AMD has finally paid attention to older Radeon RX 6000 Series cards with the new Adrenalin 23.2.1 driver offering multiple bug fixes and game performance improvements ranging from three to 19 per cent.
Software Adrenalin 23.2.1 adds support for Dead Space alongside a number of Vulkan extensions, pre-filter toggle, pre-analysis feature, and CAML technology for streamers, plus better connectivity with AMD Link. As usual, a bunch of bugs got ironed out, from which we note; poor performance in SpaceEngine and Fortnite, game crashes in Baldur’s Gate 3, and stuttering in Sea of Thieves. AMD has also indicated that it’s working with Hogwarts Legacy’s developer to resolve performance issues caused by enabling ray tracing.
Gamers moving from Adrenalin 22.11.2 to 23.2.1 on AMD’s Radeon RX 6950 XT graphics card should get up to a four per cent uplift in Hogwarts Legacy, nine per cent in DOOM Eternal, and 19 per cent in F1 2022 – the full list can be found below. Moreover, those who are still using the year-old Adrenalin 21.10.1 drivers can see up to 10 per cent improvements in Cyberpunk 2077, 13 per cent in God of War, and 27 per cent in F1 2022, to name a few. These optimisations are also to be seen in other Radeon products, but maybe to a lesser extent.
Content creators aren’t left aside either and should benefit from quality enhancements plus optimisations when streaming and encoding using H.264 or H.265. Not to forget, AV1 encoding, which is now supported on Radeon 7900 series GPUs.
The full list of changes can be found below.
Highlights
- Support for:
- Forspoken
- Up to 7% increase in performance for Forspoken @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-524
- Dead Space
- IREE compiler using MLIR interface on Vulkan.
- Additional Vulkan® extensions. Click here for more information.
- Forspoken
- Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs now have support for newly introduced streaming capabilities including pre-filter toggle, pre-analysis feature and CAML technology.
- A new version of AMD Link improves overall connectivity across all supported Radeon products, RX 400 series and newer, so you can game from anywhere on virtually any device.
- Boost your performance with AMD Software – read the latest blog here and learn how this newly unified driver delivers performance gains since Windows 11 first launched.
- Game optimisations
- Up to 4% increase in performance for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-518
- Up to 3% increase in performance for Sniper Elite 5 @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-519
- Up to 6% increase in performance for Shadow of the Tomb Raider @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-520
- Up to 7% increase in performance for Quake II RTX @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-521
- Up to 4% increase in performance for Hitman 3 @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-522
- Up to 6% increase in performance for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-523
- Up to 19% increase in performance for F1 2022 @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-525
- Up to 9% increase in performance for DOOM Eternal @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-526
- Up to 4% increase in performance for Borderlands 3 @ 4k, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT GPU, versus the previous software driver version 22.11.2 RS-527
- Up to 4% increase in performance for Hogwarts Legacy @ 4K using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 on the Radeon 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) RS-530
Fixed issues
- AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition may fail to launch with the error message “Delayed Write Failed” on Microsoft® Windows® 11 version 22H2.
- Poor performance and load time may be observed while playing SpaceEngine.
- Corruption may be observed while scrolling the points shop in STEAM on Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs.
- Performance drop may be observed during Fortnite and YouTube playback with Enhanced Sync enabled on some AMD Graphics Products such as AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT.
- Corruption or game crash may be observed while playing Door Kickers 2.
- Missing or flickering textures may be observed while playing Emergency 4.
- Application crash may be observed when launching Baldur’s Gate 3 using Vulkan® API on Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.
- Stuttering may be observed while playing Sea of Thieves on Radeon RX 6000 and above series GPUs.
- Corruption may be observed while playing Battlefield 4 with Post Process Quality settings set to high or ultra on Radeon RX 6000 and above series GPUs.
- White foliage may be observed while playing Hogwarts Legacy on Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.
- Intermittent system stuttering or UI flickering may occur when two videos are simultaneously playing using chromium-based browsers on some multi-display configurations.
Known issues
- High idle power has situationally been observed when using select high-resolution and high refresh rate displays on Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.
- Video stuttering or performance drop may be observed during gameplay plus video playback with some extended display configurations on Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.
- Application crash may be observed while opening Premium Gold Packs in EA SPORTS FIFA 23.
- Some virtual reality games or apps may experience lower-than-expected performance on Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.
- AMD Bug Report Tool pop-up or system hang may be observed after driver upgrade on some hybrid graphics notebooks. Users are recommended to use the factory reset install option as a workaround.
- Corruption may be briefly observed when moving Netflix video between displays or minimize-to-fullscreen on some AMD Products such as AMD Ryzen 7 6800U.
- Certain videos played with Movies and TV may briefly show corruption when moving the window between displays on some AMD Graphics Products such as AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT.
- Brief display corruption may occur when switching between video and game windows on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon RX 6700 XT.
- Maximum encode bitrate is limited to 100Mbps for certain applications.
Important notes
- AMD Link users running Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs will need to update to a newer version of AMD Link now available on various platforms.
- AMD is working with the game developers of Hogwarts Legacy to resolve performance issues when enabling ray tracing.
