AMD Radeon Software Crimson, Catalyst Control Panel Compared

[kcarbotte]

AMD just launched Radeon Software Crimson publicly and made some bold claims about the user interface, performance and power efficiency of the new driver suite. Let’s see if the driver suite lives up to the claims.

AMD Radeon Software Crimson, Catalyst Control Panel Compared : Read more

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I think it's pretty simple on why it loads so fast - because it's already loaded into the RAM initially when Windows boots, so it loads it from the RAM instead of the HDD.

 

[red77star]

It is pretty clear that this software is also .NET based which is just garbage. I didn't have chance to play with this because it fails to install...gets stuck at 2% and lot of people are reporting that issue. Some people wait and it takes up to whole hour to finish install. Overall another garbage release.

 

[dabooga]

"We presently don’t have any matching GPUs from AMD’s current lineup to test Crossfire performance"
Come on

 

[clonazepam]

It is pretty clear that this software is also .NET based which is just garbage. I didn't have chance to play with this because it fails to install...gets stuck at 2% and lot of people are reporting that issue. Some people wait and it takes up to whole hour to finish install. Overall another garbage release.

Thanks for the head's up. I'll wait and install it this weekend or even later. At least it supports all the latest in social media. Thought that was cute for a driver.

 

[getochkn]

It is pretty clear that this software is also .NET based which is just garbage. I didn't have chance to play with this because it fails to install...gets stuck at 2% and lot of people are reporting that issue. Some people wait and it takes up to whole hour to finish install. Overall another garbage release.

Wrong.

The biggest change with these drivers is the ouster of the quirky .NET-driven Catalyst Control Center app AMD is replacing with a slick new Qt-designed Radeon Settings app that streamlines the controls and options that help you get the most out of your displays and Radeon hardware. Aesthetically, the minimalist design is now firmly seated in the Windows 10 era, away from the 2005-ish design of the previous app. Beyond the design lies a highly usable user interface that puts everything relevant together in the right place, close at hand.

 

[kcarbotte]

"We presently don’t have any matching GPUs from AMD’s current lineup to test Crossfire performance"
Come on

I'm not exactly sure what you expect, but we have not been given two samples of any one GPU, even from different vendors, from the 300 or Fury series cards.

When we do have hardware on hand to test these features you can expect to see a follow up, but I can't make graphics cards appear out of thin air.

 

[kcarbotte]

It is pretty clear that this software is also .NET based which is just garbage. I didn't have chance to play with this because it fails to install...gets stuck at 2% and lot of people are reporting that issue. Some people wait and it takes up to whole hour to finish install. Overall another garbage release.

Radeon Software Crimson is 100% not .net based.
If you are having trouble installing the new driver I suggest using a driver cleaner utility. AMD actually released its own utility for that purpose.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMD-Clean-Uninstall-Utility.aspx

 

[beegmouse]

I think this article highlights how out of touch Tom's can be. When the most mainstream hardware is unavailable to them and yet the Top end GPUs are fully reviewed and tested. And on hand to benchmark a software update Aimed at improving APUs and Dual Graphics.

 

[getochkn]

I think this article highlights how out of touch Tom's can be. When the most mainstream hardware is unavailable to them and yet the Top end GPUs are fully reviewed and tested. And on hand to benchmark a software update Aimed at improving APUs and Dual Graphics.

Not everyone at Tom's is in the same place. There is offices all over the place and many people work from home, etc. Also, consider the drivers just came out yesterday. Setting up tests means setting up bench systems, updates, game installs, multiple tests, swapping item, fresh installs, This was a quick first look. Don't like it, go buy 100 GPU's and do your own review.

 

[kcarbotte]

I think this article highlights how out of touch Tom's can be. When the most mainstream hardware is unavailable to them and yet the Top end GPUs are fully reviewed and tested. And on hand to benchmark a software update Aimed at improving APUs and Dual Graphics.

As a GPU reviewer I don't have a mobile APU on hand. We don't work out of central offices where I can just walk down the hall and ask to borrow a laptop from the laptop reviewer. We work in satelite locations, and the hardware we have on hand can sometimes be limited.

Mainstream hardware isn't unavailable. I have one sample of each GPU (except for the 380x which hasn't arrived yet) up to the R9 390X. All of our Fiji samples are in Germany.
Most of the features for this driver are actually designed for the Fury line and the higher end 300 series hence the test done with the 390X and according to the documentation AMD provided, desktop APUs have not seen any improvements, the features for APUs are specific to the mobile FX 8800p and A10 8700p chips.

 

[XaveT]

It looks like one thing is still quite the same between the two: You don't have the option to install the driver and not the "driver and software". You also always get the "install manager".

Is it a pipe dream to want to not have to hack apart the installer to just get the drivers?

 

[IntelDiesel]

Public. Give some slack to the writers/testers.

I bet alot of time/work was involved in getting this article out there.

This world is so impatient and nitpicky these days.

