AMD Releases Radeon Software 18.9.3 Driver as WHQL

Adrenalin Edition 18.9.3 Brings Fixes and Optimisations

Last month, AMD released 3 new drivers for their Radeon lineup. Interestingly, none of the drivers was official WHQL certified. That came as quite a surprise since AMD has promised a new WHQL release every 3 months or so. To rectify the issue, AMD is retroactively promoting one of their drivers WHQL compliant. The new old Radeon Software 18.9.3 beta optional release is now the latest Radeon driver.

This WHQL release has been a long time coming since the last release in May. While the company has been very good and prompt with beta releases, official ones slipped in the last half year. It is nice to see that everything is back on track. It looks like AMD was looking to get 18.9.3 WHQL certified from Microsoft but wasn’t quite able to make it into September. The fact though that the beta release is now WHQL certified is a testament to the stability of beta drivers. After all, the only difference is some extra testing by Microsoft to become official. However, WHQL compliance is still important for many customers.

AMD Beta Drivers Just As Good As WHQL

In terms of features, the driver is the same as the beta release. The release is largely an update to the earlier September drivers with improvements to Assassins Creed Odyssey and Forza Horizon 4. It also fixed stutter with Radeon FreeSync and random reboots when installing on 16 core CPUs. Some known issues that persist pertain to downgrading drivers with Vega and high memory clocks for Vega as well.

Overall, it looks like AMD is back on track with their drivers. Technically, the original promise was a WHQL release every 3-4 months so. However, AMD has been spoiling us with a release every 3 months or so like clockwork for the past couple of years. When they are doing so well, its easy for us to have raised expectations. The WHQL release has been updated without much fanfare but you can find the link to 18.9.3 in our original post HERE.