Feature levels have mandatory and optional support components. 🙂 (To put it simply.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_levels_in_Direct3D You can see the red and yellow bits in the charts a bit further down although how overall important these are and how well utilized the feature levels and backwards compatibility actually is in the games themselves I can't really say. Not too well I would imagine unless the game was built ground up for supporting DX12 or on the other side Vulkan over OpenGL with DOOM and Wolfenstein standing as showcases for this API. (And little by little CroEngine and Serious Sam Fusion having features such as swapping from one API to another from in-game which well that's unusual and then there's Ashes of the Singularity showing mixes multi-GPU support as also something pretty rare.) EDIT: For Windows 10 they've also updated WDDM for the device driver model a few times to I think it's at 2.3 now and then there's DXGI as well up to I think it's 1.6 now? (Some smaller features in RS3 was it?) in addition to D3D itself which is at 11.4 and 12.1 for now for D3D11 and D3D12 respectively as both are actively updated. (MSDN and Technet has more in-depth articles including changes but it's fairly technical and nothing really too important for regular users and more for developers.) I'm pretty much a amateur if even that myself so I have a lot more to learn too but I'm trying to stay somewhat up to date although it's a pretty broad subject with years of development and that's just the D3D thing itself as one part of DirectX and then a part of Windows which also has changed since XP, Vista, 7, 8 and now 10 😀 (The little numbered notes on that wikipedia article should link to some more in-depth info too for each respective component or part of 12_0 and 12_1 support and feature levels in general.) Might help a little bit, unless I misunderstood the question entirely, if so I'm sorry about that. 🙂 Doesn't really help when they (EDIT: AMD, NVIDIA.) divide up games between themselves too and you get various levels of support both pre and post release to just name one thing.

I believe in the idea that pretty much all problems center around the implementation. You can get near everything to work even with older APIs/Shader Models/Feature Levels as long its not hardware dependent. Then again sometimes its deemed not worth the effort to redesign from scratch/do huge overhaul and developers simply go with just supporting whats easier at first. They may take up the effort later for larger patches or when they are creating something new thou, etc. If the people working on it are really passionate and care, they probably will address all or most of the issues over time.

Turanis:

A note for Radeon owners: This driver is a disaster in Futuremark API Overhead.In games is so-so,not a plus or a minus fps. API Overhead: minus 172.200 vs 18.1.1 (DX11 single thread&multi) minus 188.900 vs 18.1.1 (Vulkan).

Tip: When using api overhead... 1. Use RamMap to empty both Standby list and Modified Page List. 2. Search for AMD's DxCache and GLCache Folders. Delete the contents in them. Should be the 1st 2 entries in your Explorer Search. 2 or so entries might not be deleted. 3. Start 3DMark and run the API Overhead test.

Shouldn't the benchmark be run twice since the first would be caching the shaders again? If the user has enabled DirectX shader caching of course or overriden it per profile or on a global level. I had to disable it since after a few drivers it started caching Windows processes which wasn't entirely stable (Start menu, explorer and a few others.) though the drivers will still cache OpenGL data and that can't be overriden. (Steam for example, not a fan of it but they have two OGL test executable files that run on start now since a few versions back of that client.) Per-profile might work though, not all overrides might so it could be a bit buggy but shader caching should work last I tried, helps smooth things out a little bit for older games that don't have a cache of their own though it's mostly for loading times from what I've tested although very shader heavy games might see a reduction in stutter too depending on how these are compiled. Call of Duty and it's extremely lengthy initial load times ha ha, it does store the cache data though but patches and driver updates will invalidate that requiring another lengthy wait for it to compile again. Dishonored 2 is a interesting one as well, ships with a pre-compiled shader cache but if AMD's is enabled it'll take minutes for it to boot to the main menu as the driver is now caching the shaders too though this is a one time thing and might be faster on a modern system with decent RAM and instead of a HDD a SSD giving some speed boosts to writing and reading data. (And more I guess, I could see benchmarks having a decent set of shaders that needed to be compiled or cached.)

Also the driver and some of the previous ones have been even more unstable in regards to fan speed settings than older ones, minor issue overall though but another cold week here, doors open and the GPU is idling at 22 degrees barely pushing into the low 60's for very demanding games and the fan is ramping up to 100% ha ha, it's a known issue for Wattman though since a long time back with some GPU models just being very sensitive and prone to incorrect values and bursts of running at full speed even at low temps or workloads. 😀 (Just trying to lock a speed in in Wattman should see the reported value being off by a few hundred rpm and features like zero speed is mostly non-functional although I prefer having the fan spin at a constant min value myself.)

JonasBeckman:

Shouldn't the benchmark be run twice since the first would be caching the shaders again? If the user has enabled DirectX shader caching of course or overriden it per profile or on a global level. ... (And more I guess, I could see benchmarks having a decent set of shaders that needed to be compiled or cached.)

