Thursday, May 31st 2012

No More Monthly AMD Catalyst Updates?

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.
Source: Benchmarks3D
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86 Comments on No More Monthly AMD Catalyst Updates?

#76
T4C Fantasy
CPU & GPU DB Maintainer
TheMailMan78You'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! :laugh:
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
Posted on Reply
#77
Cheeseball
Not a Potato
T4C Fantasyim 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.
Posted on Reply
#78
Solidstate89
eidairaman1well 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.
Posted on Reply
#79
Wile E
Power User
BAF92Now 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.
cadavecaI 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.



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?
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.
Posted on Reply
#80
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
SteevoLike 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...:laugh:
Posted on Reply
#81
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
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
Posted on Reply
#82
cadaveca
My name is Dave
eidairaman1in 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? :laugh: 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!
Posted on Reply
#83
crazyeyesreaper
Not a Moderator
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.
Posted on Reply
#84
radrok
crazyeyesreaperyea 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.
Posted on Reply
#85
crazyeyesreaper
Not a Moderator
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.
Posted on Reply
#86
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
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.
cadavecaMy RMA'ing 9 GPUs of the same model within a year isn't notifying them of issues? :laugh: 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!
Posted on Reply
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