# AMD Releases Newer Hotfix Driver, Addresses Far Cry 2 and STALKER: Clear Sky Issues



## btarunr (Oct 29, 2008)

AMD updated the graphics driver hotfix titled, 737-38664: Far Cry 2 and Stalker Clear Sky HotFix. The hotfix aims to address issues with the two game titles and improves performance. Highlights include:


Performance improvement for the DirectX 9 version of Far Cry 2 on CrossFire installations
Performance improvement for the DirectX 10 version of Far Cry 2 on single GPU and CrossFire installations
Improves performance for the DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1 version of STALKER: Clear Sky on both single and CrossFireX configurations at higher resolutions

This hotfix includes STALKER performance enhancements for the DirectX 10 version of the game. Also be sure to download the STALKER Clear Sky DirectX 10.1 patch, which will provide further performance enhancements (up to 10% at higher resolutions) and image quality enhancements over DirectX 10. AMD strongly recommends you download the game patch and test it in conjunction with this Catalyst hotfix. For more information on the hotfix and downloads, please visit this page.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## wolf2009 (Oct 29, 2008)

No mention of the bug they fixed ?


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## Duffman (Oct 29, 2008)

how does one find these hotfixes by themselves on the site?

and what bug did they fix?


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## wolf2009 (Oct 29, 2008)

Duffman said:


> how does one find these hotfixes by themselves on the site?
> 
> and what bug did they fix?



did you follow the link to the bug 

here it is http://www.alienbabeltech.com/?p=890


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## oli_ramsay (Oct 29, 2008)

The new drivers no longer allow me to OC my 4870 via AMD GPU clock tool:







Does the new rivatuner have 4800 series support yet?

EDIT: Rivatuner 2.11 doesn't support this driver BTW 
Just tried ati tray tools 1.6.1328 beta and that wont work either.


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## PCpraiser100 (Oct 29, 2008)

Does this seem to apply for XP owners in anyway other than DX9 performance improvements over Xfire? Can you still hack DX10 effects into XP just like with Crysis?


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## Whilhelm (Oct 29, 2008)

YES!! this hotfix also fixes the Brothers in Arms Hells Highway "Black Friday" glitch that makes the game unplayable. 

Thank you ATI


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## newconroer (Oct 29, 2008)

:sigh:

More drivers...dammit, I'm using ATi now, not Nvidia... I thought this would end! :0



wolf2009 said:


> did you follow the link to the bug
> 
> here it is http://www.alienbabeltech.com/?p=890



Erm, there they go again, another review using driver forced AF. I don't understand, why are people forcing AF in Far Cry 2, it seems to do nothing for the image quality. I got the impression it was built into the engine..


I thought that review was trash. They're using 178 for Nvidia, they don't test the X2 AND the screenshots they give to represent AA and AF are some ground shot at close distance where no AA would be seen anyways.
What did I miss?


Anyways, DX9 is still the way to go.

DX10 continues to present a micro stutter, crash, and it's IQ is in no way justifying it's performance hit.

The best way to play I've found, is in DX9, 4xAA, All Ultra or Very High (where applicable), Vsync, with Geometry on Medium(which vastly improves performance. The IQ lost, is that things like trees are less dense, but you can rectify this problem for the most part with a console command).

The console command in question is the gfx_LODScale. By default it's at "1"  Moving it to 0.5 should have little performance impact when your Geometry is at Medium, and it fills out the trees and other objects a lot 'fuller' than having Geometry at High/VHigh/UHigh, and a default LODScale of 1. You can also afford to run shadows at Ultra, which is key when using the config listed below, as with those shadow settings, your shadowing filter is increased, so you no longer see that ugly texture drawing / film line, but shadows up close lose some of their resolution quality. With Ultra applied, most of that returns, and you retain the distance settings as well.


Gfx_HemiQuality 1 (Barely noticeable atmostpheric effect, primarily on tree trunks when faced with sun shadows)
Gfx_LeavesShadowRatio 1 (Increases the shadows cast by trees in the immediate vicinity; no performance impact, nice IQ gain)
Gfx_SunShadowRange0 10 (Increases range for the shadow filtering line for close distance shadows)
Gfx_SunShadowRange1 40 (Increases range for the shadow filtering line for medium disatnce shadows)
Gfx_SunShadowRange2 130  (Increases range for the shadow filtering line for medium to long disatnce shadows)
GfX_Lodscale 0.5 (Increases density of all objects, sprites and etc. as well as creating a more 'plush' environment; also highly recommended if you use Geometry on Medium, as doing so can 'thin' out textures for tress and other objects).

