AMD releases Catalyst 14.4 WHQL driver

[Scorpus]

It's been a while since AMD has released a WHQL version of their Catalyst drivers, but the company has finally decided that their recent 14.4 drivers, from a new driver branch (14.100), are ready for all. The Catalyst 14.4 WHQL drivers are the same as the release candidate AMD posted on Monday, which are similar to the beta drivers handed out with the Radeon R9 295X2.

Naturally, Catalyst 14.4 supports the powerful dual-GPU R9 295X2, but it also brings full support for OpenGL 4.4. It's unlikely we'll see OpenGL 4.4 features being utilized immediately, but it does support buffer storage objects for HSA-enabled chips (eg. AMD's new APUs like Kaveri) and sparse textures, to name a few.

Aside from OpenGL 4.4 there's the usual range of performance improvements and bug fixes. AMD specifically highlights a range of frame pacing and CrossFire fixes for games such as Crysis 3, Titanfall, Metro: Last Light and Far Cry 3. Mantle in Battlefield 4 has also been improved through a few minor fixes.

If you want to download Catalyst 14.4, you can head to our driver download section, where you'll find the latest drivers for Windows, and a release candidate driver for Linux. Just are the direct download links just in case:

• AMD Catalyst 14.4 for Windows 7/8 32-bit
• AMD Catalyst 14.4 for Windows 7/8 64-bit

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/56541-amd-releases-catalyst-144-whql-driver.html

 

[Jad Chaar]

I have had good luck with these drivers so far. I downloaded the AMD Driver Uninstaller from their site and then installed this bad boy successfully without any issues.

I recommend that anyone who wants to install this driver create a system restore point prior to installation since some people I know had some install issues yesterday. Refer to this article for more info on how to create a system restore point: http://goo.gl/iX7Q2.

 

[GhostRyder]

I installed it already yesterday, not bad if I do say so myself lol. So far I have not had a chance to play BF4, maybe I should give it a try today with Mantle and Eyefinity enabled.

 

[hahahanoobs]

On first installation attempt the display settings were missing from the right click context menu. Reinstalled and it's back. Ran Driver Fusion restarted then registry cleaner after 13.2's were uninstalled. Will attempt another clean install if I run into any problems.

I was hoping AMD wouldn't keep the Overdrive clock and power control the way it was in the betas, but they did, and I still hate it. The good news is I only have to go there once. It doesn't make any sense to change it. Especially when the memory frequency and fan control are still the same style sliders as 13.2.

 

[psycros]

300+ mb for a driver is absurd, especially when you consider that it only supports the two previous generations of hardware.

 

[Kibaruk]

300+ mb for a driver is absurd, especially when you consider that it only supports the two previous generations of hardware.

Do better, surprise us.

Considering the past drivers were around 200mb and now they added mantle and a couple more things. Do the maths.

 

[Jad Chaar]

300+ mb for a driver is absurd, especially when you consider that it only supports the two previous generations of hardware.

nVidia's latest driver is around 230mb. AMD's is just like 50mb more since they have stuff like Mantle. Also, AMD probably puts more focus on OpenGL and CL than nVidia so they have more of those files. It gets you to ~300mb if you do that math.

 

[Cryio]

300+ mb for a driver is absurd, especially when you consider that it only supports the two previous generations of hardware.

It supports HD 5000, 6000, 7000, 8000M (overclocked 7000M laptop GPUs) and the new R200 series. I count 5 generations.

 

[TheLastPanda]

I installed it already yesterday, not bad if I do say so myself lol. So far I have not had a chance to play BF4, maybe I should give it a try today with Mantle and Eyefinity enabled.

I used to get infuriating micro-stutter with mantle on bf4. I have not benched anything yet but the framepacing issues I had are 100% gone. You should update this if you find any cool xfire improvements since Im considering adding a second card soon

 

[EClyde]

I haven't upgraded my AMD driver for my 6870 since 12/12 works fine. Still a great card too

 

[Kibaruk]

I haven't upgraded my AMD driver for my 6870 since 12/12 works fine. Still a great card too

That was the latest non-beta patch till today.

 

[GhostRyder]

I used to get infuriating micro-stutter with mantle on bf4. I have not benched anything yet but the framepacing issues I had are 100% gone. You should update this if you find any cool xfire improvements since Im considering adding a second card soon

I have a Tri-Fire setup going right now with 3 R9 290X Cards and its setup at 5760x1080 eyefinity (I turn it on and off depending on my mood). Seems to be fine, my system stays at a constant 60FPS and is very smooth. Never really saw micro-stutter issues with it as the first iteration crashed often enough I stopped using it until second update which resolved most of the issue until the third which made it work to the full extent. This update seems to just keep me running at 60 better while eyefinity is enabled on the system in multi-player, thats all I have really noticed.

 

[TheLastPanda]

I have a Tri-Fire setup going right now with 3 R9 290X Cards and its setup at 5760x1080 eyefinity (I turn it on and off depending on my mood). Seems to be fine, my system stays at a constant 60FPS and is very smooth. Never really saw micro-stutter issues with it as the first iteration crashed often enough I stopped using it until second update which resolved most of the issue until the third which made it work to the full extent. This update seems to just keep me running at 60 better while eyefinity is enabled on the system in multi-player, thats all I have really noticed.

Thanks for the info. For some reason everyone jumped on the bandwagon to bash crossfire with fcat benchmarks but after the first driver that claimed to address the issue I heard absolutely nothing. Nice set up by the way. Hopefully one day I can ascend to such resolution.

 

[Joe C.]

I tried to install the 14.4 WHQL and after restarting to finalize the installation my computer got stuck at the "Starting Windows" screen. I tried twice had to recover my HDD both times, eventually I had to reinstall the 13.1 release. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[GhostRyder]

Thanks for the info. For some reason everyone jumped on the bandwagon to bash crossfire with fcat benchmarks but after the first driver that claimed to address the issue I heard absolutely nothing. Nice set up by the way. Hopefully one day I can ascend to such resolution.

You get alot of exaggeration about Micro-Stutter because in actuality this became a hot button where everyone was claiming that micro-stutter was apparent in every possible setup known to man. I head people complain about single cards having micro-stutter among other setups and were claiming this to be a huge problem. Alot of the stuttering ive found (This is just me btw from what ive seen people who complain about stuttering in-game around me) came from horrible V-Sync that made the games stutter beyond belief. BF4 also does that on any card setup ive seen where enabling the V-Sync (For some reason it only recently in the last few months got like this) causes huge skips and stutters for me and others.

One thing I use to help resolve the issue is called Radeon Pro which has game specific setups and allows you to enable Dynamic V-Sync which fixes the stutter V-Sync issue if you have some. I use it over any built in V-Sync tool now because it works so well for my needs.

 

[Raoul Duke]

Working well for me on a 6950 on Win7, but I ran the AMD uninstaller to completely remove the previous version before I went with the install. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Thu Win]

My computer got completely bricked by the update.

 

[Kibaruk]

My computer got completely bricked by the update.

Cool story bro