


Download AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta driver

The AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta driver is notable release for us for a couple reasons:

Mantle is now enabled for notebooks based on AMD Enduro technology

Mixed-resolution AMD Eyefinity configurations are now supported for SLS

Performance improvements for Watch Dogs

Performance improvements for Murdered: Soul Suspect

Please read: Windows 8.1 is supported with this Beta driver whilst Windows 8 is not.

Starting with AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta, AMD will no longer support Windows 8.0 (and the WDDM 1.2 driver)

(and the WDDM 1.2 driver) Users should upgrade (for Free) to Windows 8.1 to take advantage of the new features found in the AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta

AMD Catalyst 14.4 will remain available for users who wish to remain on Windows 8

A future AMD Catalyst release will allow for the WDDM 1.1 (Windows 7 driver) to be installed under Windows 8.0 for those users unable to upgrade to Windows 8.1

Watch Dogs:

AMD Radeon R9 290X - 1920x1080 4xMSAA – improves up to 25%

AMD Radeon R9 290X - 2560x1600 4xMSAA – improves up to 28%

AMD Radeon R9 290X CrossFire configuration (3840x2160 Ultra settings, MSAA = 4X) - 92% scaling

Murdered: Soul Suspect:

AMD Radeon R9 290X – 2560x1600 4xMSAA – improves up to 16%

AMD Radeon R9 290X CrossFire configuration (3840x2160 Ultra settings, MSAA = 4X) - 93% scaling

AMD Eyefinity Verbesserungen:

Mixed Resolution Support

A new architecture providing brand new capabilities

Display groups can be created with monitors of different resolution (including difference sizes and shapes)

Users have a choice of how surface is created over the display group

Fill – legacy mode, best for identical monitors

Fit – create the Eyefinity surface using best available rectangular area with attached displays.

Expand – create a virtual Eyefinity surface using desktops as viewports onto the surface.

Eyefinity Display Alignment

Enables control over alignment between adjacent monitors

One-Click Setup

Driver detects layout of extended desktops

Can create Eyefinity display group using this layout in one click!

New user controls for video color and display settings





Greater control over Video Color Management:

Controls have been expanded from a single slider for controlling Boost and Hue to per color axis

Color depth control for Digital Flat Panels (available on supported HDMI and DP displays)

Allows users to select different color depths per resolution and display

AMD Mantle enhancements

Mantle now supports AMD Mobile products with Enduro technologyEnables support for Multi-GPU configurations with Thief (requires the latest Thief update).

Battlefield 4: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1366x768; high settings) – 21% gain

Thief: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1920x1080; high settings) – 14% gain

Star Swarm: AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1920x1080; medium settings) – 274% gain

AMD AM1 JPEG decoding acceleration