AMD's 'Crimson' Driver Software Released (anandtech.com) 50
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday marked the launch of AMD's 'Crimson' driver software. It replaces the old Catalyst driver software, and represents a change in how AMD develops bug fixes, improves performance, and adds features. AnandTech took a detailed look at the new driver software. They say, "By focusing feature releases around the end of the year driver, AMD is able to cut down on what parts of the driver they change (and thereby can possibly break) at other times of the year, and try to knock out all of their feature-related bugs at once. At the same time it makes the annual driver release a significant event, as AMD releases a number of new features all at once. However on the other hand this means that AMD has few features launching any other time of the year, which can make it look like they're not heavily invested in feature development at those points." On a more positive note, the article adds, "Looking under the hood there's no single feature that's going to blow every Radeon user away at once, but overall there are a number of neat features here that should be welcomed by various user groups. ... Meanwhile AMD's radical overhaul of their control panel via the new Radeon Settings application will be quickly noticed by everyone."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Phoronix comes to the same conclusion:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-crimson-linux&num=1 [phoronix.com]
Well of course, because Linux is OpenGL (Score:2)
And AMD can't handle OpenGL. I don't know why, I'm not sure what's so hard, I'm not sure if there's a monster that guards the OpenGL specs in the AMD office or something, but they have sucked at GL for over a decade, and show no signs of getting any better. They can't claim it is because of an API limitation either. For whatever you want to say about the mess that is OpenGL, nVidia makes their GL drivers dead even with their DX drivers. You can use either rendering path and can't tell the difference in feat
Re: (Score:2)
It wouldn't surprise me if at some point the open source driver would catch up to the closed source one. AMD would do well to direct their driver-related efforts in converging the two. That is: if they feel a closed source driver is needed, base it on open source components as much as practical. And put improvements back into those open source parts where possible.
From what I've read, AMD has already made some moves in that direction. Which is a good thing. Shared effort (community <-> AMD), limite
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is that the "driver" nowadays isn't really a driver. The hardware still pushes the same shaders etc. to the card, over a standardised bus.
The problem is that the "driver" nowadays is a bunch of shortcuts and re-optimised shaders for particular operations, which are heavily dependent on how the games operate and basically "overrules" what the game wants the shaders to do, for the sake of per-game performance increases by sacrificing things that are sub-optimal on that particular card / game comb
Re: (Score:2)
I would not say game devs are clueless. The key point is that they try to get the most out of the hardware as possible and to do that they are ready to do anything, even a pact with the devil. I have seen the most abhorrent code in game engines and shaders and all in the effort of a few frames per second more. The key problem is that the hack that worked one generation of hardware is broken in the next. When game development spans years, in which multiple hardware generations may come out, this creates are
Windows 10 (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe, but the only reason I can think of is because people have it set to automatically install drivers. That's easy enough to turn off.
Re: (Score:1)
Windows 10 just does whatever it feels like with driver upgrades, regardless of what the settings are. I have problems with older intel graphics chips because of that all the time, old chips won't run new drivers without bios upgrades, the manufacturers won't release bios fixes, so no matter how many times you boot safe mode, blacklist the driver update, tell windows not to download drivers from windows update, etc. Windows 10 still just down
Re: (Score:2)
Caveat: I don't own a Windows computer and haven't used Windows 10 for more than five minutes. However, I read that you could install the drivers in safe mode and change the settings from within safe mode and that they'd stick. The person that mentioned it, here on this site, is a fairly reputable person.
Re: (Score:1)
That would just be Windows 10 being a dick about "incompatibility issues"
I'll believe it when I see it (Score:3, Insightful)
Not the driver, that's out, but that they are going to change how they do drivers. They've said that numerous times before, and always the situation is the same. They are very slow at getting actual release drivers out (they are forever beta versions) and their OpenGL performance and support is garbage (to the point that HFSS would fail to run on systems with AMD cards).
So AMD: Less talk, more good drivers. I want to support you, I really do, but I've been burned too many times.
Re:I'll believe it when I see it (Score:4, Informative)
You say that as a bad thing.
Read a game developer comment on here and they will say AMD hardware is a joy to use. Especially on the XBOXONE... but on Windows it is hell due to bugs and workarounds due to optimizations from 15 years worth of games loading up.
Consider it like IE 6 where you need work arounds on work arounds and each new release adds more changes to make some new game cheat on benchmarks. Nvidia is now falling under this trap too. The great thing about FirePro and Quadro cards is the hardware is almost identical to the gaming cards except with ECC ram. It is the drivers that make them pro.
Re: (Score:2)
And yet for all your misdirected Windows whining DirectX for Windows is the only area that AMD cards perform well. Their Linux drivers blow, as noted by other posts here, and that is because AMD can't write OpenGL drivers to save their life.
nVidia, on the other hand, has extremely fast and solid drivers for Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really.
Arstechnica.com just a few days ago posted some benchmarks with Steam. With nvidia hardware even it is about 40% slower than Windows.
I am not an AMD fanboy at all. I have an nvidia 770 on my system at home and an ATI 7850 before then. I hate both companies actually but for different reasons. Alot has to do with games too. Even if you had a solid driver for Linux the game is designed and only tested with Windows and they use some 3rd rate outsourcer overseas to port it to Linux ... or even WIndows
Radeon drivers were shit for decades (Score:1)
While I understand there are a lot of cloak and dagger going on with standards and implementations, AMD is consistently on the losing end.
Too much hypey superlatives (Score:1)
I'd love it if AMD went back to those simple tabbed panels with the big round blue buttons.
I want stability (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because it will make you SEE RED (Score:1)
>> AMD's 'Crimson' Driver Software Released
Because it will make you SEE RED. Heh heh hee. Thank you I'll be here all week.
I think it is safe to say that AMD employs monkeys (Score:2, Insightful)
What a terrible clusterfuck this 'revamp' is.
1. Only half of the settings are 'ported'. The other half (including Crossfire) can only be found when pressing 'additional settings', which opens (a stripped version of) the old AMD Catalyst Control Center. Shit, I get that some projects require having legacy code and new code next to each other, but for a tool that does fuck-all and is produced by a multinational company it is inexcusable.
2. The UI is a classic 'looks shiny, works like crap' with a myriad of 10
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
According to the article it's written in Qt. Maybe it's just the legacy part that's done in .NET
Sigh (Score:2)
What with this, nVidia Shield (rubbish but still in the market) and Steamboxes being virtually all nVidia, I can't help but carry on doing what I've done for many years now.
ATI for 2D graphics on servers, if it's pre-integrated.
Intel for 2D graphics for clients, if it's pre-integrated.
Everything else (i.e. the whole point of having a 3D graphics card) has to be nVidia.
Is there a 'true' test for performance? (Score:3, Informative)
AMD gets knocked for their drivers, but you have to wonder how much is due to intervention from the competition? I still remember Unreal Tournament 2003 would start the game with a character breaking through an nVidia logo. If games are optimized for nVidia hardware, can we really tell if performance of AMD is that much worse? Is there a test that is guaranteed not to favor any card?