- AMD CROSSFIREX MODE AFR FRIENDLY DRIVERS
- AMD CROSSFIREX MODE AFR FRIENDLY DRIVER
- AMD CROSSFIREX MODE AFR FRIENDLY SERIES
If you’re an image quality purist, and particularly if you’ve spent a significant amount of money on GPUs to achieve this, then the value of custom profiles cannot be understated.Īs for multi-GPU users, they will be the other significant group to benefit from custom profiles. For example this allows for forcing MSAA in Starcraft II or clamping tessellation factors in HAWX 2 without the need to set (and then unset) these features at a global level. All of AMD’s control panel settings can be saved to a custom profile which will then be used alongside the game the profile is for. This not only includes settings traditionally available through the driver, but for the first time AMD is opening up CrossFire – you can now force various CrossFire modes by using a custom profile.īreaking things down a bit, if you have used NVIDIA’s custom profiles in the past then you should find the functionality nearly the same.
AMD CROSSFIREX MODE AFR FRIENDLY DRIVERS
As is the case with NVIDIA, AMD is allowing users to create new application profiles and to modify the application profiles distributed through drivers and CAP updates.
With Catalyst 12.1 AMD is finally taking application profiles to their logical extension by allowing for custom application profiles, and I couldn’t be happier.
AMD CROSSFIREX MODE AFR FRIENDLY DRIVER
Tools like Radeon Pro have filled the gap in the meantime, but it’s never the same thing as having such functionality built into the driver itself, especially when 3 rd party tools will never have the reach of 1 st party tools. AMD made some progress in 2010 with the introduction of Catalyst Application Profiles (CAP) to distribute out of band profile updates, and while CAP was a big step forward for AMD, the C I was looking for was custom. These features deserve to be used, and custom application profiles are the most efficient way of using them.įor more than 4 years now I’ve asked AMD for this feature – in meetings and in articles – but it hasn’t been something where we’ve seen eye-to-eye. With the introduction of driver enhancements like Adaptive/Transparancy anti-aliasing, coverage sample/EQ anti-aliasing, tessellation clamping, and the widespread use of multi-GPU, the idea that you can set & forget your drivers on a global level has become antiquated. While most games have been good about implementing anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering controls, that’s about as much progress as they’ve made.
Ever since NVIDIA introduced custom application profiles so many years ago I have been a firm believer in their importance for GPU enthusiasts. Of those few features I’m going to immediately dive in with what I think is the headline feature: custom application profiles.
And quite frankly it’s the driver that’s going to buy AMD a lot of goodwill, even if it only brings with it a few changes.Ĭustom Application Profiles As Implemented By NVIDIA 12.1 won’t be the driver that buys AMD redemption – I think 11.11c is more important in that respect – but it is the driver that sets the pace for the year. Thus 2012 becomes all the more important for AMD as they need to erase their debts from 2011.Įrasing those debts starts today for AMD, with the release of the Catalyst 12.1 preview driver. Not to kick the Catalyst team while they’re down, but for all that went well for them in 2011 they failed in other areas where they could least afford it.
AMD CROSSFIREX MODE AFR FRIENDLY SERIES
without microstutter) even with nearly a month-long public beta and AMD’s close relationship with DICE, and CrossFire support for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim took the better part of a month to reach Radeon HD 5000 series owners.
AMD outright blew the launch of Rage by posting a faulty driver, Battlefield 3 in CrossFire mode did not work out of the box (i.e. 2011 brought with it some great developments out of the Catalyst team such as significant performance boosts for both Cayman (6900 series) GPUs and CrossFire across the board, while other groups delivered on more consumer-facing features such as SteadyVideo to go along with the launch of the Llano APU.īut 2011 also brought with it some technical debt and some reputational debt, all of which needs to be paid in 2012. Graphics Core Next will be the biggest GPU architecture change for the company since R600 (2900XT) nearly 5 years ago, bringing with it a great deal of backend driver work that needs to be done, while the frontend team has their own goals and aspirations.Īt the same time it’s going to give AMD the chance to close the book on 2011. It may sound like hyperbole to say that 2012 will be the biggest year yet for AMD’s Catalyst driver team, but it’s the truth. AMD has been going through preview/beta drivers at a rapid pace in the last couple of months – we’ve seen 3 different 11.11 preview drivers in as many weeks – and as 11.12 nears, AMD is preparing for what 2012 and the Catalyst 12.x series will bring. Later today AMD will be releasing the first preview for their Catalyst 12.1 driver set.
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