Wednesday, May 20th 2015
It's Now Been Over 160 Days Since a Catalyst WHQL Release
As of today (20/05/2015), it has been over 160 days since AMD released a WHQL-signed Catalyst driver update, in what is a clear sign of decay in the company's after-sales support for the consumer graphics market. Once tuned to a near-monthly release of its Catalyst Software suite, which added optimzations for new games, improved upon support for existing ones; CrossFire multi-GPU support profiles; even if not adding support for new GPUs; AMD slipped into quarterly WHQL release cycle in 2013-14. It now seems to have deviated from even that.
The company's last WHQL-signed Catalyst release was Catalyst 14.12 Omega WHQL, which released on 09/12/2014, 161 days ago. The company has since only released two "Beta" drivers, notably Catalyst 15.4 Beta, with optimization for Grand Theft Auto V, and AMD FreeSync support. In contrast, NVIDIA adopted a faster driver update cycle than its previous monthly GeForce WHQL driver releases, under its "Game Ready" driver program. New WHQL-signed releases predate almost every AAA PC game release. There's still no word on a Catalyst WHQL update, and with launch of new graphics cards slated for the third week of June, it's unlikely that the company will release one interim. By then, it will have been 196 days since a Catalyst WHQL driver release. Such a slow driver update cycle would do little to inspire confidence in buying the next-generation Radeon product, even if it establishes a performance lead over GeForce.
The company's last WHQL-signed Catalyst release was Catalyst 14.12 Omega WHQL, which released on 09/12/2014, 161 days ago. The company has since only released two "Beta" drivers, notably Catalyst 15.4 Beta, with optimization for Grand Theft Auto V, and AMD FreeSync support. In contrast, NVIDIA adopted a faster driver update cycle than its previous monthly GeForce WHQL driver releases, under its "Game Ready" driver program. New WHQL-signed releases predate almost every AAA PC game release. There's still no word on a Catalyst WHQL update, and with launch of new graphics cards slated for the third week of June, it's unlikely that the company will release one interim. By then, it will have been 196 days since a Catalyst WHQL driver release. Such a slow driver update cycle would do little to inspire confidence in buying the next-generation Radeon product, even if it establishes a performance lead over GeForce.
161 Comments on It's Now Been Over 160 Days Since a Catalyst WHQL Release
Another observation is that for 160 days my drivers attached to my 6870s work great. :p
PS. Sorry for my language usage but I'm not a native speaker.
However the news then tries to extrapolate information based upon those 160(193) days in a way that doesn't necessarily make sense from an objective point of view.
He could just as well have written something in the spirit of:
"Nvidia updates their driver 3 times as much as AMD on average, we highly doubt the stability of their drivers in the long term if they need this many updates. We also are not convinced of the longevity of their architecture if every game needs a new driver, what would become of their last generation cards that don't always get as much focus in this drivers?".
Both the current story and the one (slightly dramatized) I wrote are just as wrong/right from a extrapolation point of view (both are based upon conjecture and current understanding of the workings of the current graphics ecosystem) but have totally different messages. Both imho shouldn't be published for the same reason; conjecture. I get that there needed to be some text apart from the "160 days" fact, but I feel that the current extra info is too close to a slogan some forum poster could use in his next flamewar.
Edit: I guess I missed the "editorial" part, and what am I doing here anyway, making needlessly long posts!! ohwell, just another day on a tech forum.
I've got dual 295X2's in my build in crossfire, and if I don't get a driver update new games play like crap...
I understand it takes time to create game profiles (especially if Project Cars case of AMD ignored them pretty much until launch), but it is necessary for me to be able to play.
In fact, I think AMD pushed for GTA5 to have a launch driver, which even now still has some issues with performance.
I waited about 3-4 months for a driver for Dying Light, before they released 15.4 the game was simply unplayable. Again there are still some performance issues, but it's a lot better (read playable...).
My belief is that for an industry that is always/constantly changing you have to have a development team that can keep up with the load/requirements of your customers.
Someone mentioned Asus and the Xonar drivers, but the difference is that drivers in this instance are purely for stability. There's no requirement to add new features beyond the hardware capabilities and once installed sound will be good in every situation. With GPU's there will always be new games coming out, tweaks/optimisations, crossfire profiles, etc. that are needed otherwise things just don't work.
Put it this way, I've not once seen my GPU usage go to 100% on all GPU cores on my graphics card (okay it seems to work for benchmarks, which is hardly surprising). And all software devs keep saying the same thing, it's a driver issue. So what would I be left to believe?
Think of AMD as a crossfire bridge. Without that bridge the link isn't there and the consumers depend on that link to work and keep working nevermind how bad the conditions are.
They dont need to release a whql so long as the beta they release has the necessary crossfire optimisations/updated profiles
I also don't like the fact that nVidia needs to "tweak" their drivers for every new game that is released, and even then the game in question has notable issues (cfr: crashes to desktop are mentioned in every Witcher 3 review I've read, and all of them explicitly mention using the driver nVidia released for this exact game)
Both companies are currently providing sub-par service to their clients, and where I used to weigh the pros of both before purchasing a card, I currently find myself more often weighing the cons.
A lot of this has obviously to do with the fact that many devs are apparently filled with great artists and crappy coders, and even among them, the ones doing the port to PC are second choice.
I hope DX12 brings a solid standard to PC-gaming and devs learn to abide by that standard.
- New Driver release. Features : GPU overcloking off
- New Driver release. Features : GPU overclocking on (after people whining about it)
- New Driver release. Features : Hide, in a better way, 970's flaw
- New Driver release. Features : Cripple old h/w and force people to buy our newest and shiniest product.
Keep that spin machine a wheelin'! Gotta keep those review samples a comin' in :D
If this new senior management don't turn the company around asap, we'll probably look at the death of the company within a year. I'm beginning to suspect it's too late already.Indeed, I don't know why people sometimes have such a problem with editorials. They actually take more effort to write as you're not just repeating someone else's news, but are analyzing something. I know from experience. ;)
Pretty sad.
I don't update my drivers a lot but I certainly would if I were running Crossfire/SLI.