Introducing the new AMD Catalyst Omega Driver @ [H]

its funny people debate without trying for themselves. Its like what are you really debating. I'll keep being content with my 3200 x 1800 on a 60inch plasma. Maybe not 4k, but much better quality then my 1080p. Image quality on blu ray movies is undeniable. So try it or don't.
 
its funny people debate without trying for themselves. Its like what are you really debating. I'll keep being content with my 3200 x 1800 on a 60inch plasma. Maybe not 4k, but much better quality then my 1080p. Image quality on blu ray movies is undeniable. So try it or don't.
What? Bluray is 1080 so running your screen at 3200x1800 does not change that. :confused:
 
its funny people debate without trying for themselves. Its like what are you really debating. I'll keep being content with my 3200 x 1800 on a 60inch plasma. Maybe not 4k, but much better quality then my 1080p. Image quality on blu ray movies is undeniable. So try it or don't.

And now your making assumptions about whether or not we have tried using it?? Come on dude. I am, in fact, using the feature, I enjoy having more real estate on my desktop as well as the minor bump in image quality in my gaming. However, I am not disillusioned into thinking that I now have 4k or that I am even reaching the quality and detail that a true 4k monitor with 4k content can give me. It's physically impossible for that to happen. There are physical, real world, directly in front of you as you read this structures that you could touch if you disassemble your TV that make it impossible.
 
I assumed you used it (seeing your sig) , but most pc gamers game on small monitors, which I would see no benefit using VSR their, because then how would you see the text and everything would be to small.
When I use my friends small monitor or monitor at work, I feel like I have to sit so close to the screen to see. VSR big benefit is for people with 1080p big tvs/monitors.

There is no 4k content around to view. Im viewing all the things my eyes are use to. Im noticing a tremendous difference. I can touch my 60 inch screen, im at arms length. I would think using a 4k tv viewing the non 4k content will look similar to this VSR tech. But I cant say because I haven't tried a 4k tv yet.

Come early next year, I will get a 65 or 70 inch 4k screen. Then I won't have to worry about having lesser image quality. Gaming on a 70" 4k at arms length, gamers dream come true. This coming from a pc gamer that gamed on a 3 x 51 in samsung plasmas, eyefinity. Didn't take long for me to realize I like 1 big monitor in front of my face.
 
I've tried DSR briefly. There may be some mild benefits beyond supersampling depending on how you tune it, but night and day it is not. It's just another option of many. I see absolutely no benefit to watching movies with it, and in fact, I think it's an awful idea. There are no benefits to oversampling fixed-resolution video and downsampling that I'm aware of or that could exist, at least when we're talking about something entirely in the digital domain.
 
these drivers are running fine for me so far.

ace of spades and rome 2 are both behaving flawlessly.
 
Personally I think VSR sucks.

why do you ask? because in order for me to use it in games. I have to set my desktop resolution to a non native resolution or a fake 3800x1800 resolution. Yes it gives the appearance of having more screen real estate, but it makes the desktop picture quality go to shit. To me this is just pointless. I rather run at 1080p or my monitors native resolution on the desktop, and then use the actual VSR in a game, not for my desktop. 1440p was better the desktop was still usable, but still not my cup of tea.

I dunno, I don't really like the fact I have to set my desktop resolution to that crap just to play the game at that resolution. Maybe they will fix that. (apparently you can set non desktop resolution in games)
you cannot in dota 2 though, but only if you run in full screen and not borderless window.
 
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Personally I think VSR sucks.

why do you ask? because in order for me to use it in games. I have to set my desktop resolution to a non native resolution or a fake 3800x1800 resolution. Yes it gives the appearance of having more screen real estate, but it makes the desktop picture quality go to shit. To me this is just pointless. I rather run at 1080p or my monitors native resolution on the desktop, and then use the actual VSR in a game, not for my desktop. 1440p was better the desktop was still usable, but still not my cup of tea.

I dunno, I don't really like the fact I have to set my desktop resolution to that crap just to play the game at that resolution. Maybe they will fix that.

