# No More Monthly AMD Catalyst Updates?



## btarunr (May 31, 2012)

It's 31st, and Catalyst 12.5 WHQL is nowhere in sight. According to an article by Benchmarks3D, you should give up on it, for AMD is calling quits with the monthly driver update cycle. However, AMD will focus on a staggered driver update cycle that will address issues with games as they crop up. In other words, end-users could end up seeing new drivers as hotfixes more often, depending on launches of games and new Radeon hardware, but that could also mean long periods of lull when there are no major issues to address, or no new hardware to improve drivers for. 





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Lionheart (May 31, 2012)

I'm kinda glad in a way.....they should just do it like Nvidia release's em  but then again I can't be bothered waiting that long


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

I hope consumers enjoy being beta testers.


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## Jurassic1024 (May 31, 2012)

^GeForce drivers come much more frequently if you include the betas.

My last four graphics cards have been AMD branded, and I was on the fence regarding what camp to go with for my next card, but this news pushes me back to the side of the green team.  First AMD said their would be no Catalyst updates for cards below the 5000 series for Windows 8 aside from what comes on the disc, their failure to compete with Intel x86 CPU's on the high end, failure to hold onto their price/performance crown on the CPU and GPU side, too little focus on the CPU side of their APU's, and now this.

Graphics division aside, AMD has a very hard time focusing on more than one product/division at a time post-Hector.  I'm no longer impressed with AMD.

*smh*


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## Steevo (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> I hope consumers enjoy being beta testers.



Like with Nvidia who burns up cards and has lots of beta drivers available. 

I prefer the monthly updates, recently I have only updated as needed or as performance increases are available.


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## reverze (May 31, 2012)

good idea, release drivers when there is something worth releasing for, which was kind of already the thing with preview drivers ( so we didint have to make 3 weeks for the whql )


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

Steevo said:


> Like with Nvidia who burns up cards and has lots of beta drivers available.
> 
> I prefer the monthly updates, recently I have only updated as needed or as performance increases are available.



There are issues with the Catylast drivers that are over 5 years old man. 5 YEARS! Nvidia has betas sure.....they are betas. AMD doesn't have betas anymore with this news. ALL drivers are betas. AMD's driver team sucks currently. They have sucked since Dec. 2011.


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## BAF92 (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> There are issues with the Catylast drivers that are over 5 years old man. 5 YEARS! Nvidia has betas sure.....they are betas. AMD doesn't have betas anymore with this news. ALL drivers are betas. AMD's driver team sucks currently. They have sucked since Dec. 2011.



Now you sound like a Nvidia fanboy.Only Nvidia fanboys says that AMD drivers suck.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

BAF92 said:


> Now you sound like a Nvidia fanboy.Only Nvidia fanboys says that AMD drivers suck.



lol I used AMD/ATI hardware exclusively for YEARS. This is my FIRST Intel/Nvidia rig. So sure call me a fanboy. I don't care. But I do know people who use Open GL have had major issues with AMD drivers since Dec. of last year when they updated the OpenGL and fired half the driver team. I also have seen the corrupt cursor issue fixed and then broken AGAIN since then. An issue thats YEARS old now.

They need to SLOW DOWN and do things right. Quality and quantity.


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## Dent1 (May 31, 2012)

BAF92 said:


> Now you sound like a Nvidia fanboy.Only Nvidia fanboys says that AMD drivers suck.



I 100% agree.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

Dent1 said:


> I 100% agree.



Haters gonna hate......but I shoot torpedo's of truth.


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## the54thvoid (May 31, 2012)

BAF92 said:


> Now you sound like a Nvidia fanboy.Only Nvidia fanboys says that AMD drivers suck.



Congratulations, your first post and it's negative and pretty pointless.  AMD drivers are generally considered by most community members and reviewers to be worse than Nvidia's.  Neither are perfect though.


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## Dent1 (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Haters gonna hate......but I shoot torpedo's of truth.



Your truth isn't my truth.

I've been using ATI consistantly since 2009. I haven't had any issues with AMD drivers what so ever.

I update my drivers and then say to myself "what is the point, performance was great before and its still great. Did I need this driver?".



the54thvoid said:


> Congratulations, your first post and it's negative and pretty pointless.  AMD drivers are generally considered by most community members and reviewers to be worse than Nvidia's.  Neither are perfect though.



And TheMailMan78 behaving like a kid wasn't pointless?


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## avatar_raq (May 31, 2012)

I am no nvidia fan, but drivers later to 12.3 screwed my 5870 + eyefinity and killed internet video playback. And now no regular updates? pfffffff.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

the54thvoid said:


> Congratulations, your first post and it's negative and pretty pointless.  AMD drivers are generally considered by most community members and reviewers to be worse than Nvidia's.  Neither are perfect though.



Meh hes new man. He has no idea the massive debates that have been had on here about this. No one thinks Nvidias drivers are perfect. I damn sure don't. But as of LATELY they are leaps and bounds better then AMD. 

Anyway BAF92 welcome to the forums man.



Dent1 said:


> Your truth isn't my truth.
> 
> I've been using ATI consistantly since 2009. I haven't had any issues with AMD drivers what so ever.
> 
> ...


 If you do nothing but game on a single monitor you have been lucky. For those of us who work and or have more then a generation old card AMD drivers have sucked since they laid off the driver team. This is a fact MANY on here will attest to. As for me behaving like a kid......what because I don't share the same opinion as you I'm a child? How mature.



avatar_raq said:


> I am no nvidia fan, but drivers later to 12.3 screwed my 5870 + eyefinity and killed internet video playback. And now no regular updates? pfffffff.


 How can you have issues? According to Dent1 AMD drivers are perfect.


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## Goodman (May 31, 2012)

Never had any real/serious problems with AMD or Nvidia drivers so far but i never had to deal with SLI or xFire either...

Anyhow i don't blame AMD not to do monthly drivers anymore as it must be lots of works 
I think a new driver every ~2 months (4-7 a year) should be good enough & it should give them more time to "fix it" good & have something solid to update to... IMO


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## radrok (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Meh hes new man. He has no idea the massive debates that have been had on here about this. No one thinks Nvidias drivers are perfect. I damn sure don't. But as of LATELY they are leaps and bounds better then AMD.




They both suck for surround gaming but the real problem and deal breaker is that AMD screws up so bad with OpenGL that makes me(us?) rage.

Gaming wise Catalysts are ALMOST fine but damn OpenGL support is meh, I brought up OpenGL because I remember we talked about it on another thread TMM, so who is new can understand why we bash Catalysts, atleast we can say why they suck, differently from fanboy who they just say "OH LOL <insert random GPU manufacturer> SUCKS"


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## de.das.dude (May 31, 2012)

About time they stoped doing this. it consumes time and money and resource as well!


