AMD is making big strides with its hardware, as CPU sales have dominated and even its GPUs marketshare has grown, with AMD even beating Nvidia for market share in Q4 2019. But, that increased prevalance put some of AMD's Radeon graphics cards' bugs in front of more users. Now, AMD has released updated drivers to address the biggest problems.
A number of stuttering and black screen bugs are covered by the Radeon Software Adrenalin 20202 Edition 20.2.2 update. These black screen bugs would be an especially big issue on computers running an AMD CPU, as it would more than likely not have an iGPU to help users troubleshoot.
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Task switching with certain features on or applications running hardware acceleration could cause black screens. Launching games and programs could also cause a black screen if Instant Replay was enabled, as could toggling on HDR in Battlefield V, specifically. Playing Battlefield V for too long could also cause graphics cards to hang.
Problems extended to other games as well, such as Grand Theft Auto V, Monster Hunter World, and Metro Exodus. And the cause of the issues could come down to having an app with an on-screen overlay or even just choosing a particular dialogue option. Outside of gaming, even Chrome could suffer from the black screens, or partial black outs, when using hardware acceleration.
Even users who performed a factory reset on their computer to address the problems may have run into another issue where Instant Replay could not be enabled if it had been enabled prior to the reset.
Not quite done yet
All the bugs we've mentioned are fairly common and thankfully are addressed by the 20.2.2 update to AMD's drivers. The update also addresses graphics card fan speeds lagging behind changes in CPU temperature.
But all of the problems users have experienced aren't guaranteed to be fixed, as AMD notes, “Although Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.2.2 resolves many black screen issues, AMD is aware that some users may still experience black screen or system hang issues during extended periods of gameplay,”
In certain situations Enhanced Sync may still lead to black screens. Some games and video capture software may also run into stuttering still. Even Doom, the perfect test case for Radeon to show its chops running the Vulkan API, is still susceptible to random hangs and crashes during gameplay.
Hopefully, AMD can get a handle on all of these issues, especially the overarching issue related to simply playing for too long. If AMD tackles all that in time of the anticipated “Nvidia killer” Radeon RX 5950 XT, it could be a smash hit.
Via PCWorld
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