That's odd, I don't have to change my desktop res to a VSR setting to use it in-game, maybe an installation bug for one of us.
 
That's odd, I don't have to change my desktop res to a VSR setting to use it in-game, maybe an installation bug for one of us.

to be fair I only checked one game, which was dota 2, and the option wasn't there in that game, I will check others.

Edit: just checked Beyond Earth, i can select higher res there. Ok false alarm haha. sorry

Any game you run in borderless window cannot use VSR, must be set to full screen.
 
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my experience with VSR is that it seems to render some textures more clearly than 1080 (compared in DA:I) but it still needs at least 2xAA to deal with jaggies, so I can make use of VSR in older games like Path of Exile or CSGO but needing 2xAA is too much of a performance hit in DA:I

my experience with the Desktop scaling is that having access to being able to force a higher desktop resolution is nice but blurry. so my Desktop res is still 1080 although if someone is willing to tolerate the blurriness, there is a ton of added screen space while using a higher resolution
 
to be fair I only checked one game, which was dota 2, and the option wasn't there in that game, I will check others.

Edit: just checked Beyond Earth, i can select higher res there. Ok false alarm haha. sorry

Any game you run in borderless window cannot use VSR, must be set to full screen.

Haha, the only game I've played with VSR is DOTA 2 but I play in fullscreen. Oh wait, I've also done Beyond Earth...didn't have a particular preference on VSR in that game.

my experience with VSR is that it seems to render some textures more clearly than 1080 (compared in DA:I) but it still needs at least 2xAA to deal with jaggies, so I can make use of VSR in older games like Path of Exile or CSGO but needing 2xAA is too much of a performance hit in DA:I

my experience with the Desktop scaling is that having access to being able to force a higher desktop resolution is nice but blurry. so my Desktop res is still 1080 although if someone is willing to tolerate the blurriness, there is a ton of added screen space while using a higher resolution
That's my understood advantage of supersampling (Which is basically what VSR is), is that you get higher quality textures but, it's still rendering polygons and displaying them on a grid of pixels, there's no way to get rid of aliasing completely unless we redesign these structures. Though, I'm just an armchair engineer, there could be (are) lots of holes in my knowledge but I think that's the basic premise.
 
to be fair I only checked one game, which was dota 2, and the option wasn't there in that game, I will check others.

Edit: just checked Beyond Earth, i can select higher res there. Ok false alarm haha. sorry

Any game you run in borderless window cannot use VSR, must be set to full screen.

Windowed and borderless windowed the same rules apply to them both that you can not run a higher resolution than the current desktop, you can run a lower than current desktop resolution but not a higher, some games will still give you the higher than current desktop Windowed and borderless windowed option in the menu but all you will actually get is the current desktop resolution, so you have to have the desktop in that higher resolution first and thats down to windows and not VSR.

The fact is most dont run there desktops below max native resolution so would not know that the Windowed and borderless resolution windowed rules differ to full screen.
Set a below native resolution in desktop start the game in full screen which would be native resolution and see what happens if you then try to run native resolution Windowed and borderless windowed mode.

I just tested out Dota 2 and BF4 in borderless windowed at 3200x1800 on a 1080p screen no problem.
 
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Windowed and borderless windowed the same rules apply to them both that you can not run a higher resolution than the current desktop, you can run a lower than current desktop resolution but not a higher, some games will still give you the higher than current desktop Windowed and borderless windowed option in the menu but all you will actually get is the current desktop resolution, so you have to have the desktop in that higher resolution first and thats down to windows and not VSR.

The fact is most dont run there desktops below max native resolution so would not know that the Windowed and borderless resolution windowed rules differ to full screen.
Set a below native resolution in desktop start the game in full screen which would be native resolution and see what happens if you then try to run native resolution Windowed and borderless windowed mode.

I just tested out Dota 2 and BF4 in borderless windowed at 3200x1800 on a 1080p screen no problem.

you can run at 3200x1800 in borderless window only if you change your desktop resolution to 3200x1800.