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

radrok said:


> They both suck for surround gaming but the real problem and deal breaker is that AMD screws up so bad with OpenGL that makes me(us?) rage.
> 
> Gaming wise Catalysts are ALMOST fine but damn OpenGL support is meh, I brought up OpenGL because I remember we talked about it on another thread TMM, so who is new can understand why we bash Catalysts, atleast we can say why they suck, differently from fanboy who they just say "OH LOL <insert random GPU manufacturer> SUCKS"



Thank you. The OpenGL crap made me go Nvidia. Now AMD does this?! It will be a long time before I go back red.


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## BAF92 (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Meh hes new man. He has no idea the massive debates that have been had on here about this. No one thinks Nvidias drivers are perfect. I damn sure don't. But as of LATELY they are leaps and bounds better then AMD.
> 
> Anyway BAF92 welcome to the forums man.



I respect your opinion but i have AMD HD 5770 and i have no problem with the drivers.They may not be perfect but they dont suck as you said


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## ChristTheGreat (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> lol I used AMD/ATI hardware exclusively for YEARS. This is my FIRST Intel/Nvidia rig. So sure call me a fanboy. I don't care. But I do know people who use Open GL have had major issues with AMD drivers since Dec. of last year when they updated the OpenGL and fired half the driver team. I also have seen the corrupt cursor issue fixed and then broken AGAIN since then. An issue thats YEARS old now.
> 
> They need to SLOW DOWN and do things right. Quality and quantity.




Be more specific  , on a standar usage, gaming, AMD driver are quite good. I have some AMD/ATI card since 2007, and I never had any issue with driver, except On Crysis when it was realase, a part of the game it was artefacting (on my old x1950xt)

It all depends on what you do. I could tell ya that my 8800GT, was running all fine ,but over the driver 16*.**, I was dropping from 80 to 15 FPS in Oblivion.. People will say ya but it's old game. So what?



> AMD drivers are generally considered by most community members and reviewers to be worse than Nvidia's.



yeah that's right. In community, there are haters, and like you said, haters gonna hate, that's it  

If everybody thinks AMD drivers sucks, why do they buy one? Canyou answer me on this? If people thinks it sucks, well do not buy and go buy something else lol.


Anyway, you have problem with OpenGL, fine you can go on green if it works for ya. I do not think driver are perfect, I,ve just waited soo long for that update for profile  . Something will be better on AMD, some other on nVidia, there is nothing more to say.


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## Dent1 (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> . As for me behaving like a kid......what because I don't share the same opinion as you I'm a child? How mature.



Having diverse opinion is great. I say you were behaving like a kid because you started bashing AMD straight off.

A mature response would have been "ATI drivers have known issues, Nvidia has it right. Hopefully this new way of deploying drivers is a step in the right direction".




TheMailMan78 said:


> How can you have issues? According to Dent1 AMD drivers are perfect.



I never said that. To paraphrase, I believe AMD drivers are perfect for *me*. 


From a business person's point of view this is better. More frequent hotfixes, so customers are happy. Full brown drivers when it's needed. Why expend money on constant development if nothing major needs fixing?



de.das.dude said:


> About time they stoped doing this. it consumes time and money and resource as well!



Thank you. A response from a business perspective.


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## faramir (May 31, 2012)

BAF92 said:


> Now you sound like a Nvidia fanboy.Only Nvidia fanboys says that AMD drivers suck.



Meh, haven't had a single Nvidia card in my life, I currently use HD5770 and yet I consider AMD's drivers to be by far the weakest part of the package. The .Net dependence is just the cherry on top of their lameness.


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## Xzibit (May 31, 2012)

Monthly update schedule was a dream.

A more reasonable one would be Quarterly up-dates 4 a year is okay. Still says you give a crap about your customers and gives you time to soart out issues in testing. Instead of just releasing random betas fixing then breaking features every time a new game comes out.

With all this driver talk from both sides. I'm still waiting for a web-site with the balls to do a driver review.  Remember the old days when both companies were being called out on cheap tricks.  Texture compressing, Down scaling APIs, not rendering full screens and now its just seams its an accepted thing.

You have to wonder if the community doesnt care enough to cover it.  Why AMD/Nvidia would bother fixing their drivers.  They already made you buy the hardware.


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## Lionheart (May 31, 2012)

BAF92 said:


> I respect your opinion but i have AMD HD 5770 and i have no problem with the drivers.They may not be perfect but they dont suck as you said



Everyone get's different experience's bro I know alot of ppl who have had really shit experience's with AMD's drivers, I fortunately am not one of them which I cannot complain about....but yeah, not everyone is going to get the same experience as everyone else


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## BAF92 (May 31, 2012)

faramir said:


> Meh, haven't had a single Nvidia card in my life, I currently use HD5770 and yet I consider AMD's drivers to be by far the weakest part of the package. The .Net dependence is just the cherry on top of their lameness.



I also have HD 5770 but i have no problem with the driver.


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## erocker (May 31, 2012)

No problems with AMD drivers here either. Not like I need to defend them though or bother to mention Nvidia since it's off topic. From what I read AMD's got a new driver team this past December. I could care less if drivers come out every month as long as they release decent drivers. So far, they have.


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## D007 (May 31, 2012)

Honetly in a lot of cases the old drivers end up being better for different games.. It's like making crysis run worse so metro 2033 can run better. Also I have seen drivers desroy video cards. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Thank you. The OpenGL crap made me go Nvidia. Now AMD does this?! It will be a long time before I go back red.



Yea gotta agree Open GL is utter crap on AMD,

paid $630 for a 7970, and my Apps such as

Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3DS Max, Mudbox, etc run like shit, Photoshop is still usuable but the issue with Open GL is so bad that almost all Autodesk products are impossible for me to use, were talking about GPU  causing a delay of 15-45 seconds everytime i need to select a single polygon forget about selecting multiple on a 3D mesh,

Hilariously enough free to use apps like Blender 3D work just fine, so i would say Open GL support being crippled on Radeon Hardware isn't so much the driver team sucking more then usual i feel its like nvidia's castrating of floating point performance etc, a way to force users to purchase Quadro or in AMD's case Fire Pro Fire GL w.e the hell they want to call them GPUs, which i just can't do can't see paying $400 for a Fire GL card thats desktop counterpart is a 6770 etc.

If i could go NVIDIA aka GTX 680 right now i would, but thats just not possible on my shitty salary.

