New Driver: AMD Catalyst Omega Driver

robl
robl
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Topic 197859

Here is what AMD is saying about this driver:

The AMD Catalyst™ software suite is engineered to unlock new capabilities in AMD APUs and AMD Radeon™ GPUs based on GCN architecture. Download the latest update, the AMD Catalyst™ Omega driver, for enhanced performance, reliability, and energy efficiency – with no extra cost:

Early buyers of an AMD Radeonâ„¢ R9 290X who download and install AMD Catalyst Omega today can realize up to 19% faster gameplay with Civilization: Beyond Earthâ„¢1
Users of AMD’s advanced APUs like the A10 7850K can achieve up to 29% faster gaming performance with Batman: Arkham Origins™2

AMD's most feature-rich driver update

The AMD Catalystâ„¢ Omega driver extracts the true potential of GCN architecture-enabled AMD APUs and GPUs with over 20 new software features for existing hardware

Maximize the use of your Ultra HD monitors and Picture-Perfect UltraHD technology
Built-in UltraHD upsampling with frame rate conversion and HD detail enhancement that will convert 1080p videos to near-UltraHD quality on 4K displays
Pixel-by-pixel image processing with compression artifact removal 2, VAAPI decode, and frame rate conversion for Blu-ray playback
Developer enhancements:
OpenCLâ„¢ 2.0 support to extend app content reach and functionality based on industry standards
TressFX 3.0 for rendering hair or fur onto "skinned" geometries

This is just the beginning

The AMD Catalyst™ Omega driver underwent approximately 65% more automated and 12% more manual test-cases, utilizing 10% more varied system configurations, with 10% more varied screen displays, as well as significant quality enhancements requested during an open call by our most critical users on six of the largest PC communities – all to ensure a user experience as intuitive, reliable, and enjoyable as possible.

Available for both Windows and Linux.

Linux here

Bill592
Bill592
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New Driver: AMD Catalyst Omega Driver

Good Morning Rob !

No Thanks - the drivers from year 2013 work better
on my Radeon 7970. )

Bill

Jeroen
Jeroen
Joined: 25 Nov 05
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I built the new Omega driver

I built the new Omega driver this morning for one of my Linux hosts. For some reason, the new driver is not performing as well with BRP5 as the previous 14.9 driver that I was running. I compiled the old driver again using the same kernel version and performance is back to where it was before.

On a side note, the Omega driver does not support kernel 3.17 like the previous driver. A small patch is still needed to one of the source files to get this driver to compile against kernel 3.17. I have not tried kernel 3.18 yet which was released yesterday.

Jeroen

MAGIC Quantum Mechanic
MAGIC Quantum M...
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Glad I stopped by here first

Glad I stopped by here first (after I saw my AMD email about this)

disturber
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I purchased the Radeon 7970

I purchased the Radeon 7970 card a few days ago and believed that the latest driver is as good as any. Well after I found this thread, I rolled back the driver from 14.12 to version 13.12 for windows 7 64 bit. I had to search for the driver since I could not find any of the older version on the AMD website.

Running 3 x BRP4G tasks on this card reduced the compute time from 60 minutes to 52.8 minutes. I am not sure what the new driver changed to create such a big performance penalty.

Claggy
Claggy
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RE: I rolled back the

Quote:
I rolled back the driver from 14.12 to version 13.12 for windows 7 64 bit. I had to search for the driver since I could not find any of the older version on the AMD website.


You want the ATI Driver Cheat Sheet, As well as matching CAL to APP OpenCL runtimes, it also has links to different drivers, and to Previous Driver Lists, So you can get Cat 14.4 or 14.9 if needed:

ATI Driver Version Cheat Sheet

Claggy

woohoo
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on my win7 single gpu machine

on my win7 single gpu machine i installed omega and there was a quick display driver reset so i set tdrlevel to zero and it's running fine now, if only slighty slower than before.

on my win8 triple gpu setup only one of the three cards will crunch so i went back to the previous beta driver and everything is fine now.

disturber
disturber
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RE: You want the ATI

Quote:


You want the ATI Driver Cheat Sheet, As well as matching CAL to APP OpenCL runtimes, it also has links to different drivers, and to Previous Driver Lists,

Claggy

I don't quite under the list. Is the SDK, OCL and CAL version important? Do they not come with the driver package?

How do I match the matching CAL to APP OpenCL runtimes?

Claggy
Claggy
Joined: 29 Dec 06
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RE: RE: You want the ATI

Quote:
Quote:


You want the ATI Driver Cheat Sheet, As well as matching CAL to APP OpenCL runtimes, it also has links to different drivers, and to Previous Driver Lists,

Claggy

I don't quite under the list. Is the SDK, OCL and CAL version important? Do they not come with the driver package?


Nowadays the Catalyst package does contain all the drivers, Earlier on ATI/AMD was producing drivers with just CAL drivers, and you had to install the SDK to get OpenCL support,
Then they produced drivers that needed an extra OpenCL runtime download, then an Choice of without and with the OpenCL runtime, Now all drivers included the OpenCL runtime,
just like Nvidia's drivers,

Quote:
How do I match the matching CAL to APP OpenCL runtimes?


Einstein's OpenCL apps don't produce much diagnostic info, ie what OpenCL runtime is used, This Cheat Sheet was produced for Setiathome users, there the Seti v7 and Astropulse v6/v7 apps report the OpenCL runtime, while the Host details page reports the CAL version,

The problem with ATI/AMD drivers is the CAL and OpenCL drivers can become mismatched, we see this at Setiathome, hosts with recent CAL driver and an ancient OpenCL runtime,
or with just old CAL and OpenCL runtimes, But mismatched from different SDK versions, either the Seti or Astropulse app doesn't work, or produces rubbish,
Maybe windows update updated the driver in those cases, But not the OpenCL runtime, Or they have upgraded the Catalyst package, then windows reverted the driver at some point.

For example here's a host running CAL driver 1.4.1546, and OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (923.1), the CAL driver is from Cat 11.9, and uses SDK 2.5,
and the OpenCL runtime is from Cat 12.4 and uses SDK 2.7, GPU unsurprisingly produces inconclusive/invalids.

Claggy

Bill592
Bill592
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RE: Nowadays the Catalyst

Quote:


Nowadays the Catalyst package does contain all the drivers, Earlier on ATI/AMD was producing drivers with just CAL drivers, and you had to install the SDK to get OpenCL support,
Then they produced drivers that needed an extra OpenCL runtime download, then an Choice of without and with the OpenCL runtime, Now all drivers included the OpenCL runtime,
just like Nvidia's drivers,

Claggy

Thanks Claggy - that is good info.

Bill

Sasa Jovicic
Sasa Jovicic
Joined: 17 Feb 09
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Hello! My ASUS Matrix 280X

Hello!
My ASUS Matrix 280X Platinum runnig faster with Omega driver. My results were 1 hour 35 minutes with Catalyst 13.12. Omega 14.12, WU is running 1 hour 22 minutes.

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