AMD Radeon Software

Radeon Software includes the following feature set:

• Game profile management
• Overclocking and undervolting
• Performance monitoring
• Recording and streaming
• Captured video and screenshot management
• Software update notifications
• Upgrade advisor

The software was previously known as AMD Radeon Settings, AMD Catalyst, and ATI Catalyst. AMD ceased providing 32-bit versions in October 2018.

AMD Radeon Software supports the following AMD (and ATI-tradition) product lines targeted at rendering:

• Graphics processing units (GPUs)
• Accelerated processing units (APUs)

The following product lines are probably not supported by the AMD Radeon Software, but instead by some other software, which (for example) is OpenGL-certified:

• AMD FireStream product line for GPGPU in supercomputers and such
• AMD FireMV product line for multi-monitor setups (deprecated by AMD Eyefinity being available on all consumer products)
• AMD FirePro product line for professionals who require certified OpenGL support

Starting in Catalyst 14.6 AMD has enabled mixed-resolution support, allowing for a single Eyefinity display group to be created where each monitor runs at a different resolution. The current version may, however, disable any additional display mode and change to a resolution in the one mode available. This feature is made possible through the addition of two new Eyefinity display modes, Fit and Expand, which join the traditional Fill mode. In both Fit and Expand modes, AMD is compensating for the mismatched resolutions by creating a virtual desktop that is of a different resolution from those of the monitors, and then either padding it out or cropping it as necessary.[1]

Before Eyefinity, there was the Windows-only software "HydraVision"[2] (originally acquired from Appian Graphics complete with its development team), a desktop/screen management software mostly providing multi-monitor and virtual-screen management. It has extensive hot-key support.[3]

Both of AMD's SIP cores for video acceleration, Video Coding Engine as well as Unified Video Decoder, are supported by AMD Radeon Software.

Some AMD products contain SIP cores for audio acceleration branded AMD TrueAudio. Support for this audio acceleration DSP co-processor is part of AMD Radeon Software.

Under Microsoft Windows the support for AMD TrueAudio is codenamed "ACP" (for audio co-processor) and implemented via "ACP user service" (amdacpusrsvc.exe), a background service that helps manage audio tasks in games.

Under Linux, AMD TrueAudio is codenamed "acp" as well: some code regarding this can be found in the /drivers/gpu/drm/radeon directory of the Linux kernel sources.

AMD Radeon Software includes support for AMD PowerPlay, AMD PowerTune and AMD ZeroCore Power, AMD's set of technologies to reduce energy consumption in their graphics products.[4]

The AMD Radeon Software device driver supports multiple rendering interfaces, all designed to give the user-space programs, such as video games or CAD software, access to the corresponding SIP blocks.

Direct3D 12 is available for GCN with version 15.7.1 or higher.[5]

So far, only the Radeon Software targeting Microsoft Windows includes support for Mantle (API).

OpenGL 4.5 is possible for TeraScale 2 and 3 with AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition Beta (driver version 15.30 or higher like Crimson Beta 16.2.1).[6] OpenCL support will be lost, but it can be recovered by copying the relevant files from a previous package like Radeon Software 15.11.1 Beta. Beta drivers do not support HDCP.

OpenGL 4.5 is available for GCN with version 16.3 or higher[7]

OpenGL 4.x compliance requires supporting FP64 shaders. These are implemented by emulation on some TeraScale GPUs.

OpenGL 4.6 is supported in AMD Adrenalin 18.4.1 Graphics Driver on Windows 7 SP1, 10 version 1803 (April 2018 update) for AMD Radeon HD 7700+, HD 8500+ and newer. Released April 2018.[8][9]

Vulkan 1.0 with 16.3.2 or higher for GCN

Vulkan 1.1 with AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.3.3 or higher[10]

The AMD Radeon Software device driver supports multiple interfaces, all designed to give user-space programs, such as GStreamer or HandBrake software, access to the corresponding SIP blocks.

With Catalyst 9.12 support of OpenCL 1.0 was available.[11]

In Catalyst 10.10 OpenCL 1.1 was available.[12]

Catalyst 12.4 Supports OpenCL 1.2.[13]

OpenCL 2.0 driver works since 14.41 for GCN-based Models.[14] This also supports previous OpenCL versions.

TeraScale 2 and 3 chips can use Level 1.2.

Close to Metal was a low-level API by AMD which was abandoned in favor of OpenCL.

AMD HD3D stereoscopic 3D API by AMD.

With Catalyst 14.1 HSA is possible.[15] AMD main Processor graphic Units and Radeon graphic Card Units work combined.

• GPUOpen: http://gpuopen.com/gaming-product/amd-gpu-services-ags-library/ & https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/AGS_SDK

• https://web.archive.org/web/20160116043411/http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/graphics-development/display-library-adl-sdk/

The main AMD GPU software stacks are fully supported on Linux: GPUOpen for graphics, and ROCm for compute. GPUOpen is most often merely a supplement, for software utilities, to the free Mesa software stack that is widely distributed and available by default on most Linux distributions.

AMD strives at packaging its software for Linux on its own, not relying solely on Linux distributions. They do so by using the amdgpu and amdgpu-pro shell scripts, and provide package archives for e.g. apt and rpm.[16]

Starting with version 4.9 (released on 4 September 2004) the Catalyst driver package included the ATI Catalyst Control Center,[27] a new software application for manipulating many hardware functions, such as 3D settings, monitor controls and video options. It shows a small 3D preview and allows the user to see how changes to the graphics settings affect the quality of the rendered image. It also shows information about the card itself and the software data. This application requires Microsoft .NET Framework.

Radeon Software 16.x and higher only for GCN-based Models. With 16.3.2 Vulkan 1.0 support.

Radeon Software 17.7.1 is the final driver for Windows 8.1

Radeon Software 18.9.3 is the final driver for 32-bit Windows 7/10

Radeon Software 21.5.2 is the final driver for Windows 7 (and Windows 8.1 unofficially); 21.5.2 is also the final driver for GCN 1, GCN 2 and GCN 3 based GPUs[22]

• Quantity of rendered ahead frames cannot be adjusted
• Triple buffering in D3D cannot be forced
• V-sync in many games under Windows 7 cannot be forced disabled

• No support for 3D HDTVs.

• ATI Avivo
• ATI CrossFire
• ATI PowerPlay
• AMD Hybrid Graphics

• ATI/AMD on Free and open-source graphics device drivers