AMD Releases Adrenalin 18.1.1 Driver To Address DirectX 9 Issues

By Leon Chan
published

AMD released a new version of the Radeon driver--Adrenalin 18.1.1. The headline of this driver release is probably the fix for crashing DX9 games, an incident which began with Adrenalin 17.12.1. AMD very quickly released an alpha hotfix to address the issue after it was discovered, but the fix is coming officially in this driver.

Slight issues with multi-GPU setups in StarCraft II and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds have also been fixed. Beyond that, there aren’t any more games-related fixes in this release.

Among the other fixes include two relating to FreeSync. An issue preventing Enhanced Sync from working on games running on the Vulkan API and stuttering experienced when using the Radeon Overlay, a new feature introduced in the first version of Adrenalin, on FreeSync displays have been fixed. There are also three fixes for video playback, reducing the scenarios causing black screens and freezes.

The full patch notes are below:

Resolved IssuesA small number of DirectX 9 games may experience crashes or instability.Radeon FreeSync enabled system configurations may experience stuttering when using the performance metricsfeature in Radeon Overlay.Protected video content may intermittently experience a freeze or hang during playback.A blank screen may be experienced while playing back videos when using Movies & TV player.StarCraft II may experience corruption in multi GPU enabled system configurations.Bezel compensation controls when creating display groups may be misaligned or have no functionality.Blank videos may be experienced when playing back videos in edge browser after the system resumes from sleep.Color corruption may intermittently be observed in Radeon overlay with multiple gaming applications andperformance metrics running.The Radeon WattMan fan slider may intermittently fail to change after loading profiles.Enhanced Sync may not enable for game profiles in Radeon Settings when using Vulkan API.On multi GPU enabled system configurations PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds may experience menu item flickering.CLINFO may report incorrect values in multi GPU system configurations.

The Adrenalin 18.1.1 driver will be available via AMD’s website later today.

Leon Chan
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Clamyboy74
    Nice to see that they listen to the community
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    Why does this site make absolutely no mention of the extreme shortage and massive price hikes for graphics cards that have been going on in recent weeks? All mid to high-end GPUs in stock are priced around double what they were selling for last month, and in some cases around three times their launch price. Even the lower-end cards have substantially increased in price.

    Tom's Hardware did the same thing last summer, when AMD cards skyrocketed in price, and they acted like the situation didn't exist for a month or so, until the shortage started significantly affecting Nvidia prices as well. Now, just as prices seemed to be recovering, the shortage suddenly takes off to new levels and becomes far worse than ever, and there's no mention of it here for weeks. It doesn't make much sense for someone to build a mid-range gaming system now unless they want to get ripped off for hundreds of dollars over list price. And that's not even getting into the ever-growing RAM prices and the not yet fully determined performance impact of the Spectre and Meltdown patches on various CPUs.

    I've come to the conclusion that they probably don't want to scare off system builders from visiting their site, with any news that might imply that it's not a good time to be building or upgrading a gaming PC.
    Reply
  • captaincharisma
    still, radon drivers were never old game friendly. i could never get a game of max Payne running right with my HD7770
    Reply
  • Burstaholic
    "Protected video content may intermittently experience a freeze or hang during playback."

    This actually caused the whole computer to freeze, making it impossible to do anything else while DRM-ed video was playing, like Netflix. Incredibly frustrating, glad it's fixed.
    Reply
  • Neuspeed
    So typical for AMD to fix a few things, but break others in the process. MSI after burner no longer works with new drivers, memory controller usage is not reported correctly, multi-GPU (4+) makes driver very unstable and settings applet crashes often.
    Reply
  • ghryst
    my system is still just crashing, screen goes green (no GSOD messages) and computer fails to respond.. today the screen has begun flickering black, and no games are playing.. netflix is open in the background, so if thats the problem, they obviiously still havent sorted that one out.
    im a long time AMD fan, i loved it for years because of thier highly reliable hardware..traditionally much more reliable than nvidia.. now im starting to rethink that opinion
    Reply
  • ghryst
    - by "and no games are playing", i mean they not active programs right now, they do play quite well when i try :D in fact, gaming seems to be the only activity where a system crash does not occur .. im not even getting event logs after a crash, only a "system did not shut down properly" report which is generated on reboot
    Reply