AMD released a new set of drivers on Thursday, the Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.3. The only performance improvement highlighted by the release notes is in Rise of the Tomb Raider, which sees a 10 percent gain on the Radeon RX 480 over the older Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.2 set of drivers. Other than that, the update brings a long list of fixes spanning Overwatch, Hitman, Total War: Warhammer, and even Doom.
According to AMD, the company resolved an issue with Overwatch crashing on some RX 480 configurations in AMD Crossfire mode. Another Crossfire-related issue now resolved centered on flickering in Rise of the Tomb Raider when using DirectX 11. There was an issue in Need for Speed too, where gamers using multiple cards in Crossfire mode were experiencing flickering on some light sources.
On the Vulkan and Mantle front, AMD resolved an issue regarding the incorrect version number listed in the Radeon Settings software information tab. There were also rendering issues regarding shadows in Dota 2 that are now fixed with this latest release. Dragon Age: Inquisition previously crashed or caused a driver recovery when the player switched to the Mantle API.
As for other game-related issues, AMD resolved the texture hole problems in Doom when players used OpenGL along with three AMD Eyefinity displays. Hitman saw graphical glitches when using weapons and zooming when the game was set to DirectX 12. Total War: Warhammer experienced visual problems on the Radeon R9 380, and DiRT Rally experienced flickering terrain with the advanced blending option enabled.
The general fixes the updated drivers provide include a change to Radeon WattMan, which previously retained settings after a failed overclock caused a system hang or reboot. Another issue caused flickering on the extended display when users performed a task switch with two cloned displays during full-screen gaming. The Radeon Rx 480 also saw a minor flicker while Freesync was enabled during a game’s exit or launch.
As for AMD’s report of a 10-percent performance increase in Rise of the Tomb Raider on the Radeon RX 480, the company generated this number using a test bed comprising an Intel Core i7-5960X processor, 16GB of DDR4 memory clocked at 2,666MHz, the Radeon RX 480 card, Windows 10 64-bit, and both sets of drivers (16.7.2 and 16.7.3). The older drivers managed a score of 78.73 with the resolution set at 1,920 x 1,080, and the newer drivers scored an 86.53 using the same resolution.
In addition to the fixes, the release notes provide a long list of known issues as well. There are still a few games out there that will fail to launch or will crash if the AMD Gaming Evolved overlay is enabled; it can be disabled within the client itself. Dota 2 is still experiencing a problem with Vulkan that causes the game to hang when the resolution, game, or quality settings are changed. Another Dota 2 problem affects its performance when players are using multiple cards in Crossfire mode.
Other games listed in the known issues section includes DiRT Rally, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Division, Battlefield 4, Total War: Warhammer, World of Tanks, Rocket League, and Ashes of the Singularity.