So i stand with you TMM if its AMD and its Open GL people need to just turn and walk across the line into the other camp and go Green  and like you ive been on the Red team for awhile

Cards ive used benched etc
AMD / ATi
4870x2, 4830, 4850, 5770, 5850x2, 6970x2, 6950x2, 7970, 7870, 
Nvidia
7300LE, 7800GTX 512, 8800 GTS 640, 8600GTS 256, 9800GT, GTX  280, GTX 470, GTX 460 1GB

and i can honestly say before i sold it, an 8600 GTS 256mb i had as a backup did better in Photoshop, Mudbox, Maya, and 3DS max then my 7970 3GB, only limiting factor was vram buffer.

One day ill move back to Nvidia GPUs.... soon as i have money lol


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## eidairaman1 (May 31, 2012)

only time i ever have issues with drivers is switching from one companies graphics chip to another or going from a graphics series to another.

Other than that No problems with AMD drivers, Hell Ive installed ontop of drivers with newer ones on my bros machine with a 6770 and it dont have any issues.

THis doesnt bother me as much as I was kind of annoyed with driver releases each month.


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## Andy77 (May 31, 2012)

> *that could also mean long periods of lull when there are no major issues to address, or no new hardware to improve drivers for*



mK... so, that made perfect sense. Noooohhh... why would they not release drivers then? It makes no sense!

... I'm being sarcastic!


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## JrRacinFan (May 31, 2012)

Was contemplating picking up a 7800 series, but now not after seeing this.


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## erocker (May 31, 2012)

JrRacinFan said:


> Was contemplating picking up a 7800 series, but now not after seeing this.



Just wondering, why so? Do you prefer AMD pushes out a few beta/hotfix drivers a month that may or may not work for you? I mean, I see this story as good news. They're going to make sure things are "perfect" (for the lack of a better term) before releasing drivers. Do you take this story as AMD giving up or something?


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## LifeOnMars (May 31, 2012)

12.6 BETA Cap 1 has been released

New profiles added to this release:
- Max Payne 3 (DirectX11 version): Improves CrossFire scaling performance
- Krater: Resolves full screen flickering issue

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx


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## eidairaman1 (May 31, 2012)

ya he is lol, why you think he said it that way. I honestly dont care about driver releases as much as i did when I owned a 9700 Pro


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2012)

I have used AMD/ATI VGA products almost exclusively since 2002. Over the past 10 years, things have gotten more and more complex...and AMD's drivers have added more and more features, and that in turn has introduced more and more issues.


Since 2004 I have been buying AMD high-end VGAs in pairs or triples, from 9800XT to HD2900XT. I STILL have most of these cards in my posession. With the introduction of the HD2900XT, microstutter became an issue. I spent months and months on forums describing this issue, only to have 99.9% of people say such did not exist.

Today, most people know what Microstutter is.

With the launch of Windows 7, DirectX11, and the HD5870, I bought into AMD's Eyefinity, multiple monitors included, only to hve issues with Cursor corruption on the desktop, flickering secondary monitors, and countless other driver-related issues..issues that are only present in configs such as mine.

I RMA'ed no less than 9 HD5870's because of issues with Eyefinity and Crossfire, and the makers of those cards replAced my cards each and every time, because they noticed the exact same issues.

Since then, I've dropped using multiple monitors, and Crossfire, in most instances, because of the problems with such configurations. This is the "new" technology that AMD is hyping, and it is very much broken.

SIngle card, single monitor, is how I run my rig for gaming currently. I still have multiple monitors, and on every driver release, I do a fresh installation of windows and drivers, to see if the prevailing issues I've had for the last serveral years have been fixed...and they have not.


When Eyefinity was first planned, AMD had external boxes for multi-monitor use planned. These external boxes would have a single connection to the VGA, and then distribute the signal to multiple monitors, using DisplayPort.

Those devices were planned to launch in January 2010, called "MST hubs"(multi-stream transport hubs), have yet to hit the consumer market; a key part of the Eyefinity puzzle that has failed to make it to market, and lo and behold, my Eyefinity configuration, as advised by AMD, has failed as well.

Of course, most users aren't using Eyefinity, or multiple monitors, so would have no idea that this tech is very much broken, but it is borken, and it's not just me saying so. I am very glad to hear some users have no problems, but to deny there are long-standing driver problems that have lasted for years, unfortunately, is very foolish.

I used to post here that I was AMD's number 1 fanboy...my opinion has since changed. I have directly asked AMD for help, and they could provide none. Now I have invested into their tech, I feel ripped off, and many things that were promised, never materialized.

And I'll add, with a single monitor, and a single VGA...I don't have many problems either. There are a few, but they are very minor at this point. But that said, I stil lahve thousands of dolalrs of hardware here that AMD marketed as a working solution, yet they cannot help me get it working.


IF them slowing the release of drivers helps fix these issues, then fine, I'll be very happy with that, but if it doesn't, and these issues continue to exist, I think AMD needs to fire the current driver team, and get some fresh blood.

Anyone who would like to see proof of these issues, let me know. I'd be more than happy to put up videos showing them when I get some time, and I'd be far more than willing to try any fixes possible. At this point I have given up on AMD...both for CPUs, and for VGAs. I'm not about to go and buy into nVidia...but I definitely won't be buying anything form AMD any time soon, either! IF anything, I'll buy nVidia, just in spite, because AMD has promised much, and failed to deliver for me..,time and time again.



erocker said:


> Just wondering, why so? Do you prefer AMD pushes out a few beta/hotfix drivers a month that may or may not work for you? I mean, I see this story as good news. They're going to make sure things are "perfect" (for the lack of a better term) before releasing drivers. Do you take this story as AMD giving up or something?



Yes, for me personally, this says AMD has given up on things. I stil lahve issues existing from years ago, that they have not fixed. TO say they will release less "fixes", less frequently, when I stil have existing issues, can only mean that to me. I've been waiting for years..literal YEARS..and now they say I have to wait longer?


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## JrRacinFan (May 31, 2012)

erocker said:


> Just wondering, why so? Do you prefer AMD pushes out a few beta/hotfix drivers a month that may or may not work for you? I mean, I see this story as good news. They're going to make sure things are "perfect" (for the lack of a better term) before releasing drivers. Do you take this story as AMD giving up or something?



Not necessarily. Only reason I haven't been on AMD/ATi for a long time is due to drivers. Just my choice. Not only that, the 460's game fine for me. I was 50/50 on it before this.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 31, 2012)

Officiall news from AMD
http://www.legitreviews.com/news/13275/

"With the release of the Catalyst 12.6 Beta driver, AMD would also like to announce that we are moving away from our Monthly Catalyst release plan. Our goal is to ensure that every Catalyst release delivers a substantial benefit to our end users; as we have today with the release of the Catalyst 12.6a Beta. We will still continue with the Catalyst naming convention; Catalyst: Year.Month., You just won’t see a new driver every single month. We are confident that this will only benefit the end user; you’ll only need to upgrade to a new Catalyst driver, when it makes sense." - AMD PR


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> Officiall news from AMD
> http://www.legitreviews.com/news/13275/
> 
> "With the release of the Catalyst 12.6 Beta driver, AMD would also like to announce that we are moving away from our Monthly Catalyst release plan. Our goal is to ensure that every Catalyst release delivers a substantial benefit to our end users; as we have today with the release of the Catalyst 12.6a Beta. We will still continue with the Catalyst naming convention; Catalyst: Year.Month., You just won’t see a new driver every single month. We are confident that this will only benefit the end user; you’ll only need to upgrade to a new Catalyst driver, when it makes sense." - AMD PR



AMD Drivers......Forever beta.


