AMD quietly outs May Preview driver that boosts DirectX 11 performance up to 34%

AMD has quietly launched a new graphics driver, dubbed the May 2022 Preview driver. It is mainly optimized for DirectX 11 games on the Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs. AMD says that users can expect up to an 8% performance improvement but there are reports that suggest people are gaining much more than the mentioned 8%.

In its testing, CapFrameX found that there was a 24% jump in framerates on Crysis Remastered and 34% bump up in the lows in Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Another Twitter user @JirayD reports a 15% improvement in Overwatch and on a Polaris-based RX 480, indicating that driver may positively impact older generations of Radeon too.

The driver also adds a sharpening effect slider option for Radeon Super Resolution (RSR). Here is the full changelog for the new driver:

Highlights

- Radeon™ Super Resolution

• New “Sharpen Effect” slider that allows you to fine-tune the sharpness effect of RSR to your own desired settings.

- DirectX® 11 optimizations for Radeon™ RX 6000 series

• Up to 8% increase in performance in DirectX® 11-based games, using AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus the previous software driver version 22.5.1 RS-470
• AMD Smart Access Memory optimizations for Death Stranding™ and Watch Dogs™: Legion
• Up to 10% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Death Stranding™ @ 1440p Very High settings and up to 13% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Watch Dogs™: Legion, using AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.5.1RS-471
• Up to 12% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Death Stranding™ @ 1440p Very High settings and up to 24% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Watch Dogs™: Legion, using AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.5.1RS-472
• Up to 6% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Death Stranding™ @ 1440p Very High settings and up to 6% increase in performance with new SAM optimizations in Watch Dogs™: Legion, using AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.5.1RS-473

Known Issues

• Visual corruption may be seen in-game menus on Age of Empires™ II: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires™ III: Definitive Edition using Radeon™ RX 6000 Series.
• Some textures may flicker during movement in War Thunder™ using Radeon™ RX 6000 Series.
• Foliage corruption may be seen in The Elder Scrolls® Online with ultra pre-set settings using Radeon™ RX 6000 Series.
• Performance drop may be experienced while playing Fortnite™ with Multithreaded Rendering and DirectX® 11 API on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon® RX 6900 XT Graphics.
• GPU utilization may be stuck at 100% in Radeon performance metrics after closing games on some AMD Graphics Products such as Radeon™ 570.
• Display may flicker black during video playback plus gameplay on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon™ RX 6700 XT.
• Using Radeon™ Super Resolution on 2560x1600 resolution displays may produce a system hang. A temporary workaround is to set the display Scaling Mode to Full Panel.
• Enhanced Sync may cause a black screen to occur when enabled on some games and system configurations. Any users who may be experiencing issues with Enhanced Sync enabled should disable it as a temporary workaround.
• Radeon performance metrics and logging features may intermittently report extremely high and incorrect memory clock values.

You can head over to AMD's official webpage here in order to download the new May 2022 Preview driver.

Via: @JirayD