Wednesday, December 18th 2013

AMD Releases the Catalyst 13.12 WHQL Graphics Drivers
After months of Catalyst 13.11 betas AMD has now made available a new WHQL-certified graphics driver, the Catalyst 13.12. This release features support for the Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 7000, Radeon R7 and R9 Series cards and is available for Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1.
Download: Catalyst 13.12 WHQL 32-bit / Catalyst 13.12 WHQL 64-bit
Feature Highlights
Support for the following new products:
Download: Catalyst 13.12 WHQL 32-bit / Catalyst 13.12 WHQL 64-bit
Feature Highlights
Support for the following new products:
- AMD Radeon R9 290, 280, and 270 Series
- AMD Radeon R7 260, 250, and 240 Series
- Call of Duty: Ghosts (multiplayer component)
- Splinter Cell Blacklist
- Saints Row 4
- Metro Last Light
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown
- Need for Speed Rivals
- Total War: Rome 2
- Battlefield 4
- Saints Row 4
- Splinter Cell Blacklist
- FIFA 14
- Frame pacing ensures that frames rendered across multiple GPUs in an AMD CrossFire configuration will be displayed at an even and regular pace
- Frame pacing is enabled through the AMD Catalyst Control Center, or on a per application basis
- Frame pacing is supported on DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications using resolutions up to (and including) 2560x1600 on a single display
- May resolve intermittent black screens or display loss observed on some AMD Radeon R9 290X and AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics cards
- Resolves intermittent crashes seen in legacy DirectX 9 applications
- AMD Radeon R9 290 Series - Power Tune update to reduce variance of fan speed / RPM
- PCI-E bus speed is no longer set to x1 on the secondary GPU when running in an AMD CrossFire configuration
- Resolves incorrect HDMI Audio Driver information being listed in the AMD Catalyst Control Center
- Resolves AMD Steady Video option being grayed out in the AMD Catalyst Control Center
- Resolves intermittent flickering seen on some AMD Radeon R9 270X graphics cards
- Resolves graphics corruption issues found in Starcraft
- Resolves image corruption seen in Autodesk Investor 2014
- Resolves flickering water corruption found in World of Warcraft
- Resolves intermittent black screen when resuming from a S3/S4 sleep-state if the display is unplugged during the sleep-state on systems supporting AMD Enduro Technology
- Resolves intermittent crashes experienced with Battlefield 4 on Windows 8 based systems
- Resolves the display turning green when using Windows Media Player to view HD .avi format video in an extended desktop configuration
- Resolves Metro applications experiencing frame drops during playback of interlaced video content
- Resolves video playback corruption of .wmv format files in Windows Media Player
80 Comments on AMD Releases the Catalyst 13.12 WHQL Graphics Drivers
www.nvidia.com/Download/Scan.aspx
It requires Java on their main download page so you can only install their recommended version, if AMD did this everyone would scream bloody murder and how horrible Java is and the thread would easily reach 10 pages.
If you look at the 400 series cards the 331.93 is listed as Beta for them, as it may cause issues, and plausible deniability when shit does go wrong. Again if ATI/AMD did this there would be a huge fit thrown about how cards aren't supported anymore.
So at the end of the day you are better off sticking with a good known driver unless you want to take the chance to experience issues. LOL,
The version number updated correctly.
I was trying to make use of it since having my ATI Mobility Radeon HD 540v. Four different operating systems, three graphic cards - it just didn't work. I was searching for a proof that this tool can at least start downloading process since 2009. Can I have a look at screenshot?
As you see, I have no choice here, but to keep hoping that the next drivers will be better than previews ones.
Basically, when you can only utilize 1 AMD Graphic Card, and you're running a CrossfireX setup, you will always see a 99% to 100% load on GPU 2. What basically happens is that GPU 2, on Graphic Card 2, will produce the frames. Frames will be created by GPU 2, sent to Graphic Card 2's framebuffer, transferred to Graphic Card 1's framebuffer from the CrossfireX Bridge, and then it's sent off to the Display Adapter. We are talking about whole frames being transferred from one framebuffer to another framebuffer, in AMD's case. On the other hand, if you do play a game that does utilize both Graphic Cards, GPU 1 will produce frames on it's frame buffer while GPU 2 does the same. GPU 1 shoots a frame off to the display adapter. Once the Frame leaves the framebuffer from the first card, it will receive the frame from the 2nd Graphic Card's framebuffer, and push that frame off to the display adapter. From there, it's just a repetitive motion. Frame Pacing Software was designed and needed to regulate this process. Before the software, both GPUs would have a potential to produce partial frames instead of whole ones, and try to send it off to the display adapter. When the graphic card realized it didn't produce a whole frame, it would drop the frame. Nothing on a hardware level was regulating that to reduce runt frames from being sent off from the frame buffers. AMD implemented software to control the way those frames were being pushed out. AMD 7000 Series Graphic Cards had a potential to push even smaller Frame Times, but sacrificed the time needed to developed whole frames. That was the tradeoff. This is why AMD 7000 Series Graphic Cards had so much drop-age and bandwidth in their Frame Time Variance Graphs. With the PCIe Based CrossfireX, it's allowed AMD the ability to better control and regulate whole frames with their software, and how it's being transferred from one framebuffer to the other.
