Adrenalin 23.7.2 Marks Return of 'Bad' AMD Drivers
The internet has often blamed AMD for bad graphics drivers, but according to @carygolomb on Twitter, that supposed reputation might be returning to haunt the company. The Twitter user reported that updating to Adrenalin driver 23.7.2 caused GPU performance to tank on his handheld gaming device and re-branded his Radeon 780M integrated GPU to the much slower 760M. On top of this, the user also reported issues with some internal and external devices no longer functioning with the new driver active, including his fingerprint reader, sound card, and Xbox 360 game controller.
To back up the user's claims, Digital Foundry replied to his Tweet confirming the bad performance problems with the new driver. According to the review outlet, one of its Aya Neo handheld gaming consoles sporting a Ryzen 7 7840U lost 33% of its gaming performance while running the new driver, going from 33 FPS to an unplayable 22 FPS in Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition.
It's also bad news for Ayaneo 7840U. 33fps in Metro EE becomes 22fps.July 28, 2023
These issues are among the worst AMD-related graphics driver issues we've come across in a long time. Usually, AMD's GPU drivers are very reliable and don't have significant problems. But, with the dozens and dozens of driver updates that AMD pumps out year after year, a dud was bound to pop out at some point.
On top of these issues, the official list of known problems with 23.7.2 is also somewhat high for a fully-released WHQL Adrenalin driver. Some of these additional problems include high idle power consumption on RX 7000 series GPUs — which was supposed to be fixed by now, performance metrics overlay not fully working in some games, and the widely known Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart ray-tracing crashes that we talked about two days ago.
With how new the driver is, it is impossible to tell how widespread the performance issues are. But for now, it seems to be heavily affecting AMD's mobile Ryzen 7000 series processors, with nobody talking about these bugs with desktop Radeon graphics cards. Modern RX 7000 series GPUs seem unaffected, with Ancient Gameplays reporting slightly better gaming performance in some titles compared to the last driver.
