It's that time of the year again when AMD releases the first of four planned updates for its Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition driver. The latest 19.Q1 driver is available for download as of today from AMD's website.
AMD's Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition driver keeps getting faster with every release, and the chipmaker isn't shy to let everyone know. To prove its point, AMD performed a few internal tests between its own Radeon Pro WX 4100 and the Nvidia Quadro P1000 in SolidWorks 2019. According to AMD's results, the Radeon Pro WX 4100 outperformed the Quadro P1000 by 15 percent, 23 percent, and 46 percent in the RealView, Graphics, and Rendering tests, respectively.
While being faster than the competition is important, it's also interesting to see how the 19.Q1 driver fares against the previous 18.Q1 driver from last year. In terms of year-over-year performance improvements, AMD cites figures in the range of 8 percent for CATIA, 13 percent for Autodesk Maya, 15 percent in Autodesk 3ds Max, 22 percent in SolidWorks, and 33 percent in SPECviewperf 13 Medical-02.
The 19.Q1 comes with the addition of the Radeon Pro Image Boost feature, which helps enhance display outputs. With the feature activated, images are notably crisper and more detailed.
The Day Zero Certification Program, which debuted in the last 18.Q4 driver, has expanded considerably and continues to grow. The 19.Q1 driver brings over 320 Day Zero ISV (independent software vendor) certifications for Radeon Pro graphics cards. The driver from last quarter had up to 40 percent more certifications than Nvidia. The extensive list of applications includes big names, such as 3ds Max, Maya, VRED, and Inventor from Autodesk, SideFX Houdini, Graphisoft ARCHICAD, and Solid Edge, Tecnomatix, and NX from Siemens.
In response to the Virtual Reality (VR) boom, the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 19.Q1 driver supports workstation wireless on standalone VR 6DoF (six-degrees-of-freedom) headsets via AMD's upcoming Radeon Pro ReLive for VR application.
Last but not least, the 19.Q1 driver also delivers a minor update to AMD Remote Workstation. Starting with this driver revision, the Remote Workstation technology supports application virtualization using the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops software. However, it's only compatible with the AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100, WX 5100, WX 7100, WX 8200, and WX 9100 models.
Fixed lssues
The following issues have been fixed with the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 19.Q1 driver.
- Some color corruption seen in Adobe Premiere Pro with 10 bit pixel format has been fixed.
- Issues experienced with launching Radeon Pro Settings after driver install have been fixed.
- Issues regarding corrupt flashing corruption with Adobe Photoshop have been fixed.
- Issues observed with video playback with 10 bit pixel format have been fixed.
- No AMD graphics driver is installed" Error Pop on Switching from Gaming Mode to Professional Mode has been fixed.
Known lssues
The following issues are known to exist with the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 19.Q1 driver.
- Applications using DOPP may experience some issues with Display Overlap enabled.
- Some rendering issues may be observed in a multi-display scenario with VMware while hot plugging displays.
- Users may encounter issues when creating compute intensive explosions with previous generation AMD FirePro products in Houdini.
