GPUs

NVIDIA Releases 378.92 WHQL Driver: Mass Effect and Dolby Vision for Games
  • Comments are Closed

NVIDIA Releases 378.92 WHQL Driver: Mass Effect and Dolby Vision for Games

This week in a relatively brief driver update, NVIDIA has released their Game Ready driver for the newly released Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Following with the 378 branch, 378.92 adds official Game Ready support for the game. This includes the usual driver optimizations as well as an SLI profile for EA’s soon-to-be blockbuster game. Alongside Mass Effect, we are also getting game ready support for Rock Band VR, and updated SLI profiles for Dead Rising 4 and Deus Ex: Breach.

However buried in this driver release is a second noteworthy and interesting feature addition: NVIDIA is also enabling Dolby Vision support for games. Dolby’s competing HDR transport standard is arguably a higher fidelity standard than HDR10 thanks to aspects such as its 12bpc color modes, however its proprietary nature has limited its adoption versus HDR10. And while we’re still early in the days of HDR PC monitors – the first HDR10 monitors don’t even ship until later this month – Dolby Vision hasn’t been on the PC monitor roadmap at all.

In any case, the addition of Dolby Vision appears to be aimed at use with TVs, where high-end models do offer Dolby Vision support. So for those users out there who own the necessary TV, an NVIDIA card, and Mass Effect: Andromeda (the sole Dolby Vision-enabled PC game), they should be in for a treat.

Anyone interested can download the updated drivers through GeForce Experience or on the NVIDIA driver download page. More information on this update and further issues can be found in the 378.92 release notes.

AMD Releases Radeon Software ReLive Crimson Edition 17.3.2
  • Comments are Closed

AMD Releases Radeon Software ReLive Crimson Edition 17.3.2

Continuing their momentum in update frequency, we have another driver release form AMD. This latest update is a minor “point update” for the month, and it includes only two fixes and game support. However, that game is the highly anticipated Mass Effect: Andromeda.

In our short list of fixes today, we have a fix for texture corruption from The Division seen while running DX12, and an oddly specific fix for texture flickering and black screens found in For Honor when performing task switching in 4-way CrossFire system configurations. AMD’s last driver update was only Monday of last week, so I expect more of that lengthy “Known Issues” list to move its way up in due time.

Likely more important for many, support for Mass Effect: Andromeda comes bundled in with this update as well. AMD is claiming performance gains of up to 12% on a Radeon RX 480 with an i7-6700K and 8GB of DDR4-2666 when compared with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive edition 17.3.1 (the footnote claims that rise is from 53.7 to 60.1 FPS). Meanwhile in addition to officially supporting Mass Effect, and likely contributing to any performance gains, AMD has added an Optimized Tessellation Profile for the game.

As always, those interested in reading more or installing the updated hotfix drivers for AMD’s desktop, mobile, and integrated GPUs can find them either under the driver update section in Radeon Settings or on AMDs Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition download page.

AMD Releases Radeon Software ReLive Crimson Edition 17.3.2
  • Comments are Closed

AMD Releases Radeon Software ReLive Crimson Edition 17.3.2

Continuing their momentum in update frequency, we have another driver release form AMD. This latest update is a minor “point update” for the month, and it includes only two fixes and game support. However, that game is the highly anticipated Mass Effect: Andromeda.

In our short list of fixes today, we have a fix for texture corruption from The Division seen while running DX12, and an oddly specific fix for texture flickering and black screens found in For Honor when performing task switching in 4-way CrossFire system configurations. AMD’s last driver update was only Monday of last week, so I expect more of that lengthy “Known Issues” list to move its way up in due time.

Likely more important for many, support for Mass Effect: Andromeda comes bundled in with this update as well. AMD is claiming performance gains of up to 12% on a Radeon RX 480 with an i7-6700K and 8GB of DDR4-2666 when compared with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive edition 17.3.1 (the footnote claims that rise is from 53.7 to 60.1 FPS). Meanwhile in addition to officially supporting Mass Effect, and likely contributing to any performance gains, AMD has added an Optimized Tessellation Profile for the game.

As always, those interested in reading more or installing the updated hotfix drivers for AMD’s desktop, mobile, and integrated GPUs can find them either under the driver update section in Radeon Settings or on AMDs Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition download page.