AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta 1.6 Posted

[btarunr]

Here it is, the first public beta of AMD Catalyst 14.1, featuring Mantle, AMD's 3D graphics API designed to rival Direct3D and OpenGL. The driver enables the Mantle renderer on Battlefield 4, which is known to enhance performance on certain GPUs based on AMD's Graphics CoreNext micro-architecture. The driver can't be installed as an upgrade to an existing driver, which must be cleanly uninstalled first. In addition to Mantle, Catalyst 14.1 beta resolves rendering issues on a boat-load of games.

If Battlefield 4 crashes as soon as you go to options, disable your integrated graphics in BIOS or device manager.



DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.1 beta 1.6

The change-log follows:
Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta Driver for Windows

Support for the following new AMD Desktop APU (Accelerated Processors) products:

• AMD A10-7850K
• AMD A10-7700K

Mantle Beta driver

• AMD's Mantle is a groundbreaking graphics API that promises to transform the world of game development to help bring better, faster games to the PC
• Performance gain of up to 45%(versus the DirectX version) for Battlefield 4 on the R9 290 Series
• Performance gain of up to 200% (versus the DirectX version) for Star Swarm on the R9 290 Series
• AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta must be used in conjunction with versions of these applications that support Mantle
• It is expected that these applications will have future updates to support additional AMD Mantle features

AMD Mantle Beta driver is currently supported on:

• AMD Radeon R9 Series GPUs
• AMD Radeon R7 Series GPUs
• AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series GPUs
• AMD Radeon HD 8000 Series GPUs
• AMD A10-7000 Series and AMD A8-7000 Series APUs

• Enhanced AMD CrossFire frame pacing - Support for 4K panel and Eyefinity non-XDMA CrossFire solutions (including the AMD Radeon R9 280, 270 Series, 7900 Series, 7800 Series) and Dual Graphics configurations
• Frame pacing ensures that frames rendered across multiple GPUs in an AMD CrossFire configuration will be displayed at an even and regular pace
• Supported on 4K panels and Eyefinity configurations
• Supported on AMD Dual Graphics configurations
• Supported on DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications
• Resolved issue highlights of AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta
• Resolves ground texture flickering seen in Total War: Rome 2 with high settings (and below) set in game
• Resolves flickering texture corruption when playing Call of Duty: Ghosts (multi-player) in the space station level

Resolved Issues

• Ground texture flickering seen in Total War: Rome 2 with high settings (and below) set in game
• Flickering texture corruption when playing Call of Duty: Ghosts (multi-player) in the space station level
• Blu-ray playback using PowerDVD black screen on extended mode
• Streaming VUDU HD/HDX content on Sharp PN-K321 (DP) causes the right-side half to flicker in and out
• Black screen happened after wake up the monitor
• Full screen issue at rotation in DX9 mode
• Video window black screen when using Samsung Kies to play video
• Crysis 2 negative scaling in outdoor scene
• Crysis 2 has insufficient CrossFire scaling in some scene
• Red Faction: The game has no or negative crossfire scaling with DX9 and DX11
• Age of Conan has corruption and performance issues with crossfire enabled
• Company of Heroes shadows are corrupted when using crossfire
• Resident Evil 5 's performance is unstable when display mode set to Window mode
• Total War: Shogun 2 flickering menu/text
• Frame rate drop when disabling post-processing in 3DMark06
• Negative Crossfire scaling with game "The Secret World" in DX11 mode
• F1 2012 Crashes to desktop
• Tomb Raider Hair Simulation Stutters on CFX
• Negative CrossFire scaling experienced in Call of Duty
• Battlefield 3 performance drop on Haswell systems
• Choppy video playback on 4k Video
• VSync ON Tearing with 2x1 Eyefinity SLS CrossFire
• Far Cry 3 - Game flickering while changing resolutions
• Display corruption and BSOD occurs when extending a display after disabling Multiple GPU SLS array
• Flickering seen when enable three 4kx2k panels at the same time
• No Video, just a black screen when setting Chrome to run in "High Performance" when playing certain video clips
• Image crashed on Starcraft game

Known Issues

• Mantle performance for the AMD Radeon HD 7000/HD 8000 Series GPUs and AMD Radeon R9 280X and R9 270X GPUs will be optimized for BattleField 4 in future AMD Catalyst releases. These products will see limited gains in BattleField 4 and AMD is currently investigating optimizations for them.
• Multi-GPU support under DirectX and Mantle will be added to StarSwarm in a future application patch
• Intermittent stuttering or stability issues may occur when utilizing Mantle with AMD CrossFire technology in BattleField 4 - AMD recommends using the DirectX code path when playing Battlefield 4 with multiple GPUs. A future AMD Catalyst release will resolve these issues
• Notebooks based on AMD Enduro or PowerXpress technologies are currently not supported by the Mantle codepath in Battlefield 4
• AMD Eyefinity configurations utilizing portrait display orientations are currently not supported by the Mantle codepath in Battlefield 4
• AMD Eyefinity technology is not currently supported in the Star Swarm application
• AMD testing for the AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta Mantle driver has been concentrated on the following products: AMD Radeon R9 290X, R9 290, R9 280, R9 270, R7 260X, R7 260, HD 7000 Series, HD 8000 Series, A10-7850K and A10-7700K. Future AMD Catalyst releases will include full test coverage for all AMD products supported by Mantle.
• Graphics hardware in the AMD A10-7850K and A10-7700K may override the presence of a discrete GPU under the Mantle code path in Battlefield 4
• Frame Pacing for Dual Graphics and non-XDMA configurations above 2560x1600 do not currently work with Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4. An upcoming release will enable support
• DX9 Dual graphics is not supported in AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta. An upcoming release will enable support

