AMD Releases Catalyst 15.10 Beta Drivers

In a manner that appears it may be building momentum, AMD has released another new driver update. As this is a point driver release the changes aren’t immense, but AMD has pushed through some stability fixes along with some other improvements to prep their drivers for some forthcoming game releases. As always these are all welcome news items.

First off there are a few notes on Ashes of the Singularity. Along with providing performance and quality optimizations there is also a fixed issue with a ‘Driver has stopped responding’ error showing up while playing in DirectX 12 mode.  AMD does note however that there still remains issues with the game crashing on some AMD 300 series GPUs and Ashes of the Singularity may fail to launch on some 2GB cards.

For Star Wars: Battlefront high performance graphics can now be used on devices running switchable graphics. AMD is also aware of a small number of users who are experiencing crashes with GTA V on some AMD Radeon R9 390X GPUs. Some changes have been made that should resolve the issue and they will continue to monitor user feedback on the problem.

On the stability front AMD has brought fixes for a couple of TDR errors which caused a crash when toggling between minimized and maximized mode while viewing 4K YouTube content or running the Unreal Engine 4 DirectX benchmark. Additionally playback issues with both MPEG2 and intermittent playback issues in Cyberlink PowerDVD when connected to  a 3D display through HDMI have both been resolved. Lastly there was a problem with driver installation halting on some configurations that is now fixed.

Those interested in reading more or installing the drivers for AMD’s desktop, mobile, and integrated GPUs can find them on AMD’s Catalyst beta download page.

Samsung/NVIDIA Case Update: US ITC Finds Samsung GPUs Non-Infringing

Following a six month lull in the ongoing legal battle between NVIDIA and Samsung over GPU updates, there is finally some new movement on the case. After previously receiving a favorable Markman Hearing outcome back in April, an initial ruling from the ITC has been made.

In last week’s ruling, Judge Thomas Pender has ruled that Samsung and co-defendant Qualcomm are not infringing on two of NVIDIA’s patents. Specifically, the judge ruled that none of the relevant Andreo, PowerVR, or Mali GPUs infringe on NVIDIA’s vertex processing patent (7209140) or their patent on multithreaded execution of programs (7038685).

Meanwhile in the case of a third patent, NVIDIA’s shadow mapping patent (6690372), the judge ruled that all three GPU families infringe on that patent. However at the same time the judge also ruled that the specific claim in the patent that NVIDIA was using in their case was invalid, essentially failing a novelty and prior art test. As a result Samsung/Qualcomm cannot be held liable for violations of an unenforceable patent. Furthermore the judge also ruled that the claim NVIDIA was invoking on the vertex processing patent – though Samsung/Qualcomm’s GPUs did not violate it – was also invalid on the grounds of not being non-obvious.

As a result this means that Samsung and Qualcomm have made it through the initial round of the ITC suit successfully defending themselves on all claims made by NVIDIA. NVIDIA in turn has stated that they will be asking the full 6-member US ITC commission to review the ruling and to confirm whether the shadow mapping patent is valid. Otherwise a final decision from the ITC is expected at some point in the future.

Finally, while the ITC case is winding its way through the works over there, NVIDIA and Samsung’s federal lawsuits against each other still remain. In these suits Samsung is accusing NVIDIA and partner Velocity Micro of violating various patent claims, and NVIDIA is accusing Samsung and supplier Qualcomm of violating various patent claims as well. So although a major step in the ongoing legal battle between Samsung and NVIDIA, it’s likely the various cases involving the two firms will continue for years to come.

Addendum: Last week’s announcement only dealt with three patents, less than half of the number that NVIDIA had in their Markman Hearing. Thanks to some digging by SemiAccurate, we now know what happened to the other four. It turns out that over the summer NVIDIA filed to withdraw the complaints tied to those four patents, and furthermore withdrew some specific complaints regarding specific claims on some of the reamining patents, leading to last week’s ruling on the final three. This is why the ITC ruling is as brief as it is while still covering all of NVIDIA’s outstanding complaints

NVIDIA Releases 358.50 Game Ready Drivers For Star Wars Battlefront

Due for wide release tomorrow is the Star Wars Battlefront Beta, a technical test for the game being run ahead of the game’s full launch in November. As is often the case for major game releases, NVIDIA is pushing out another Game Ready WHQL driver release for Battlefront, this time with version 358.50.

The big news in this release is of course improved support for the Battlefront beta. However as this is also the first driver release from the R358 branch, 358.50 also contains several other improvements. On the API side of matters, R358 adds support for the OpenGL ARB’s previously announced 2015 ARB extensions, as well as support for OpenGL ES 3.2. Furthermore NVIDIA has made some improvements to GameWorks VR, further knocking out bugs and improving VR SLI support.

Meanwhile on the Windows 10 front, this driver release finally resolves the issues utilizing SLI and the NVENC encoder at the same time, meaning ShadowPlay and GameStream now work with SLI setups. Support for stereo rendering under DirectX 12 with an SLI setup has also been added, making this the first time we’ve seen stereo rendering under DirectX 12 addressed. On the other hand Fermi owners hoping to find WDDM 2.0 support in this driver release will be disappointed, as a quick check finds that Fermi cards continue to use the WDDM 1.3 path under Windows 10.

Finally, NVIDIA’s release notes make an unusual mention of “Added controls for forcing the use of the integrated graphics processor or the NVIDIA GPU on Optimus notebooks.” Though at this point we’re a bit unsure why this note is in here since NVIDIA has offered Optimus GPU selection controls for some time now.

As usual, you can grab the drivers for all current desktop and mobile NVIDIA GPUs over at NVIDIA’s driver download page.