AMD Catalyst 14.1 drivers coming soon, Mantle update live now

By Konrad Krawczyk January 30, 2014

AMD Radeon R290X — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Listen up, AMD graphics card owners: the chip maker’s latest Catalyst drivers, version 14.1, should be going live pretty soon. Annoyingly, the company has stopped short of providing an exact release date.

AMD did, however, provide a list of possible issues users could run into after downloading and installing Catalyst 14.1 drivers. They include the possibility of encountering stability or stuttering when playing Battlefield 4 while using AMD’s Mantle tech with the firm’s CrossFire tech, possible system hangs when disabling CrossFire mode in AMD’s Catalyst Control Center software, and more.

Owners of Kaveri-based APUs will also see some benefits when Catalyst 14.1 goes live. For instance, Catalyst 14.1 is HSA-enabled, which allows for Kaveri systems to share processing workloads with graphics chips more efficiently. Unfortunately, only two programs support this feature at this point: Core AfterShot Pro v.1.2.0.6+ and LibreOffice v.4.2.0.1+. However, AMD states that more programs that benefit from HSA with Kaveri APIs will see the light of day down the road.

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Right now, though, if you’re an owner of an AMD graphics card that’s based on an HD 7000, R7 or R9 GPU, the availability of AMD’s new Mantle driver could net you big performance gains in Battlefield 4. The biggest performance spikes will be seen on systems that feature low- or mid-range CPUs. If your PC rocks a nasty CPU but a cheapie graphics card, you won’t have nearly as much to gain from the update.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below.

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Konrad Krawczyk

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Konrad covers desktops, laptops, tablets, sports tech and subjects in between for Digital Trends. Prior to joining DT, he…

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