I already mentioned this above.....
 
but if you have VSR enabled, your desktop is really 1080p, its just downsampled.
 
you can run at 3200x1800 in borderless window only if you change your desktop resolution to 3200x1800.

I already mentioned this above.....

So i dont understand your problem except for the fact that your desktop must already be in 3200x1800 which is not the fault of VSR.
 
the problem is

I don't want to run 3200x1800 desktop resolution to play a game in 3200x1800 borderless window. I don't want to play in full screen mode to get around this.

I want to run at 1080p, and still be able to play at 3200x1800 bordless window.

It may not be VSR's fault its just annoying is all. 3200x1800 desktop resolution is not usable on a 23" monitor, even if its down sampled resolution. I guess its the same problem that 4k monitors have with the UI scaling.
 
the problem is

I don't want to run 3200x1800 desktop resolution to play a game in 3200x1800 borderless window. I don't want to play in full screen mode to get around this.

I want to run at 1080p, and still be able to play at 3200x1800 bordless window.

It may not be VSR's fault its just annoying is all. 3200x1800 desktop resolution is not usable on a 23" monitor, even if its down sampled resolution. I guess its the same problem that 4k monitors have with the UI scaling.

Its a small price to pay to go to the tray and right click and set desktop area just before gaming to get better results than the monitor was designed for in borderless window mode.
You could even make Hotkeys to do it back and forth.
 
the problem is

I don't want to run 3200x1800 desktop resolution to play a game in 3200x1800 borderless window. I don't want to play in full screen mode to get around this.

I want to run at 1080p, and still be able to play at 3200x1800 bordless window.

It may not be VSR's fault its just annoying is all. 3200x1800 desktop resolution is not usable on a 23" monitor, even if its down sampled resolution. I guess its the same problem that 4k monitors have with the UI scaling.

I'm curious, what about the borderless window experience do you prefer? (not criticizing, legitimately curious).

I've tried it a few times, and didn't much care for the experience. As long as a game can alt-tab well, I much prefer the full screen experience.
 
Hmm...


The ONE user I have found who has posted about trying PLP with an R9 285, is apparently not able to get it working, based on his posts here and here.

I'm hoping this is just a one user issue. I am really looking forward to a working PLP setup.

I wish one of the major hardware review sites would test the PLP functionality so we know for sure!
 
Yeah i read that already and i hope its just user error because i really want that feature.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041298709 said:
I'm curious, what about the borderless window experience do you prefer? (not criticizing, legitimately curious).

I've tried it a few times, and didn't much care for the experience. As long as a game can alt-tab well, I much prefer the full screen experience.

I have a 3x1 monitor setup. I have programs and other things I use while playing games. Instead of having to alt tab to control those windows and such, I can do so with out alt tabbing in borderless window.

Since I stream a lot, it is esp helpful for taking with my viewers, and changing playlists and stuff.
 
I have a 3x1 monitor setup. I have programs and other things I use while playing games. Instead of having to alt tab to control those windows and such, I can do so with out alt tabbing in borderless window.

Since I stream a lot, it is esp helpful for taking with my viewers, and changing playlists and stuff.

Ahh. Ok.

Don't you ever have issues with accidentally dragging the mouse outside the window during a game, and thus losing control?

I also hate the "death by background window stealing focus". :p
 
Zarathustra[H];1041298850 said:
Ahh. Ok.

Don't you ever have issues with accidentally dragging the mouse outside the window during a game, and thus losing control?

I also hate the "death by background window stealing focus". :p

no not really. You get used to it.

However death by background stealing focus happens all the time. ESP on Sundays where I am watching football on the TV and playing.
 
I generally play in windowed borderless if I can and the game allows it so I can move between my two monitors seamlessly, however, after this driver update, omega drivers or whatever, the cursor seems to get stuck quite a bit going from one monitor to another. Never used to happen before, and my video card isn't even modern, but now my cursor gets stuck on the edge of one monitor or the other all the time now. I'm upgrading soon, so hopefully that will help.
 
