Wednesday, November 8th 2023
AMD Puts Radeon Vega and Polaris GPUs on a Slower Driver Update Track
AMD is weaning the market off its older gaming graphics card series that predate the Radeon RX 5000 series. The company is reportedly putting older GPUs based on the "Vega" and "Polaris" graphics architectures on a slower driver update track, which means driver updates to these GPUs will be less frequent. The company's RX 5000, RX 6000, and RX 7000 series, on the other hand, will continue on with the current driver update track that includes one or more driver releases each month, including releases to fix glaring game bugs, or day-zero performance updates.
AMD over the past couple of months began segregating RDNA (RX 5000 series and later) and pre-RDNA (older than RX 5000 series) GPUs through their driver releases. The latest drivers come in an RDNA-only package (denoted by "rdna" in the installer's file name), which is around 600 MB in size; and a larger 1.1 GB package that supports both RDNA and pre-RDNA GPUs. The company now announced that the pre-RDNA GPUs will switch to a slower driver update track as is characteristic with older-generation GPUs that AMD wants to discontinue support for.In a statement to AnandTech, AMD says:
Source:
AnandTech
AMD over the past couple of months began segregating RDNA (RX 5000 series and later) and pre-RDNA (older than RX 5000 series) GPUs through their driver releases. The latest drivers come in an RDNA-only package (denoted by "rdna" in the installer's file name), which is around 600 MB in size; and a larger 1.1 GB package that supports both RDNA and pre-RDNA GPUs. The company now announced that the pre-RDNA GPUs will switch to a slower driver update track as is characteristic with older-generation GPUs that AMD wants to discontinue support for.In a statement to AnandTech, AMD says:
The AMD Polaris and Vega graphics architectures are mature, stable and performant and don't benefit as much from regular software tuning. Going forward, AMD is providing critical updates for Polaris- and Vega-based products via a separate driver package, including important security and functionality updates as available. The committed support is greater than for products AMD categorizes as legacy, and gamers can still enjoy their favorite games on Polaris and Vega-based products.So what are these pre-RDNA GPUs? These would span the Radeon RX 400 and RX 500 series "Polaris," the RX Vega series, and the Radeon VII. The Radeon RX 5000 series is now over 4 years old in the market, which makes the RX Vega series 6 years into the market, the RX 500 series 7 years, and the RX 400 series 8 years old.
127 Comments on AMD Puts Radeon Vega and Polaris GPUs on a Slower Driver Update Track
Your card will not work exactly the same on Linux as on Windows, but that doesn't make the problem the drivers.
If it was the drivers, a lot of Vega users would have had problems.
(I'm running Win10, you may be running Win11, so there's that...)
edit: This statement below is bollocks on second thoughts. Apologies for making it.
If it was the drivers fault, explain why I haven't had issues ?
Do you think my driver files are different from yours ?
It seems that everytime try to discuss something anywhere in the internet the same happens over and over. Ah yes.. why would I run windows 11 having Linux? What a waste. Same issues since 2019, the card had the least lifetime use compared to any other gpu I've owned, it was barely 2 years old when I got it. By that time Radeon VII was the best AMD had to offer, not even 5000 series were released, would you consider that.. old?
They also handle multi monitors differently; on Polaris/Vega if I turned off my HDMI connected amp, they stayed "active" as output devices while with Cezanne they completely disappear. This means that when I turn my HDMI amp with Cezanne, Windows then has no audio outputs, or if I have my amp on and turn off my primary monitor, the audio skips for 2-3 seconds as the output devices resync. Neither happened with dedicated cards. Granted this is more like an audio device issue, not a videocard one. Did anyone actually check if those old cards actually show different performances with the updates that roll out in current year? Or are those updates contain just a new version number and being made with a newer compiler?
Vega APUs drivers are based off of the drivers of the discrete Vega GPUs, basically the Vega APUs have 6-7 years of mature driver support at this time even if they did just come out last year. If this was a brand-new architecture and they were dropping it 1 year later that makes sense but if you are just releasing a refreshed architecture 6-7 years later you can't really say you haven't already benefited from the previous 6-7 years of driver maturity of that architecture.
Meanwhile, the GTX 460 features PCIe 2.0, DX12 11_0, 1GB of VRAM, and an available driver that supports up to Windows 8.1. 7 year gap and light-years apart.
Compare that to today. 2016 featured Pascal. The 1060 6GB is a common favorite, how does it stack up to a 4060?
1060 6GB offers PCIe 3.0, DX12 12_1, 6GB of VRAM, and still has driver support.
4060 offers PCIe 4.0 (but only x8!), DX12 12_2, 8GB of VRAM, and also still has driver support.
Are they close in terms of performance? No. But the 1060 can run nearly the same games a 4060 can, while an FX 5700 can't do anything close.
Annoyed that I've only looked at NVidia cards? Have I the solution for you.
Radeon 9200. 2003. AGP, DX8.1, 128MB VRAM, but... look! You can get drivers for it.
Radeon HD 6850. 2010. PCIe 2.0, DX11.2, 1GB of VRAM, still has available drivers. For Windows 10! They aren't updated anymore, but they exist.
RX 480. 2016. Coincidentally it's the subject of the article, how nice! It features PCIe 3.0 x16, DX12 12_0, 8GB of VRAM, and also still gets driver updates
RX 7700. Released this year! Features PCIe 4.0 (at a full 16x), DX12 12_2, 12GB of VRAM, and still gets driver updates.
Guess what! The RX 480 is a perfectly capable gaming GPU if you don't want to play games from 2023. Which most don't, considering they're not very optimized right now. It still does just fine for slightly older titles.
In 2010, could the Radeon 9200 do that? No. Could the FX 5700 do that? No.
