official and third party boot camp driver

[65301361]

what is the difference between them? I found the official boot camp driver provided by apple doesn't make fully use of the power of the graphic card on my 2017 iMac Radeon Pro 580. and I did some research and found a website called bootcampdriver which provided some kind of self-made driver which boots up the performance a lot.

Does it mean Apple limits the performance of the graphic card on windows on all of their Macs or just iMacs and why apple does that? it's really annoying to use third party driver.

 

[V-l-a-d-i-m-i-r]

I don't think there will be much of a difference. But sometimes this may help, so why not try it. Third-party drivers are anyway unavoidable if Boot Camp is used... For example: some time ago I published a Magic Trackpad alternate driver for Boot Camp (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...r-gestures-more-now-in-windows.1850762/page-8), and as usual some people enjoy my third-party driver, and some hate it So perhaps with graphics drivers it's the similar situation... (although from what I read they just repack the newest drivers from AMD, so it's not a real third-party driver, it's unofficial latest driver from AMD, artificially made compatible by signing it for iMac hardware IDs, etc.)

 

[65301361]

I don't think there will be much of a difference. But sometimes this may help, so why not try it. Third-party drivers are anyway unavoidable if Boot Camp is used... For example: some time ago I published a Magic Trackpad alternate driver for Boot Camp (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...r-gestures-more-now-in-windows.1850762/page-8), and as usual some people enjoy my third-party driver, and some hate it So perhaps with graphics drivers it's the similar situation... (although from what I read they just repack the newest drivers from AMD, so it's not a real third-party driver, it's unofficial latest driver from AMD, artificially made compatible by signing it for iMac hardware IDs, etc.)

Thanks so much! But i think bootcampdriver’s driver is some kind of overlooked driver. It’s different from amd’s. Because Amd’s newest driver is the same as what apple provided. You can just download them from Amd’s website. But why Amd or Apple limits the performance of graphic card?

 

[V-l-a-d-i-m-i-r]

Why exactly you think it's limited, versus what..? Maybe you compare to desktop Radeon RX580 card? I think desktop part will be faster. Or you compare Boot Camp to macOS?
Performance is one thing, but for iMac there is also another important point to check in drivers: in Boot Camp (with stock drivers), if you open Radeon settings and go to Display tab, is there a 'color-->color tempature' option? It should be set to 'auto', to enable the same correct color profile and gamut as in macOS... But does it work with an iMac? Just wondering. Because otherwise you'll have oversaturated colors, and display is not suitable for photo editing on Windows. This works for Macbook Pro, but does it work for iMac with at least custom drivers? Just wondering.

 

[65301361]

Because after I installed the third party version driver the frames of the same game increased a lot. And the increase happens in every game. And I also found a gaming performance video of this iMac on YouTube where the guy said he installed the third party driver to boot up the performance.

 

[V-l-a-d-i-m-i-r]

Quite possible that Apple/AMD programmed the performance limit in Boot Camp on purpose, to stimulate users to spend most of the time in macOS, and not Windows. Again, the similar situation is with trackpad drivers for Boot Camp. Apple could have had made them just as perfect as the macOS drivers are. But the drivers are almost shockingly limited, only left/right click and linear scroll wheel emulation.
That's why we have the alternate trackpad software for Boot Camp: Trackpad++, ExtraMagic, and so on.
So actually it's good that someone finally helps with the graphics drivers, as well...