I'm using the 14.11.2 Beta drivers at current and Omega looks like a nice update, especially as I have a 290X. Couple of questions..

I've heard conflicting reports about using the in-line upgrade function. I'm on Win7 x64, with the 14.11.2 Beta driver complete suite installed. Its giving me the option to upgrade to 14.12 Omega through the automatic download/update/run etc... but I've heard that while it may "appear" to work, installing a release channel driver atop an earlier Beta driver won't actually update the files? Is this accurate? Do I have to completely uninstall the beta drivers first? I've really enjoyed how AMD's driver update seems to work, both the in-line update monitor/downloader, plus the fact you can just install atop (normally) older versions and it will just update components as needed. Will this not work in this particular case, going from a beta to a release channel on Win7 x64?

Also, I know someone who currently owns an AMD 270X 4gb which has been working pretty well for them. Will the Omega drivers (or a future update) bring some of the new features to the GCN 1.0 chipsets? I'm thinking of getting them another (used) 270X 4gb for the holiday, in order to provide an inexpensive upgrade to their GPU power. These drivers seem to be bettering the CrossFireX performance, so perhaps it will be a worthwhile and cost effective upgrade.

Any ideas? Thanks
 
They had the wrong OS file version attached to the auto update. But it was only an issue for win 8.1 users.

I believe its been fixed however.

If it gives you grief, just use DDU and instal by hand
 
Zarathustra[H];1041298725 said:
Hmm...


The ONE user I have found who has posted about trying PLP with an R9 285, is apparently not able to get it working, based on his posts here and here.

I'm hoping this is just a one user issue. I am really looking forward to a working PLP setup.

I wish one of the major hardware review sites would test the PLP functionality so we know for sure!

Also hoping that it really is just a user error. Been waiting for PLP support since Eyefinity was introduced.
Now IF 3xx series support that, I will not even look at what Nvidia has to offer if they don't bring the same support.

4960x1600p PLP Eyefinity and couple 3xx series cards in CF :D

AMD: hurry up with the 3xx series...
 
Ok, some of you, listen up:

There is absolutely no benefit on a 1080p display, in upscaling a 1080p blu-ray to somethign higher, like 4K. And then downscaling it back to your 1080p screen's output capability of 1920x1080 physical pixels.

Upscaling does not add detail, or bitrate. Upscaling is a process to try and make a video source somewhat maintain it's integrity, when stretched over a bunch of extra pixels, on a display which is higher resolution than the source video.

On a 1080p screen, if you upscale 1080p video, you are doing nothing but subjecting the video to unnecessary processing. It is very likely you will end up with more aliasing and moire issues, than the video source originally has. There's a reason why TVs started offering 1:1 pixel modes, a few years ago.

The difference you might actually be percieving as an improvement, is a juiced color profile inherent to the upscaling method. Upscalers often boost color saturation, sharpness, etc. so that the end upscaled image looks more like it should, when stretched across more pixels, on a higher resolution display. When you then downscale that back to the original 1080p, it may look like your color is better or your image is sharper. If you like juiced colors or juiced sharpness: Instead of putting your video source through scaling hell which can result in artifacts: just bump color saturation and or sharpness in your GPU driver or in your video playback software, or in your TV's picture controls.

Games are different, because you can actually render them at higher resolutions and gain geometric detail, lessen aliasing, and if the assets are there: better texture quality. Here, we aren't talking about upscaling the video source. We are talking about natively rendering the game engine at a higher resolution.

HOWEVER, downscaling games from a higher internal resolution is not nearly as amazing as it might seem, Based on all the attention it has been getting. The possibility of extra shader and texture detail is pretty small. For many games, you would be hard pressed to notice the difference, without paying close attention to screenshot comparisons.

There are definite benefits in combating aliasing. Especially since many game engines have a difficult time fully utilizing AA techniques, due to deferred rendering and tons of post processing. But, it takes a ton of extra GPU power, to get these benefits and still have a playable game. and in the end, these possible benefits to aliasing are not proportionally worth fretting over spending hundreds to get that GPU power. If you can't downscale from double your monitor's resolution: you are better off saving the performance and using a post process AA technique, such as SMAA.
 