In 2023, can the 1060 6GB and the RX 480 do that? Yes! My GTX 690 from 2013 can run most games perfectly fine, as long as it's DX12 11_0 feature level isn't an issue!
EDIT:
I should note that the 11_0 feature support level is becoming more of an issue as more games use DX12 Ultimate - I upgraded to a 3060 partially because of this and partially because I got one for very cheap. However as long as you aren't playing bleeding edge stuff on a 10 year old GPU it's just fine - it handles Portal 2 at 1080p165 like a champ (albeit with some volume as it has only a single fan).
Is there any game that you know of which doesn't run on a Polaris or Vega GPU and would be in need of a driver update ? Does that update actually contain any changes or is it just repackaged to work on those newer OSes ?
I don't understand the outcry, you don't need a new driver every month for an old GPU. You won't get magical performance gains from newest games. I don't cry that my Mediatek wifi card does not get a new driver as my wifi speeds will not increase anyway.
Putting driver for old GPUs on a back burner and focusing on newer cards simply makes sense.
2. 95% ? Wow, so I'm in the 5% that had no problems ?
You're just making stuff up, which doesn't help anything.
You brought up that AMD drivers were the source of all of your AMD Vega problems.
3. Its not a discussion when you say categorically the drivers are the problem. That's a statement.
4. You stated you reinstalled Windows 4 times...
Ofcourse you set the priority of driver development to the latest cards. What works on RDNA might not work on GCN and such. It would be complicated to test all these different combinations and time consuming.
Does getting full support and driver updates for products that you can buy new sound laughable? I guess somebody should tell AMD.
Switch to linux and run latest stable Mesa driver and you're fine! Mesa is built by everyone including AMD of course but not exclusively. In fact much of the code is updated by Valve and other people and orgs with a stake to having a working driver!
It isn't just AMD, same thing with Intel graphics drivers! They're supported in Mesa for many older gen iGPUs that can't even run Dolphin Wii emulator on Windows with Vulkan, but works flawlessly on Linux with Vulkan trashing Windows in FPS performance! Even old ivybridge iGPUs that are piss-weak can run Dolphin Emulator for 99% of Wii games with Vulkan! No chance with Windows and official drivers!
I'm not mention the vega APU support.... These cards sell to this day. Heck, I am sure the amount of working RX 580 is miles bigger, than all Navi1,2,3 sold combined.
By this logic, RDNA1 would be cut soon as well, and RDNA3 desktop APUs gonna get the same treatment soon after arrival. But old cards still have unsolved bugs. And RDNA ones will have bugs when reaching EoL either.
This is akin to the game industry and software, when closing master servers, just because they do not bring only profits and margins.
AMD/ATi drivers teams always felt like they were on life support, this move is just like shitting them off from it. AMD cutting corners in wrong place. But this is a hint to an obvious end of consumer market form corps like AMD and nVidia. It's all about enterprise. Indeed. Shareholders/investors trim too much fat, to the point of hurting the companies own good. The software and drivers divisions of AMD are the one that needs the investments and growth the most, like yesterday. However and instead of revitalization, AMD puts them under the knife for some %$ for shareholders benefit.
This is cutting corners in the right place, development teams can focus on more important things than getting a driver ready for older GPUs. They are not ending support just putting them on slower track.
Anyone who has worked in development or operations and knows how sprints, QC, etc work know that this is a step in the right direction. Especially if you have a lot smaller dev team than your main competitor.
Still, RdN.ID drivers have been lightyears better for these 'legacy' cards (and no VAC bans :laugh:).
More-recent 'official' support gives more for the RdN.ID team to work with, too Speaking from personal experience: Old Vega 64s don't seem to have 'aged well' in a hardware-sense.
Judging from old ActualHardcoreOverclocking vids*, I'd guess it's thermal/current damage over time, and/or TIM 'failure'. (I've seen both TIM 'pump-out' and 'cooking' occur on Vega 10 cards.)
*even a seemingly well-(air)-cooled Vega 64 will be (nearly)constantly 'throttling' to stay stable and thermally safe.
My (WC'd by prev. owner) V64 is a Ball of Yarn of 'issues'. It's temperamental, to say the least; isn't even remotely stable w/o being on the 'high power' vBIOS, and does not 'clock' itself correctly. It often BSODs, crashes, etc. Downclocking it 'helped' but I got fed up with it.
Note: My R9 290 cooked its RAM, my 290X was on/off 'blackscreening' and my RX 580 prev. my Vega 64 and MI25s, was also having sleep and blackscreening issues. Sans the cooked 290, AMD has had 'issues' w/ drivers; however, it's clearly not a software-side-only problem.
My MI25s have had no problems like that (that I haven't directly caused).
Not gonna say there's something 'wrong' with your build, but I can say I've had some 'mirror-like' experiences with Vega 64, that I have not had with other Vega 10-equipped cards.
AMD is not the underdog with 3.5B anymore. You should wake up. AMD is $21.876B in YoY revenue(June 2023), $67.967B in total assets, and"As of November 2023 AMD has a market cap of $183.50 Billion."
They are premium brand. They should not slow down stagnating divisions. They should support each sold product, if it's still sells.
Just look how they invented the "wheel" of the model naming, just to sell the old Vega APU under new disguise with fancy high numbers.
Edit: corrections.
You can find cards that are "new" that are even older than 7 years from unsold stock, should someone expect driver support if they buy a GT210 or something ? Come on dude.
Guess what AMD is doing? The ryzen 7730 APUs, released THIS YEAR, have vega iGPUs in them.
www.amd.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-1-4-amd-extends-its-leadership-with-the-introduction-o.html
Come on dude. You know that these two situations are not the same. If they are, then you should be hammering AMD for releasing a product and dropping it within a single calendar year.