AMD Radeon Software is a
device driver
In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and ot ...
and
utility software
Utility software is software designed to help analyze, configure, optimize or maintain a computer. It is used to support the computer infrastructure - in contrast to application software, which is aimed at directly performing tasks that benefit ord ...
package for
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
's
graphics cards
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer moni ...
and
APUs
Apus is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name means "without feet" in Greek language, Greek because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. ...
. Its
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
is built with
Electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,
and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...
and is compatible with
64-bit
In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
distributions.
Software bundle
Functionality
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
History
The software was previously known as AMD Radeon Settings, AMD Catalyst, and ATI Catalyst. AMD ceased providing 32-bit versions in October 2018.
Supported hardware
AMD Radeon Software is targeted to support all function blocks present on a GPU's or an APU's
die
Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life.
Die may also refer to:
Games
* Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers
Manufacturing
* Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...
. Besides instruction code targeted at
rendering, this includes
display controllers as well as their
SIP blocks for
video decoding
A video decoder is an electronic circuit, often contained within a single integrated circuit chip, that converts base-band analog video signals to digital video. Video decoders commonly allow programmable control over video characteristics such ...
(
Unified Video Decoder
Unified Video Decoder (UVD, previously called Universal Video Decoder) is the name given to AMD's dedicated video decoding ASIC. There are multiple versions implementing a multitude of video codecs, such as H.264 and VC-1.
UVD was introduced with ...
(UVD)) and video encoding (
Video Coding Engine
Video Code Engine (VCE, was earlier referred to as Video Coding Engine, Video Compression Engine or Video Codec Engine in official AMD documentation) is AMD's video encoding application-specific integrated circuit implementing the video codec H. ...
(VCE)).
The device driver also supports
AMD TrueAudio
TrueAudio is the name given to AMD's ASIC intended to serve as dedicated co-processor for the calculations of computationally expensive advanced audio signal processing, like e.g. convolution reverberation effects and 3D audio effects. True ...
, a SIP block to perform sound-related calculations.
Supported products
AMD Radeon Software supports the following
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
(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
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...
-certified:
*
AMD FireStream
AMD FireStream was AMD's brand name for their Radeon-based product line targeting stream processing and/or GPGPU in supercomputers. Originally developed by ATI Technologies around the Radeon X1900 XTX in 2006, the product line was previously b ...
product line for
GPGPU
General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU, or less often GPGP) is the use of a graphics processing unit (GPU), which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditiona ...
in supercomputers and such
*
AMD FireMV AMD FireMV, formerly ATI FireMV, is brand name for graphics cards marketed as a Multi-Display 2D video card, with 3D capabilities same as the low-end Radeon graphics products. It competes directly with Matrox professional video cards. FireMV cards ...
product line for multi-monitor setups (''deprecated by AMD Eyefinity being available on all consumer product''s)
*
AMD FirePro
AMD FirePro was AMD's brand of graphics cards designed for use in workstations and servers running professional Computer-aided design (CAD), Computer-generated imagery (CGI), Digital content creation (DCC), and High-performance computing/ GP ...
product line for professionals who require certified OpenGL support
Multi-monitor support
Starting in Catalyst 14.6 AMD has enabled mixed-resolution support, allowing for a single
Eyefinity
AMD Eyefinity is a brand name for AMD video card products that support multi-monitor setups by integrating multiple (up to six) display controllers on one GPU. AMD Eyefinity was introduced with the Radeon HD 5000 Series "Evergreen" in September 2 ...
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.
Before Eyefinity, there was the Windows-only software "HydraVision"
(originally acquired from
Appian Graphics
Appian Graphics was a supplier of multi-monitor graphics accelerators founded in 1994.
History
The company was best known for its Jeronimo and Gemini product lines, and for the HydraVision display management software. The main competitor for App ...
complete with its development team), a desktop/screen management software mostly providing
multi-monitor
Multi-monitor, also called multi-display and multi-head, is the use of multiple physical display devices, such as monitors, televisions, and projectors, in order to increase the area available for computer programs running on a single computer sy ...
and virtual-screen management. It has extensive hot-key support.
Video acceleration
Both of AMD's
SIP cores for video acceleration,
Video Coding Engine
Video Code Engine (VCE, was earlier referred to as Video Coding Engine, Video Compression Engine or Video Codec Engine in official AMD documentation) is AMD's video encoding application-specific integrated circuit implementing the video codec H. ...
as well as
Unified Video Decoder
Unified Video Decoder (UVD, previously called Universal Video Decoder) is the name given to AMD's dedicated video decoding ASIC. There are multiple versions implementing a multitude of video codecs, such as H.264 and VC-1.
UVD was introduced with ...
, are supported by AMD Radeon Software.
Audio acceleration
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.
Power saving
AMD Radeon Software includes support for
AMD PowerPlay,
AMD PowerTune
AMD PowerTune is a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies built into some AMD GPUs and APUs that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed (to different ''P-states'') by software. This allows the processor to mee ...
and
AMD ZeroCore Power
Graphics Core Next (GCN) is the codename for a series of microarchitectures and an instruction set architecture that were developed by AMD for its GPUs as the successor to its TeraScale microarchitecture. The first product featuring GCN was lau ...
, AMD's set of technologies to reduce energy consumption in their graphics products.
