AMD today released the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.4.2 driver with improved support for World War Z and Anno 1800.
Adrenalin Edition 19.4.2 is said to offer a performance boost for World War Z of up to 19 percent on the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card and up to 24 percent on the AMD Radeon VII. The actual improvements will vary from PC to PC, of course, but AMD's figures at least offer an estimate for how much better the 19.4.2 driver performs in the title compared to its predecessor. The company didn't offer an estimated improvement for Anno 1800.
Improved support for World War Z and Anno 1800 follows the general trend of graphics companies releasing drivers for the latest titles. Both games debuted today, so it makes sense for AMD to make sure its graphics cards offer the best performance at launch. One can't shoot their way through hordes of zombies (World War Z) or build the greatest city imaginable (Anno 1800) if they're managing frame drops and weird graphical glitches.
Nvidia recently expanded this concept outside gaming with the introduction of its Creator Ready Driver program. That initiative sees the company optimizing its drivers for tools creative professionals use, whether it's by offering better performance for existing programs or improving support for major updates. It would be interesting to see AMD do the same. Gamers simply aren't the only people buying high-end GPUs anymore.
Unfortunately the Adrenalin Edition 19.4.2 release isn't limited to in-game performance improvements. AMD also warned of the following issues:
- AMD Radeon VII users may experience screen flicker in multi-monitor setups on desktop or while applications are running.
- The Netflix Windows Store application may exhibit display flicker during video playback on some HDR-enabled monitors.
- Performance metrics overlay and Radeon WattMan gauges may experience inaccurate fluctuating readings on AMD Radeon VII.
- Performance metrics overlay may experience intermittent flicker when playing back protected content with this feature enabled.
- Users of the Asus TUF Gaming FX504 gaming laptop may experience system instability when a wireless display is connected.
Whether or not those potential issues outweigh the performance gains in World War Z and Anno 1800 will vary from person to person. For those who are willing to risk it, the driver can be downloaded here: Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.4.2 Driver for Windows 10 64-bit and Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.4.2 Driver for Windows 7 64-bit. AMD also has more information about the driver available on its website.
