AMD Radeon Prepares for Horizon Zero Dawn's PC Launch with RSAE 20.8.1

👤by Tim Harmer Comments 📅05.08.2020 22:08:59



Horizon Zero Dawn finally arrives on PC at the end of the week and AMD are ready with a day-0 driver update for their range of Radeon Graphics hardware. Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.8.1 is the first update of the month and incorporates optimisations for Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition in addition to broader support for the early access test builds of Hyper Scape and Grounded. Plus, it also rectifies for a range of important issues.

Guerrilla's open world title may be the biggest game launch of the month and should look gorgeous with high fidelity textures rendered at or above the 30fps PS4 standard, so a pre-launch driver optimisation pass is especially welcome. With luck it will mean that even the first round of players will have an excellent experience on any flavour of modern Radeon hardware, but that also relies on the skill of developers in porting to PC.

AMD sometimes include performance improvement metrics for their driver updates, and such is the case for Grounded when running on RSAE 20.8.1. Running on the Epic in-game graphics preset their internal tests indicate that the Radeon 5700 XT operates 9% faster than with the 20.7.2 driver; no mean margin, and hopefully reflected down the preset options and AMD's product stack.

Seven fixed issues are specifically highlighted in this driver's release notes, encompassing a range of problems from game specific to detrimental experiences with Radeon Software features. If you have encountered any of those outlined then it would be advisable to update your drivers as a priority.

AMD also identify a dozen issues in need of solving which should be addressed in a coming update.

The Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 20.8.1 is compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and 10, and supports graphics hardware as far back as the HD 7000-series (GCN). Download it at amd.com/en/support or via the Live Update functionality of the Radeon Software desktop app.

Release Notes

Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.8.1 Highlights

Support For

- Hyper Scape™
- Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition for PC
- Grounded™ [RS-338]
-- The Epic preset on the Radeon™ RX 5700 XT offers up to 9% better FPS performance playing Grounded with Radeon™ Software Adrenalin 2020 edition 20.8.1 versus the Radeon™ Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.7.2.

Fixed Issues

- With Radeon FreeSync enabled, task switching to another display or application may intermittently cause the desktop refresh rate to be locked to an arbitrary interval causing stuttering.
- Streaming and recording features are not working or are failing to enable on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products in Windows® 7 system configurations.
- Radeon Software may experience an application crash or hang when waking from sleep after joining the AMD User Experience program.
- DOOM™ Eternal may experience a very dark or dim screen when changing V-Sync settings in game with HDR enabled.
- Hot plugging a powered off HDMI display and then powering on the display, may intermittently cause a system crash or hang.
- Enabling Instant Replay may rarely cause a system hang or TDR on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products.
- Compatibility Advisor may show an “Unable to get requirements” error message when opened. Users will need to perform a factory reset of settings in Radeon Software for this fix to take effect.

Known Issues

- With Radeon FreeSync enabled on Radeon RX 5000 series system configurations, task switching to another display or application may cause the display to flicker for a few moments.
- Brightness flickering may be experienced on some VP9 video content playback through applications or web browsers on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics product system configurations.
- Enhanced Sync may cause a black screen to occur when enabled on some games and system configurations. Any users who may be experiencing issues with Enhanced Sync enabled should disable it as a temporary workaround.
- Performance Metrics Overlay and the Performance Tuning tab incorrectly report higher than expected idle clock speeds on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products. Performance and power consumption are not impacted by this incorrect reporting.
- With HDR enabled, Windows® desktop may experience flickering, and performing a task switch while in a game may cause colors to become washed out or over saturated.
- Audio may experience instability when connected through an Audio Video Receiver via HDMI® on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products
- YouTube playback may become frozen with Microsoft® Edge player and Chrome™ when played on an extended display on some AMD Ryzen™ 7 3000 series and AMD Ryzen™ 4000 series APU system configurations.
- Modifying the HDMI Scaling slider may cause FPS to become locked to 30.
- AMD is investigating isolated reports of intermittent system hangs while exiting system sleep on some AMD Ryzen™ 3000 Series Mobile Processors with Radeon™ Graphics.
- Some games may exhibit stutter intermittently during gameplay on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products.
- AMD will continue to monitor and investigate any new reports of black screen or system hang issues during extended periods of gameplay closely. Users are encouraged to use the new Bug Reporting Tool for any issues they may encounter.

Footnotes

[RS-338], Testing by AMD Performance Labs as of July 28, 2020 using a test system configured with an Intel Core i9-9900K CPU (3.6GHz), 16GB DDR4-3200MHz memory, a Radeon™ RX 5700 XT graphics card and Windows 10 x64 with Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.8.1, and a similarly configured system with Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.7.2, to test driver over driver FPS performance using the game Grounded at 1920x1080 resolution. Performance may vary.

Important Notes

AMD Ryzen™ Mobile Processors with Radeon™ Vega Graphics FAQ for Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition can be found here.

Package Contents

The Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.8.1 installation package contains the following:

- Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.8.1 Driver Version 20.20.01.13 (Windows Driver Store Version 27.20.2001.13001).





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