Grand Theft Auto V Becomes Gaming Evolved Game Title with Contact Hardening Shadows

Gamers around the world are now enjoying Grand Theft Auto V on PC, but are you getting the best graphics possible? AMD just sent us a note letting us know that Catalyst 15.4 Beta drivers are the ones you should be running to get the very best experience for gamers playing GTA V on their PC with AMD Radeon Graphics. This is because the latest drivers feature support for AMD Contact Hardening Shadows (CHS) if you want to enable this soft shadow mode under the games graphics settings.

AMD is proud to welcome Grand Theft Auto V from Rockstar Games as the newest addition to the Gaming Evolved family. Weve been working closely with our friends in Toronto, Canada and Leeds in the UK, and as part of that collaboration the game features AMDs Contact Hardening Shadows (CHS). This technique dynamically hardens or softens a shadows edges depending on the distance of the shadow from the light source and object casting that shadow. This means softer shadows that diffuse more realistically. To enable CHS in the game, simply select AMD CHS from the Soft Shadows drop down menu. The game also has a built-in benchmark, which should make it easy to test different hardware configurations.

Update 4/19/2015 – AMD contacted us and let us know that is not an official Gaming Evolved title and as a result shouldnt be mentioned as such. AMD confirmed that it still has Gaming Evolved features it, but it is not an actual Gaming Evolved title.