AMD Radeon Software Crimson 16.3 Live!

[Mahigan]

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMD_Radeon_Software_Crimson_Edition_16.3.aspx


AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 Release Notes
Article Number: RN-WIN-RADEONCRIMSON16.3
​​​​​Radeon Software Crimson Edition is AMD's revolutionary new graphics software that delivers redesigned functionality, supercharged graphics performance, remarkable new features, and innovation that redefines the overall user experience. Every Radeon Software release strives to deliver new features, better performance and stability improvements.
Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 Highlights

Updated Crossfire Profiles available for
Hitman™
The Park

Support for​
Hitman™

Performance and Quality improvements for​
Rise of the Tomb Raider™(2)
​Up to 16% on AMD Radeon™ R9 Fury X Series vs AMD Radeon™ Software Crimson Edition 16.2.
​Gears of War Ultimate Edition(3)
Up to 60% on AMD Radeon™ R9 Fury X series vs AMD Radeon™ Software Crimson Edition 16.2.1
Up to 44% on AMD Radeon™ R9 380 series vs AMD Radeon™ Software Crimson Edition 16.2.1

​Vulkan™ Support(1): Vulkan™ is the successor to OpenGL and a descendant of AMD's Mantle. Vulkan™ is a powerful "low-overhead" graphics API that gives software developers deep control over the performance, efficiency, and capabilities of Radeon™ GPUs and multi-core CPUs. More information on Vulkan™ can be found at https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/.
​
Per-Game Display Scaling: A new feature introduced in Radeon™ Settings that allows per game Display Scaling to be set within the Radeon™ Settings Gaming tab under "Profile Options".

Language Menu: A new feature introduced in Radeon™ Settings that allows the end user to select their preferred language from a drop down menu under the "Preferences -> Language" tab.

Two Display Eyefinity: Two Display Eyefinity is now an available option under the Eyefinity tab in Radeon™ Settings.

AMD Crossfire™ Status Indicator: A new feature in Radeon™ Settings that allows users to toggle an AMD Crossfire™ status indicator on their screen when running in AMD Crossfire™ mode.

Updated Social Links: New Social links are now available for Radeon™ Settings home page and have also updated based on geographical region.​

Power Efficiency Toggle: A new feature introduced in the Radeon™ Settings Gaming tab for select AMD Radeon™ 300 series and AMD Radeon™ Fury X available under "Global Options". This allows the user to disable some power efficiency optimizations.

AMD XConnect™ technology: This driver provides initial support for external GPU enclosures configured with Radeon™ R9 300 Series GPUs are now supported over Thunderbolt™ 3 (USB-C) connections. AMD XConnect™ technology additionally provides plug'n'play support and an integrated management interface. Base system must have BIOS support for external GPUs (e.g. Razer Blade Stealth).


Resolved Issues
Core clocks may not maintain sustained clock speeds resulting in choppy performance and or screen corruption (Fixed with new Power Efficiency feature toggled to off)
Gears of War Ultimate Edition - Random freezes may be experienced during gameplay
Ashes of the Singularity 2.0 Benchmark now supports DirectFlip
XCOM 2 flickering textures may be experienced at various game locations
Rise of the Tomb Raider™ - The game may randomly crash on launch if Tessellation is enabled

Known Issues
A few game titles may fail to launch or crash if the Gaming Evolved overlay is enabled. A temporary workaround is to disable the AMD Gaming Evolved "In Game Overlay"
Installing via command line may not work for some users. As a workaround please use the default GUI installer
League of Legends may experience some graphical corruption on characters death animation in AMD Crossfire™ mode
Rift may experience a hang when playing with FRTC and V-Sync enabled. As a work around users are suggested to disable V-Sync
Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 may experience some flickering in AMD Crossfire™ mode
Rise of the Tomb Raider may experience graphical corruption in some cinematics
The Division may experience flickering in AMD Crossfire™ mode
Star Wars Battlefront users may experience flicker in AMD Crossfire™ mode on battle and tutorial loading screens
Star Wars Battlefront users may experience ground texture issues in certain locations on Survival Hoth missions

 

[crisium]

And I just beat Rise of the Tomb Radier 2 days ago, dang. Well, now to see if there's actually any improvement in the lowest FPS part of the Soviet Installation I can find. I'll report back.

