Testing AMD’s May Preview Driver: DX11 Performance Breakthrough

1. Introduction2. Benchmarks Part 13. Benchmarks Part 24. Performance Summary (14-Game Average)5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Back to Unreal Engine 4 though, and it’s time to look at Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. At 1440p we do see some benefit to the Preview driver, with a 3% improvement both the average and 1% low frame rate – it’s just not as impressive as the gains we saw in Days Gone.

These two GPUs really need to run at 4K to be pushed in this game though, and at that resolution the differences between the drivers shrinks to almost nothing, while we can see the RTX 3080 still with a handy lead over the 6800 XT.

Total War Saga: Troy

AMD claims the biggest performance increases in Total War Saga: Troy however, and the Preview driver definitely provides a good bump in this title. At 1080p, we can see a 13% improvement to both the average FPS and the 1% lows, which actually takes the 6800 XT well past the RTX 3080.

At 1440p, the gains are smaller, but still enough to keep the 6800 XT ahead of the RTX 3080 – we’re looking at 9-10% gains for the average frame rate and 1% lows, respectively.

Total War: Warhammer III

Because of the performance in Total War Saga: Troy, I was hoping to see similar improvements in TW: Warhammer III as it’s the newest release using the same engine… but it was not to be. The 1% lows still get a decent bump up, with a 7% boost at 1440p, but the average frame rate remains pretty much unchanged. The RTX 3080 also does significantly better in this title, especially at 4K where the AMD Preview driver makes next to no difference.

Watch Dogs Legion

We also tested Watch Dogs Legion, and at 1440p we can see solid improvements for the Preview driver, particularly in the 1% lows which improve by 11%. This test is mainly academic, however, as you will still get better performance from using DX12 in this game with an RDNA 2 GPU.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Taking a look at another classic, we come to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. This isn’t the best showcase for the Preview driver, but we do get some improvements, particularly with the 1% lows seeing a 4% boost. It’s not enough to close the gap on the RTX 3080 however, particularly at 4K.

Control

Crysis Remastered

Of the 14 DX11 games we tested then, most show small improvements for the 6800 XT when using the Preview driver. However, there were two games I tested – Control and Crysis Remastered – where we actually saw significant performance regressions. In both cases, the average frame rate improved ever so slightly, but the 1% lows got significantly worse with the Preview driver.

I have no idea why this was the case, but I made sure to triple check these results, using DDU to uninstall the driver, test 22.5.1 again, before confirming the results with the Preview driver. What’s really odd is that CapFrameX also tested Crysis Remastered and saw big gains, so I have no idea what is going on here – all I know is I triple checked the performance and for me, I saw the same results every time – but if you have any ideas why I might be seeing different performance do let me know in the comments.

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