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There’s a new driver download ready and waiting on the AMD website (opens in new tab), and it includes support for RX 6000-series and older graphics cards after a while of being left out in the cold.
AMD has focused its efforts on developing drivers for its latest and greatest RX 7900 XTX (opens in new tab) and XT cards since their release in early December, 2022. As a result, older graphics cards have missed out on some day-one game drivers and features (opens in new tab) since introduced with AMD’s Adrenalin package.
That changes today with the release of the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition Driver 23.2.1, which supports both RX 7000-series and RX 6000-series and older graphics cards. Its main focus is game support for Forspoken and Dead Space, promising up to a 7% performance increase in the former.
But the main thrust of performance enhancements come for a wide range of games on older graphics cards. There’s too many to note individually, so I’ll drop the release notes (opens in new tab) list below.
- Up to 4% increase in performance for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 3% increase in performance for Sniper Elite 5 @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 6% increase in performance for Shadow of the Tomb Raider @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 7% increase in performance for Quake II RTX @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 4% increase in performance for Hitman 3 @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 6% increase in performance for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 19% increase in performance for F1 2022 @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 9% increase in performance for DOOM Eternal @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 4% increase in performance for Borderlands 3 @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2
- Up to 4% increase in performance for Hogwarts Legacy @ 4K using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon️ RX 6950 XT and Radeon 7900 XTX, versus the previous software driver version (22.11.2 for 6950 XT, 23.1.2 for 7900 XTX)
There’s also new Vulkan extension support in the new driver, which adds support for the promising new Vulkan Video decode capability, and an upgraded encoder (opens in new tab) on RX 6000-series GPUs. This encoder can be set in popular streaming app OBS Studio in the streaming or recording settings tabs. It’s worth using as GPU acceleration will help lift the load off your CPU while streaming and recording and allow it to get on with other things, so any improvements to this encoder, the better.
Some of the above was included in the 23.1.2 driver for RX 7000-series graphics cards, but that hasn’t been available at times since its sort-of release last month. It’s worth downloading this more up-to-date driver either way.
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There are still a handful of known issues to work through, including high idle power, stuttering during video playback, and virtual reality performance issues on RX 7000-series GPUs, to name a few of the bigger issues. But generally there’s a lengthy list of fixed issues for a heap of modern games in this release, too.
One issue that AMD notes separately is that it is working with Avalanche Software on Hogwarts Legacy (opens in new tab) performance issues when ray tracing is enabled. That game’s performance has appeared pretty dismal at times, and I’m genuinely curious as to what AMD can do about it on its cards. AMD’s GPUs aren’t known for ray tracing performance, though that has improved with the more recent RX 7000-series cards.
But, yes, all-round a good-looking driver release.
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