And did they really fix the throttling so I don't have to use Clock Blocker in some games? I'll also test this, as I have this issue in Just Cause 3 particularly.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

And I just beat Rise of the Tomb Radier 2 days ago, dang. Well, now to see if there's actually any improvement in the lowest FPS part of the Soviet Installation I can find. I'll report back.

And did they really fix the throttling so I don't have to use Clock Blocker in some games? I'll also test this, as I have this issue in Just Cause 3 particularly.

There is a rumor that Rise of the Tomb Raider is getting a dx12 patch. That might be worth a play through if the performance improvement is as big as we've seen with other dx12 demos.

http://wccftech.com/rise-tomb-raider-dx12-option-launcher/

DirectX 12 Showcase: Rise of the Tomb Raider, Ashes of the Singularity, King of Wushu – Square Enix, Snail, and Stardock showcased their latest DirectX 12 enhancements for Rise of the Tomb Raider, King of Wushu, and Ashes of the Singularity on Origin PCs, iBUYPOWER Revolt 2, and Maingear PCs. Ashes of the Singularity is taking advantage the DirectX 12 multi-adapter technology, allowing PCs to use multiple GPUs, even from different manufacturers. Rise of the Tomb Raider was playable for the first time at the Xbox Spring Showcase running DirectX 12.

Read more: http://wccftech.com/rise-tomb-raider-dx12-option-launcher/#ixzz42S8HQ7l4

I'll give these drivers a shot tonight. Seems like AMD is working hard on updating drivers.

 

[Silverforce11]

Not often you see 60% performance improvements via drivers for released games... haha.

Well, have to say well done, it's pretty quick considering AMD weren't even told about the game going live.

 

[Mahigan]

Looks to me like Hitman will launch with DX12 support.

 

[Kenmitch]

Thanks! Checked this AM and didn't show yet.

Been playing Far Cry Primal the last couple of hours. Interesting game too me at least.

Monster gains in Far Cry Primal on my rig!

I'm running a 4790k with a pair of 390's at stock clocks as my power supply is only a 750w one.

Running 1440p on Ultra settings

Min 50fps
Ave 73fps
Max 92fps

With 16.2.1's from memory....Might be a couple of fps off on this but it's pretty dang close.

Min 39fps
Ave 56fps
Max 78fps

New drivers should turn a few heads as long as they are stable.

 

[Shmee]

Interesting. I see that the flickering in SW:BF is still an issue and it was just added to the list though.

 

[Bacon1]

Not often you see 60% performance improvements via drivers for released games... haha.

Well, have to say well done, it's pretty quick considering AMD weren't even told about the game going live.

Thats because everything past Hawaii was utterly broken in that game, such a bad release but they really wanted to get the "First" DX12 release instead of Hitman or Ashes of the Singularity.

Wonder if anyone will update their GOW Review with this driver

 

[Azix]

Thats because everything past Hawaii was utterly broken in that game, such a bad release but they really wanted to get the "First" DX12 release instead of Hitman or Ashes of the Singularity.

Wonder if anyone will update their GOW Review with this driver

GOW was just ms being ms. they couldnt limit it to windows 10 if it was anything but dx12.

the gains are just fixing yeah

 

[crisium]

Power Efficiency Toggle has basically solved my throttling problem. There was a brief period where it throttled in the 900s range when I first started a Battlefront game, but it quickly returned to full speed. I also had some EU4 throttling where it varied a bit between the 900s and my OC of 1070, but that game always gives a lot of problems. Rise of The Tomb Raider and Just Cause 3 no throttling. So far so good then.

I still haven't noticed any Rise of the Tomb Raider improvement since day 1, this one included. At least my minimums in the worst part of the game remain unchanged, that's all I ever compare. If the average has improved I wouldn't notice since this game varies from the 40s to the 70s depending on area (thank god for Freesync).

