AMD has published a new driver release specifically supporting the brand spanking new Radeon RX 480 graphics card. AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.6.2 is available now and you can read through the full release notes here. As with any new software release, AMD has sought to deliver new features, better performance and stability improvements, so let's have a look at what improvements come with this driver.
It's worth repeating that if you have got/ordered a new Radeon RX 480 you probably should try out this new driver due to its official support. The Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.6.2 includes Radeon WattMan – but you will only see this utility on cards in the Radeon RX 400 Series, otherwise you will get the old AMD Overdrive tab for OC tweaks.
Other feature highlights present in this new driver are as follows:
- AMD Crossfire Toggle: A new option has been introduced into Radeon Settings under the "Gaming -> Global Settings" tab. This allows users to toggle AMD Crossfire support globally "on" for supported games or "off" for all gaming profiles.
- HDMI Scaling: Radeon Settings now provides the option for the user to adjust their display image scaling on HDMI connected displays. This option is available under the "Display" tab in Radeon Settings for supported configurations.​
- Display Colour Temperature: Radeon Settings now allows a user to set display colour temperature based on either the displays predefined settings or manually via a slider configured to support the displays supported range. This option is available under the "Display" tab in Radeon Settings for supported configurations.
- Desktop Colour: Radeon Settings has added the option to launch the operating systems colour page via the new "Desktop Colour" button which is available in the "Display" tab in Radeon Settings for supported configurations.
- Vulkan Version: Currently installed Vulkan version information has now been made available through the Radeon Settings "System -> Software" tab.
AMD has provided a new Crossfire profile for the popular World of Tanks. Furthermore, there's lots of Crossfire fixes present in the new driver release. Crossfire flickering problems have been fixed in; Hitman, Heroes of the Storm, Elite Dangerous, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and in Star Wars Battlefront. One other issue has been fixed, this time for Netflix users, where intermittent or minor white flashing may occur on some web browsers while poking around the Netflix page UI.
As usual there's a number of known issues published that AMD is still working on. As you would expect, several relate to Crossfire and to the new RX 480 card. You can read more about the known issues in the driver release notes. If you follow that link and scroll half way down the page you can download the new driver, for the version of Windows you are running, directly.
