AMD and Nvidia released day-one graphics drivers for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, with each company piggybacking other features, fixes and functionality with the update for their respective GPUs.
AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.6.1
In addition to a day-one driver for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, AMD’s Radeon Software Crimson Edition update features support for Paragon, which is available now with an Early Access Season and quickly approaching its open beta launch. The new software also features a Crossfire profile for Dark Souls III.
AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.6.1 also fixes several nagging issues. Flickering that appeared when watching videos in web browsers, playing Fallout 4 in Crossfire, and using the Oculus Rift when multiple displays are connected with different resolutions has been eliminated. AMD Crossfire mode options in Radeon Settings will now properly take effect on Origin or Uplay applications, and HDMI scaling options will no longer be missing when the display is set to an interlaced resolution. In addition, the driver improves performance in DiRT Rally on some tracks that were hindering performance with rain and night scenes.
The list of known issues appears to be mostly caused by use-case scenarios. Forza Motorsport 6: Apex may flicker when using AMD FreeSync technology (so don’t do that); Battlefield 4 can crash when using Mantle (so use DirectX); using Quad AMD Crossfire can cause The Division to hang (so don’t do that); and a few game titles may fail to launch or can crash if the AMD Gaming Evolved overlay is enabled (so again, don’t do that).
Other problems, including shimmering textures in Doom and Frame Rate Target control profiles not working on some games, have less obvious fixes, and AMD continues to work in improve its drivers with every release.
Nvidia Game-Ready Driver 368.39
Nvidia released its own game-ready update for Mirror’s Edge that features a unique option for GTX 1080 and 1070 GPUs for the new game that the company calls “Hyper settings.” DICE claimed it was able to dramatically increase environmental details and improve almost every aspect of performance, including shadow, lighting and reflection quality, visual effects, motion blur and Resolution Scale’s down sampling by making full use of the GPU and its 8 GB framebuffer. This could just be snake oil (or just a simple preset with a fancy new name), but we’d be interested to put these new Hyper settings to the test to see the difference in workload and graphics fidelity on a GTX 1080.
The new driver also marks the debut of official support for the GTX 1070 (which hits the market this Friday), in addition to being game-ready for Edge of Nowhere, an Oculus-exclusive VR title from the creators of Ratchet and Clank.
AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.6.1 is available now in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Nvidia's Game ready 368.39 driver is available now from the company’s website, or you can update using GeForce Experience.
Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.