You could go on to add

Gfx_KillLODScale 0.7 (Increase range at which relevant objects pop/spawn onto the screen -only applicable beyond a certain range)
Gfx_LODClustersize 0.6 (Reduce the amount of close and medium range sprites popping into view i.e. grass thickness is more consistent)


This new driver does allow for a few more frames here and there, but nothing to write home about and I also don't see any improvement for DX10.

Results with settings above (DX9)

# Average Framerate: 57.54
# Max. Framerate: 82.08
# Min. Framerate: 48.62

Results with DX10 (either default configuration, or manual settings above)*Note that there is no option to run Geometry at Medium in DX10 mode. It's easy to assume that performance would rise noticeably, but the overall weight of the DX10 bearing down on the results would be unavoidable and probably negate whatever was gained my moving down to Medium.

# Average Framerate: 46.61
# Max. Framerate: 61.55
# Min. Framerate: 30.72



I have a feeling that all of the reviews revolving around the original hotfix, and their ATI results, especially for the X2, were wrong (or misleading in two ways)

A) When they said 'average' they meant 'high' and when they said minimum they meant 'average.' I.e. 
B) They are using Medium Geometry for their DX9 results, but are not stating that.


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## oli_ramsay (Oct 29, 2008)

Is anyone else able to OC their card after installing this hotfix (excluding through CCC)

Thanks


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## EiSFX (Oct 29, 2008)

Yes its through CCC but i'm still able to OC my HD 3870 with NP with these new Hotfix drivers


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## wolf2009 (Oct 29, 2008)

@ newconroer - Nice set of commands. I'll try some. 

But the dx10 stutter you mention, i saw it with ATI cards, not with Nvidia. Been using 9800GT 1GB and playing at >30 FPS all the time with Vsync On . 

Where is the full list of those commands and what they do ?


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## newconroer (Oct 29, 2008)

Yes, it seems Nvidia is the victor here, but it's nice that AMD saw it as a priority of sorts.

If you want to see a list of commands and what they do, with recommended settings; it was in the Far Cry 2 thread. It's in my second post on the page.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1031158#post1031158

If you think I should start a new thread for it, let me know.

I know Koroush is working on his guide as we speak, though I suppose two opinions is better than one..well not if they are wrong


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## imperialreign (Oct 29, 2008)

although they claim no performance increase in CS DX9, I'll be installing the hotfix anyways.  Seeing as how there isn't much difference between eFDL_DX9 and eFDL_DX10, the hotfix might address some of the rendering issues the 4870s seem to have . . .


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## wolf2009 (Oct 29, 2008)

newconroer said:


> Yes, it seems Nvidia is the victor here, but it's nice that AMD saw it as a priority of sorts.
> 
> If you want to see a list of commands and what they do, with recommended settings; it was in the Far Cry 2 thread. It's in my second post on the page.
> http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1031158#post1031158
> ...



ya dude you should start a farcry 2 optimization thread. don't feel like wading through all that thread searching for commands


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## erocker (Oct 29, 2008)

Well, these new "Hotfix" drivers do absolutely nothing for my DX10 stuttering problem.  Looking at Ubi's forums it does nothing for others too.   I guess this is a DX9 only game for me.


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## wolf2009 (Oct 29, 2008)

erocker said:


> Well, these new "Hotfix" drivers do absolutely nothing for my DX10 stuttering problem.  Looking at Ubi's forums it does nothing for others too.   I guess this is a DX9 only game for me.



only for ati users, sadly


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## erocker (Oct 29, 2008)

wolf2009 said:


> only for ati users, sadly



Wrong.  There are plenty of Nvidia users having the same problem.  As a matter of fact, on my other rig using a 8800GS the problem is there too.  I'm quite sure the problem lies in the game.
Thanks newconroer.


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## newconroer (Oct 29, 2008)

So if he's dead wrong, then he's like, not alive,... so can he really be right, or wrong?


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## erocker (Oct 29, 2008)

I've even tried renaming the .exe on both machines.  Nope.


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## ShogoXT (Oct 29, 2008)

Erocker on the 8.11 betas I was using I dont know what stuttering you were talking about.


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## ShogoXT (Oct 29, 2008)

Ugh I get BSOD after install of video drivers caused by atikmdag.sys or atikmag.sys I think. Whats up with this?


