Game News stub

AMD Catalyst 14.2 Beta Drivers - TrueAudio & Mantle

Posted on February 26, 2014

It might seem like just a few weeks ago that we posted about AMD's Catalyst 14.1 beta drivers --and that's because it was. The 14.1 beta drivers saw the delivery of Mantle to the general public, which would later be applied in a large (>1GB) Battlefield 4 patch. Of course, I've yet to discover a software application that can release patches without introducing new issues. Catalyst 14.2 attempts to address some of the leftovers from 14.1 and prior.

amd-radeon-logo1

14.2's major changes bring TrueAudio and Mantle support for the impending launch of the new Thief game; TrueAudio, if you're unaware, is AMD's way of driving surround-style audio through the video card (offloading some processing). The experience as a whole is pretty unique and promising, though we've only tested the "studio version" at CES, where the environment and equipment were fairly optimized.

Anyway, alongside the support for Thief's (not-yet-released) Mantle & TrueAudio integration, AMD put out several bug fixes for Battlefield 4, CrossFire, and Mantle.

Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 14.2 Beta V1.3 Driver for Windows

  • Thief: Crossfire Profile update and performance improvements for single GPU configurations
  • Mantle: Multi-GPU configurations (up to 4 GPUs) running Battlefield 4 are now supported
  • Frame Pacing for Dual Graphics and non-XDMA configurations above 2560x1600 are now supported with Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4
  • Dual graphics DirectX 9 application issues have been resolved
  • Minecraft: Missing textures have been resolved
  • 3D applications no longer see intermittent hangs or application crashes
  • Resolves corruption issues seen in X-plane

Known Issues

  • Notebooks based on AMD Enduro or PowerXpress™ technologies are currently not supported by the Mantle codepath
  • Thief does not render the right eye when CrossFire and Stereo 3D is enabled

Thief's minimum system requirements are listed as:

  • CPU: High-end dual-core or quad-core
  • Memory: 4GB
  • GPU: AMD 4800; NVIDIA GTS 250 or better - dX 10 support required.
  • Storage: 20GB

Recommended specs are:

  • CPU: FX-8000 or better; i7- or better.
  • Memory: 4GB+
  • GPU: R9  or better; GTX 660 or better - dX 11 support.
  • Storage: 20GB.

The drivers can be downloaded here: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/latest-catalyst-windows-beta.aspx

- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.