Teased earlier, AMD has now officially released its new and redesigned AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition drivers which promises twelve new or enhanced features, up to 20 percent more graphics performance, better functionality and a completely new look.

Considered as the first product of the newly formed Radeon Technologies Group, led by veteran Raja Koduri, the new Radeon Software Crimson Edition is AMD's second major drivers update, after the Catalyst Omega drivers released at the end of last year.

AMD's new Radeon Software will replace the current Catalyst drivers branding whie the Radeon Settings application will replace the well known Catalyst Control Center. The new Radeon Software Crimson Edition drivers will also bring couple of improvements for DirectX 9 API, including previously missing multi-GPU Frame Pacing, Crossfire Freesync and Frame Rate Target Control. It will also be the first consumer available driver with implemented Liquid VR support, something that is welcomed since consumer availability for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive virtual reality headsets is expected next year.

AMD's Radeon Software Crimson Edition drivers will bring plenty of new features, including some that are pretty much game changing, like the new Shader Cache, Frame Pacing 3.0, optimized Flip Queue Size, Low Framerate Compensation for FreeSync, new Frame Rate Target Control, improved video and display features and more.

The most notable feature is the new Shader Caching feature, which should provide both reduced game load time as well as reduced stutter and better latency. Since DirectX lacks a built-in shader caching feature, AMD has implemented a software solution which caches compiled game shader routines and reusing them when the game is launched.




The next in line are the improvements to the DirectX flip queue size, which is responsible for storing rendered frames and queue them up to provide steady frame delivery. According to AMD, these optimizations should improve cursor and keyboard responsiveness, which should help in some games.




Another big improvement is the Low Framerate Compensation (LFC) for AMD FreeSync technology. AMD previously had issues with minimum refresh rates where FreeSync monitors reverted to V-Sync/non-Freesync mode when framerate dropped below minimum refresh rate. This should now be fixed with LFC and the good side of the story is that AMD does not need to fix monitors as this is done on the GPU side. AMD also noted that LFC will only work on monitors that have a maximum refresh rate greater than or equal to 2.5 times the minimum refresh rate (30Hz to 75Hz).




AMD also improved the Framerate Target Control (FRTC) feature which was introduced with Fiji-based Radeon R9 Fury series and R9 Nano graphics card, which is an alternative to V-Sync. This allows users to cap the framerate via AMD control panel but now it has a much wider range, from 30 to 200FPS, allowing users to have a better control over graphics card clocks.

AMD also brought plenty of improvements on the video and display side of things, including a lowered power consumption with video decoding, promising much better performance per watt. While AMD did not reveal a lot of details, other than it should bring up to 23 percent better performance per watt, we are quite sure that these are mostly limited to new Fiji-based graphics cards. The display improvements include Custom Resolution support as well as some Eyefinity improvements.




AMD also brought plenty of visual changes which are a part of the new Radeon Settings application, one that will replace the current Catalyst Control Center. According to AMD, the Radeon Settings application now has up to 10 times faster start up, has a more intuitive navigation, new gme manager, new overdrive tab as well as new video, display and Eyefinity tabs and a lot more.




When it comes to performance improvements, AMD promises up to 20 percent improvements in games like Fable Legends, Ashes of the Singularity, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Rainbow Six Siege and Star Wars Battlefront. AMD has previously said that the new Radoen Software Crimson Edition driver is not focused on performance improvements but rather on the visual aspect and new features, while future beta and WHQL drivers will be performance-focused.




AMD did a big thing with the new Radeon Software Crimson Edition driver and with a completely redesigned visual and feature aspect of drivers, the company and its Radeon Technologies Group, is definitely on the right track. Hopefully, we will see a bit more great things from them in near future.

As always, you can find the new Radeon Software Crimson Edition at AMD's drivers support page via link below.





Source: AMD.com.