The above slide is for only one title, Minecraft, however these are some huge features for positive. So we determined to place AMD’s brand-new 22.7.1 driver immediately up towards the 22.3.1 driver from March on its current-generation Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU. We examined video games in DirectX 11 and OpenGL to test the efficiency features, and we additionally in contrast it towards Vulkan outcomes, in addition to testing one DirectX 12 title simply to test for features or regressions there.
The entire exams have been completed on a take a look at bench with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU, 32GB of low-latency DDR4-3600 reminiscence, and AMD’s personal Radeon RX 6800 XT card. All driver settings have been left at their defaults and we didn’t regulate any Home windows settings, both. Which means the Balanced energy profile, Recreation Mode was left on, and AMD SmartAccess Reminiscence was enabled.
So, with out additional ado, let’s dive into the benchmarks, lets?
3DMark Hearth Strike Benchmark
Okay, this is not a recreation. In actual fact, we anticipated no change on this benchmark as a result of AMD has absolutely optimized it within the excessive, proper? We examined each the unique Hearth Strike benchmark, which runs in 1920×1080, in addition to the extra punishing Hearth Strike Extremely benchmark that runs in 3840×2160, 4 occasions the decision.
The features are small, to make sure—however they’re actual and constant. Like with the entire remainder of our benchmarks, we ran every take a look at thrice, after which took the center of the three outcomes. This prevents our outcomes from being outliers, and ensures that they need to be a minimum of moderately consultant.
The 3DMark outcomes trace at an fascinating sample. The brand new driver does enhance GPU efficiency ever so barely on this benchmark, however it additionally raises the normally-very-consistent Physics rating. This rating is mainly Hearth Strike‘s “CPU” rating, and the brand new driver bettering that appears to imply that the Radeon card is best in a position to make use of our Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s horsepower.
Closing Fantasy XIV Endwalker Benchmark
Certainly one of our favourite issues about Closing Fantasy XIV is that Sq.-Enix continues to launch new character creator and benchmark instruments with every growth. The up to date benchmarks are supposed to raised characterize the calls for of the content material within the newest growth.
Now, FFXIV is an older recreation, and so our beastly Radeon card has no hassle in any respect pushing it to phenomenal body charges operating in full 4K UHD with maxed-out settings. We do see a small and constant acquire in efficiency with the brand new driver, however it’s very small certainly. We did not test body occasions on this benchmark, however we would not be shocked to seek out that it is a smoothness acquire.
Nevertheless, the FFXIV benchmarks are literally a succession of smaller scenes performed in sequence, and the benchmark additionally data how a lot time you spend looking at loading screens throughout the course of the exams. That is arguably the extra fascinating end result from this testing. Now, a discount of three.5 seconds could not appear to be that a lot, however do not forget that our take a look at machine is ludicrously quick, and loading this content material off of a PCIe 4.0 SSD. It is seemingly {that a} slower machine would see a good greater profit right here.
Phantasy Star On-line 2: New Genesis Benchmark
Irrespective of the way you slice it, PSO2:NGS runs lots worse than it ought to on any system. SEGA has some optimization work to do for positive, though we should be aware that the sport runs lots higher in its present patch than it did on launch. Sadly, the benchmark instrument relies on that authentic launch. Hopefully SEGA can comply with in Sq.-Enix’s footsteps and launch a brand new benchmark with the present model of the engine.
Do not learn an excessive amount of into the 1920×1080 outcomes. The sport has a tough framerate cap at 180 FPS, and scores over 30,000 imply that you simply’re staying proper close to that cap for many of the benchmark. This take a look at is not utterly deterministic both on account of some randomness within the particle results, and whereas it looks as if an enormous distinction, these scores actually aren’t significant.
The extra fascinating acquire is the ~5% uplift in 4K efficiency. Neither of those scores are significantly unhealthy, however the brand new driver appears to have resolved some stuttering within the benchmark, and that seems to be what’s bettering efficiency right here.
Counter-Strike: International Offensive Benchmark
CS:GO runs fairly properly on built-in graphics, so why hassle testing it? Properly, it is likely one of the hottest video games on Steam, and devoted gamers need absolutely the highest framerates doable. The take a look at map that we used, referred to as “FPS Benchmark” and created by Mr. uLLeticaL, will not be as demanding as a few of the actual situations within the recreation today and so it produces hilariously excessive body charges. The essential half is that they’re constant and consultant, which lets us see the distinction between the drivers.
That may be a 4.25% enchancment, which is about what we have been seeing in DirectX 11 video games. It is probably not a lot, however an enchancment remains to be an enchancment, so we’re happy to see it.
ARMA III Benchmark
ARMA III is one other recreation that’s troublesome to check owing to its primarily-multiplayer nature. Thankfully, like with CS:GO, followers have come collectively to create specialised situations that play by way of an automatic benchmark, very similar to these out there in different video games. We used the favored “But One other ARMA Benchmark” state of affairs with all in-game settings turned to their maximums.