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[i9000gt]

I just installed I cant see the difference

 

[neliz]

I just installed I cant see the difference

running bf4 in 2560x1440 ultra now where it was high before, Thanks Obama!

 

[the54thvoid]

running bf4 in 2560x1440 ultra now where it was high before, Thanks Obama!

Way off topic, when is the 290x Lightning coming out Neliz?

 

[neliz]

Can't give a date yet as it depends too much on gpu/mem availability.

 

[Wimpelmann]

Doesent work for me....r9 270X still at 100% and no more frames !!!!

 

[happita]

Doesent work for me....r9 270X still at 100% and no more frames !!!!

I didn't see the R9 270X in their support list unfortunately, which is weird because that is where the sweet spot for price/performance is. What are they thinking, is AMD dumb?

I'll check how Mantle runs after I get home in a few hours, hopefully it will have increased my frames with my setup. I want to start using more than 100% resolution scaling at a playable FPS. I'm sure it'll look amazing

 

[Wimpelmann]

I didn't see the R9 270X in their support list unfortunately, which is weird because that is where the sweet spot for price/performance is. What are they thinking, is AMD dumb?

I'll check how Mantle runs after I get home in a few hours, hopefully it will have increased my frames with my setup. I want to start using more than 100% resolution scaling at a playable FPS. I'm sure it'll look amazing

In the video settings i can activate the Mantle but nothing happends 2 the Performance !!!

 

[neliz]

Doesent work for me....r9 270X still at 100% and no more frames !!!!

In the video settings i can activate the Mantle but nothing happends 2 the Performance !!!

Every single article about Mantle has talked about only the 260/290's supporting Mantle right now, and it's also one of the bullet points above, so what were you expecting?

Mantle performance for the AMD Radeon HD 7000/HD 8000 Series GPUs and AMD Radeon R9 280X and R9 270X GPUs will be optimized for BattleField 4 in future AMD Catalyst releases. These products will see limited gains in BattleField 4 and AMD is currently investigating optimizations for them.

 

[Xzibit]

Some more info about the driver and Mantle

AMD Gaming - AMD Catalyst™ 14.1, a must-have driver for gamers!


Frame Pacing

 

[Wimpelmann]

AMD Mantle Beta driver is currently supported on:

• AMD Radeon R9 Series GPUs
• AMD Radeon R7 Series GPUs
• AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series GPUs
• AMD Radeon HD 8000 Series GPUs
• AMD A10-7000 Series and AMD A8-7000 Series APUs

so my R9 270x is in the list...maybe newer driver´s wil fix it

 

[Prima.Vera]

Those drivers broke my Crossfire again in AC4, Counterstrike and SWTOR. But now in SWTOR there is no more flickering during cut scenes...
So in each driver release you gain some, you loose some. Typical AMD...

 

[Aquinus]

Those drivers broke my Crossfire again in AC4, Counterstrike and SWTOR. But now in SWTOR there is no more flickering during cut scenes...
So in each driver release you gain some, you loose some. Typical AMD...

I'm pretty sure that when they're fixing drivers, they care a bit more about modern cards than yours and mine. Plus, I don't think AMD is very serious about fixing much of anything on 5000-series cards considering how out-dated they are. Even my 6870s are getting there so I don't expect them to invest a ton of time in making sure it works just as good as the latest hardware that is out.

 

[Prima.Vera]

They are only 3 years old man. Do you think 3 years are ancient times? ) Windows 7 was released almost 4 years ago. Does it mean is ancient, and MS should start providing support for it?? =)) We are talking about AMD, no some shitty companies. A company with budget in the billions you'd think they they'd provide better support for their customers, don't you?
Besides, as far as I can tell, nVidia is still providing full time support for the 4xx series.

 

[progste]

Those drivers broke my Crossfire again in AC4, Counterstrike and SWTOR. But now in SWTOR there is no more flickering during cut scenes...
So in each driver release you gain some, you loose some. Typical AMD...

you don't seem to grasp the concept of "beta"

of course if this happened on a final release i would agree with you but being clearly a very experimental beta it is supposed to create troubles

 

[wotevajjjj]

Downloaded them, when trying to get into bf4 options, the game crashes...