 

[3DVagabond]

Not often you see 60% performance improvements via drivers for released games... haha.

Well, have to say well done, it's pretty quick considering AMD weren't even told about the game going live.

Unless you add a SLI profile and say "Special low overhead driver improvements up to 60%". Who would ever pull something like that though :sneaky:

 

[parvadomus]

"Power Efficiency Toggle: A new feature introduced in the Radeon™ Settings Gaming tab for select AMD Radeon™ 300 series and AMD Radeon™ Fury X available under "Global Options". This allows the user to disable some power efficiency optimizations."

What options are available in that menu?
Does it benefit any game? I have a feeling Fiji throttles a lot.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Maybe it does something similar to nvidia's "prefer max performance", that keeps the clocks at at least normal non boost clocks when a 3d game is running, so no clocking back to 400 MHz or something.

 

[PhonakV30]

With "Power Efficiency" option , Reviewers don't need third party to avoid Fiji throttles.

 

[crisium]

With "Power Efficiency" option , Reviewers don't need third party to avoid Fiji throttles.

This requires them to have the sense to turn it Off. I think the default was On, sadly. Many reviews do not change from default drivers, so we may be out of luck.

IF they enable the feature, it's very possible some reviewers' Fiji performance will go up. It's a bug that affects some cards/systems and in some games, so it's not universal but I'm sure at least one reviewer has it.

 

[xthetenth]

Unless you add a SLI profile and say "Special low overhead driver improvements up to 60%". Who would ever pull something like that though :sneaky:

Oh I need details about that, that just sounds too funny.

 

[Bacon1]

"Power Efficiency Toggle: A new feature introduced in the Radeon™ Settings Gaming tab for select AMD Radeon™ 300 series and AMD Radeon™ Fury X available under "Global Options". This allows the user to disable some power efficiency optimizations."

What options are available in that menu?
Does it benefit any game? I have a feeling Fiji throttles a lot.

Its just a way to turn off all of the power saving features. For some people the algorithm isn't working right, so it downclocks their card because it thinks the game is running over refresh rate and thus "wasting" power. So it tries to downclock to output less heat and save on power but still give the same performance. Issue is, some people it just completely kills their FPS as it downclocks way too much.

So they gave an option to completely disable this feature for those having issues, most people weren't affected. If you notice your card killing its clock speeds (and thus fps) in games you'll want to disable it, otherwise just leave it as is.

 

[thesmokingman]

I hope there's a registry tick to enable it on 200 series card.

 

[Elixer]

So far, so good... no issues with these drivers yet.

 

[Piano Man]

Anyone else with a 7950 and Crimson 16.3 having an issue with the Power Efficiency Toggle? Its there in Global Settings, but if I click on the circle to toggle it, the entire tile disappears. If I leave Global Settings and come back, its there again, but its still on. I can't figure out a way to disable it.

I did a full uninstall and reinstall and that didn't fix it. Any ideas?

 

[wldthng0164]

Consider yourself lucky, I have 295x2 in trifire with 290x and do not have this option listed at all in global settings or anywhere else, with a clean install of 16.3.
It looks like this latest hotfix only applies to r9 300 series and up??

 

[Bacon1]

Anyone else with a 7950 and Crimson 16.3 having an issue with the Power Efficiency Toggle? Its there in Global Settings, but if I click on the circle to toggle it, the entire tile disappears. If I leave Global Settings and come back, its there again, but its still on. I can't figure out a way to disable it.

I did a full uninstall and reinstall and that didn't fix it. Any ideas?

Are you actually having downclocking issues?

 

[wldthng0164]

I know I am.

 

[Piano Man]

Are you actually having downclocking issues?

Yes. I've noticed at times where WoW will be displaying lower FPS than usual. When I got into Crimson I see my clock at 500Mhz.

 

[thesmokingman]

Consider yourself lucky, I have 295x2 in trifire with 290x and do not have this option listed at all in global settings or anywhere else, with a clean install of 16.3.
It looks like this latest hotfix only applies to r9 300 series and up??

I don't have it either 290x.