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## JrRacinFan (May 31, 2012)

What you think, crazy-i's, opposite of what I think that this could be bad news?


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 31, 2012)

yup, im as of now looking for a GTX 680, or a GTX 670 that i can trade my 7970 for now that ive got it clocking well, thanks to Sapphire TriXX 

for Games single gpu single monitor have had no issues with AMD

its the minority stuff they tend to suck and suck hard at aka eyefinity broken, open gl in proffessinal apps broken, etc etc that tends to be my problem, gaming wise i love my AMD card i really do lets me play a bunch of games that do not work period on Nvidia hardware.


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2012)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> Officiall news from AMD
> http://www.legitreviews.com/news/13275/
> 
> "With the release of the Catalyst 12.6 Beta driver, AMD would also like to announce that we are moving away from our Monthly Catalyst release plan. Our goal is to ensure that every Catalyst release delivers a substantial benefit to our end users; as we have today with the release of the Catalyst 12.6a Beta. We will still continue with the Catalyst naming convention; Catalyst: Year.Month., You just won’t see a new driver every single month. We are confident that this will only benefit the end user; you’ll only need to upgrade to a new Catalyst driver, when it makes sense." - AMD PR



So, if they are gonig to test drivers more intensely before relase, that is good. Now if they can fix this issues that has affected myself and other multi-monitor users first, that'd be great. Please tell your AMD contact I will be impatiently waiting for a fix.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 31, 2012)

lol tell that to my boss then dave i didnt do that news post, i was going to but i asked for clarification before hand, the above is that clarification lulz i had nothing to do with this one, im just posting the PR spin from AMD and what they have to say on it.

everyone kinda jumped the gun on this news it was suppose to be under NDA but it leaked so we posted the full news and slides etc honesty i dont care tired of AMD's assurances and telling me my problems will get fixed and they never do, ill just buy Nvidia from now on sad as it is ive no choice.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> lol tell that to my boss then dave i didnt do that news post, i was going to but i asked for clarification before hand, the above is that clarification lulz i had nothing to do with this one, im just posting the PR spin from AMD and what they have to say on it.
> 
> everyone kinda jumped the gun on this news it was suppose to be under NDA but it leaked so we posted the full news and slides etc honesty i dont care tired of AMD's assurances and telling me my problems will get fixed and they never do, ill just buy Nvidia from now on sad as it is ive no choice.



That's what I did. Got tired of the crap shoot with their OpenGL. I went green and have been through three drivers and they have been flawless thus far.


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## erocker (May 31, 2012)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> lol tell that to my boss then dave i didnt do that news post, i was going to but i asked for clarification before hand, the above is that clarification lulz i had nothing to do with this one, im just posting the PR spin from AMD and what they have to say on it.



An AMD rep posted the source of the inforation on Rage3d forums. There was never any NDA on this story/information.


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2012)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> lol tell that to my boss then dave i didnt do that news post, i was going to but i asked for clarification before hand, the above is that clarification lulz i had nothing to do with this one, im just posting the PR spin from AMD and what they have to say on it.
> 
> everyone kinda jumped the gun on this news it was suppose to be under NDA but it leaked so we posted the full news and slides etc honesty i dont care tired of AMD's assurances and telling me my problems will get fixed and they never do, ill just buy Nvidia from now on sad as it is ive no choice.


Well ,as you know, I have dual 5850's here, still getting cursor corruption and crazy flicker on secondary monitors, worse tha nmy 6-series cards. For a product on the market for nearly 3 years, that's unacceptable for a high-end user like myself. To be honest, I have resigned myself to the fact that since it's been 3 years this issue has existed, there must be something wrong with the hardware itself, and there's nothing I can do about that. I wish I would have known about this long ago, and wasn't stuck waiting for a fix that will never come for a very expensive purchase i made becuase i thought AMD could deliver.

I even offered to ship the whole rig to AMD at my expense. It's not like I got a shortage of hardware.

Anyway, i thought the whole point of AMD adding the APP to the driver package was so that driver updates were no longer neccesary, and in lieu of driver updates, just a new APP was required. That, to me, is a very viable alternative, to release APPs every month, and core driver updates when needed. However, the core driver is still broken for me.



> There is a beta driver we are testing right now that fixes the Eyefinity tearing on the third monitor when mixing outputs. I have verified that it works with Souther Islands based cards, so I don’t know if it will work with previous cards. Anyway, if no major issues are found, this driver should be publicly available next week.



I will beleive after the driver comes out, and I get to test it. I've been waiting for such since the 5870 launch in 2009, nearly 3 years ago. This bit of info in itself validates everything I posted about above. If AMD can finally fix this issue..both on my 5850's, and 6950's, then I will be happy. But they said it woudl be fixed inteh past, and it wasn't, so I will not be so quick to trust them this time, and waiting 3 years for such a fix is just...crazy...


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## reverze (May 31, 2012)

ive used both over the past decade and i never had any problem of any kind.

Too many think they are enthousiasts when they spend alot of money on SLI/crossfire/eyefinity and expect exotic setups to work out of the box 24/7 in every case.

Dont want any issues? buy a single card cause you dont need more than one, and you can only focus on one screen at once.

there i reduced most of issues people have.

for the past 10 years ive installed for either brand always the newest drivers and never did i see a crash or bluescreen on stock voltage and clocks in my life. Learn to take care of your windows installation, learn how to install and uninstall hardware and software properly.

So tired of people so emotionally involved in computer hardware/software, if you hate AMD drivers please buy nvidia and shut the fuck up on the forums about it, it doesnt hurt me if you buy nvidia, and this goes otherway around also.

I build systems not for a living but i do build alot of systems to help ppl out, whenever one of their know it all friends that either brand sucks or drivers sucks i tell them to go on my very own computer and show me a single bug, i got a ton of games, they can play any game , use any setting, i dare them to find any fault in the drivers.......

