AMD released its latest WHQL-certified driver that adds support for two highly-anticipated titles, a UI redesign, and much more. It might also be the last major update of the year as 2023 draws to a close. Let’s dig in!
AMD Adrenaline Edition 23.12.1 adds last minute support for Ubisoft’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, just in time for its worldwide release on December 7. Also, the game is still bundled with select AMD Ryzen processors, and Team Red’s best graphics cards until December 30. Now is good a time as any to consider that long-awaited upgrade.
The highly-anticipated title takes place in James Cameron’s Avatar universe, and is a canon experience developed by Massive Entertainment. You assume the role of a Na’vi soldier trained by humans who lead a resistance against the RDA. Gameplay is undoubtedly inspired by Ubisoft’s Far Cry series. Instead of a real world-inspired setting, however, players get to experience the magical world of Pandora.
Moving swiftly on, Embark Studios’ team-based, arena FPS also gets a shoutout in the cliff notes. The Finals may not be out yet, but its first open beta was quite popular with you gamers. We’ve not heard much from the developer since testing ended on November 7. We’re hoping this AMD add-on support means the free-to-play title might release sooner than we expected. At the very least, another beta test would be awesome. Fingers crossed!
UI Redesign
The next major feature is the introduction of AMD HYPR-RX Eco. It’s a one click solution that enables a suite of AMD features designed to save power. The feature was previously exclusive to the AMD preview driver and it works quite well. Of note, the UI redesign is also ripped from this preview driver. It intuitively moves the HYPR-RX profiles alongside the Quality, Default, and Custom profiles situated just below the Graphics tab. This allows you to easily switch without having to dig through settings and you can apply it individually per game, or on a global scale. Subtle and effective.
Other than that, there are a list of fixed and known issues thrown in the mix for good measure.
AFMF (AMD Fluid Motion Frames) is still missing from the current mainstream driver update. It personally seems stable to me over the past month, but still struggles when frame rates dip below 60fps, leading to some choppy latency performance. That, and any metrics overlay outside of AMD Adrenaline Software does not work at all. Perhaps AMD is working behind the scenes to remove, or improve the latency issue. At best, we’ll probably have to wait for Q1 2024 for a mainstream release.
Do note that AMD has temporarily disabled the factory reset feature because of some isolated installation issues. It suggests you use AMD Cleanup instead, especially if you have the AMD preview driver installed. For your convenience, you can find the full release notes, here. As always feel free to download AMD Adrenalin Edition 23.12.1 driver via the link provided.