 

[gbair]

Seems like it works better than GeForce Experience. That thing takes over 15 seconds to fully load after click on my laptop and only slightly faster on my desktop. Still, I wish both would have the option for a minimal install, drivers only sans fluff software.

 

[erendofe]

runs my HD 7850 great. no install issues either. I would suggest to peeps having install issues to check their OS's for bloat, trash or even malware (assuming you haven't) these are common reasons for ANY install to fail. the gripe posted here that others are having I've seen before, alot. Many times its been something installed in the OS, or a bad uninstall.

 

[majorlag]

It looks like one thing is still quite the same between the two: You don't have the option to install the driver and not the "driver and software". You also always get the "install manager".

Is it a pipe dream to want to not have to hack apart the installer to just get the drivers?

Have not tested this version, but with all Catalyst drivers before, when you run the installer, it extracts to a folder, then close out the installer. Inside this folder in a subfolder there is just the driver folder. In Windows device manager, you can select update driver and point to the extracted folder, default of c:\amd and it will install just the driver, and nothing else. But you don't have access to advanced features to control without the software.

 

[XaveT]

It looks like one thing is still quite the same between the two: You don't have the option to install the driver and not the "driver and software". You also always get the "install manager".

Is it a pipe dream to want to not have to hack apart the installer to just get the drivers?

Have not tested this version, but with all Catalyst drivers before, when you run the installer, it extracts to a folder, then close out the installer. Inside this folder in a subfolder there is just the driver folder. In Windows device manager, you can select update driver and point to the extracted folder, default of c:\amd and it will install just the driver, and nothing else. But you don't have access to advanced features to control without the software.

Thanks for the response, this is somewhat close to what I've been doing for years. You can also use a program like 7zip, open the exe, and extract just the parts you need and script it up. My point is I shouldn't have to do this to make a clean install. On my business machines, we simply do not need the catalyst control panel (bloat and more things for users to click and mess up). We needed more than 3 monitors per workstation though, so we bought "gaming" cards. I'm perfectly happy with my 5870 (5 years old) and its 6 miniDP ports.

I suppose the good news is I don't have to update the install script anymore since there will be no further changes to older drivers.

 

[Math Geek]

you can always do a manual driver install through device manager like always. i never install the control panels and such as i don't use them. see a few folks asking for this option.

true there is not a way to install just the driver with the exe file but the manual install is always an option.....

 

[getochkn]

The software loads in under 2s and takes 9.2mb RAM running in the background. No reason to not run it, there is options in there and the game optimization, etc.

 

[red77star]

Radeon Software Crimson is .NET 4.5 based and GTFO if you think differently cause I know better with 30 years of programming and being professional .NET developer. Secondly Software fails to install by being stuck at 2% or 19% on clean install system. AMD uninstall utility does remove old drivers but it doesn't fix a problem. Btw who the f. needs social networking with the drivers...for God sake these are just drivers.

 

[rakadedo]

It looks like one thing is still quite the same between the two: You don't have the option to install the driver and not the "driver and software". You also always get the "install manager".

Is it a pipe dream to want to not have to hack apart the installer to just get the drivers?

They have this. Go to the driver download page and right beneath the full software suite is a 12.3mb download option called AMD Minimal Setup.

 

[Ryguy64]

When I tried to install, it said it was complete. I couldn't find Crimson anything afterward though. It happened to remove CCC, but there was nothing in its place. I tried a few times. I finally had to put CCC back on. Maybe it's because I have a HD 6870?

 

[lithium451]

Once they work the bugs out of this maybe they could finally spend some time creating a functional help/support system.

This has always been a deficiency with ATI, but it got markedly worse when AMD took over.

 

[youssef 2010]

It is pretty clear that this software is also .NET based which is just garbage. I didn't have chance to play with this because it fails to install...gets stuck at 2% and lot of people are reporting that issue. Some people wait and it takes up to whole hour to finish install. Overall another garbage release.

Radeon Software Crimson is 100% not .net based.
If you are having trouble installing the new driver I suggest using a driver cleaner utility. AMD actually released its own utility for that purpose.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMD-Clean-Uninstall-Utility.aspx

Thank you so much for that link. It's invaluable to me

 

[bloodroses75]

As others have said, it is Qt based, not .net based. from an official AMD site:

https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2015/11/19/introducing-radeon-software-crimson-edition

"Radeon Settings has been built ground up in Qt (Qt is a software development framework with modular cross-platform libraries and tools) resulting in 10x faster start up1, and 3X Faster6 initialization of the display than with the AMD Catalyst™ driver."

I'm sure their other reasoning is to use the same language for all their platforms since the Linux and OSX drivers are already in Qt.

In regards to it getting stuck at 2% during the install, there are quite a few people who have had issues with it. The most common solution I had read was to disable your antivirus during the install if this problem arises. AVG seemed to be a common culprit. Luckily I did not have this issue while testing Panda, so I cannot say first hand if that is truely the problem. I hope this helps with install issues.