And thats when everyone goes quiet and i tell them to listen to me cause i am an enthousiast, i love playing with hardware and software, instead of complaining on forums i fix things myself where possible. and i tell them neither driver sucks, and does everythign you want it to do.

if you buy a card check your wallet, how much do you want to spend on it? what performance do you NEED ? then you go to the local shop or computer website and you buy whatever your wallet allows and / or what performance you need.

That simple, no one is gonna change their mind on this forum what card they want to buy cause you spam every single thread how much you "suffered" cause you suck at computers

/end rant


----------



## cadaveca (May 31, 2012)

reverze said:


> there i reduced most of issues people have.



Great for you, but AMD says such is working, when it doesn't. That is not a fix..that's outright fraud. In the country i live in, I could sue..and this is not the US were frivolous lawsuits make it to court. AMD sold products with features and such described on the packaging..that does not work as advertized. That is not legal here, regardless of your "fix".


I am a high-end user, and yes, I want AMD to meet my needs as such a user. It's people like me, after all, that provide them with money to develop this stuff in the first place. If you ask me for money for something, I expect it to work as advertized, period. That's covered by law, in fact.



reverze said:


> That simple, no one is gonna change their mind on this forum what card they want to buy cause you spam every single thread how much you "suffered" cause you suck at computers


 

Unfortunately, I don't suck at computers. I have literal 100's of thousands of dollars of education in how PCs work, and I put that into practice each day with my reviews. AMD's solutions, in many instances are broken, and just because you don't like to hear about it, doesn't make it any less important. I post about the iissues that I have so that other users, when confronted wit hthe same problems, don't look elsewhere for causes. You may see this as bashing AMD, I see it as doing the community a service.


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## TC-man (May 31, 2012)

I hope AMD is not doing things like Creative Labs do with the Soundblaster drivers, i.e. "when it's done" approach, without an ETA. I thought there is a dedicated team now for the AMD/ATI Catalyst drivers since early this year, while AMD has already announced they will put the HD 2000 - HD 4000 series in the legacy support for Linux and later for Windows. And their last Catalyst 12.4 is not flawless at all.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 31, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Great for you, but AMD says such is working, when it doesn't. That is not a fix..that's outright fraud. I Nteh country i lvie in, I could sue..and this is not the US were frivolous lawsuits make it to court. AMD sold products with features and such described on teh packaging..that does not work. That is not legal here, regardless of your "fix".
> 
> 
> I am a hig-end user, and yes, I want AMD to meet my needs as suc ha user. It's people like me, after all ,that provide them with money to develpo this stuff in the first place. I you ask me for moeny for something, I epxect it to work as advertized, period. That's covered by law, in fact.



This is why you are the leader!


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> This is why you are the leader!



W1zz is the fearless leader. I'm just a lieutenant.


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## erocker (May 31, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Well ,as you know, I have dual 5850's here, still getting cursor corruption and crazy flicker on secondary monitors, worse tha nmy 6-series cards. For a product on the market for nearly 3 years, that's unacceptable for a high-end user like myself. To be honest, I have resigned myself to the fact that since it's been 3 years this issue has existed, there must be something wrong with the hardware itself, and there's nothing I can do about that. I wish I would have known about this long ago, and wasn't stuck waiting for a fix that will never come for a very expensive purchase i made becuase i thought AMD could deliver.
> 
> I even offered to ship the whole rig to AMD at my expense. It's not like I got a shortage of hardware.
> 
> ...



Looks like any multi monitor users pre 7k series that are having trouble are pretty much screwed. That being said, AMD just came out with this! http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3EBB ...Well, it's no longer Catalyst Crew Feedback anyways.  At least it looks like they are making changes, hopefully this time they will be for the good. Hopefully. *Looks like Bta just put up a new article on it.


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2012)

erocker said:


> Looks like any multi monitor users pre 7k series that are having trouble are pretty much screwed. That being said, AMD just came out with this! http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3EBB ...Well, it's no longer Catalyst Crew Feedback anyways.  At least it looks like they are making changes, hopefully this time they will be for the good. Hopefully. *Looks like Bta just put up a new article on it.



Yeah, it's headed in the right direction, I guess. Like I said earlier, I thought the whole point of the APP profiles was so they could move in this direction, so there no big deal with that in itself.

The issue, for me, is quite specifically the issues revolving around multi-monitor use, a thing that they use to market their cards.

If they cannot get it working on older cards, I almsot feel as though i shoudl get a refund, or free upgrade, so I can get ahrdware that DOESN'T have these issues. I did not buy 5-series and 6-series cards for single-monitor use...I bought them for Eyefinity, and that is currently stil lbroken, as admitted in the news posting.

And becuase they admit this is problem, and that it might not work for earlier cards, this is bad news for me. It's not like I'm complaining about unreal problems...these are problems, obviously, that AMD recognize exists.

The new feedback form is good..I was using the old one every month anyway.


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## trickson (May 31, 2012)

I think this is a good thing really. Kinda sucks AMD/ATI putting out new drivers every month any way. They should be able to put out one set of kickass drivers and adress problems as they come there way. Like nVidia does. Always putting out new drivers every month seems a bit redundant and modaine. How much performance can one card give any way?


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 31, 2012)

they didnt make a comment on app profiles, so imho they have already made the mechanism for rapid support deployment , without the need to change drivers .

and shit i agree with trickson


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## Solidstate89 (Jun 1, 2012)

BAF92 said:


> Now you sound like a Nvidia fanboy.Only Nvidia fanboys says that AMD drivers suck.



Not even close. I have to put up with AMD FirePros while I'm at work along with their requisite shit drivers.

Nothing drives me up the wall faster than all the crap I have to deal with that damndable user interface that Catalyst driver has. It's so unintuitive and there's at least 3 menus/options you have to memorize to get all of the settings. They're not just a centralized in a single menu or list like they were for nVidia drivers down the left hand side. You can't even adjust per application performance or settings from the Drivers themselves. Not to mention the hardware itself is complete crap for using Unigraphics NX with. FirePros excel with Solidworks but not Unigraphics. Though that last part is the company's fault for skimping on a good GPU for us to use.


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## pjladyfox (Jun 1, 2012)

Jurassic1024 said:


> ^GeForce drivers come much more frequently if you include the betas.
> 
> My last four graphics cards have been AMD branded, and I was on the fence regarding what camp to go with for my next card, but this news pushes me back to the side of the green team.  First AMD said their would be no Catalyst updates for cards below the 5000 series for Windows 8 aside from what comes on the disc, their failure to compete with Intel x86 CPU's on the high end, failure to hold onto their price/performance crown on the CPU and GPU side, too little focus on the CPU side of their APU's, and now this.
> 
> ...



I've been a longtime user of AMD/ATI hardware in my systems for a long time (last Intel system was a RAMBUS P4 setup) but this year has been nothing but disappointment outside of the Fusion/APU group. The only thing I can think of is that they had to do this because all the folks that were responsible for helping to maintain the monthly driver updates are either due to be outsourced/terminated or already have been.

I've also worked professionally with some great people over at AMD/ATI and it's news like this that really saddens me since I know they've got some amazingly brilliant people over there. Now I'm sitting here humming "Where has the old AMD/ATI gone" to the song "where have all the good guys gone" or something similar.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 1, 2012)

trickson said:


> I think this is a good thing really. Kinda sucks AMD/ATI putting out new drivers every month any way. They should be able to put out one set of kickass drivers and adress problems as they come there way. Like nVidia does. Always putting out new drivers every month seems a bit redundant and modaine. How much performance can one card give any way?



it would allow them to QA the drivers a lil better too because they are not on a time crunch to release them every month



Solidstate89 said:


> Not even close. I have to put up with AMD FirePros while I'm at work along with their requisite shit drivers.
> 
> Nothing drives me up the wall faster than all the crap I have to deal with that damndable user interface that Catalyst driver has. It's so unintuitive and there's at least 3 menus/options you have to memorize to get all of the settings. They're not just a centralized in a single menu or list like they were for nVidia drivers down the left hand side. You can't even adjust per application performance or settings from the Drivers themselves. Not to mention the hardware itself is complete crap for using Unigraphics NX with. FirePros excel with Solidworks but not Unigraphics. Though that last part is the company's fault for skimping on a good GPU for us to use.



You ever enabled advanced options for them. I did that for the 6770 here

NVs UI i found very confusing to use


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## Solidstate89 (Jun 1, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> You ever enabled advanced options for them. I did that for the 6770 here
> 
> NVs UI i found very confusing to use



Of course I did. If anything that complicated the user interface even more. To get to Options 1-5, click on button A. To get to Options 6 - 10, go find Menu item B-4 on the other side of the window even though those two options should be inexorably linked.

It's a horrible layout altogether, to speak nothing of the anemic hardware and poor software optimizations.


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## The Von Matrices (Jun 1, 2012)

avatar_raq said:


> I am no nvidia fan, but drivers later to 12.3 screwed my 5870 + eyefinity and killed internet video playback. And now no regular updates? pfffffff.



NVidia drivers 301.42 screwed up my GTX 470 Surround setup as well, so at least to me it's not really clear that one driver team is better than the other when it comes to multi-monitor.  The 296 driver works well, but it doesn't have all the extra features like the 301 driver did.  I'm hoping this new drivers causing old multi-monitor setups to break isn't a trend for NVidia as well.


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Jun 1, 2012)

BAF92 said:


> Now you sound like a Nvidia fanboy.Only Nvidia fanboys says that AMD drivers suck.


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 1, 2012)

i personally love this idea, however they need to make a definitions database like that of a anti-virus program, this update practice will work flawlesssly, and they already have the perfect candidate software for this practice.... the CAPs


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## H82LUZ73 (Jun 1, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Meh hes new man. He has no idea the massive debates that have been had on here about this. No one thinks Nvidias drivers are perfect. I damn sure don't. But as of LATELY they are leaps and bounds better then AMD.
> 
> Anyway BAF92 welcome to the forums man.
> 
> ...




Well said mailman,Gee was not to long ago I said the same thing(Jan2012) Of AMD drivers..but wait the last 5 months of been a pain is the ass with crossfire breaking for no reason,My HDMI AMD sound going out when i switch from cable to game on my AV receiver...all because AMD is starting to look bad as a whole.I`m stuck with them though ,my wallet can not afford a dual jump with Intel/AMD or AMD/Nvidia...Why i like some users here they do both which makes for  a good view between them.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 1, 2012)

Solidstate89 said:


> Of course I did. If anything that complicated the user interface even more. To get to Options 1-5, click on button A. To get to Options 6 - 10, go find Menu item B-4 on the other side of the window even though those two options should be inexorably linked.
> 
> It's a horrible layout altogether, to speak nothing of the anemic hardware and poor software optimizations.



well instead of ranting and crying about it here, use the suggestions at AMDs site.


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## jigar2speed (Jun 1, 2012)

Bjorn_Of_Iceland said:


> http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyKDNHNXpNwe-mi3x9KaficklQD4CMq8hILb85q0YthC7W_jO2



Alright, i was keeping tight lip but actually, even i don't have any issues with AMD drivers, shifted from 8800GT to HD 5850 after it got fried playing Starcraft 2 due to Nvidia driver crapped the fan.

I understand some people are facing minor issues here and there, but atleast i haven't come across any AMD driver that killed my card outright.


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## dj-electric (Jun 1, 2012)

killing is one thing, but some AMD users feel already dead with problems that are over 3 YEARS OLD.
Hell, why should an HD7970 user suffer from things that HD5870 users suffered from 3 years ago like cursor bugs.
As a reviewer that has worked with dozens of graphics cards i can say for a FACT that i ran into much less issues with NVIDIA's graphics cards. There, you have it.

BTW, the irony is that i bumped into this topic while helping a friend over skype swap his drivers while the current one is eating his HD6870 alive with constant 99% load. (again, a 2 year old problem).


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## jigar2speed (Jun 1, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> killing is one thing, but some AMD users feel already dead with problems that are over 3 YEARS OLD.



HAHAHHAA - Really ?  So your prefere a direct lose of $300 hardware is better than a 10 minute issue... 



Dj-ElectriC said:


> Hell, why should an HD7970 user suffer from things that HD5870 users suffered from 3 years ago like cursor bugs.
> As a reviewer that has worked with dozens of graphics cards i can say for a FACT that i ran into much less issues with NVIDIA's graphics cards. There, you have it.
> 
> BTW, the irony is that i bumped into this topic while helping a friend over skype swap his drivers while the current one is eating his HD6870 alive with constant 99% load. (again, a 2 year old problem).



Trust me, i never had the cursor bug that you are talking about. 
My system specs are as below,
Q6600 @ 3.6 GHZ | HD 5850 @ 950 MHZ GPU - 1000 MHZ - RAM | 8 GB RAM | 650 Watts PSU | Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit 

I don't say that you are not facing the issue, but your argument of hardware dying is fine but small quirk aren't is way beyond my head.

EDIT: You should completely wipe the Graphic driver of your friend's HD6870 using driver sweeper and do the fresh installation, that should do the trick.


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## pjladyfox (Jun 1, 2012)

D007 said:


> Honetly in a lot of cases the old drivers end up being better for different games.. It's like making crysis run worse so metro 2033 can run better. Also I have seen drivers desroy video cards. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind.



It's funny that this is mentioned since running older PC's, especially for those PC games that used 3DFX cards, is a hobby of mine. Before I got laid off from my last job when I had spare time I used to fuss with Mechwarrior 3 in order to try and get it working on a modern video card. 

