AMD’s main problem has always been in the drivers and not so much in the hardware. It has always been said that over time its graphics cards improve performance because the drivers are polished. It’s over and now the performance is almost 100% on startup, but this was also achieved by leaving out one of the classic APIs, OpenGL. Now we know that AMD solved his problems with this one, with a increase of performance in OpenGL up to +54%.
Yes, we are talking about an API that nobody uses today and only the two major standards remain Vulkan and DirectX12
New driver, new performance: AMD fixes problems with OpenGL
This was via a new version of Windows 11, specifically 22H2 for insiders, where a new driver called 31.0.12000.20010 raised positive alarms for all users of an AMD GPU.
And it is that this driver package uses a new beta driver called OpenGL 22.05 logically signed by AMD itself. This new driver achieves a more than significant increase in said API and eliminates Radeon GPUs’ problems with it all at once, to the point that, for example, in Unigine Overlay, an RX 6800 XT managed to increase its performance no less than ‘a 33.6% according to the first results disclosed.
Of 11,796 points to 15,762 pointsas they say, a more than substantial improvement that is repeated if we change the graphics card to an RX 5700 XT, where at first we had 5,004 dots Now we have 5,992 stitchesa growth of 19.7%.
FPS increase could be higher in games
A benchmark as well known as Unigine Valley shows what could happen in certain old or medium-old titles. And it is that it happened with the former driver of 103.4 frames per second to 2K Ultra to more competitive and interesting 159.6 frames per second
The problem, because there is always one, is that the OpenGL API has been deprecated for quite some time, mainly because DX12 has cannibalized all graphics engines relying on Ray Tracing, better support for DLSS or FSR 2.0 and of course thanks to Direct storage which is about to debut with the options and implementations that NVIDIA and AMD have to do in this regard, where the first will be called RTX I/O.
Therefore, and after improvements in DX11 from previous drivers where the gap with NVIDIA was closed, it was OpenGL’s turn, so if you have a title pending to play with this graphics API, AMD will release the version soon WHQL where we will be able to enjoy an improvement in GPU performance completely free, which is great news despite what was said just before.