Unofficial AMD Drivers for iMac 5K

[peglegjack]

I'm sure that this has probably been discussed at length somewhere in this forum, but I can't seem to find it, so I'm just going to post this here.

I bought a new 27 inch IMac 5K a couple months ago, the stock high end one with the R9 M395. I installed Windows 10 on it about a week ago, basically to play to occasional game or 2, mainly the new Doom game, and maybe to mess around from time to time.

I saw on AMD's website that while they updated the Boot Camp drivers as of April I believe, you can't download the new Crimson drivers, as they are not supported. Meaning (as far as I know) that if I wanted to play the free version of say Forza Motorsport, I can't do it.

I've also found a couple websites that have "unofficial" drivers that would remedy this situation, basically making the drivers current. My question is, would these be safe for my new computer? Would it be worth it for the extra few fps in Doom? Or would I be better served sticking with the boot camp drivers listed on AMD's website? And if I did stick with the Boot Camp drivers, what would the performance difference be?

 

[valdikor]

I'm sure that this has probably been discussed at length somewhere in this forum, but I can't seem to find it, so I'm just going to post this here.

I bought a new 27 inch IMac 5K a couple months ago, the stock high end one with the R9 M395. I installed Windows 10 on it about a week ago, basically to play to occasional game or 2, mainly the new Doom game, and maybe to mess around from time to time.

I saw on AMD's website that while they updated the Boot Camp drivers as of April I believe, you can't download the new Crimson drivers, as they are not supported. Meaning (as far as I know) that if I wanted to play the free version of say Forza Motorsport, I can't do it.

I've also found a couple websites that have "unofficial" drivers that would remedy this situation, basically making the drivers current. My question is, would these be safe for my new computer? Would it be worth it for the extra few fps in Doom? Or would I be better served sticking with the boot camp drivers listed on AMD's website? And if I did stick with the Boot Camp drivers, what would the performance difference be?

This guy provides detailed instructions and necessary files you need to replace to install newer AMD drivers in Boot Camp:
http://www.remkoweijnen.nl/blog/2015/09/21/update-amd-display-driver-under-bootcamp/

Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be updating the page as often as he used to, and so far the latest driver you can get using his trick is 16.4.1 from April or thereabouts. It’s still newer than what Apple/AMD provides for Windows 10 (and a LOT newer than what officially works on Windows 7/8, which are also compatible with this update), though. I use it and it works better than the official drivers and I hope he will post some updates at some point. GTA V runs perfectly and it also worked for Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst – for a while. I already beat it and don’t really want to return to it anytime soon, and I’m glad for that because a recent update bumped up the required driver version to something higher than 16.4.1, so there’s literally no way to play the game on Macs with AMD GPUs as of now, until a driver update, official or unofficial, is available.

EDIT: Remko Weijnen just posted the 16.6.1 update. For extra convenience, this is the 16.6.1 driver package already modified using Remko Weijnen’s custom signed files, you may therefore skip his instructions and just install this:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!At8g_clQTOFriYhXz3nnpwB0c0XNGA

 

[peglegjack]

This guy provides detailed instructions and necessary files you need to replace to install newer AMD drivers in Boot Camp:
http://www.remkoweijnen.nl/blog/2015/09/21/update-amd-display-driver-under-bootcamp/

Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be updating the page as often as he used to, and so far the latest driver you can get using his trick is 16.4.1 from April or thereabouts. It’s still newer than what Apple/AMD provides for Windows 10 (and a LOT newer than what officially works on Windows 7/8, which are also compatible with this update), though. I use it and it works better than the official drivers and I hope he will post some updates at some point. GTA V runs perfectly and it also worked for Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst – for a while. I already beat it and don’t really want to return to it anytime soon, and I’m glad for that because a recent update bumped up the required driver version to something higher than 16.4.1, so there’s literally no way to play the game on Macs with AMD GPUs as of now, until a driver update, official or unofficial, is available.

For extra convenience, this is the 16.4.1 driver package already modified using Remko Weijnen’s custom signed files, you may therefore skip his instructions and just install this:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!At8g_clQTOFriYgqd4hYB3r_DZ6aFQ

Awesome, so you can confirm that you get better performance out of the 16.4.1 drivers?

I also found this page:http://bootcampdrivers.com

but it looks like a world of pain for anyone using the card I have.

 

[valdikor]

Awesome, so you can confirm that you get better performance out of the 16.4.1 drivers?

I also found this page:http://bootcampdrivers.com

but it looks like a world of pain for anyone using the card I have.

Yes, I get better performance out of it, at least on my computer - the original Retina iMac from 2014 with R9 M295X.
I hadn't heard about the site you mention, they seem to have even newer drivers, though I'm not sure it will work with our cards. I'll at least try installing, maybe it will go through - I'll let you know.