After a LOT of work I found that as long as you used the Catalyst 9.12 drivers, as well as a modified DLL, that you could get the game running on an ATI card up to the HD 3870 . Why they broke this functionality, and broke Crimson Skies support at the same time, I STILL do not know. But for some reason NVIDIA cards, while they were broken for awhile, fixed the issue starting with the 258.96 drivers.

While I'm sympathetic to hardware makers regarding supporting a particular game/application I don't understand why they have to break compatibility with older software and meanwhile leave us holding the bag and trying to figure out at what point things stopped working. The least they could do would be to add in the patch notes something like "had to break x to fix y" so that users could decide if they wish to upgrade or not.


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## cadaveca (Jun 1, 2012)

jigar2speed said:


> So your prefere a direct lose of $300 hardware is better than a 10 minute issue...



Yes. That's what warranties are for, and without an outright death, it's not likely that this issue will ever be fixed. In fact, because I have been dealing with said issue for near 3 years, I KNOW it won't get fixed, and there are literal hundreds of thousands of users out there, if not millions, with product that say that they support Eyefintiy, but actually, they do not, at all.


You know, I got these three monitors, and when launching a 3D app, one monitor goes to sleep. I have to turn off the power, then turn it back on, and hope that it works, which doesn't happen about 60% of the time. THat is NOT a working product.

Then, just normal use, move cursor from one monitor to the next, and it turns into a garbled mess.

DO i know what the problem really is? YES. Have I known for years? YES. And is this news posting the first time AMD has openly admitted that it's an issue? YES.

I literally posted years ago saying that the Display output design of the 5-series cards was broken, and that using differnt display output interfaces was the source of the issue. And here we sit years later, with AMD finally saying the same thing.


As I posted earlier, the fix, is hardware they were supposed to release, but never did. IT's a external box that provides a singular display output that prevents all these issues with timings that are occuring, and such a basic thing, to me, that it is astounding to me that AMD has decided to not fix the problem correctly.


Now to sum it all up, if this issue was killing cards, you can probably guarantee it'd be fixed by now, as the loss to AMD for dealing with such an issue would be too great. But because it doesn't kill cards, here I sit, for years, waiting for a fix for a PC I spent $5000 on like three years ago.

And my current $6000 PC? OH, yeah, it has issues as well. I coud have bought new VGAs in the past few weeks...I bought a new U2412M monitor, a i7 3820 and a i7 3770K, an OCZ Nocti mSATA drive....all that cash I would have gladly spent on a couple of HD7950 3 GB cards.


But I didn't, becuase AMD has failed me with the past 2 generation of products. I've been burnt by them so bad, I won't buy GTX670's, either, until I know 1000% for sure that multi-monitor issues are a thing of the past. 

I have ZERO confidence in AMD as a company, as a result of them failing to deliver properly functioning hardware as they have promised.

I will say though, that an AMD rep took the time to call me after so many bug reports, and ask me exactly what the issue was. I'm not sure how they got my phone number, but call they did.


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 1, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> killing is one thing, but some AMD users feel already dead with problems that are over 3 YEARS OLD.
> Hell, why should an HD7970 user suffer from things that HD5870 users suffered from 3 years ago like cursor bugs.
> As a reviewer that has worked with dozens of graphics cards i can say for a FACT that i ran into much less issues with NVIDIA's graphics cards. There, you have it.
> 
> BTW, the irony is that i bumped into this topic while helping a friend over skype swap his drivers while the current one is eating his HD6870 alive with constant 99% load. (again, a 2 year old problem).



i have a hd6870 AND an HD7970, ive never even known about these issues nor have i ever had them.... ive also had low end cards like the HD2400PRO X1900 and the HD4450

and i use both my hd7970 and 6870 on the same motherboard to fold.... so they are at 100% 24/7 and no problems

edit: i also do alot of gaming... either youve had  bad cards or you dont know how to take care of your things


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## TheMailMan78 (Jun 1, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> i have a hd6870 AND an HD7970, ive never even known about these issues nor have i ever had them.... ive also had low end cards like the HD2400PRO X1900 and the HD4450
> 
> and i use both my hd7970 and 6870 on the same motherboardto fold.... so they are at 100% 24/7 and no problems



You have about 6 members on this forum (two staff) that are telling you the same issues with AMD cards. Now you have AMD admitting these SAME ISSUES yet your situation is the norm? Come on man.


----------



## cadaveca (Jun 1, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> You have about 6 members on this forum (two staff) that are telling you the same issues with AMD cards. Now you have AMD admitting these SAME ISSUES yet your situation is the norm? Come on man.



Dude, the AMD rep that posted this info said that they knew of the issue, and had a driver to fix it? saying there's no issue with AMD's hardware when AMD admits there is, and has even developed a driver to try to fix it...uh...yeah...oh, and that driver should be out in a week or so?


I WANT IT NAOW!!! It has been three bloody years!!!!


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## TheMailMan78 (Jun 1, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Dude, the AMD rep that posted this info said that they knew of the issue, and had a driver to fix it? saying there's no issue with AMD's hardware when AMD admits there is...uh...yeah...



I know, I know. Yet people are still in denial on AMD driver support.


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 1, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> You have about 6 members on this forum (two staff) that are telling you the same issues with AMD cards. Now you have AMD admitting these SAME ISSUES yet your situation is the norm? Come on man.



im a programmer myself... i troubleshoot things easy if problems ever come up however i have had zero issues with my hd7970 or any of my previous cards, except for the HD4450 driver making youtube a green screen


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## cadaveca (Jun 1, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> im a programmer myself... i troubleshoot things easy if problems ever come up however i have had zero issues with my hd7970 or any of my previous cards, except for the HD4450 driver making youtube a green screen



I'm actually very glad you have no issues, but here's a list from AMD itself on some issues they have JUST fixed with 7-series cards, even though the cards have been out for near 6 months:



> •AMD Radeon™ HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 Tri-CrossFire™ configurations + Eyefinity* BSOD when launching a DirectX application*.
> •AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 Eyefinity/Multiple Display configurations *BSOD when using desktop applications*.
> •AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 *cards hang when system goes to sleep*.
> •*Tearing on Eyefinity configurations when different display connector types are used*.
> ...




nope, there have been no problems..none. 

I mean, it's no big deal, really. Just some users have spent thousands on Eyefinity configs, only to have them BSOD. NO big deal at all!

