AMD Radeon Software Crimson: A new name and a new look for Catalyst

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

AMD Radeon Software Crimson: A new name and a new look for Catalyst

AMD promises monthly updates (hooray!); more details about driver changes still to come.

AMD is taking the fight directly to Nvidia with the long-overdue launch of a new driver software package and UI. Called Radeon Software Crimson, the new software replaces the old AMD Catalyst Control Center (CCC) with a flat modern UI and simplified menus. Most importantly, AMD is promising that a new major version of the software will be released every year, with minor versions arriving every month. Each new major version will have a different, colour-themed name. The software is due to roll out later this year.

Crimson has been developed in QT, a cross-platform application framework that AMD says is much quicker than the old .NET framework CCC used to use. The company claims that start-up time has been reduced from eight seconds to 0.6 seconds on a mid-performance AMD E-350-based laptop; high-end desktops will be even faster. Crimson is the first in a number of software changes that AMD is implementing following the restructuring of its graphics group into the Radeon Technologies Group under the leadership of Raja Koduri.

For now, AMD is only talking about the UI changes in Crimson, which is dramatically different from the old CCC. (More will be revealed about underlying driver changes at a later date, but AMD was vague about when that might be.) The new flat design features five tabs at the top for Gaming, Video, Display, Eyefinity, and System, while the buttons at the bottom cover Updates, Preferences, and Notifications. In the middle, taking up the lion's share of the window, there's a carousel that displays announcements and promotions about games when not being used to display settings.

Crimson offers up much of the same settings as CCC, but it makes them easier to find. Under the Gaming tab you will find the new Game Manager, which allows you to tweak graphics settings globally or on a per-game basis. This includes anti-aliasing modes, tessellation modes, and frame rate target control (which sets a frame rate cap at the hardware level). There's also the new option to enable Overdrive settings (overclocking) on a per-game basis. The Overdrive UI has been given a tweak, making it much easier to understand and use.

Recommended game settings are missing from the Game Manager; instead, they will continue to live in the separate Gaming Evolved Raptr application. "For this version we haven't done the optimised recommended settings yet, but it's on my roadmap," AMD's senior manager of software strategy Terry Makedon told Ars. "We have their expertise and we're letting them run with it. At some point I would like to bring that functionality into Crimson somehow and find what the recommended settings are. The problem that I have with that app right now is that the recommended settings are based on crowd-sourcing, and that assumes that majority is always right, and that's not always the case."

Other Crimson features include a much simplified video tab for enabling and disabling AMD's video filters; per-display settings for FreeSync and Virtual Super Resolution; and an Eyefinity setup wizard that will predict what's plugged in where with one click. Finally, there's a system information tab that shows CPU, memory, OS, and GPU stats.

While Crimson hasn't yet been released, the initial screenshots look promising. The flatter UI with easier-to-find settings is a welcome change from the busy UI of CCC, and it even makes Nvidia's Control Panel and GeForce Experience look dated by comparison. The UI is just one part of the equation, though. The under-the-bonnet changes to the driver itself are just as important, if not more so. We're looking forward to testing and benchmarking those low-level changes when AMD eventually gets around to releasing them.

In the mean time, let's start the colour guessing game for future versions: Radeon Software Burgundy? Razzmatazz? Drakes-neck?

Source: http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2015/11/amd-radeon-software-crimson-a-new-name-and-a-new-look-for-catalyst/

[DeusProto]

" flat modern UI and simplified menus."

I'll pass. I don't want a dumbed down successor to CCC that has less advanced options. Probably won't be able to adjust the overscan setting, R,G,B balance, and many other things in this new crapified version. 

[MDboyz]

" flat modern UI and simplified menus."

I'll pass. I don't want a dumbed down successor to CCC that has less advanced options. Probably won't be able to adjust the overscan setting, R,G,B balance, and many other things in this new crapified version. 

Really? Did you try the new software yet? 

[spaceelf]

I can't say I dislike CCC but if they can shrink the download size I'm all for it.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Good move, AMD needs to take its driver software more seriously if it's to take back some market share from Nvidia. Myth or not, drivers are the main factor usually mentioned against AMD graphics cards. The dated look of CCC and slow release cycle doesn't help with public perception.

[FunkyMike]

Good move, AMD needs to take its driver software more seriously if it's to take back some market share from Nvidia. Myth or not, drivers are the main factor usually mentioned against AMD graphics cards. The dated look of CCC and slow release cycle doesn't help with public perception.

It is also very buggy. CCC / Mum generate way too many errors if you start logging their activity. Also a lot of bugs for mobility devices which prevent some users from using their dGPUs properly.

From what I have read they will be using QT instead of .Net. Am not sure if they will rewrite all the backend for CCC. It is a huge undertaking. 

