AMD Catalyst 15.7 WHQL Video Card Driver Released – Windows 10 and DX12 Ready

By Nathan Kirsch

AMD Catalyst 15.7 Driver Overview

AMD has released Catalyst 15.7 WHQL video card drivers today that provide ‘seamless and intuitive support for Windows 10 and the DirectX 12 API’ according to the folks over at AMD. AMD has been under scrutiny for not releasing WHQL-certified drivers video card drives in months, so this launch will likely calm the critics for the time being. You can download the new drivers here.

The new drivers also feature support for the newly released Radeon R300 series cards and the Radeon Fury X and Fury cards, so one driver will now cover a whole slew of graphics card. Besides the major achievement of ensuring these drivers are ready for Windows 10, AMD also added performance enhancements over the AMD Catalyst Omega drivers that were previously released.

Other than being ready for Windows 10 and having performance optimizations the new driers offer FreeSync support for AMD CrossFire setups for the very first time. AMD Radeon Crossfire users haven’t been able to synchronize their refresh rates between the GPU and the monitor, but now can with Catalyst 15.7 WHQL drivers. AMD Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) is also now supported on older graphics cards, so anyone with a Radeon R7 260 or above video card can finally render games at a higher resolution and then scale it down for better looking game content. AMD desktop A-series 7400K and above APUs also now support VSR!

Below is a list of supported resolutions:

Target Display Timing Supported VSR Modes
1366 X 768 @ 60Hz 1600 X 900
1920 X 1080
1600 X 900 @ 60Hz 1920 X 1080
1920 X 1080 @ 60Hz 2560 X 1440
3200 X 1800
3840 X 2160 (AMD Radeon R9 285, AMD Radeon R9 Fury Series)
1920 X 1200 @ 60Hz 2048 X 1536
2560 X 1600
3840 X 2400 (AMD Radeon R9 285, AMD Radeon R9 Fury Series)
2560 X 1440 @ 60Hz 3200 X 1800
1920 X 1080 @ 120Hz 1920 X 1200 @ 120Hz
2048 X 1536 @ 120Hz

AMD Catalyst 15.7 WHQL Driver Highlights:

  • Windows 10 Technical Preview Support
  • Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) – provides image quality enhancement to gamers and Windows desktop users (renders at high solution then down-scales; giving effective Super Sample Anti-Aliasing). Now supported on AMD Radeon R7 260 and above GPUS and desktop A-Series 7400K and above APUS in AMD Catalyst 15.20, with Single and Multi-GPU configurations with more supported VSR modes!
  • Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC) – enables fine-tuning your graphics card for more stable and consistent performance in games with real-time frame rate control limiting the maximum frame rate during gameplay and delivers the benefits of reduced system/GPU power consumption, lower system temps, and lower fan speeds for quieter operation. This allows reduced system/GPU power consumption, reduced system heat and lower fan speeds (less noise).
  • Performance Optimizations versus AMD Catalyst Omega
  • AMD FreeSync and AMD CrossFire Support – FreeSync eliminates screen tearing without all the usual lag and latency. And now it works in Crossfire mode! You just need a FreeSync capable AMD component and a FreeSync compatible monitor. FreeSync CrossFire support is enabled on applications based on DirectX 10 or newer (DirectX 11 and DirectX 12) and does not currently support AMD Dual Graphics APU configurations.
  • AMD CrossFire Profile Enhancements for the following games: Battlefield: Hardline, Evolve, Far Cry 4, Lords of the Fallen, Project CARS, Total War: Attila, Alien: Isolation, Assassin’s Creed Unity, Civilization: Beyond Earth, FIFA 2015, GRID Autosport, Ryse: Son of Rome, Talos Principle, The Crew, Grand Theft Auto V, Dying Light, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt