AMD's New Radeon Preview Driver Boosts Performance Significantly

A AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 for all Radeon graphics cards is now available for download. The AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 boosts graphics performance in certain DirectX 11 games by up to 10% on AMD's latest Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards

In AMD's tests, Assassin's Creed Odyssey and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands fared 28% and 30% better, respectively. Additionally, the new driver optimizes SAM for Death Stranding and Watch Dogs: Legion. On a Radeon RX 6950 XT, AMD saw a 10% performance boost in Death Stranding and a 13% performance boost in Watch Dogs: Legion at 1440p. The Radeon RX 6750 XT increased frame rates in Death Stranding by 13% and Watch Dogs: Legion by 24%. AMD discovered a 6% improvement in Death Stranding and Watch Dogs: Legion on a Radeon RX 6650 XT. For testing, the company used a Ryzen 7 5800X3D and compared it to the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.5.1 driver.

AMD makes no mention of the benefits of other games in the release notes. The developer noted significant DirectX 11 performance increases in Crysis Remastered and God of War while using Cap Frame X, a popular frame capture and analysis tool. The developer used an overclocked Core i7-12700K in this scenario. Crysis Remastered saw a 24 percent improvement, while God of War saw a 41 percent improvement. The lows in Assassin's Creed Odyssey were 34% better. Customers can now change the sharpness of images using AMD's Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) 1.1 technology and the "sharpen effect" in the AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022. This Adrenalin version contains AMD's Bug Report Tool.

The AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 for Radeon graphics cards is available on AMD's website. However, because this is a preview driver, there will be bugs. AMD has not stated when the final driver would be available.

You can download and try it here.

Highlights

• Radeon™ Super Resolution
  • New “Sharpen Effect” slider that allows you to fine-tune the sharpness effect of RSR to your own desired settings.
• DirectX® 11 optimizations for Radeon™ RX 6000 series
  • Up to 8% increase in performance in DirectX® 11-based games, using AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus the previous software driver version 22.5.1 RS-470
• AMD Smart Access Memory optimizations for Death Stranding™ and Watch Dogs™: Legion
  • Up to 10% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Death Stranding™ @ 1440p Very High settings and up to 13% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Watch Dogs™: Legion, using AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.5.1RS-471
  • Up to 12% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Death Stranding™ @ 1440p Very High settings and up to 24% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Watch Dogs™: Legion, using AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.5.1RS-472
  • Up to 6% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Death Stranding™ @ 1440p Very High settings and up to 6% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Watch Dogs™: Legion, using AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.5.1RS-473

Known Issues

• Visual corruption may be seen in-game menus on Age of Empires™ II: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires™ III: Definitive Edition using Radeon™ RX 6000 Series.
• Some textures may flicker during movement in War Thunder™ using Radeon™ RX 6000 Series.
• Foliage corruption may be seen in The Elder Scrolls® Online with ultra pre-set settings using Radeon™ RX 6000 Series.
• Performance drop may be experienced while playing Fortnite™ with Multithreaded Rendering and DirectX® 11 API on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon® RX 6900 XT Graphics.
• GPU utilization may be stuck at 100% in Radeon performance metrics after closing games on some AMD Graphics Products such as Radeon™ 570.
• Display may flicker black during video playback plus gameplay on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon™ RX 6700 XT.
• Using Radeon™ Super Resolution on 2560x1600 resolution displays may produce a system hang. A temporary workaround is to set the display Scaling Mode to Full Panel.
• Enhanced Sync may cause a black screen to occur when enabled on some games and system configurations. Any users who may be experiencing issues with Enhanced Sync enabled should disable it as a temporary workaround.
• Radeon performance metrics and logging features may intermittently report extremely high and incorrect memory clock values.