AMD Unveils Powerful New Catalyst 15.7 Driver for Intuitive Windows(R) 10 Experience Across AMD APU and GPU Solutions

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Significant Performance Optimizations and Innovative Features Enable Premium User Experience

SUNNYVALE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/08/15 -- AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced its new AMD Catalyst™ 15.7 Driver update delivering seamless and intuitive support for Windows® 10 and the DirectX® 12 API, and is a primary ingredient for users to get the most out of their AMD APU and GPU solutions.

The AMD Catalyst 15.7 driver is a foundational driver that will help enrich the user experience through more reliable performance, innovative features and technologies. The AMD Catalyst™ driver will be fully integrated with Microsoft® Windows 10 as part of the Windows driver update component.

AMD APUs and Radeon™ GPUs running Windows® 10 will be able to deliver a highly advanced entertainment experience by making games and streaming video look better than ever; making the PC experience more personal, more productive and seamless across devices.
A comprehensive set of key AMD enabled features include:

  • Ability to stream content at the highest resolutions (4K and beyond) thanks to hardware-based HEVC decoder1
  • Activating Microsoft® DirectX® 12 and AMD's Freesync™ Technology will help make your games look great on your AMD-based PC running Windows® 10
  • Responsive resume times powered by AMD and Windows® 10 let you spend less time waiting and more time doing because your PC wakes up from sleep quickly.
  • Window Display Driver Model (WDDM) 2.0 works with Windows® 10 to reduce the driver workload on graphics hardware. Display modes can be changed quickly and without the bothersome flicker that Windows users had to endure in the past.

The launch of the AMD Catalyst 15.7 driver provides significant feature updates to enhance the end user experience, including:

  • Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC) enables fine-tuning your graphics card for more stable and consistent performance in games with real-time frame rate control limiting the maximum frame rate during gameplay -- and delivers the benefits of reduced system/GPU power consumption, lower system temps, and lower fan speeds for quieter operation.
    • Now supporting AMD Radeon™ R7 260 and above GPUS
  • Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) provides image quality enhancement to gamers and Windows desktop users (renders at high resolution then down-scales; giving effective Super Sample Anti-Aliasing):
    • Now supporting AMD Radeon™ R7 260 and above GPUS, as well as desktop A-Series 7400K and above APUS with Single and Multi-GPU configurations with more supported VSR modes!
  • AMD FreeSync™ Technology eliminates screen tearing without lag and latency. And now it works in Crossfire™ mode! You just need a FreeSync capable AMD component and a FreeSync compatible monitor. The full list of announced monitors can he found here.

"We are thrilled to deliver our latest driver upgrade, making customer experiences with Windows® 10 and AMD even more entertaining and intuitive than ever," said Ari Rauch, corporate VP, Software Development for AMD. "The AMD Catalyst 15.7 driver enables a refined user experience, with better gaming, better streaming and video quality, and incredible efficiency, taking AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) state-of-the-art architecture to the next level."

"We are very excited about what AMD is bringing to gaming with the new capabilities in the latest AMD Catalyst Driver," said Kam VedBrat, principal group program manager, Microsoft Corp. "With full support for DirectX 12 and WDDM 2.0 in this latest AMD Catalyst driver for AMD APU and Radeon Graphics processors, customers can benefit from improved multithreaded scaling and CPU utilization; reduced GPU overhead; and ultimately richer, smoother, more compelling games."

To learn more about end user benefits and the AMD Catalyst 15.7 driver's support for Windows® 10 and Direct 12, visit AMD's Drivers and Support page.

Supporting Resources

  • Learn more about Catalyst 15.7 Here
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About AMD
AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) designs and integrates technology that powers millions of intelligent devices, including personal computers, tablets, game consoles and cloud servers that define the new era of surround computing. AMD solutions enable people everywhere to realize the full potential of their favorite devices and applications to push the boundaries of what is possible. For more information, visit www.amd.com.

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Catalyst, FreeSync and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. DirectX, Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the US and other jurisdictions. Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Footnotes:

1 HEVC is only available on 6th Generation AMD A-Series APUs, and AMD Radeon™ R9 FuryX GPUs

Source: Advanced Micro Devices

Released July 8, 2015