I think he is more concern that GPU 2 is only doing 100% or 99% loads, and not GPU 1. I suspect he strongly feels that they, GPUs 1 and 2, are suppose to divide the load evenly amongst the GPUs. AMD Graphic Cards don't approach producing partial frames for one another like NVidia does with SLI. Simply put, AMD produces whole frames, and NVidia does multiple links of a whole frame, but divides the work amongst any additional graphic card in SLI. If I am not mistaken, the links begin from the upper left of your screen. If GPU 1 - NVidia isn't in SLI, then that Graphic Card does all links, or 100% of the load. If their is a 2nd GPU in SLI, GPU 2 will be in charge of every evenly numbered link, and GPU 1 will be in charge of every odd numbered link. Thus, this is why NVidia call its multi-gpu solution SLI, or Scalable Link Interface. Fragments of a whole images on the NVidia card, are broken down into links on your screen like a grid, before the image is displayed on your monitor. AMD doesn't do this, and that's why they don't share GPU loads. Again, you cannot compare GPU Loads from NVidia cards and AMD cards in the same context. Both companies approach the multi-gpu setup at different angles. If you want your GPU loads to have the same percentage, then you should have invested in NVidia Graphic Cards. AMD Graphic Cards work in a different way, and that work being done is generating "whole" frames. Storing that information into it's framebuffers before the image is sent to your monitor. When the GPU's Load is at 99% or 100%, the uptime indicates that the GPU is producing frames at full capacity. AMD GPU Loads have a tendency to throttle up and down when it isn't necessary to produce whole frames. Probably due to the fact that it's already finished it's load of work, and hasn't received instructions from the CPU.
Now the only scenario where I can see both AMD GPUs having the same load, and it's less than 99%, is when the graphic cards are overkill for the PC Game. Older PC Games are like this where, because newer graphic cards have more streaming processors and higher core frequencies, it will take less latency to accomplish the same goal as older AMD Graphic Cards . It will take less time to push the same amount of work. This also means that less resources are needed to accomplish the same amount of work as an older GPU. So that could translate to lower GPU Load Percentages. If an AMD GPU Load drops down to 30%, then it only needed to utilize 30% of itself to produces frames at that small instant in time. If the percentage goes up, then the GPU % goes up, and this is an indication that it needs to consume more power to produce the next batch of frames.
This is what I mean the cards I use are overkill for the game (payday 2) so they dont need to work hard (100%) to get great FPS in this game, but with 13.9 and 13.12 it only pegs the second GPU at 100% when its just not needed. But 13.4 drivers work perfectly and evenly in this game, thats just how it is for me with my Crossfire 7870 XT's.
The 99% usage on GPU2 is a bug caused by ULPS. ULPS is supposed to be a power saving feature for crossfire, but hasn't been working correctly for many Catalyst versions now.
So, Crossfire users must disable ULPS in the registry.
How-to:
- In the search field (above the Start Orb) type
- right-click on the regedit.exe shortcut that appears -> run as admin
- In Registry, on the left highlight HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
- Hit Ctrl+F, and in the Find field fill in:
- At Every instance of EnableUlps change the value from 1 to 0
- Close Registry
- Reboot the PC
This is the workaround for the "99% usage on GPU2 in 3D applications (games)."- bug.regedit
enableulps
and hit Enter (or click Next) or hit F3 for next.
Don't touch EnableUlps_NA
The downside is that GPU2 is no longer put to sleep mode when idle (in 2D).
You do realize that the new Beta MSI Afterburner (3.0.0 Beta 17) has a feature that disables it for you. It's convenient, easy, and idiot-proof. Settings --> "AMD compatibility properties" under General --> "Disable ULPS." Check the box, a window pops up asking if you want to restart your computer to let the changes take effect, and you're done.
No offense, but you wasted your time telling me how to turn off ULPS in the registry when I already knew that. I've done it a billion times with my previous AMD 7000 Series Cards in CrossfireX. I've done it from Beta Drivers 13.2 on up...
Did you know in certain games like Planetside 2, before the Oh Make Game Faster Update, if you didn't have ULPS set to 0, the second GPU would bug out, and lock in the frame on the 7970s. When you tabbed out in full screen, and tabbed back in, you'd see a frame display for 2 seconds going as far back as 10 seconds ago to 5 minutes ago. Then if you tried to utilize other programs like Sony Vegas Pro or Photoshop afterwards, the setup would BSOD upon load up of these applications? I forget the BSOD Code, but the message had something to do with the un-sync clock frequencies of the secondary GPU, blah blah blah... Take that into account, and both AMD Graphic Cards weren't OCed at all... The only way to fix this was to set ULPS to 0...
Have you seen the bug were you could tabbed out and back in, to any random PC Game, you could glitch your display. It would show frames overlapping one another from the top, and they would drop to the bottom of your screen with some of the 13.8 and 13.10 Beta Drivers... I bet you haven't... This has occurred with ULPS set to 0 on the 7000 series AMD cards....
Btw, only the 7000 series cards and below push 99% loads. The new R9s push 100% load... So what's so significant about that... I think it shows I've spent quite a lot of time dealing with both cards... If I am not mistaken, the 6990s would only push 98% loads. I'll have to check that out again if I ever get around to making my bitmining rig...