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## erocker (Oct 29, 2008)

ShogoXT said:


> Erocker on the 8.11 betas I was using I dont know what stuttering you were talking about.



It's a strange problem.  I'm not using the 8.11 betas, I'm using the 2nd ATi hotfix.  DX9, ultra settings with AA no problem.  With DX10 any settings I get a persistant stutter when I'm moving.  It's more noticeable while driving.  The problem is detailed more on Ubisofts forums and on other forums.  What sucks is when I try to get a video of the problem (using fraps) my framerate drops but the stuttering goes away.  On two different machines using three different video cards, both ATi and Nvidia.  It has absolutely nothing to do with my hardware or drivers.


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## wolf2009 (Oct 30, 2008)

erocker said:


> Wrong.  There are plenty of Nvidia users having the same problem.  As a matter of fact, on my other rig using a 8800GS the problem is there too.  I'm quite sure the problem lies in the game.



strange, I have been playing on 9800GT 1 GB 1280x1024 2AA DX10 Ultra High Vsnc ON >35 FPS constantly without any hitches. Using 180.43 Drivers .


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## erocker (Oct 30, 2008)

wolf2009 said:


> strange, I have been playing on 9800GT 1 GB 1280x1024 2AA DX10 Ultra High Vsnc ON >35 FPS constantly without any hitches. Using 180.43 Drivers .



Yes, I've gathered that by now.  For some people it all works fine, for some it doesn't.  A friend of mine has a very similar system to my q6600/4870 setup and it works perfect for him.  I'm kinda making it out to be a bigger deal than it is since DX9 on ultra settings looks freaking georgeous, and I can barely tell the difference.  It's just the principal!


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## AphexDreamer (Oct 30, 2008)

Yeah ATI user using the first hot fix and I have no stutters in DX10.


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

Man I think it hates me. I driver cleaned it to extinction, but it still wont go. I cant do a normal uninstall either because it wont load windows with the driver on. I have to safe mode driver clean and uninstall without ATIs uninstaller.


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## erocker (Oct 30, 2008)

Yuck!  Try using driver sweeper.  It works a heck of a lot better for ATi stuff!  http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1655  Also after you uninstall catalyst, uninstall Microsoft Visual C++.


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## EastCoasthandle (Oct 30, 2008)

erocker said:


> Yes, I've gathered that by now.  For some people it all works fine, for some it doesn't.  A friend of mine has a very similar system to my q6600/4870 setup and it works perfect for him.  I'm kinda making it out to be a bigger deal than it is since DX9 on ultra settings looks freaking georgeous, and I can barely tell the difference.  It's just the principal!



Can you delete your pagefile?  IE changing it to no page file, then click on "set". Then return it to system manage size (or whatever you had it set to) then click on "set".  You may need to reboot if it tells you to.  See if that helps with the stuttering.


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

Download link for it wont work. Lamez.


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

Googled for another link. Il try removing the C++ also.


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## erocker (Oct 30, 2008)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Can you delete your pagefile?  IE changing it to no page file, then click on "set". Then return it to system manage size (or whatever you had it set to) then click on "set".  You may need to reboot if it tells you to.  See if that helps with the stuttering.



I would give you 1000 thanks if I could!  DX10 now runs like buttery smoothness.  I used to always put my pagefile on the HDD with my games on it, but stopped doing that when I switched to Vista.  I cleared it, restarted, then set it to my game drive as system managed and it works great.


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

nope for me.... i want buttery goodness....


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## erocker (Oct 30, 2008)

Bah, the stuttering is back.  Strange it worked once, and now it's back to the way it was.  I have to stop this and just finish the game in DX9.


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## EastCoasthandle (Oct 30, 2008)

erocker said:


> Bah, the stuttering is back.  Strange it worked once, and now it's back to the way it was.  I have to stop this and just finish the game in DX9.



You may need to increase your pagefile.  What do you have it set to?


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

8.10 wont even install now... 5 hours on this.


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## truehighroller1 (Oct 30, 2008)

ShogoXT said:


> 8.10 wont even install now... 5 hours on this.



I to have the stutter and have the following setup, Q9450@ 3.85GHZ, Visiontek 4870 512 DDR5, P5Q Deluxe, 4GB DDR2 1153MHZ, 3 X 150GB Western Digital SATA2 16MB Cache in RAID 0, 750W Silver Stone Decatholon, I have a Thermalright heatsink on the 4870 and it is running cool..
I to did the page file thing and yes it worked for bout ten minutes or so.. then it was worse then before IMO. I am how ever on the 8.10 drivers and have not used the hot fix or even tried the 8.11 or whatever they are called


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

Mine didnt have performance issues, it just wont install. Me thinks the 8.11 betas were somehow different....