 

[Aquinus]

They are only 3 years old man. Do you think 3 years are ancient times? ) Windows 7 was released almost 4 years ago. Does it mean is ancient, and MS should start providing support for it?? =)) We are talking about AMD, no some shitty companies. A company with budget in the billions you'd think they they'd provide better support for their customers, don't you?
Besides, as far as I can tell, nVidia is still providing full time support for the 4xx series.

Haha. Very funny. I think you forgot that 5000-series was released on Sept. 10, 2009 and the 5850 was released on the 30th. That was 5 years ago, not 3. You may have picked up your GPUs 3 years ago, but that's not how old they are. 5000-series are also the oldest series still supported by AMD's latest drivers and probably for good reason. nVidia's 400-series cards came out almost half a year later than AMD's 5000-series as well.

Also nVidia "supports" 8000-series cards on the current driver. That doesn't mean they work flawlessly.

Downloaded them, when trying to get into bf4 options, the game crashes...

Did you take this into account? Next time, you might want to read the entire post.

If Battlefield 4 crashes as soon as you go to options, disable your integrated graphics in BIOS or device manager.

 

[INSTG8R]

Works fine in the Star Swarm Benchmark. Bring on Thief!

 

[broken pixel]

Those drivers broke my Crossfire again in AC4, Counterstrike and SWTOR. But now in SWTOR there is no more flickering during cut scenes...
So in each driver release you gain some, you loose some. Typical AMD...

Just like the BF4 patches for me. Dude it is a Beta driver, what did you expect? Flawless & a pie? Give them some time as it does state many times crossfire is buggy with this Mantle driver.

 

[Solaris17]

can someone tell me why this beta driver doesnt work flawlessly please? I dont understand it was delayed alot and released 6 hours ago. Someone help please.

on a side not WOOHOO!!

 

[zsolt_93]

Why should a beta driver that enables Mantle break other games that don't even use mantle? I see this all the time on both nvidia and amd driver posts. I am using the latest driver on a GPU that is 4 years old and never had issues these guys always have. I have used the drivers that should have crashed every 5 minutes, that should have burned my card and none of this happened.
I honestly see this Mantle thing as a bit of fail, too much time has passed since it was announced and probably nvidia started desingning something like that too, and it will end up in a clash and both will go down forgotten in a few years, like physx which noone uses since its proprietary to nvidia. I wonder if it would have been a wiser decision to release mantle on the consoles, amd has monopoly there and it would have been more of an advantage to unifiy the two platforms for devs, and the hardware would have profitted lot from that. It is really a niche market who can really profit from mantle as it is now. People who will be able to play a game they couldn' t play before on a low end machine need this, not people who have 290X CFX in their pc and are happy to see their bench scores rise or in this case their FPS in certain games, when it was already playable for them. That is not the mass market.
The mass market would be the APUs, but those either don't support this tech or aren't financially viable yet(at least in my country the new gen is too expensive). They should have released this when it was final,not beta that is still rough and causing issues because it was rushed not to be delayed even more and they already had quite a few titles out that support it to appeal to more people and possibly not just games, media player software or graphics design software too.
OpenGL is still here every GPU supports the recent versions, yet the game devs pretty much abandoned it, apart from Valve and a few others. It supports almost everything that DX11 does and more important it is cross platform too, which mantle isn't fully yet. Why should mantle succeed if OpenGL didn't in recent years?

 

[the54thvoid]

In case anyone is quoting my post - i deleted it as it wasn't a Mantle graph.

 

[west7]

can someone tell me why this beta driver doesnt work flawlessly please? I dont understand it was delayed alot and released 6 hours ago. Someone help please.

on a side not WOOHOO!!

because its a BETA version http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/38567/beta-version

 

[Fluffmeister]

A beta driver accessing a beta API on a game which also still appears to be in beta too.

Certainly a recipe for some tasty action

Some more info about the driver and Mantle

AMD Gaming - AMD Catalyst™ 14.1, a must-have driver for gamers!


Frame Pacing

Damn their frame pacing was a mess.

God bless Tech Report huh?

 

[neliz]

OpenGL is still here every GPU supports the recent versions, yet the game devs pretty much abandoned it, apart from Valve and a few others. It supports almost everything that DX11 does and more important it is cross platform too, which mantle isn't fully yet. Why should mantle succeed if OpenGL didn't in recent years?

OpenGL nearly killed PC Gaming in the 2000's because is probably farthest from cross-platform you can get, there were so many cases of ports or games that were simply not optimized for ATI/NVIDIA and thus rean at 10fps where the optimized version ran at 100fps.

The beauty of DirectX is that you either support it, or you don't, OpenGL is so incredibly random that you could program something with proprietary NVIDIA intstructions that it would run perfect on a GeForce 610 and it would tank on a GTX 780.

OpenGL requires 3 different versions, the arbitrary Rendering path, a NVIDIA version and an AMD version in order to get decent performance.


edit: Regarding the too high Brightness in Mantle: it's a bug in BF4:
https://twitter.com/repi/status/429985248995467265

Various screenshots already show that there are no rendering errors, it's just their brightness that's off.