AMD Rolls Out Catalyst 14.9 WHQL Driver Suite

[btarunr]

AMD rolled out the Catalyst 14.9 WHQL driver suite, its quarterly release of WHQL-signed drivers for AMD Radeon discrete- and integrated GPUs. The drivers add support for some of the newer Radeon GPUs, such as the R9 285; and introduce a large list of game-specific performance improvements. The drivers also introduce AMD Eyefinity mixed-resolution modes, Eyefinity display alignment, new video-color and display settings in Catalyst Control Center, an updated AMD Mantle API runtime, and JPEG decoding acceleration for certain GPUs.



DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.9 WHQL for Windows 8.1/7/Vista 64-bit | AMD Catalyst 14.9 WHQL for Windows 8.1/7/Vista 32-bit

The change-log follows.

1. Support for the AMD Radeon R9 285
2. Performance improvements (comparing AMD Catalyst 14.9 vs. AMD Catalyst 14.4)

• 3DMark Sky Diver improvements
  o AMD A4 6300 - improves up to 4%
  o Enables AMD Dual Graphics / AMD CrossFire support
• 3DMark Fire Strike
  o AMD Radeon R9 290 Series - improves up to 5% in Performance Preset
• 3DMark11
  o AMD Radeon R9 290 Series / R9 270 Series - improves up to 4% in Entry and Performance Preset
• BioShock Infinite
  o AMD Radeon R9 290 Series - 1920x1080 - improves up to 5%
• Company of Heroes 2
  o AMD Radeon R9 290 Series - improves up to 8%
• Crysis 3
  o AMD Radeon R9 290 Series / R9 270 Series - improves up to 10%
• Grid Auto Sport
  o AMD CrossFire profile
• Murdered Soul Suspect
  o AMD Radeon R9 290X (2560x1440, 4x MSAA, 16x AF) - improves up to 50%
  o AMD Radeon R9 290 Series / R9 270 Series - improves up to 6%
  o CrossFire configurations improve scaling up to 75%
• Plants vs. Zombies (Direct3D performance improvements)
  o AMD Radeon R9 290X - 1920x1080 Ultra - improves up to 11%
  o AMD Radeon R9 290X - 2560x1600 Ultra - improves up to 15%
  o AMD Radeon R9 290X CrossFire configuration (3840x2160 Ultra) - 92% scaling
• Batman Arkham Origins:
  o AMD Radeon R9 290X (4x MSAA) - improves up to 20%
  o CrossFire configurations see up to a 70% gain in scaling
• Wildstar
  o Power Xpress profile
  o Performance improvements to improve smoothness of application
  o Performance improves up to 30% on the AMD Radeon R9 and R7 Series of products for both single GPU and Multi-GPU configurations
• Tomb Raider
  o AMD Radeon R9 290 Series - improves up to 5%
• Watch Dogs
  o AMD Radeon R9 290 Series / R9 270 Series - improves up to 9%
  o AMD CrossFire - Frame pacing improvement
  o Improved CrossFire performance - up to 20%
• Assassin's Creed IV
  o Improves CrossFire scaling (3840x2160 High Settings) up to 93% (CrossFire scaling improvement of 25% compared to AMD Catalyst 14.4)
• Lichdom
  o Improves performance for single GPU and Multi-GPU configurations
• Star Craft II
  o AMD Radeon R9 290X (2560x1440, AA, 16x AF) - improves up to 20%

3. AMD Eyefinity enhancements

• Mixed Resolution Support
  o A new architecture providing brand new capabilities
  o Display groups can be created with monitors of different resolution (including difference sizes and shapes)
  o Users have a choice of how surface is created over the display group
  - Fill - legacy mode, best for identical monitors
  - Fit - create the Eyefinity surface using best available rectangular area with attached displays
  - Expand - create a virtual Eyefinity surface using desktops as viewports onto the surface
  o Eyefinity Display Alignment
  - Enables control over alignment between adjacent monitors
  o One-Click Setup
  - Driver detects layout of extended desktop
  - Can create Eyefinity display group using this layout in one click!

4. New user controls for video color and display settings

• Greater control over Video Color Management:
  o Controls have been expanded from a single slider for controlling Boost and Hue to per color axis
• Color depth control for Digital Flat Panels (available on supported HDMI and DP displays)
  o Allows users to select different color depths per resolution and display

5. AMD Mantle enhancements

• Mantle now supports AMD Mobile products with Enduro technology
  o Battlefield 4: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1366x768; high settings) - 21% gain
  o Thief: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1920x1080; high settings) - 14% gain
  o Star Swarm: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1920x1080; medium settings) - 274% gain
• Enables support for Multi-GPU configurations with Thief (requires the latest Thief update)

6. AMD AM1 JPEG decoding acceleration

• JPEG decoding acceleration was first enabled on the A10 APU Series in AMD Catalyst 14.1 beta, and has now been extended to the AMD AM1 Platform
• Provides fast JPEG decompression
• Provides Power Efficiency for JPEG decompression

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Brusfantomet]

well, was installing the 14.4 driver yesterday... not that i am complaining about newer rivers, but damd that hassle.

Also, 20% performance increase in Starcraft 2? for a one year old card?

 

[Batou1986]

Nice to see that the R9 290 is the only card AMD makes now

 

[GhostRyder]

Got it already in my system last night. I went ahead and did a clean install since I was having issues with the recent motherboard and processor swap with old software causing problems.

Works great to me...

 

[Mathragh]

well, was installing the 14.4 driver yesterday... not that i am complaining about newer rivers, but damd that hassle.

Also, 20% performance increase in Starcraft 2? for a one year old card?

2560x1440, AA, 16x AF is quite the niche setting, and thus not as high on the priority list I recon.

 

[Stardust342]

Going to get these drivers right naow! Glad to see so many improvements!

Update: For some reason my computer crashed during installation, and I had to wipe the drivers with DDU in order to install them. But we are all good now and it's time to test!

 

[jigar2speed]

For some reason my computer didn't crash, i am worried if the driver installed or not ?

 

[Stardust342]

For some reason my computer didn't crash, i am worried if the driver installed or not ?

I'm sure they did. You can make sure by going to CCC > Information > Software and then read the catalyst version.

 

[GhostRyder]

I didn't crash when I installed it?

 

[Stardust342]

I didn't crash when I installed it?

I'm sure this is an isolated incident. I don't know why it happened, but it was easily resolved.
It might have been because I had my graphics card overclocked when I first tried to install it...

 

[GhostRyder]

I'm sure this is an isolated incident. I don't know why it happened, but it was easily resolved.
It might have been because I had my graphics card overclocked when I first tried to install it...

Who knows things like this happen all the time but I just thought I would mention mine was fine in case people were thinking that this update was specifically causing people to crash. Though to be honest I have not also tested much about the WHQL yet except in games like League and a bit of BF4 at 4K.

 

[fullinfusion]

Report,

Working very well on the twin 290's

No issues at all. The screen looks better to. Must been an adjustment to something in the driver because the colors and contrast looks way cleaner. Slight increase in all 3Dmark programs and also Valley.

Need to run a bit more benches and play a few games and will see really how well this on performs

 

[Mussels]

working well for me on 7970 and 5870.


laptop with its intel IGP + AMD GPU (7 series, forgot model) works well enough, but visual glitches on the lockscreen.

all systems on windows 8.1