AMD pushes out a GPU driver fixing even more black screen issues

AMD is getting ready to announce its next-generation Radeon RX 6000 series, but in the meantime, its driver team is still working to exterminate some bugs affecting the company's current-gen cards. That includes a few stubborn black screen issues.

In fact, the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition driver (version 20.9.1) is entirely focused on bug fixes—there are no claimed performance gains or specific game optimizations to speak of.

Here's a look at the list of fixes:

• A black screen, system crash or TDR may occur while gaming when performing task switches, enabling performance metrics overlay, or having video content/web browsers open on secondary displays on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products system configurations.
• Project CARS 3 may experience performance issues when the Radeon Software performance metrics overlay is enabled.
• Error 1603 may occur during Radeon Software installation on some AMD Ryzen 5 mobile processors with Radeon graphics system configurations.
• Error 195 may occur during Radeon Software installation on some AMD Ryzen 3 mobile processors with Radeon Vega graphics.
• On some displays, power cycling the display while Radeon FreeSync is enabled may cause the display to remain black until the system is rebooted or the display is hot plugged.
• Flickering may occur in Borderlands 3 in some locations when Radeon Boost is enabled.
• Decoding some HEVC content using AMF Decoder may result in corruption in the clips playback.
• Performance Tuning fan profiles may sometimes not be applied after loading a saved profile.
• Radeon Software may sometimes crash or automatically exit when performing a game scan in the Gaming tab.
• Random color corruption may intermittently occur on some surfaces while playing matchmaking in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
• Notifications may be missing icons or text when hotkeys are used to invoke some Radeon Software streaming and recording features.
• Brightness flickering may be experienced on some VP9 video content playback through applications or web browsers on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics product system configurations.

Black screen bugs have been pestering Radeon owners and, by extension, AMD's driver team for several months now. In the early going, many of the complaints surfaced on Reddit, prompting AMD to ask users to submit bug reports directly to the company.

"Posting issues on Reddit and other community forums, although helpful, does not necessarily mean we’ll be able to spot your post or get enough information from it, so the best way to get issues resolved quickly would be to submit your report directly to us," AMD stated in March.

AMD also ended up tweaking the bug reporting tool within its Radeon Software utility, to make it easier to submit reports.

Outside of black screen crashes, if you are experiencing game freezes or stutters, one thing you can try is to turning off Windows 10's Game Mode. You can do this by heading into Settings > Gaming, then click on Game Mode in the left-hand column and flip the toggle to "Off."

As for AMD's latest driver, you can grab it through the Radeon Software utility, or snag it from AMD's website to install it manually.