AMD Will Fix DX9 Games Broken By Adrenalin Drivers

In the waning hours of 2017, a new story popped up about AMD’s latest drivers. With the new 17.12.1 drivers, AMD introduced the world to the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers. The new release revamped a lot of the driver package and introduced a whole bunch of new features. Due to the tweaks, a good number of DX9 games to experience new bugs. Today, AMD is confirming that they will be fixing the bugs in the old DX9 games.

The controversy started on AMD’s own official support forums. After installing Adrenalin, some users noticed that some DX9 titles like the Command & Conquer series and The Witcher were buggy. After some complaints built up, an AMD rep stepped in and said no fixes were forthcoming. In addition, as “this title is from 2007, [AMD is] unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue, which is most likely caused by outdated API modules”.

AMD Quickly Offers Adrenalin Hotfix to Resolve Bugs

AMD users did not like the news as you might expect. While new drivers for old titles are not expected, new drivers shouldn’t break things without a fix either. As a result, AMD’s Terry Makedon stepped in today and restated a commitment to provides fixes. The bug reportedly comes from issues with the SAGE engine and furthermore, AMD “will for sure fix this bug with SAGE engine games in an upcoming hotfix.”

For now, it is unclear what flubbed up at AMD. The initial response came way to quick and seems to be the default position not to fix old games. AMD should have offered fixes given the scale of the issue. This does not bode well if AMD’s default response is not to offer a fix. Either way, for now, PC gamers will have their backwards compatibility preserved. One day, however, DX9 titles will probably only run on older hardware with older drivers.