That is our largest DirectX 11 acquire but, and the largest one total. ARMA III is a novel recreation in that this can be very reliant on each single-threaded CPU efficiency and most important reminiscence bandwidth. Whereas the engine it makes use of is multi-threaded to a level, it actually needs a super-fast CPU and system reminiscence bus.
After all, none of that modified between our exams; the one variable that moved is the graphics driver. All of the in-game settings are the identical; we checked! This end result actually factors to some CPU utilization optimizations in AMD’s new DirectX 11 driver, simply as we suspected with 3DMark and Closing Fantasy XIV. 65.7 FPS on this benchmark is kind of a excessive end result; ARMA gamers, replace your drivers instantly.
Wreckfest Benchmark
Wreckfest is a destruction derby-style racing title the place gamers can choose from a wide range of destructible automobiles and both race them or try and smash their opponents out of the operating. It is a surprisingly demanding recreation contemplating that it initially launched in 2014. Bugbear Interactive’s home-grown ROMU engine seems to be nice and already ran fairly properly on Radeon.
Even nonetheless, it runs higher now. We arrange a customized occasion utilizing the Bloomfield Speedway and made positive to match climate circumstances. There was nonetheless a stunning quantity of non-determinism on this benchmark and so these outcomes have been a little bit inconsistent, however our technique of operating thrice and choosing the center gave us a reasonably strong enchancment of slightly below 8% with Adrenalin 22.7.1.
Unigine Superposition Benchmark
Unigine’s Superposition benchmark is a demanding take a look at that makes use of thousands and thousands upon thousands and thousands of triangles to show a beautiful laboratory scene. It isn’t ray-traced, or something; it’s strictly last-gen know-how. Nonetheless, it seems to be completely unbelievable, and even in 2022 it could actually put a harm on graphics playing cards.
Superposition serves as a little bit of a bridge for us between our DX11 exams and OpenGL titles. The benchmark helps each APIs, and naturally, the standard knowledge on Radeon playing cards has been to run it in DirectX 11 mode owing to that mode’s higher efficiency on these playing cards.
Properly, as you’ll be able to see for your self, that is not essentially the case anymore. Okay, the DirectX 11 mode nonetheless performs a little bit higher. The distinction is vanishingly small, although, and it isn’t removed from being run-to-run variance. The OpenGL mode of the benchmark performs excellently on our RX 6800 XT now, and the DirectX 11 mode even sees a really small uplift with the brand new driver. Glorious work, AMD.
Xonotic Benchmark
In case you are trying on the title of that recreation—pronounced “zone-otic”—and questioning what the heck it’s, don’t be concerned. Xonotic is a free (as in speech) recreation primarily based on a closely modified model of the Quake engine. It was forked from an earlier title referred to as Nexuiz when that recreation determined to go commerical. Xonotic performs lots like older area FPS video games corresponding to Quake and Unreal, and it’s a ton of enjoyable with buddies.
Testing Xonotic is lots like testing the outdated Quake video games was again within the day: you run a timedemo. Which means you play again a demo recording on the most pace doable for the machine after which evaluate that efficiency towards the unique pace. On the finish of the demo, Xonotic spits out the minimal, common, and most one-second body charges.
We examined Xonotic utilizing the built-in “huge key benchmark” demo, and the efficiency features are plain to see. It will be simple to argue that 271 common FPS is loads quick, even for a recreation like this, however you can actually really feel that 39 FPS low when enjoying, as efficiency would hitch and stutter at occasions. The brand new driver feels drastically smoother and makes this classic-style FPS a pleasure to play.
RAGE Benchmark
RAGE is one in all your creator’s all-time favourite FPS video games. Sure, his style is widely-acknowledged to be horrible. It’s a woefully-overlooked recreation, although, and regardless of releasing manner again in 2011 it nonetheless has completely stellar visuals. It additionally runs like a dream… a minimum of on GeForce {hardware}.
Earlier than the brand new driver, RAGE was a stuttery, terrible mess on Radeon playing cards. Testing utilizing Adrenalin 22.3.1, the sport hitched and stuttered continuous. Regardless of the framerate counter studying values as excessive as 95 FPS, it felt extra like 45. Let’s examine what occurs when AMD throws some optimizations at it.
Properly, would you have a look at that. RAGE really has a 60 FPS cap in place usually, and testing in 3840×2160, regardless of the stuttering, was nonetheless giving us common FPS values round 58. That merely would not do, so we cranked the decision all the best way as much as 7680×4320 and used a mod to uncap the framerate.
That gave us extra helpful values for testing, and the play expertise bears out these outcomes. With the brand new driver, RAGE is easy as silk, and an absolute blast to play at 8K120. It hundreds in noticeably sooner, too.
DOOM (2016) Benchmark
Our final two OpenGL outcomes are, considerably amusingly, each Doom video games. Doom (2016) was the triumphant return for the sequence after the controversial Doom 3 in 2004. This recreation got here out again within the days of the Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 980. Quite a lot of people have been nonetheless utilizing older GPUs than that, like Radeon R9 290X jet engines and even GeForce GTX 580 BBQ grills. It didn’t have Vulkan assist at launch, and enjoying Doom 4 on Radeon playing cards was tough till the brand new API was added. Is that also so?
