AMD has released the 14.4 Release Candidate driver for its graphics cards. According to the release notes, this new driver brings full support for OpenGL 4.4, packs various CrossFire and Mantle improvements and supports the latest dual-GPU from AMD, the Radeon R9 295X.

Those interested can download this new driver from here.

Here is the complete changelog:

Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst™ 14.4 Release Candidate Driver for Windows

• Support for the AMD Radeon™ R9 295X
• CrossFire™ fixes enhancements:
  • Crysis 3 – frame pacing improvements
  • Far Cry 3 – 3 and 4 GPU performance improvements at high quality settings, high resolution settings
  • Anno 2070 – Improved CrossFire scaling up to 34%
  • Titanfall – Resolved in game flickering with CrossFire enabled
  • Metro Last Light – Improved Crossfire scaling up to 10%
  • Eyefinity 3×1 (with three 4K panels) no longer cuts off portions of the application
  • Stuttering has been improved in certain applications when selecting mid-Eyefinity resolutions with V-sync Enabled
• Full support for OpenGL 4.4
  • OpenGL 4.4 supports the following extensions:
    • ARB_buffer_storage
    • ARB_enhanced_layouts
    • ARB_query_buffer_object
    • ARB_clear_texture
    • ARB_texture_mirror_clamp_to_edge
    • ARB_texture_stencil8
    • ARB_vertex_type_10f_11f_11f_rev
    • ARB_multi_bind
    • ARB_bindless_texture
    • ARB_spare_texture
    • ARB_seamless_cubemap_per_texture
    • ARB_indirect_parameters
    • ARB_compute_variable_group_size
    • ARB_shader_draw_parameters
    • ARB_shader_group_vote
• Mantle beta driver improvements:
  • BattleField 4: Performance slowdown is no longer seen when performing a task switch/Alt-tab
  • BattleField 4: Fuzzy images when playing in rotated SLS resolution with an A10 Kaveri system

Known Issues  

• System will TDR or BSOD when encoding with Power Director 11

• Driver installation might result in a black screen when installing on a Dual AMD Radeon R9 295X configuration under Windows 8.1 on specific platforms (see below).   The issue can be overcome by rebooting the PC; upon reboot the display driver will be installed.  The remaining Catalyst components can then be installed.

  • ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z (990FX)

  • ASUS Maximus VI Extreme (Z87

  • ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (X79)

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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