AMD Radeon Crimson ReLive Edition 17.4.4 adds support for ‘Dawn of War III’

By Brad Jones April 27, 2017

radeon crimson relive 17 4 rx 570 offset1sf — Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

AMD released version 17.4.4 of its Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition drivers, which fixes several known issues and ensure that gamers can be confident they are getting the best possible performance from their hardware setup. The latest iteration of the package should be warmly received by users planning to put their AMD graphics card to work while running Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III.

Version 17.4.4 adds support for the hotly anticipated real-time strategy game. The company claims that the drivers offer improvements to performance as great as seven percent when measured against a Radeon RX 580 8GB graphics card utilizing Version 17.4.3 of Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition.

Alongside support for Dawn of War III, which launched on Thursday, the drivers also implement a host of other bug fixes. For one, the issue causing corruption as a result of the use of HDMI scaling on certain monitors has seemingly been taken care of, according to materials released by AMD.

In terms of other recent releases, Battlefield 1 should no longer stutter while in Multi GPU mode at 4K display resolutions with DirectX 11 being employed. Meanwhile, Mass Effect: Andromeda will display HDR colors correctly on systems running the Creators Update for Windows 10, an issue that had plagued gamers since Microsoft released the update earlier this month.

Additionally, graphics cards that are part of the Radeon RX 550 series should no longer suffer a hard hang when the user has not rebooted the system for a long period of time.

A reboot prompt has been reinstated to the Radeon Software installation process, which was apparently liable to disappear as a result of a conflict with AMD XConnect technology system configurations. Finally, some incorrect or unavailable feature descriptions have been addressed in the Radeon Settings menu.

Full release notes, instructions, and installation packages for various operating systems are available from AMD’s support site.

Topics

Contributor

Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

Gaming

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition is about to clear its final hurdle

microsoft activision blizzard acquisition uk preliminary approval mwiii reveal full 006

Microsoft has had a tough time getting its acquisition of Call of Duty-maker Activision Blizzard approved, but it just cleared a major hurdle. The U.K.'s CMA, which previously blocked the acquisition over concerns about its impact on the cloud gaming market, says that it has "provisionally concluded" that Microsoft has addressed its biggest issues with the acquisition.

Namely, it likes that Microsoft will give the cloud gaming rights for Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. "The prior sale of the cloud gaming rights will establish Ubisoft as a key supplier of content to cloud gaming services, replicating the role that Activision would have played in the market as an independent player," the CMA explained in a press release. "In contrast to the original deal, Microsoft will no longer control cloud gaming rights for Activision’s content, so would not be in a position to limit access to Activision’s key content to its own cloud gaming service or to withhold those games from rivals."
Its press release also reveals that Ubisoft will have the ability to make "Microsoft to port Activision games to operating systems other than Windows and support game emulators when requested." Essentially, it's pleased that Microsoft no longer has an iron grip on Activision Blizzard games outside of the Xbox ecosystem and is closer to supporting the deal because of it. Of course, both Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are pretty happy about this.
"We are encouraged by this positive development in the CMA’s review process," Microsoft president Brad Smith tweeted. "We presented solutions that we believe fully address the CMA’s remaining concerns related to cloud game streaming, and we will continue to work toward earning approval to close prior to the October 18 deadline."
Meanwhile, an Activision Blizzard spokesperson provided Digital Trends with the following statement: "The CMA’s preliminary approval is great news for our future with Microsoft. We’re pleased the CMA has responded positively to the solutions Microsoft has proposed, and we look forward to working with Microsoft toward completing the regulatory review process."
A final decision from the CMA is expected to be made by October 6. As Smith mentioned, Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition is expected to close by October 18.

Gaming

Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways leaves me hopeful for a Resident Evil 6 remake

Ada Wong holds a gun in Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways.

This year’s Resident Evil 4 remake was an important victory for the horror series. Not only did it successfully reimagine a beloved classic, but it finally concocted the perfect action formula for the series at large. That’s an important milestone considering that Resident Evil has historically run into trouble when fully dropping survival horror in favor of blockbuster action (see the misunderstood, but undeniably sloppy Resident Evil 6). The remake paves the way for Capcom to once again evolve its series, taking another crack at the third-person shooter genre it struggled to nail.

In that sense, Resident Evil 4’s new Separate Ways DLC feels like a taste of what’s to come. Capcom uses Ada Wong’s solo chapter to push its action formula even further, weaving in some exciting new tricks that are already leaving me hungry for a true spinoff. It’s not the series’ finest DLC, playing more as an asset-reusing victory lap, but it gives me hope that Resident Evil’s second decent into pure action will be much more successful this time.
Grappling forward
Separate Ways follows Ada Wong, the anti-hero mercenary on a quest to retrieve a Plaga sample for Albert Wesker during the main game. The lengthy bonus episode is a remake in itself, but it's perhaps even more radical than the base game’s reinvention. Right from its completely new opening scene, it's clear that Separate Ways is diverting pretty far from the original DLC. That’s a sensible decision considering how much the new version of Resident Evil 4 reworks Ada Wong. She’s no longer a careless hired gun, but a nuanced character struggling to balance her professional responsibilities with her moral ones.

Gaming

90+ PS5 games just had their prices slashed — from $10

Cloud and Tifa in Final Fantasy VII Remake.

PlayStation 5 owners who feel like their video game libraries are still lacking should take advantage of the offers in Best Buy's PS5 games sale. With prices starting at $10, your hard-earned cash will go a long way in adding more titles to your collection (as well as extending your list of backlogs). You're going to have to hurry in choosing the games that you want to buy though, as the discounts in these PS5 game deals may disappear at any moment.

What to buy in Best Buy's PS5 games sale
The cheapest offer in Best Buy's PS5 games sale is for the golf enthusiasts --