Oh I forgot to mention that. Yes, JonasBechman that's correct. You do need to run it at least twice.

Turanis:

I always do benchmarks with fresh driver intall and after I let windows for ~30min to make his internal tasks. 🙂 This 18.2.3 for Win7/8.1 is not good in terms of DX11 or Vulkan perf vs 18.1.1.

I use to do that as well. Benching becomes more of task then anything in this regard.

Krteq:

you are terribly wrong there mate. Yes, DX12 driver is really low weight, because almost everything (resource management, submissions, threading etc.) is driven by developer/application because, as you correctly stated, that API is explicit. DX12 isn't backwards compatible to DX9 at all. There is completely different resource and submission model - developed by ATi in 2000s btw. and it's the same for all explicit APIs introduced recently (Mantle/Vulkan, DX12, Metal, Playstation GNM etc.) There is also something called Direct3d Feature Levels. Majority of games/apps are labeled as DX12, but in fact they are still using Feature Level 11 or 11_1 due to GPUs of one IHV (I'm looking at you nVidia) are not fully compatible with DX12 bindless resources model. As being stated before by Jonas, Sea of Thieves is DX11 based, so there can be some shader replacement/optimizations implemented in driver by IHVs

Well, although you are of course correct--I was speaking of backwards-compatibility with existing games. My 12_0 (feature level-RX-480 8GB) DX12 installation of Windows 10x64 (version 1803, build 17110.1000) has no trouble at all with d3d9 games...(or older, actually--I've got some d3d6/7 stuff hanging around that still runs well.) I was speaking of DirectX moreso than just a particular d3d version as an isolated API. Sorry if I wasn't more clear about that...;) All versions of DirectX are indeed backwards-comptable, all the way back to d3d7, I believe--but certainly, as you say, the d3d12 API itself is merely a subset of DirectX12 as it exists inside Win10 atm.

just installed this drivers, i can't have the overlay working on Assetto Corsa (in others game i can see it) anyone else? i have tryed to change the keyboard shortcut with no luck

Have you tried to alt enter before pressing the shortcut? It might not work in true fullscreen. Edit: Nvm, just tested it and it's the opposite. On my 7870 it'll only show if in true fullscreen by pressing ctrl+shift+o (beware that control+o will also throw you to the pits). When it's not in true fullscreen, only the radeon overlay (alt+r) works.

Why does this file get left behind and why is it in use? I've only noticed this with 18.2.2 & 18.2.3, I don't recall this happening before, I have uninstalled drivers and cleaned using ddu. https://i.imgur.com/0z6ofcS.png

Shellar:

^^ TrueType font for .ttf? It seems to me your qtquickcontrols is out of wack, it should not highjack your system fonts. Also, to force it without fixing underlining problem with 3rd party thingy, kill explorer, delete this file manually, start explorer. (Is this even in safe mode - doesn't look like it to me.)

I'm not in safe mode but I can't delete it in safe mode either, I actually loaded up a live ubuntu cd just to delete it.. hahaha..

KissSh0t:

Why does this file get left behind and why is it in use? I've only noticed this with 18.2.2 & 18.2.3, I don't recall this happening before, I have uninstalled drivers and cleaned using ddu. https://i.imgur.com/0z6ofcS.png

You need to detele the reference from registry, once you remove it system will allow to remove that folder.

font has to be uninstalled from within the font folder, then system restarted and folder can be deleted. no need to fiddle with registry, it's the way fonts work.

18.3.1 SoonTM https://twitter.com/CatalystMaker/status/970761984563142656 @JonasBeckman

ikdzero:

Since AMD stopped releasing drivers for Windows 8/8.1, is it okay to install Win7 drivers on 8.1?

Thats worked well for me.

Now re-released with Vulkan 1.1. https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/Radeon-Software-Adrenalin-Edition-18.2.3-with-Vulkan-1.1-Support-Release-Notes.aspx

Updates the Vulkan driver component from 9.2.10.14 to 9.2.10.18 and the .JSON files though the only difference here is the reported API version from 1.0.65.0 to 1.1.70.0 🙂 The other components from 18.3.1 are likely going to be newer. (Version 23.20.15027.x against 23.20.15025.x) (Also includes the new 1.1.70.0 Vulkan runtime of course.)

did they make a mistake and bundled the newer vulkan with older drivers??

dsbig:

did they make a mistake and bundled the newer vulkan with older drivers??

That's a good question.

dsbig:

did they make a mistake and bundled the newer vulkan with older drivers??

No its not a mistake. There were probably working with vulkan 1.1 on 18.2.3, whats why they released it like that. I will wait for 18.3.2 in 2 weeks.