty shared some numbers of how much performance a Alienware notebbok volition deliver when amplified with a detached Radeon R9 290X graphics carte.

This is all there is to the latest improver to the Goad family. AMD revealed during a call that Omega will become the baseline for all the future driver updates so each feature which is introduced with Omega will be carried over to the future commuter updates.

Boosted Omega Driver Slides:

Source: https://wccftech.com/amd-catalyst-omega-driver-officially-launched-brings-performance-improvement-gpusapus-4k-vsr-tressfx-30-5k-monitor-support-freesync/

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