AMD's latest GPU driver cleans up HDR games and is tuned for Zombie Army 4

(Image credit: AMD)

Zombie Army 4: Dead War is out today, and right one cue, both AMD and Nvidia have released updated GPU drivers optimized for the game. I wrote about Nvidia's latest GPU driver yesterday; now I'll go over AMD's newest release.

The Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.2.1 driver package (just 20.2.1 from here on out) is mainly focused on bringing optimizations for Zombie Army 4 to AMD's legion of Radeon graphics cards. Beyond that, there's another round of bug fixes.

If you own a Radeon RX 5000 series graphics card (5500, 5600 XT, 5700, or 5700 XT), the 20.2.1 driver addresses an issue in "some DirectX 12 API games" that makes HDR content become overly dark or overly bright. AMD did not say which specific games this happens in, but if you're playing games in HDR, it'd be a good idea to jump on this driver to see if things look better.

The rest of the fixed issues include the following:

  • Some users may experience higher than expected memory usage when recording with Radeon ReLive.
  • The camera element may exhibit stutter in recorded clips or during streaming using Radeon ReLive.
  • The scroll bar is missing for some users in the Compatibility tab of Radeon Software.
  • Radeon Software may fail to detect VR games when SteamVR is running or has been started.
  • Radeon Anti-Lag enable and disable beep notifications may be played in error when individually pressing keys assigned to the hotkey.
  • The Snap Settings feature may fail to apply settings for Auto Tuning controls if other Auto Tuning settings were already applied.

There is an even longer list of known issues that AMD's driver team is working to correct. They include the following:

  • Some DirectX11 API games may experience an application crash when performing a task switch with Radeon Image Sharpening enabled.
  • Enabling feature for Radeon ReLive such as Instant Replay, Instant GIF or In-Game Replay may cause the display or UI to flicker or stutter.
  • A loss of display with working audio may be experienced on a limited number of displays when performing a mode change on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products.
  • A system crash or hang may occur when running the Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers benchmark.
  • Integer Scaling may cause some video content to show flicker when the display resolution is set to less than native resolution.
  • The Radeon Software Overlay hotkey notification may sometimes be displayed during video playback in web browsers or launching some video player applications.
  • Radeon Software may open with an inconsistent size or may not keep its previously set size when opened.
  • Modifying the HDMI Scaling slider may cause FPS to become locked to 30.
  • Some Radeon RX 5700 series graphics users may intermittently experience a black screen while gaming or on desktop. A potential temporary workaround is disabling hardware acceleration in applications running in the background such as web browsers or Discord.
  • Some games may exhibit stutter or appear to be downclocking on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products.
  • A black screen may occur when performing a mode change with a limited number of displays on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products.

You can grab the latest driver through the Radeon Software utility, or follow this link to download and install it manually. Also check out our guide on how to update drivers for tips on best practices.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).