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ye i know, was just hoping some love from AMD =D for old users... i've had 7950, 7970, 7970GHZ and 280X..



Installed these drivers just over 14.9 for testing purposes without unistall previous, without DDU, without nothing, just install restart and done.. so far no issues with the same games i've tested before update.. anyway it will require a lot of more testing...

I want those updates also for the 7000 series also. Need more performance with my 7990s :). There's always room for improvement. 280x is our leech line for more updates for us 7xxx users ;)
 
Yeah i read that already and i hope its just user error because i really want that feature.

Also hoping that it really is just a user error. Been waiting for PLP support since Eyefinity was introduced.
Now IF 3xx series support that, I will not even look at what Nvidia has to offer if they don't bring the same support.

4960x1600p PLP Eyefinity and couple 3xx series cards in CF :D

AMD: hurry up with the 3xx series...


So they have an official response from Club 3D over at WSGF:

imusrt said:
Paul responded at Club 3D forum with valuable insight & I am pleased with their support. It appears to in no way be Club 3D's fault, meaning there is no R9 285 card which currently supports Eyefinity mixed rotation. Paul thinks it is AMD's driver at fault. He expects that at some point the driver will be corrected. In the meantime, all R9 285 cards are broken. I personally have no faith left in this card & am unwilling to wait for its potential future correction. But PLP is now certain to be supported through Eyefinity sometime in the near future, on some card with some driver. It has been publicly promised by AMD.

I am happy Club 3D took it seriously & is checking into it. They have good support. But it is ridiculous that AMD would make claims before the technology is actually in place. No support from Omega driver. AMD is a great company, but their optimistic marketing practice is in question.

Paul's main response:
"We have tested here internally the support for PLP and indeed the latest OMEGA driver is not providing support for this setup. ...We are currently in contact with our engineers and also with AMD to verify these results."

Paul's reason:
"...hardware and software developments are not always in sync when a product is introduced in the market, the Rotated Eyefinity support was announced recently by the AMD team with the introduction of the OMEGA driver and we have little influence on what AMD features will implement."

I will post here any further useful responses from all complaint locations.

So it looks like the intent is it is supposed to work, but the Omega driver implementation is apparently currently broken.

WSGF is following this, and says they will post updates here.
 
So this driver makes my pc reboot randomly while browsing on chrome. Tried to uninstall this driver and yeah, I can't? Looked like I had done an install, tried to rollback the drivers, got an error that said failed to detect system specs? Then rebooted and the Omegas were somehow back despite me not reinstalling them???????

Edit: Failed to load detection driver. Going to re-DL the previous driver again. Mine must be corrupted. I did just update DDU and got the omega to uninstall at least.

Edit 2: Nope. Failed to load detect driver error again...............

Edit 3: Had to do a sys restore. I must have installed that MS update. I thought I had not done so but it appears that I must have.

Running 14.11.2 atm. Going to wait for the nest release just in case it was the Omega.
 
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I can't get silverlight in amazon instant video to work, since the omega driver install. anyone else have this issue? I have xfire 290.
 
I figured AMD would drag out the omega driver for a long time, But I am kind of glad, It scares me each time they come out with a new driver after you finally get a stable one, Because they are notorious for putting old code back in drivers that cause artifacts. I swear they must have the laziest driver coders. I might end up buying the 970 instead of the R9 290 this spring, Because for some reason they also raised the price back up on the 290, It was $279 now it is back up to $300. And I might as well pay the $30-$40 more for the GPU with more power and more stable drivers, But if they lower the price back to $279 I will get the 290.
 
So, uhh, I was told the last beta of the Omega drivers (Nov 2014, I think) was the same package but without the downsamping, etc, features as the official release. I was reading up on AC:U and couldn't figure out why my numbers were so low.

I took the jump into the official Omega drivers and gained about 50% extra FPS. Now I feel like an idiot for not upgrading sooner.
 
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