Supported interfaces
Rendering
The AMD Radeon Software device driver supports multiple
rendering interfaces, all designed to give the user-space programs, such as
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s or
CAD
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
software, access to the corresponding SIP blocks.
Direct3D
Direct3D 12 is available for GCN with version 15.7.1 or higher.
Mantle
Only the Radeon Software targeting
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
included support for
Mantle. In 2019 starting with version 19.5.1 it was officially discontinued, in favor of DirectX 12 and Vulkan (built upon Mantle) raise in popularity. Windows users who still wish to use Mantle would have to use older version of drivers (prior to 19.5.1).
OpenGL
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). 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
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections. Types of connections include DisplayPort ...
.
OpenGL 4.5 is available for GCN with version 16.3 or higher.
OpenGL 4.x compliance requires supporting FP64 shaders. These are implemented by emulation on some TeraScale GPUs.
OpenGL 4.6 is supported in
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
Adrenalin 18.4.1 Graphics Driver on
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
7 SP1,
10 version 1803 (April 2018 update) for AMD Radeon HD 7700+, HD 8500+ and newer. Released April 2018.
Vulkan
Vulkan 1.0 is available with AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3.2 or higher for GCN.
Vulkan 1.1 with AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.3.3 or higher.
Vulkan 1.2 with Adrenalin 20.1.2 or higher.
Vulkan 1.3 with Adrenalin 22.1.2 or higher.
Video acceleration
The AMD Radeon Software device driver supports multiple interfaces, all designed to give user-space programs, such as
GStreamer
GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework that links together a wide variety of media processing systems to complete complex workflows. For instance, GStreamer can be used to build a system that reads files in one format, processes them, ...
or
HandBrake software, access to the corresponding SIP blocks.
GPGPU
ROCm
OpenCL
With Catalyst 9.12 support of OpenCL 1.0 was available.
In Catalyst 10.10 OpenCL 1.1 was available.
Catalyst 12.4 Supports OpenCL 1.2.
OpenCL 2.0 driver works since 14.41 for GCN-based Models. This also supports previous OpenCL versions.
TeraScale 2 and 3 chips can use Level 1.2.
Close to Metal
Close to Metal was a low-level API by AMD which was abandoned in favor of OpenCL.
Other
AMD HD3D
HD3D is AMD's stereoscopic 3D API.
HD3D exposes a quad buffer for game and software developers, allowing native 3D.
An open HD3D SDK is available, although, for now, only DirectX 9, 10 and 11 are supported.
Support for HDMI-3D-, DisplayPort-3D ...
stereoscopic 3D
Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...
API by AMD.
Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA)
With Catalyst 14.1 HSA is possible.
AMD main Processor graphic Units and Radeon graphic Card Units work combined.
AMD GPU Services (AGS)
*
GPUOpenAMD GPU Services (AGS) Library
AMD Display Library (ADL) SDK
* GPUOpen
AMD Display (ADL) LibraryAMD Display Library (ADL) SDK
Operating systems support
Linux
The main AMD GPU software stacks are fully supported on Linux:
GPUOpen for graphics, and
ROCm
ROCm is an Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) software stack for graphics processing unit (GPU) programming. ROCm spans several domains: general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU), high performance computing (HPC), heterogeneous ...
for compute.
GPUOpen is most often merely a supplement, for software utilities, to the free
Mesa
A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by ...
software stack that is widely distributed and available by default on most
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
s.
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 script
A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be scripting languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manip ...
s, and provide
package archives for e.g. ''apt'' and ''rpm''.
Microsoft Windows and Linux
Starting with version 4.9 (released on 4 September 2004) the Catalyst driver package included the ATI Catalyst Control Center,
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
The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...
.
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 22.6.1 is the final driver for Windows 7 (and Windows 8.1 unofficially); 22.6.1 is also the final driver for GCN 1, GCN 2 and GCN 3 based GPUs
Issues
On Windows Platforms
* 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
On Linux Platforms
* No support for 3D HDTVs.
See also
*
AMD software
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
*
ROCm
ROCm is an Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) software stack for graphics processing unit (GPU) programming. ROCm spans several domains: general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU), high performance computing (HPC), heterogeneous ...
*
GPUOpen
*
CodeXL
CodeXL (formerly AMD CodeXL) was an open-source software development tool suite which included a GPU debugger, a GPU profiler, a CPU profiler, Graphics frame analyzer and a static shader/kernel analyzer.
CodeXL was mainly developed by AMD. Wi ...
Related technologies
*
AMD CrossFire
*
AMD PowerPlay
*
AMD Hybrid Graphics
AMD Hybrid Graphics technology, is a collective brand from AMD for its Radeon line of discrete and integrated GPU, promoting higher performance and productivity while saving energy consumption in GPUs.
The technology previously applied to selec ...
*
ATI Avivo
ATI Avivo is a set of hardware and low level software features present on the ATI Radeon R520 family of GPUs and all later ATI Radeon products. ATI Avivo was designed to offload video decoding, encoding, and post-processing from a computer's ...
Related topics
*
ATI/AMD on Free and open-source graphics device drivers
References
External links
Official website*
AMD Graphics Drivers & Software
{{DEFAULTSORT:Radeon Software
AMD software
ATI Technologies
Device drivers
Linux drivers
Proprietary freeware for Linux
Rendering APIs available on Linux
Proprietary software that uses Qt
Software that uses Qt
Third-party Linux kernel modules
X Window System