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## erocker (Oct 30, 2008)

EastCoasthandle said:


> You may need to increase your pagefile.  What do you have it set to?



It's system managed and stays around the 4300 area.  I'm using 4gb of ram, you think I should put 4096 minimum and 8192 max?


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## EastCoasthandle (Oct 30, 2008)

erocker said:


> It's system managed and stays around the 4300 area.  I'm using 4gb of ram, you think I should put 4096 minimum and 8192 max?



What does the OS recommend? Sometimes it may recommend something different then it currently allocates (odd I know).  Start with what it recommends.

After you changed that reboot and start up the game.  Play for about 10 minutes and exit.  Hit Control, Alt, Dlt to see your Commit Charge.  What is your total limit and peak?

Edit:
Almost forgot, make sure you delete the page file from C drive if you are now using another drive for page file.  I've read posts were it can revert back to the old page file location if it's not deleted. You may need to go make sure you show all files and folders.  




> 1. Close all programs so that you are at your desktop.
> 2. Click on the Start button. This is the small round button with the Windows flag in the lower left corner.
> 3. Click on the Control Panel menu option.
> 4. When the control panel opens you can either be in Classic View or Control Panel Home view:
> ...


source


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

Fixed it. Disabled second card in device manager. Started up now. Im about to test if it can turn it back on fine.


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## EastCoasthandle (Oct 30, 2008)

ShogoXT said:


> Fixed it. Disabled second card in device manager. Started up now. Im about to test if it can turn it back on fine.



Oh, ok I didn't take into account you guys were using CF .  In that case restart CF and then go to the directory you have your game.  Change the .exe of your game to AFR-FriendlyD3D.exe and see if that stops the problem.

Edit: 
Or were you referring to another problem?


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

I am talking about me simply getting into windows. When I installed 8.10 HF2 when it tried to load windows it would show me my desktop background for only a split second then would change to low res. It would then go black completely with a old DOS under type blink. Then BSOD. It will repeat forever. Disabling the second adapter in safe mode fixed the issue, but while in normal windows i just found if I try to turn back on the second card, a instant blue screen will come with the same old error.

Can anyone else test on this? If you use 4850s crossfire you will know RIGHT AWAY!


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

On a side note I have yet to get AVIVO accelerated videos to play smooth in any release ive tried to test(8.11 beta and these new ones mostly). The audio and video look great quality wise and audio plays fine, but the video framerate wise stutters like no other. Also a "v-sync off" visual tearing effect is new in these 8.10 hotfix drivers. Right in the center like you have too high of framerate in a game.


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## erocker (Oct 30, 2008)

In Task Manager it's currently showing me 1289M/8103M page file.  In Virtual Memory settings it says Recommended: 6141 MB / Currently allocated: 4106 MB


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

ShogoXT said:


> On a side note I have yet to get AVIVO accelerated videos to play smooth in any release ive tried to test(8.11 beta and these new ones mostly). The audio and video look great quality wise and audio plays fine, but the video framerate wise stutters like no other. Also a "v-sync off" visual tearing effect is new in these 8.10 hotfix drivers. Right in the center like you have too high of framerate in a game.



Actually im not that sure. I mostly tested in Media Player Classic Home Cinema edition, but trying to see if I can get it to work in WMP11...


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

erocker said:


> Bah, the stuttering is back.  Strange it worked once, and now it's back to the way it was.  I have to stop this and just finish the game in DX9.



Strange, I guess the 4850 and 4870 arnt so similar after all. I have no stuttering to speak of. Performance of my single card with this driver is ALMOST as smooth as it was with crossfire 8.11 beta. I set it to optimal which put everything on very high and 1 think at ultra, and another at high. 1920x1200  4xAA directX 10, playable.

Side note why does video upscaleing have to be so hard and confusing? This 24inch is a blessing and a curse as it makes all normal res stuff including DVDs look low res crapola!


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 30, 2008)

very unheard of from AMD, releasing patches quicker than the 1 month updates? I guess someone took over the Head of Driver Dev.


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## Hayder_Master (Oct 30, 2008)

sure this hotfix working , ati late to release it after old suck hotfix just like nvidia do with them driver's , but nvidia fix it quick


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 30, 2008)

you sound very much like a flipflop. Im glad AMD is trying to stay ontop of this type of stuff.