EDIT: OK, tried it and it works! Their drivers are unsigned, but they provide a very easy way to enable Test Mode within Windows that lets you install and run unsigned drivers. I'm fine with having it enabled as gaming is the only thing I use Boot Camp for. Performance seems even better and I can run Mirror's Edge again, and I don't see any graphical glitches that were present in the game when I ran the previous driver. So if you're fine with running unsigned drivers, I say go for it, use the package from http://bootcampdrivers.com
Oh, and I didn't bother with the advanced instructions to disable GPU underclocking and fan control, it runs fine as is.

 

[peglegjack]

Yes, I get better performance out of it, at least on my computer - the original Retina iMac from 2014 with R9 M295X.
I hadn't heard about the site you mention, they seem to have even newer drivers, though I'm not sure it will work with our cards. I'll at least try installing, maybe it will go through - I'll let you know.

EDIT: OK, tried it and it works! Their drivers are unsigned, but they provide a very easy way to enable Test Mode within Windows that lets you install and run unsigned drivers. I'm fine with having it enabled as gaming is the only thing I use Boot Camp for. Performance seems even better and I can run Mirror's Edge again, and I don't see any graphical glitches that were present in the game when I ran the previous driver. So if you're fine with running unsigned drivers, I say go for it, use the package from http://bootcampdrivers.com
Oh, and I didn't bother with the advanced instructions to disable GPU underclocking and fan control, it runs fine as is.

Yeah, I would say that the drivers on the other site would work a lot better for your card than for mine. Also from reading the comments on that page, I started to get nervous after they talked about throttling fans and all the other stuff that's probably not good for the long term health of the card. So for you to get the driver to work as is is very encouraging. I probably wouldn't have a problem with test mode either for the same reasons as you.

Glad it worked out for you though . The person who made that driver has the same card as you, so anything he uploads is tested first and foremost on the 295X. It's the 300 series that he's having major problems with.

I don't know, I may must leave it on the official Boot Camp drivers that were updated in April. As long as I can still play Doom anyway.

 

[valdikor]

Yeah, I would say that the drivers on the other site would work a lot better for your card than for mine. Also from reading the comments on that page, I started to get nervous after they talked about throttling fans and all the other stuff that's probably not good for the long term health of the card. So for you to get the driver to work as is is very encouraging. I probably wouldn't have a problem with test mode either for the same reasons as you.

Glad it worked out for you though . The person who made that driver has the same card as you, so anything he uploads is tested first and foremost on the 295X. It's the 300 series that he's having major problems with.

I don't know, I may must leave it on the official Boot Camp drivers that were updated in April. As long as I can still play Doom anyway.

Thanks for the info, I had no idea the person personally tests it with M295X, that's nice to know and gives me some extra confidence. Sure, if you're a little apprehensive, just try Doom with the official drivers and if it doesn't work as expected, you may then experiment with unofficial solutions.

 

[valdikor]

OK, so it turns out, as we were speaking, Remko Weijnen updated his blog and now offers fully signed 16.6.1 drivers. I have packaged them again (I have a habit of backing these things up) so if you (or anyone else) wants to give the latest driver package a go, here it is, no test mode necessary and it works great, just installed and tested it with several games:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!At8g_clQTOFriYhXz3nnpwB0c0XNGA

 

[peglegjack]

Oh wow, yeah that seemed weird that it hadn't been updated in so long.

I was reading the comments, and no one that I read with a 300 series card seemed to have any luck. If someone with a 2015 27 inch iMac wants to try and post their results here, that'd be awesome! I just don't have the time/patience at this juncture haha

 

[ninja2000]

Oh wow, yeah that seemed weird that it hadn't been updated in so long.

I was reading the comments, and no one that I read with a 300 series card seemed to have any luck. If someone with a 2015 27 inch iMac wants to try and post their results here, that'd be awesome! I just don't have the time/patience at this juncture haha

I have a m395x and the drivers still wont install. I tried running the merged driver pack and I also tried manually installing just the driver.
I managed to get a previous crimson driver to install manually but upon reboot the imac would not boot into windows and I had to recover it.
At this point I have all but given up

 

[mhd2100]

Hello all,
I appreciate that this topic is slightly dated now, but I've come a long way with those modified drivers so even M300 users are now able to benefit from running the newest versions.

Yeah, I would say that the drivers on the other site would work a lot better for your card than for mine. Also from reading the comments on that page, I started to get nervous after they talked about throttling fans and all the other stuff that's probably not good for the long term health of the card. So for you to get the driver to work as is is very encouraging. I probably wouldn't have a problem with test mode either for the same reasons as you.

Glad it worked out for you though . The person who made that driver has the same card as you, so anything he uploads is tested first and foremost on the 295X. It's the 300 series that he's having major problems with.

I don't know, I may must leave it on the official Boot Camp drivers that were updated in April. As long as I can still play Doom anyway.

I would like to point out that my instructions do not talk about throttling fan speeds - in fact the opposite is true I recommend installing MacsFanControl for more aggressive spin up of the fans much sooner than on stock Apple firmware, especially when overclocking

And yes you are right in saying that I test it on my own M295X before issuing, and I also now get a select number of people to test it on their cards too before I make them publicly available, especially after making changes to the underlying driver settings.