15.11.1 Beta Drivers & Fallout 4
15.11.1 Beta Drivers & Fallout 4
The latest 15.11.1 BETA drivers for Radeon GPUs were released recently. I received them just now after learning about them. They seem aimed at improving performance for Fallout 4, Star Wars Battlefront and the new AC game. The speed improvement in Fallout 4 is impressive—previously I was around 30-45 FPS with high settings, using 50-75% GPU power. Now I consistently hit near 60 FPS while keeping 75% usage. The update also boosts overall stability. Have others tried these? I'm using a 7970 and am pleased AMD still supports my older GPU. I haven't played Battlefront yet but expect only modest gains in the Beta.
Crossfire 290 is installed on a single card due to missing CF support. SLI isn't available either, and I suspect it won't be added in the future (it wasn't for Skyrim either). I'm using it at 1440p with VSR set to high preset, draw distances half, lighting ultra, and TAA enabled. Tessellation override is active in Catalyst at 32x with CF turned off. These settings usually keep me above 60fps most of the time, though I occasionally see 45fps drops (especially in city areas). It offers a nice mix of visual appeal and performance for me. After updating the drivers on 15.11.1, I didn't notice much improvement, but it's hard to judge if it's truly limited at 60 most of the time.
You can boost the frame rate by editing the FalloutPref.ini file in your user/docs/games/fallout4 folder—change "iPresentInterval=1" to "iPresentInterval=0". Don't worry about damaging the file; the game regenerates it each time you adjust graphics settings.
For smoother play, keep Vsync enabled by default and set Catalyst's frame rate target to 60fps, using AMD's control so the GPU isn't overworked and input lag is minimized.
As a side note: Last night I experienced noticeable drops, sometimes hitting the high 20s. CPU and GPU usage stayed moderate (around 60-80%), so it wasn't a hardware issue. The game has been quite unstable for me. Sometimes it freezes or crashes randomly (about 3-4 times), and audio cuts out unexpectedly, forcing restarts.
Overall, I've really enjoyed the game despite these hiccups.