The AMD Radeon RX 5700-series is getting a much-requested, much-needed driver fix. AMD is pushing out the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Ed. 20.2.2 with a focus on “fixes that are targeted towards resolving recent issues identified by our community.”
Yes, you know all those r/amd and r/nvidia posts about people ditching their RX 5700 XT and switching over to an Nvidia RTX 2070 Super… AMD is reading them and has obviously been jamming them down the throats of its software engineers until they could release a driver patch which addresses the issues Navi users have been experiencing.
One of the most oft-reported issues has been the black screen problem. This happens in a variety of situations, and a whole heap of them have been directly addressed and fixed within the 20.2.2 drivers. I feel it’s only fair to state at the offset that not everyone has experienced these problems with AMD’s latest graphics cards, I’ve personally been running a reference AMD RX 5700 in my main office rig almost since launch with very few problems. Obviously I still get weird inconsistencies… that’s a given, right?
But that’s partly because it’s a graphics card I’ve been regularly punishing in Battlefield V as well as unlocking, undervolting, and overvolting the Navi GPU at its heart. I don’t go easy on my PC hardware.
This is another great example of AMD listening to its customers and taking their feedback directly to heart and, more importantly, actually acting on it. We don’t know how many people have been affected by the RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 driver issues, whether it’s a minority or a more pervasive problem, but the red team is trying to make it right.
And that’s honestly something it really needs to do before it gets anywhere near launching the promised Big Navi, or however many compute units, cores, whatever, is inside the touted ‘Nvidia Killer’ driver problems would kill it dead.
AMD RX 5700-series black screen
It’s not a total fix, however, as AMD notes that “although Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.2.2 resolves many black screen issues, AMD is aware that some users may still experience black screen or system hang issues during extended periods of gameplay. AMD will continue to monitor and investigate reports of these issues closely.”
AMD has, for instance, decided to remove the Enhanced Sync feature from the gaming profile specifically because it still causes a black screen issue “on some games and system configurations” despite the fix. It also states that the Instant Replay or other third-party capture tools will potentially result in stuttering performance in some games too.
So yeah, it’s still not all 100% rosy out there.
The AMD Adrenalin 20.2.2 drivers are out now and the patch notes are available over at AMD’s website… but here they are in black and white anyways.
Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.2.2 Highlights
Fixed Issues
- Performing a task switch with some Radeon Software features enabled or some third-party applications with hardware acceleration running in the background may cause a system hang or black screen.
- Improvements have been made that allow for more responsive fan ramp up or fan ramp down times on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products.
- Performance Metrics Overlay and Radeon WattMan incorrectly report lower than expected clock speeds on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products during gaming workloads.
- When Instant Replay is enabled, a TDR or black screen may occur when launching games or applications.
- A black screen may occur when toggling HDR on in the game settings of Battlefield V.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt may experience an application hang or black screen during certain parts of the game or intermittently during gameplay.
- Some video content in Chrome may appear as a black screen or be unresponsive on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products when hardware acceleration is enabled.
- Metro Exodus may experience an application hang or TDR when choosing some specific dialogue prompts in the Sam’s Story DLC.
- Grand Theft Auto V may experience an application crash when invoking Radeon Software’s overlay with third party OSD applications running.
- Monster Hunter World: Iceborne may experience intermittent crashes while idle or on the character creation screen.
- Some games colors may appear washed out when HDR mode has been enabled in game and Windows on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products
- After a Factory Reset installation with the ‘Keep My Settings’ option chosen, Instant Replay could fail to function if it was enabled in the previous Radeon Software installation.
- When invoking Radeon Software’s overlay while a game is open users may observe flickering in the game or in the Radeon Software interface.
- Radeon Software may experience a crash and error message when locking Windows or performing a sleep or hibernate with the Radeon Software Streaming tab open.
- 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.
- Radeon Software may fail to launch if Radeon Software’s overlay is disabled and a game is running in the background.
- Battlefield V may experience an application hang or TDR after extended periods of play.
- Some Origin games may fail to be detected or may detect the incorrect game title in Radeon Software.
- Some productivity applications are being detected and listed in the Radeon Software games tab.
- The Radeon Chill hotkey could sometimes continue to remain enabled once the user has removed or disabled the hotkey.
- Red Dead Redemption 2 may exhibit blocky textures on snow covered terrain.
- After resuming from sleep, Chrome may experience an application crash if video content was previously playing on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products.
- Radeon FreeSync status in Radeon Software may sometimes fail to update when enabling or disabling the feature through the display itself.
- Fortnite may experience an application crash on Radeon RX 500 series Hybrid Graphics system configurations.
Known Issues
- Enhanced Sync may cause a black screen to occur when enabled on some games and system configurations. Enhanced Sync has been temporarily disabled from the gaming profile and any users who may be experiencing issues with Enhanced Sync enabled should disable it as a temporary workaround.
- Performance Metrics Overlay and Radeon WattMan incorrectly report higher than expected idle clock speeds on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products. Performance and power consumption are not impacted by this incorrect reporting.
- DOOM may experience an intermittent system hang or application crash during gameplay.
- Desktop cursor may intermittently remain visible after toggling Radeon Software’s overlay in some games. A workaround is to bring up the game menu or task switch to refresh the cursor.
- A system crash or hang may occur when running the Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers benchmark.
- The Gaming tab in Radeon Software may display some folder locations appearing as games.
- Radeon Software may open with an inconsistent window 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 games may exhibit stutter intermittently during gameplay on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products.
- Some games may experience stutter while using Instant Replay or third-party applications that stream or perform screen capture. A potential workaround is to disable these features or applications while gaming.
- Although Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.2.2 resolves many black screen issues, AMD is aware that some users may still experience black screen or system hang issues during extended periods of gameplay. AMD will continue to monitor and investigate reports of these issues closely.
If you’re still experiencing issues with your Radeon graphics card after this latest update then you can submit your feedback to AMD directly through its hardware reporting page.