Those are some big issues, and it's nice to see they are fixed. But here they are working on new cards, when they haven't fixed issues with cards two generations old. As far as I am concerned, this is why they fired so many people in that department


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## TheMailMan78 (Jun 1, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> im a programmer myself... i troubleshoot things easy if problems ever come up however i have had zero issues with my hd7970 or any of my previous cards, except for the HD4450 driver making youtube a green screen



You're a programmer? Awesome! Then you should be able to fix the multi-monitor support, corrupt cursor, and OpenGL issues AMD has with their drivers. Because AMD just pretty much admitted they haven't been able too in at least 3 years.

Hell you should send in your resume ASAP!


----------



## T4C Fantasy (Jun 1, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> You're a programmer? Awesome! Then you should be able to fix the multi-monitor support, corrupt cursor, and OpenGL issues AMD has with their drivers. Because AMD just pretty much admitted they haven't been able too in at least 3 years.
> 
> Hell you should send in your resume ASAP!



lol i would gladly help but i would have to experiance the problems for myself or have someone bring in a  pc with which those problems are occuring, everything they fixed in the 12.6 beta i didnt even notice in the 12.4.. however i did use the 12.5 pre-release driver for awhile, and im currently busy with programming my own software like my client and server for my game

edit: and im also telling microsoft that windows 8 breaks my game lol


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## Cheeseball (Jun 1, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> im a programmer myself... i troubleshoot things easy if problems ever come up however i have had zero issues with my hd7970 or any of my previous cards, except for the HD4450 driver making youtube a green screen



OpenGL.


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## Solidstate89 (Jun 2, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> well instead of ranting and crying about it here, use the suggestions at AMDs site.



Suggestions for what? There's nothing I can do to fix poor hardware coupled with no software optimizations and the lack of features in the drivers themselves. Your post makes no sense.


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## Wile E (Jun 3, 2012)

BAF92 said:


> Now you sound like a Nvidia fanboy.Only Nvidia fanboys says that AMD drivers suck.



I agree with Mailman. My 580 is the first nVidia card I bought in 8 years. I switched to nVidia expressly because AMD's driver team sucks. Great hardware, shit software. My 4870x2 pushed me over the edge.



cadaveca said:


> I have used AMD/ATI VGA products almost exclusively since 2002. Over the past 10 years, things have gotten more and more complex...and AMD's drivers have added more and more features, and that in turn has introduced more and more issues.
> 
> 
> Since 2004 I have been buying AMD high-end VGAs in pairs or triples, from 9800XT to HD2900XT. I STILL have most of these cards in my posession. With the introduction of the HD2900XT, microstutter became an issue. I spent months and months on forums describing this issue, only to have 99.9% of people say such did not exist.
> ...


My 4870x2 had flickering texture issues that weren't fixed up until I got my 580, as well as broken image scaling, microstutter and a few other minor ones. I had my card for 2 years, and these issues were never fixed. I tried every update. I will not be going back to AMD until the driver team gets multi monitor and multi gpu setups fixed properly.


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## newtekie1 (Jun 3, 2012)

Steevo said:


> Like with Nvidia who burns up cards and has lots of beta drivers available.



At least nVidia's issue was just a software mistake that was quickly fixed, unlike AMD's mistake that was a total hardware misdesign that burnt up reference cards like crazy...


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 3, 2012)

in order for anything to be fixed it has to be reported to companies directly and I mean the makers of the boards and the makers of the chips themselves


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## cadaveca (Jun 3, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> in order for anything to be fixed it has to be reported to companies directly and I mean the makers of the boards and the makers of the chips themselves



My RMA'ing 9 GPUs of the same model within a year isn't notifying them of issues?  Issues that still persist, years later?

There's no justifying AMD's alck of properly owrking features, unfortunately. 

The good part is that Single GPU and Singel monitor work great, but anything else is a crap shoot. The bad part, for me personally, is that AMD is currently making products that for me, don't work as advertized.

Now, even the simple suggestion of using, say, and Eyefinity6 or "FLEX" edition card, which does fix the major part of the problems, never happened, because, to me, AMD was unwilling to admit that hardware didn't work ,while thier partners did agree there was a problem, and continually offered me updated models in an attempt to get my configuration working correctly.

The reports of BSODs on 7-series cards kept me awway form them, which apparantly this new BETA driver fixes, however, it's BETA, and doesn't pass WHQL certifcation at this point. WHQL certifaction doesn't mean much, other than the driver won't cause BSOD's, so that work isn't lost. 

The notes of the beta driver, and the posting from the AMD rep stating a driver was in the works to fix the problem, indicate that AMD is fully aware of the issues I personally, had.

OpenGL problem, again, ahve been reported both to software manufacturers and to AMD, beleive me. SO I fail to see teh method to your posting? Widely documented issues, throughout the industry, and no fix, are what the problem revolves around.  Eyefinity. AMD's #1 new feature, causing BSOD while on the desktop, is 1000% unexcusable. That's not even placing the GPUs under load!


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jun 3, 2012)

yea been trying to get autodesk maya working with AMD gpus since they switched the driver model early last year performance got worse and worse 7k cards dont work properly at all ive submited over a dozen reports and gone through higher ups as well, their is no solution I just get stone walled AMD's drivers are a mess end of discussion, for gaming single gpu single monitor as cadaveca said is fine, but once you start using their awesome features they market constantly you run into a shit ton of trouble.


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## radrok (Jun 3, 2012)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> yea been trying to get autodesk maya working with AMD gpus since they switched the driver model early last year performance got worse and worse 7k cards dont work properly at all ive submited over a dozen reports and gone through higher ups as well, their is no solution I just get stone walled AMD's drivers are a mess end of discussion, for gaming single gpu single monitor as cadaveca said is fine, but once you start using their awesome features they market constantly you run into a shit ton of trouble.



I am using an Nvidia GPU to get things done on 3DS atm, can't do that with AMD/ATI because I'm having tons of issue especially with cursor coordinates when working on vertex selection, it just swaps randomly across the screen, very annoying.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jun 3, 2012)

yea same here on 6000 and 7000 series gpus im totally screwed

Autodesk Maya 7 - 2010 takes 15-45 seconds delay between each vertex selection or UV cordinate selection if i mass select delay can take 5 mins, view port delays etc, 3DS Max also broken, Mudbox works... sorta it has some weird issues going on, 

hilariously enough Blender works just fine, to bad it doesnt support any of the scripts or tools i use. need to find a GTX 670 or 680 to trade my 7970 DirectCu II for.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 5, 2012)

RMAing is just a small fraction of reporting, reporting issues with drivers and software alike to everyone makes more of a report. Also another point to mention, the parts are guaranteed on machines that are run at factory speed, not overclocked. Overclocking causes too many issues.



cadaveca said:


> My RMA'ing 9 GPUs of the same model within a year isn't notifying them of issues?  Issues that still persist, years later?
> 
> There's no justifying AMD's alck of properly owrking features, unfortunately.
> 
> ...


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