The Problem

Something changed in recent versions of Windows – in versions slightly before, and including “Windows 10 Creator’s Update” AMD Radeon drivers fail to install correctly. The software itself installs, but the video card driver does not change. Furthermore, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the video card disappears from Window’s Device Manager. This means the display adapter is stuck at low resolutions and is not hardware accellerated.

This appears to happen on the HD 4XXX Radeon line through HD 6XXX Radeon line of video cards.

The Solution

This solution gets a properly working DirectX, OpenGL, and OpenCL driver working on Windows 10.

  • Uninstall any Radeon drivers you already have installed.
  • Download and install the proper driver for your video card http://support.amd.com/en-us/download
    • Get the 15.7.1 version if you need OpenCL to work properly.
    • When running the installer, make a note of the location of the extraction directory, we will need this later.
  • Manually set the video card driver to the one included in the installer.
    • Right click on the start menu and select Device Manager
    • Double click on the adapter
      • Display adapters missing?
        • Select View - “Show hidden devices”
        • If it is still missing, select View - “Devices by connection”
        • Expand the lists until you find “Microsoft Basic Display Adapter”
    • Press “Update driver”
    • Press “Browse my computer for driver software”
    • Press “Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer”
    • Press “Have Disk”
    • Browse to the extraction directory of the radeon driver software and select the folder containing display drivers. For me, that is:
      C:\AMD\AMD-Catalyst-15.7.1-With-DOTNet45-Win7-64bit\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF
    • An appropriate driver should show up in the selection area. Double click it.
    • Wait for the driver to install, then manually restart your computer (Long story short, this is neccessary)

With any luck, you should have fully functioning graphics accelleration.

P.S. Uninstall AMD Gaming Evolved “Raptr”, it’s a resource hog.