Introducing AMD Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 and Updates to Radeon ProRender

[alexander_blake-davies]

[Originally posted on 11/14/18]

Today, we are releasing our latest quarterly AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise driver, 18.Q4, which includes the new Day Zero Application Certification program, updates to the Remote Workstation feature introduced with the 18.Q3 driver (including support for more AMD Radeon™ Pro WX graphics cards), expansion of our unified “One Driver” with support for AMD Radeon™ Graphics, and productivity boosts for enterprise professionals with performance improvements in some key applications.

Additionally, there are updates to Radeon™ ProRender, our powerful physically-based rendering engine – we are adding real-time viewport ray tracing to the Radeon™ ProRender SDK for developers and the Radeon™ ProRender plug-in for PTC® Creo® is now available.

Day Zero Certification Program

All our Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise drivers are designed to be certification ready, and today we are introducing our Day Zero Certification Program, which means many professional applications will be certified before the latest enterprise driver is released ¹. That means professionals can enjoy the latest features and improved performance of a newly posted enterprise driver along with the benefits of certification on the day the driver is released.

Enhanced Remote Workstation Features

With the remote workstation IP built into AMD Radeon™ Pro Software you can access the full GPU-accelerated experience of your AMD Radeon™ Pro WX graphics card from virtually anywhere using Citrix® XenDesktop® 7.15+ ² and Microsoft® Windows® Remote Desktop Services (RDS). With the 18.Q4 driver, we’ve expanded support to include the Radeon™ Pro WX 4100, WX 5100, and newly released WX 8200 (in addition to the originally supported WX 7100 and WX 9100).

Simplified “One Driver” Deployment for ALL

Our customers say that for every enterprise user that creates content with professional graphics cards there are approximately ten who consume that content with consumer graphics cards ³. Because of this, we are now including AMD Radeon™ graphics support in the downloadable Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 unified driver package to bring many of the benefits of Radeon™ Pro Software, such as stability and better security, to knowledge workers.

Performance Improvements

When compared to last year’s 17.Q4 driver (for both Media and Entertainment and Design and Manufacturing workflows), Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 has up to 13 percent better performance in PTC® Creo® ⁴, up to 67 percent in Autodesk® Maya® ⁵, and up to 89 percent better performance in SPECviewperf® 13 Medical-02. ⁶

Real-Time Viewport Ray Tracing

For more realistic views of designs in professional application viewports, Radeon™ ProRender Real-Time Viewport Ray Tracing takes advantage of the speed of rasterization combined with the visual benefits of ray tracing and is now available in the Radeon™ ProRender SDK for developers to integrate into their application. Contact your AMD ISV Alliance manager for details.

Radeon™ ProRender for PTC® Creo®

Our new freely available plug-in enables designers and engineers to quickly and easily create incredibly rendered visualizations of their products when using PTC® Creo®. It also enables easy exporting of designs to Unreal® Engine for VR visualization when used with the AMD Radeon™ ProRender Game Engine Importer.

Download AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4

Download the AMD Radeon™ ProRender plug-in for PTC® Creo®

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. His/her postings are his/her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

Footnotes:

1. Targeted applications for the Day Zero Certification Program include Adobe® Premiere® Pro, Lightroom®, Autodesk® AutoCAD®, Inventor®, Revit®, Maya®, 3ds Max®, MotionBuilder®, Mudbox®, Fusion 360™, SIEMENS Solid Edge®, NX™, Teamcenter®, Tecnomatix®, SideFX Houdini™, Bentley Systems® MicroStation®, ContextCapture®, LumenRT®, MSC Software Apex®, Marc®, SimXpert®, Patran®, ANSYS® Discovery™ AIM®, CFX®, HFSS, Q3D Extractor®, Maxwell®, Simplorer®, Twin Builder™, SIwave™, EnSight™, Fluent®, ICEM CFD™, Icepak®, Mechanical™ , Mechanical™ APDL, Meshing™, Polyflow®, SpaceClaim® Direct Modeler, TurboGrid™, and DesignModeler™. Applications listed are targeted for certification and certification may be pending.
2. Citrix® XenDesktop® license required.
3. Based on AMD customer interviews.
4. AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 is up to 13% faster in PTC® Creo® 4.0 than AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 when using the AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100. Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of Oct 25, 2018 on a test system comprising of an Intel® Xeon® 4-core W-2125, 32GB RAM, Windows® 10 Fall Creators Update Professional 64-bit, AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100, AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4/AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4. Benchmark Application: OCUS PTC® Creo® 4 Graphics Related tasks TOTAL (results in seconds, lower is better). AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 score: 220 sec. AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 score: 195 sec. Performance Differential: (220-195)/195*100 = ~12.82% faster performance with AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4. Scores are based on AMD internal lab measurements/modeling and may vary. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers. RPS-38
5. AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 is up to 67% faster in Autodesk® Maya® than AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 when using the AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100. Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of Oct 25, 2018 on a test system comprising of an Intel® Xeon® 4-core W-2125, 32GB RAM, Windows® 10 Fall Creators Update Professional 64-bit, AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100, AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4/AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4. Benchmark Application: SPECviewperf® 13 maya-05. AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 score: 151.11. AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 score: 252.19. Performance Differential: (252.19-151.11)/151.11*100 = ~66.89% faster performance with AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4. Scores are based on AMD internal lab measurements/modeling and may vary. Additional information about the SPEC benchmarks can be found at www.spec.org/gwpg. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers. RPS-39
6. AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 is up to 89% faster in SPECviewperf® 13 medical-02 than AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 when using the AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100. Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of Oct 25, 2018 on a test system comprising of an Intel® Xeon® 4-core W-2125, 32GB RAM, Windows® 10 Fall Creators Update Professional 64-bit, AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100, AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4/AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4. Benchmark Application: SPECviewperf® 12.1 medical-02. AMD Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q3 score: 34.75. AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q3 score: 65.80. Performance Differential: (65.80-34.75)/34.75*100 = ~89.35% faster performance with AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4. Scores are based on AMD internal lab measurements/modeling and may vary. Additional information about the SPEC benchmarks can be found at www.spec.org/gwpg. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers. RPS-40

Attribution:

© 2018 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Radeon, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, and Maya are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. PTC and Creo are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and in other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the US and other jurisdictions. Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.