AMD is making some changes and rebranding, now replacing its AMD Catalyst with the new Radeon Technologies Software Crimson, which seems poised to take on Nvidia's GeForce experience.
Not too long ago, AMD announced the new Radeon Technologies Group, which aims to disrupt the industry by raising the bar in terms of performance with its new GPUs, creating innovative technologies and ensuring the software supporting GPUs is state-of-the-art. Renowned graphics architect Raja Koduri is at the helm of this Radeon Technologies Group and aims to take things to the next level.
The first thing to come out of the Radeon Technologies Group is the new software strategy. While Catalyst could often turn out to be quite complicated to use and many found it cumbersome at times, the sleek new Radeon Software Crimson offers a far better experience, as Koduri points out in a new video.
The interface itself is impressively good-looking, seems easy to use from the get-go and can easily compete with the GeForce experience, complete with great new features such as one-click Eyefinity configuration and overclocking per game.
Software plays a tremendous role not only because it's the first thing users see on their display, but also because it's an integral part of the whole experience and it can influence the success of hardware as well.
The new Radeon Settings, meanwhile, reimagine AMD's software by leveraging Qt software architecture and aims to deliver a fast, intuitive and simple experience. According to the company, AMD Radeon Settings is 10 times faster than Catalyst and can open in just 0.6 seconds. No beta version of the software is available yet, but AMD should release such a build soon enough.
AMD even goes on to call its new Radeon Software Crimson a "mini graphics Operating System," encompassing everything from tools to libraries, from user interfaces to applications.
The demise of the old AMD Catalyst marks the end of an era, but it also heralds a "new age of immersive computing."
The AMD Catalyst Control Center (CCC) is now called the Radeon/FirePro Settings and comes with a cleaner, modern user interface that's simple and intuitive. Highlight features include Video Quality presets, Game Manager, Social Media integration, System notifications tab, and Simplified EF setup.
The new AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition will be available for download by the end of the year, but the company said it will offer more specific details in the coming weeks.
For now, check out the introductory video below to get a better idea of what to expect from the new Radeon Software Crimson Edition.