When you’ve got learn this far, you already know the reply by this level: no. Doom ’16 runs very properly in OpenGL on the Radeon RX 6800 XT with the 22.7.1 driver. That is such a drastic enchancment over the earlier driver’s efficiency that we’re going to present you a smoothness graph to show the distinction.
The inexperienced line represents the frametime with the 22.3.1 driver, and the orange line represents the frametime with the 22.7.1 driver. That massive spike firstly with the 22.7.1 driver is an artifact of the instrument that we use to seize frametimes, CapFrameX; you’ll be able to ignore that. General, the brand new driver is each sooner and drastically smoother than the outdated driver.
ZDoom Eviternity Benchmark
On the face of it, it might appear foolish to benchmark a mod for a 29-year-old recreation. Consider it or not, mods for that recreation can nonetheless put a heavy harm on fashionable techniques. We’re testing ZDoom, a supply port of Doom (1993), together with the extent set Eviternity. The twenty sixth map on this degree set, the primary map of its sixth episode, is called Transcendence, and it’s considerably infamous for its horrible efficiency. Most of this comes all the way down to gross inefficiencies within the Doom engine itself, which was by no means meant to deal with ranges of this dimension or complexity.
As with Doom ’16, we examined ZDoom in each OpenGL and Vulkan. Surprisingly, regardless of AMD saying nothing about Vulkan features on this driver replace, the brand new driver runs significantly higher in each OpenGL and Vulkan on this explicit benchmark. We’re able to chalk that as much as peculiarities of ZDoom, as its Vulkan renderer might be carefully associated to its OpenGL renderer.
Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmark
Citing the rear is our sole DirectX 12 take a look at. AMD has not talked about something shortly about its DX12 driver, however with all this work happening alongside, we wished to ensure there had not been any regressions in Radeons’ DirectX 12 or DXR ray-tracing efficiency. Cyberpunk 2077 makes the right take a look at.
Utilizing the built-in benchmark, we really see a small efficiency enchancment in Cyberpunk 2077 between the outdated and new drivers. This benchmark will not be deterministic, however it’s moderately dependable from run-to-run and this end result was pretty constant. Clearly AMD’s been attempting to shore up its barely sub-par ray-tracing efficiency. With these settings, Cyberpunk 2077 is kind of playable and nonetheless seems to be fairly good.
OpenGL Emulator Testing
One of many most important makes use of of the OpenGL API for players on Home windows is to play video video games in console {hardware} emulators. Most emulator purposes are open-source software program, and that signifies that the builders usually choose to make use of cross-platform APIs. Consequently, you do see a choice for OpenGL amongst emulator authors.
Just lately, that choice appears to have shifted towards Vulkan. The newer and lower-level API has the entire cross-platform benefits of OpenGL, but not one of the legacy cruft of that aged API. Vulkan works properly on GPUs from each vendor, albeit with some inconsistencies in function and extension assist.
Nonetheless, there are a variety of emulators on the market that carry out or perform finest with OpenGL. One of the notable is CEMU, the Wii U emulator. CEMU famously bought Vulkan assist on the very finish of 2019, however sure mods and “graphics packs” for the emulator nonetheless require OpenGL. That basically meant that Radeon gamers didn’t have entry to these as a result of OpenGL efficiency on these playing cards was so poor.
Testing as we speak, we scaled The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild all the best way to 8K decision (that is 7680×4320) with an uncapped framerate, and it ran at a fairly-consistent framerate within the high-30s outdoor. That is beautiful efficiency in comparison with earlier this 12 months, when this similar card struggled to run Tremendous Smash Bros at a playable framerate no matter settings. You do not even want to use the AMD-specific graphic packs to repair up damaged options on this recreation, and you may clearly enhance efficiency by reducing the decision.
We additionally examined different emulators, together with PCSX2 for the PlayStation 2, Yuzu emulator for the Nintendo Swap, and Mupen64Plus on Retroarch. All of them labored flawlessly with the brand new driver. That is nice information for emulation followers utilizing Radeon playing cards in addition to built-in Radeon graphics.
Closing Conclusions
Common readers will acknowledge that our take a look at set this time round was fairly unusual. We didn’t run our normal batch of video games as a result of we usually deal with testing newer and extra up-to-date titles, and people video games don’t usually make use of DirectX 11 or OpenGL as their API.
Certainly, a serious frustration of Radeon playing cards traditionally has been that, whereas latest and fashionable video games will usually work properly, you can have some struggles with older, area of interest, or much less fashionable titles. Clearly, we’ve got not had time to check that many video games but, however to date, we’re very impressed with the work that AMD has completed right here, significantly for the OpenGL API. This driver sees big features in efficiency and smoothness for OpenGL, and it does some wonderful work for DirectX 11, too.
Kudos to AMD for stepping up and smoothing out video games on these older APIs. We hope the corporate can proceed making this type of progress.
