AMD Releases Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.5.1 WHQL: Official Unified Driver for APUs & dGPUs, with PlayReady 3.0
by Nate Oh on May 23, 2018 7:30 PM EST
Today, AMD released Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.5.1 WHQL, bringing official support for Windows 10 April 2018 Update, as well as official PlayReady 3.0 support for desktop Polaris products. 18.5.1 also happens to succeed last week's Adrenalin Edition Q2 2018 as AMD's fully unified graphics driver across desktop/mobile and integrated/discrete graphics products. Informally speaking, while the Q2 2018 driver package itself supported other graphics products, as an official release only the Raven Ridge APUs were on the compatibility list. As AMD's unified graphics drivers launch periodically, the last two being 18.2.1 and 17.12.1, 18.5.1 finally pulls Raven Ridge APUs into the mainstream branch, though there was no mention on notebook Raven Ridge APUs.
Meanwhile, for "Day 0" driver support for games, AMD cited performance gains in Ancestors Legacy compared to 18.4.1, claiming up to 6% 1080p framerate uplift on the Radeon RX Vega 56 and up to 13% uplift on the RX 580 (8GB).
As for PlayReady 3.0, Microsoft’s video playback DRM solution, 18.5.1 follows up on 18.4.1's beta level support as AMD's promised production-ready WHQL driver, but for the time being, only desktop Radeon RX 400 and 500 series cards are supported. In other words, Netflix 4K/HDR can now be streamed on desktop Polaris cards, though having the appropriate graphics driver and hardware is only a small piece of the Netflix 4K/HDR pre-requisites list:
- Windows 10 Fall Creators Update or later (for HDR or using discrete graphics)
- Windows 10 HEVC Media Extension, or equivalent (if missing due to Fall Creators Update)
- Latest unspecified Windows Updates
- Microsoft Edge or Windows 10 Netflix application
- Netflix plan that supports 4K and HDR streaming
- High or Automatic Streaming Quality in Netflix Account Playback Settings
- Minimum internet connection speed of 25 Mbps
- 60Hz 4K display with HDCP 2.2 capability
- HDCP 2.2 certified cable with 4K capable digital interface
- HDCP 2.2 capable and 4K capable digital interface port on motherboard video-out or discrete GPU
- Supported discrete or integrated GPU (PlayReady 3.0, HDCP 2.2 output)
- Appropriate graphics driver
Wrapping things up, 18.5.1 features the following bugfixes:
- HBCC options may not properly reset to default when Radeon Settings “Restore Factory Defaults” option is selected.
- Destiny 2 may experience increasing load time durations when the game is run for extended periods of time.
- Tearing may be observed in some borderless fullscreen games on Radeon FreeSync enabled displays when Radeon Software performance metrics is enabled.
- Netflix playback through a web browser may experience corruption or hangs when using multi GPU enabled system configurations with Radeon RX 400 series or Radeon RX 500 series graphics products.
- Radeon ReLive streaming or uploading of videos to Facebook may intermittently fail.
18.5.1 WHQL is AMD's latest unified graphics driver and is applicable to desktop, mobile, integrated, and discrete graphics.
The updated drivers for AMD’s desktop, mobile, and integrated GPUs are available through the Radeon Settings tab or online at the AMD driver download page. More information on these updates and further issues can be found in the Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.5.1 release notes.
Related Reading
- Marrying Vega and Zen: The AMD Ryzen 5 2400G and 2200G Review
- Overclocking the AMD Ryzen APUs: Guide and Results
- Delidding the AMD Ryzen 5 2400G APU: How-To Guide and Results
- AMD Launches Ryzen Pro with Vega: Mobile APUs and Desktop APUs
- AMD 18.4.1 Driver Brings Beta PlayReady 3.0 Support for Polaris; Support for Vega GPUs & APUs Still to Come
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Dragonstongue - Wednesday, May 23, 2018 - link
wonder if will ever see the "bug" that has been around in crimson since day 1, that is clock speeds stay higher than they should be as well as higher volts increasing power draw and will not drop back to the lower clock/voltages (minimum clock/voltage) if there was a chrome instance launched for X amount of time, or you were playing a game and completely exit the game back to desktop (should be full idle minimum clock/volts)I think AMD is doing a very good job overall, but one thing they desperately need to fix is power "waste" when the gpu does not "reduce" power/clocks when the extra "speed" is not at all needed.
example, I check my email, no 3d load at all, auto jumps clocks, might reduce back a bit but often enough forces the memory clock to "default" and keeps a "mid" core clock and core volts level...when streaming or playing a game I can understand this, but it seems drivers are not as polished as they should be (this stage of the game) to watch the clock rate/volts up and down constantly when you KNOW they DO NOT need to be doing this.
I think IMO they should invest a bit of $ on a proper "moderator" chip/circuit of sorts with more steps allowed for say 10 clock and self learning voltages..it is funny that VRM designs can use up to something like 18 stage to get the best most stable voltage and reduction in heat as possible, but they have not done so with clock/voltages of what they feed to the cpu/gpu...
at least Ryzen is fairly "fine grained" where it can adjust volts/clocks in 25Mhz increments in under 1ms...they really need to do this with the Radeon drivers and Radeon GPU as well ^.^
(especially for single GPU users..I can understand multi-gpu would be more difficult to do this concept)
Trixanity - Thursday, May 24, 2018 - link
Have you reported it to AMD?Qasar - Thursday, May 24, 2018 - link
and the issue with the APUs and notebooksform AGES ago.. STILL NOT FIXED but now the error says: Radeon settings are currently not available. please try again after connecting AMD graphicssigh.. i guess this will never be fixed.. and this notebook.. is nothing more then something to check email, and read webpages... cant play any games on it like this.......
haplo602 - Thursday, May 24, 2018 - link
So Mobile Ryzen still MIA ... Thank you AMD, THANK YOU !!!Ket_MANIAC - Thursday, May 24, 2018 - link
What are you getting agitated about? The article clearly says unified drivers across desktop/mobile. Read the article before shouting unnecessarily.Trixanity - Thursday, May 24, 2018 - link
He actually read the article correctly. You did not.This driver adds support for desktop Ryzen APU products but not mobile. The article also says no news on notebooks. What you read was that it supports desktop, mobile and integrated but the first two obviously refer to discrete graphics.
Besides, people are complaining on Reddit that this driver package isn't supported on their Ryzen laptops and some are still stuck on launch drivers from October.
haplo602 - Friday, May 25, 2018 - link
Thank you :-) At least the previously announced Q2 2018 Raven Ridge driver works on Ryzen mobile ...awehring - Thursday, May 24, 2018 - link
I still do not get it:Does this driver support PlayReady 3.0 at APUs?
Is it the same driver as Adrenalin Edition Q2 2018?
Trixanity - Thursday, May 24, 2018 - link
No, only RX 400 and 500 series (Polaris). Vega-based graphics will come later.SydneyBlue120d - Thursday, May 24, 2018 - link
Still no 2160p60 VP9 support, right?