[hagjohn]

Downloaded it this morning. Looks good so far.

[HoochieMamma]

Best driver I have used. Installed correctly without any black screens/freezing. Flawless game play with FO4, I'm happy with this release which is very rare.

[Atlantico]

Wow, Crimson is amazing. Clean UI, stable drivers, startup is instant even on a mechanical HD. This is pretty incredible, AMD suddenly makes amazing software and drivers. 10/10

[FunkyMike]

Wow, Crimson is amazing. Clean UI, stable drivers, startup is instant even on a mechanical HD. This is pretty incredible, AMD suddenly makes amazing software and drivers. 10/10

It is mostly a new UI. They are still bundling the old CCC interface with the driverl

In cnext go to Advanced Settings this will give you more functions via CCClite.

Looks like they weren't able to port all the harder functional to QT yet.

[spaceelf]

I like it well enough for a start, though it does need work.  The tooltips on the video options seem lacking, and the demo mode toggle does approximately nothing.

Framerate control going to all games is a win (formerly it didn't work for dx9 games.)

[FunkyMike]

AMD has at least 7 "Follow AMD" buttons next to each other in this new cnext / Radeon Software.

Seems like they are quite desperate for media attention. 

[Atlantico]

 

It is mostly a new UI. They are still bundling the old CCC interface with the driverl

In cnext go to Advanced Settings this will give you more functions via CCClite.

Looks like they weren't able to port all the harder functional to QT yet.

No, it's partially a new UI and also a new major driver release with a whole lot of improvements, speed improvements, feature improvements etc. The settings that could not be put in the new UI are still there in a backup CCC UI.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9811/amd-crimson-driver-overview

[FunkyMike]

The kernel hasn't drastically changed since the 15.11.1 Beta. This kernel has been proven and tested over the last beta versions.

Most people don't realise how much CCC handles in conjunction with the driver.

PS.

Anyone whos device is now considered legacy. i.e. HD 5xxx HD 6xxx HD 7xxx and HD 8xxx (non GCN) we will be modding future drivers from AMD to support these cards with our signed UnifL releases if at all possible.

[Lamp0]

hey... how come i didn't get this new software when I updated? I still have the old Catalyst Control Center. I have a AMD Radeon HD 7700M which is on the compatibility list.

[Boo Berry]

I'd recommend downloading the Crimson driver off AMD's site, then uninstalling the Catalyst drivers (preferably using Display Driver Uninstaller) then clean installing the Crimson drivers.

[hagjohn]

Note: CCC is bundled in with the new drivers, I'm assuming, so you can still change the settings that haven't been moved over to crimson yet.

[Boo Berry]

5 minutes ago, hagjohn said:

Note: CCC is bundled in with the new drivers, I'm assuming, so you can still change the settings that haven't been moved over to crimson yet.

 

Indeed. Unless you're on Linux, which you're still stuck with the same old AMDCCCLE control panel.

[FunkyMike]

Watch out guys. There are some reports that these drivers can cause your Fan to only run on 20% resulting in a fried GPU.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/3ua7xj/psa_crimson_will_lock_your_fan_speed_when/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/3ulemo/the_new_drivers_bug_where_the_fans_dont_work/

 

There are now also several mobility reports of higher temperatures.

 

Personally it seems like there is indeed some issue with the Fan control with this driver. It does seem to be stuck at a certain level if whilst running graphics intensive tasks.

 

 

 

[Lamp0]

1 hour ago, Boo Berry said:

I'd recommend downloading the Crimson driver off AMD's site, then uninstalling the Catalyst drivers (preferably using Display Driver Uninstaller) then clean installing the Crimson drivers.

yep, downloaded the new drivers manually(not using autodetect) and now it worked. Thanks!

[Boo Berry]

35 minutes ago, FunkyMike said:

Watch out guys. There are some reports that these drivers can cause your Fan to only run on 20% resulting in a fried GPU.

 

Ouch, that's not good. So it looks like Afterburner may or may not override it anymore, that sucks for AMD users.

[FunkyMike]

1 minute ago, Boo Berry said:

 

Ouch, that's not good. So it looks like Afterburner may or may not override it anymore, that sucks for AMD users.

 

Confirmed! Watch out people!

 

 

 

 

 

[Boo Berry]

Well at least they're pushing out a hotfix!

 

Careful guys!

[JustGeorge]

Which GPUs are affected?

[FunkyMike]

10 minutes ago, AR556 said:

Which GPUs are affected?

 

 

All sorts of cards it seems:

 

Quote

 

 AMD Radeon HD 7970

 R9 290s (2 died using this new driver)

290X

 

Radeon HD6770M

ATI 6850m

 

 

Just the ones I saw reports from. Probably a whole lot more if you check reddit.