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## InnocentCriminal (Oct 30, 2008)

I bet this bastard hotfix doesn't work for AGP cards. 

>.<


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## truehighroller1 (Oct 30, 2008)

So should I try the hotfix or not? This is very confusing..


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 30, 2008)

well if your not having problems with the current driver, or the first hotfix, i say dont install it, if you are, id recommend a fresh install of the hotfix if its a complete driver itself.

Otherwise wait for the Cat 8.11 drivers.


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## truehighroller1 (Oct 30, 2008)

I haven't installed the hot fix yet no. I will give it a go and see what happens tonight.


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## EastCoasthandle (Oct 30, 2008)

erocker said:


> In Task Manager it's currently showing me 1289M/8103M page file.  In Virtual Memory settings it says Recommended: 6141 MB / Currently allocated: 4106 MB



What was your commit charge after a few minutes of game play?
Total
Limit 
Peak


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## truehighroller1 (Oct 30, 2008)

EastCoasthandle said:


> What was your commit charge after a few minutes of game play?
> Total
> Limit
> Peak




I know it wasn't directed at me and all but, I went ahead and set the default to 7000mb and the max to 14000mb and my system instanly sucked it up.


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## ShogoXT (Oct 30, 2008)

LOL FIXT!!!! It seems to be an extreme error version of the issue where after you install the first time your adapters drivers arnt "turned on". When I booted up a random time after poking at it. They were "off" and everything was low res. I had a hunch, turned on second adapter, rebooted, and BAM! They are working! Im not going through that again though, im not gona touch them for a month!


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## truehighroller1 (Oct 31, 2008)

ShogoXT said:


> LOL FIXT!!!! It seems to be an extreme error version of the issue where after you install the first time your adapters drivers arnt "turned on". When I booted up a random time after poking at it. They were "off" and everything was low res. I had a hunch, turned on second adapter, rebooted, and BAM! They are working! Im not going through that again though, im not gona touch them for a month!





So fixed for crossfire not getting performance it should then??  But that has nothing to do with the single card stuttering issue..


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## erocker (Oct 31, 2008)

I just discovered that GRID isn't working for me with these drivers!  I just get an apphang on startup.


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 1, 2008)

Hmm, get rid of the hotfix and use Cat 8.10 and see if things return to normal for other games.


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## erocker (Nov 1, 2008)

Yeah, I'd love to.  I'm redoing my entire rig this weekend.  I added a 2nd 4870 yesterday and it fixed my Far Cry 2 DX10 problems!  For some reason I can't switch back to 8.10's from the hotfix, the driver just won't take no matter what I try, and that's with going into everything and removing every ati file I can find.  It's time for a Vista reinstall, I've been procrastinating way too long.


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 1, 2008)

erocker said:


> Yeah, I'd love to.  I'm redoing my entire rig this weekend.  I added a 2nd 4870 yesterday and it fixed my Far Cry 2 DX10 problems!  For some reason I can't switch back to 8.10's from the hotfix, the driver just won't take no matter what I try, and that's with going into everything and removing every ati file I can find.  It's time for a Vista reinstall, I've been procrastinating way too long.



Let me ask you something, what do you have your PCIe Frequency set to?


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## erocker (Nov 1, 2008)

100mhz.


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 1, 2008)

isnt that only used as a extreme measure to get a GPU stable? Like how the AGP bus was.


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 1, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> isnt that only used as a extreme measure to get a GPU stable? Like how the AGP bus was.



I stumbled upon this post that explains it best:



> The whole idea of increasing the PCIE bandwidth isnt because the video cards transfer 4GB of data each second EVERY second (standard speed), but because when the cards need a burst of data (stuff in the ram that didn't fit into texture memory), it will occur faster, creating less of a bottleneck to all the other data transfers that it has to do.



FC2 is a prime example of this.  If you are noticing any odd slow downs you can increase the PCIe Freq. between 101 to 110 to see if minimum frame rates improve.  But keep in mine that this will vary from one make/model of motherboard to another.  What this means is that you have to experiment with different PCIe Freqs. to find what's best for your system.   You may find an improvement with a higher frequency or, you may either find a higher frequency offering improvement that's unstable or no difference at all.  

I've tried it myself and I am no longer seeing frame rates dip into the teens while driving around and can use ultra shadows instead of very high.


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