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

You might have seen some news about AMD’s May 2022 Preview driver, promising up to 17% better performance in certain DirectX 11 titles. As someone who spends a lot of time benchmarking different game engines and APIs, this certainly piqued my interest… so today we are benchmarking fourteen DX11 games to see how the new driver performs, pitting the RX 6800 XT against the RTX 3080.

The first thing you need to know about the new driver is that it is indeed labelled as a Preview driver for May 2022, so in other words it is a beta driver and is not the latest official WHQL driver from AMD.

Still, the claims made by AMD are certainly eye-catching, so today we benchmark fourteen different DX11 games with AMD’s RX 6800 XT, first using the official Adrenalin 22.5.1 driver, and then again with the May Preview driver so we can see exactly what difference is made. I also tested an Nvidia RTX 3080 10GB, using the latest Nvidia 512.77 driver, just to give us a point of comparison, so we can see exactly what this new Preview driver means for AMD in relation to the competition.

Of the 14 games put to the test today, some are newer and some are older, I tried to get a good balance there. Not all of them are exclusively DX11 titles too, as some let you choose between DX11 and DX12, but for the purposes of this analysis we are benchmarking the DX11 versions.

Test System:

We test using the a custom built system powered by MSI, based on Intel’s Alder Lake platform. You can read more about this system HERE and check out MSI on the CCL webstore HERE.

CPU	Intel Core i9-12900K
Motherboard	MSI MEG Z690 Unify
Memory	32GB (2x16GB) ADATA XPG Lancer DDR5 6000MHz CL 40-40-40
Graphics Card	Varies
SSD	2TB MSI Spatium M480
Chassis	MSI MPG Velox 100P Airflow
CPU Cooler	MSI MEG CoreLiquid S360
Power Supply	Corsair 1200W HX Series Modular 80 Plus Platinum
Operating System	Windows 11 Pro 21H2
Monitor	MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD
Resizable BAR	Enabled for all supported GPUs

DX11 Games:

• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
• Battlefield V
• Control
• Crysis Remastered
• Days Gone
• Dying Light 2
• Far Cry 5
• God of War
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
• Total War Saga: Troy
• Total War: Warhammer
• Watch Dogs: Legion
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Kicking off with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, straight away we can see a tidy improvement for AMD when using the Preview driver – yes, the average frame rate goes up by almost 10FPS, but the 1% lows are much more impressive – jumping up from 80FPS to over 100FPS, which is a 26% improvement.

Up at 1440p, we still see very decent improvements, they’re just not as large as we saw at 1080p. The average frame rate has come up by 5% with the Preview driver, but once again the 1% lows see the most benefit, improving by 13% compared to the 22.5.1 driver.

Rounding out with 4K, here the difference in the average frame rate is getting very close to our margin of error, but we can still see a tangible gain to the 1% lows, with an 8% boost thanks to the Preview driver.

Battlefield V

Next up is Battlefield V, and starting at 1440p it is another clear case of improvements with the Preview driver. Both the average FPS and 1% lows improve by 7% and 10% respectively. That brings the 6800 XT level with the RTX 3080 in this title, when previously the AMD GPU was that bit slower.

At 4K too, we actually see even bigger gains for the 6800 XT with the Preview driver – this time with a sizeable 13% boost to the average frame rate, and a 17% improvement to the 1% lows. So far so good for the new driver, this is impressive stuff.

Days Gone

There’s more good news when looking at Days Gone, too. Focusing on 1440p here, we can see a small improvement of 6FPS to the average frame rate. Once more though, it’s the difference made to the 1% lows which I think is the bigger deal – here we are looking at a 10% gain for the 6800 XT with the Preview driver. Considering Days Gone uses Unreal Engine 4, an engine AMD has historically struggled with, this could be very good news indeed. On the next page we test Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, another UE4 title, to see if the trends are similar.

Dying Light 2

Next up then is Dying Light 2, where at 1440p we see next to no difference in the average frame rate between either the Preview or 22.5.1 drivers. The key is the 1% lows though, as with the Preview driver, the 6800 XT runs that bit smoother, with a 15% increase to the 1% lows. That’s especially important considering the RTX 3080 initially had the upper hand for 1% low performance in this title, but that lead evaporates when testing with the AMD Preview driver.

Far Cry 5

As for Far Cry 5, we saw very consistent performance across each resolution tested – the Preview driver nets consistent gains of between 3-4% compared to 22.5.1, and that includes the 1% low performance . A 3% difference is just outside margin for error, so it is an improvement, it’s just nothing to really get excited about.

God of War

The same goes for God of War too –  across every resolution I saw no difference between either AMD driver for the 6800 XT, the numbers just vary ever so slightly due to the margin of error.

Grand Theft Auto V

Next up we have a big one – GTA V, still one of the most popular games on steam almost a decade after it’s release. Here we again see next to no chance in the average frame rate for the 6800 XT when using the Preview driver. The 1% lows do improve by 5% at 1440p, but it’s not exactly a game changer, particularly as the RTX 3080 has a clear lead to begin with.

At 4K too, we see exactly the same thing, the frame rates are now just lower across the board. It is also worthing noting that I did test with 8x MSAA to try and keep the system as GPU limited as possible, which can reduce the framerate significantly.

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.

Average performance

Taking a look at the big picture overview, here we present the 14-game average results. At 1080p, we can see a clear improvement for DX11 performance using the May Preview driver. Yes, the average frame rate increased by 4%, but the 1% lows – which are arguably more important – saw a 9% boost up to 125.5FPS, which is actually slightly better than the RTX 3080’s 1% lows, though the average frame rate is still slightly behind.

At 1440p, we are seeing another 4% improvement to the average frame rate when using the Preview driver, but with the 1% lows seeing a bigger increase, this time with a 5% boost.

It’s more of the same at 4K too, with a 4% improvement to the average frame rate, though a smaller 2% margin for the 1% lows. The 6800 XT can’t quite catch the RTX 3080 at this resolution, but it is closer with the new driver.

Removing Control and Crysis Remastered

Purely out of interest's sake, I did also take a quick look at average performance, but this time discarding the results from Control and Crysis Remastered, as those both saw huge performance losses to the 1% lows which I just cannot explain. Removing those games does paint a more positive picture of the Preview driver, with the 1% lows seeing a 10% boost on average at 1080p, and an 8% average improvement at 1440p.

After all of that testing, it is clear AMD is making strides in the right direction with its new May Preview driver. Performance in some cases improved dramatically – just take a look at Assassin's Creed Odyssey! –  and the 1% lows definitely got the bigger boost across the board, which results in a smoother gaming experience.

As we saw though, this new driver alone isn’t enough for the 6800 XT to fully overtake the RTX 3080 when solely testing DX11 titles, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. The only real problem is, right now, these improvements only apply to RDNA 2 GPUs – so those with Vega or Polaris GPUs aren’t going to reap the benefits.

My personal inkling is that this Preview driver is AMD laying the groundwork for its upcoming RDNA 3 family, as the company knows it has work to do in older DX11 titles to really one-up Nvidia. We will have to wait and see about that, but right now, if you have an RX 6000 series GPU, this Preview driver is well worth checking out.

You can download the AMD Software Preview Driver May 2022 directly from AMD HERE.

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