AMD GPU gamers only - your opinion on AMD drivers?

[Cheeseball]

Want a good one? 20.10.1 reverted the Vulkan driver from 1.2.149 to 1.2.133. All added extensions between those versions are now gone, lost.

If this is the case, I think you can extract the newer Vulkan driver from 20.9.2 and install it over whatever came in 20.10.1. Please make sure to report this to @INSTG8R and in the AMD Report Tool. Unfortunately I can't test this anymore.

 

[Chrispy_]

Late to the party but I can comment on Unity/Unreal/Source driver stability for a mix of AMD RX480 onwards and Nvidia GTX970 onwards over a sample size of almost a thousand cards. I can also comment on a huge range of CAD/Productivity driver performance but that's now what you asked for.

AMD seem to make the more stable driver overall - fewer weird hangs, lockups, application crashes etc. The 5700-series launch was supposedly a disaster but I think that was simply a case of bad pre-release drivers that were already fixed before I got my hands on the first 5700XT I could. There are definintely quirks to both drivers and it does sometime depend on the hardware generation but most of (like 2/3rds) of the problems tend to be related to the driver rather than the exact model of card.

AMD and Nvidia run games differently. I don't think it's necessarily driver based but sometimes a game will run like crap and I think something's wrong, but it's just that the variance between GPU vendors and games can be pretty big sometimes. If you like playing decade-old DX9 classics then I think Nvidia's performance is more consistent. I've usually noted one or two games per card generation that run worse than expected, but acceptably on newer AMD cards and I don't recall having that problem on any Nvidia cards. Usually the games are so old that the graphics aren't really the reason you're playing them any more so the fact it's not running a well as it should isn't a big deal.

One thing I will say, not stability related, is that the AMD control panel and tuning options are vastly superior to Nvidia's shockingly useless WindowsXP-era driver UI. And no, Geforce Experience is not the solution to that, Geforce Experience can DIAF.

 

[EarthDog]

My user errors:

• installing additional tuning software
• enabling XMP profile on the CPU and not mem testing it (any memory OC applies)
• using only one rail for power delivery to the GPU

Do you recognize yourself in any of the bullets? Do you use MSI afterburner, Dragon Center, or equivalent? What speed is you RAM running at? Do you have 2 separate power rails going to your GPU?

Those are good troubleshooting steps, however not typically a direct cause of issues. Plenty of users run 3rd party software successfully.

XMP is overclocking the IMC only. The sticks are rated to run at the speed on the box. Jedec profiles are there for compatibility reasons. Ive never seen ram cause blackscreen issues similar to how AMD GPUs black screened, however. Testing xmp profiles for stability is prudent though, period.

One rail is fine if it is clean and enough power. Also, most psus are single rail in the first place. The point here is a good quality psu. Or by rails are you saying two cables and not use one with two pcie connectors (something id did on a 2080ti, currently a 2080s ftr). Note two cables can be from the same 12V rail so you have to be careful with wording.

AMD seem to make the more stable driver overall - fewer weird hangs, lockups, application crashes etc

lol, no. If there is anything we know, over the past year, amd drivers had notably more issues than nVidia. Come on now...

One thing I will say, not stability related, is that the AMD control panel and tuning options are vastly superior to Nvidia's shockingly useless WindowsXP-era driver UI.

What is missing in NVCP that AMD has? AMD's is pretty...if you're of elementary school age. But the NVCP has all of the functionality you need, no? I've never looked at it and said, where can I.....................................and not had an answer. What specifically is missing? Dated, sure. But it works well.

 

[Outback Bronze]

What is missing in NVCP that AMD has?

I was just going through the NVCP and was struggling to find a tuning option for the cards unlike the AMD option. Have I missed/overlooked something in the NVCP to not find it?

 

[EarthDog]

I was just going through the NVCP and was struggling to find a tuning option for the cards unlike the AMD option. Have I missed/overlooked something in the NVCP to not find it?

What do you mean a tuning option? For overclocking? Right, NV has never done that... always third party. That said, good point! Some may want all of that combined. I prefer using the software for the card, however. Been using those since I started overclocking.

Outside of performance tuning (including fan control), everything else is there I can think of.

I took exception to the words "shockingly useless" as that is just being toxic and, quite frankly, untrue. I like what they have to offer. It is a nice bloated hunk of software comparatively, but it's looks are... not for me.

 

[Outback Bronze]

For overclocking?

Yep, Nvidia's is no where to be seen. AMD's one lately, I have been playing with and its quite impressive. Its not bad for a stock driver interface which Nvidia lacks.

 

[EarthDog]

Yep, Nvidia's is no where to be seen. AMD's one lately, I have been playing with and its quite impressive. Its not bad for a stock driver interface which Nvidia lacks.

Well, let's be clear it has a 'stock driver interface', but there isn't any tuning options. Otherwise, it's all there AFAIK.

I guess i'd like to ask if you find NV's NVCP implementation "shockingly useless".

 

[bug]

What do you mean a tuning option? For overclocking? Right, NV has never done that... always third party. That said, good point! Some may want all of that combined. I prefer using the software for the card, however. Been using those since I started overclocking.

Outside of performance tuning (including fan control), everything else is there I can think of.

I took exception to the words "shockingly useless" as that is just being toxic and, quite frankly, untrue. I like what they have to offer. It is a nice bloated hunk of software comparatively, but it's looks are... not for me.

Yup, on Nvidia, for years RivaTuner was the go-to solution. To the point EVGA ripped that off and put it into their X1 Precision (or whatever it's called) software.
Tbh, unless you're hardcore into it, overclocking these days feels mostly pointless: this chips overclock themselves pretty well out of the box. As proven by some TPU benchmarks showing manually OC Ryzen CPUs performing worse than OotB.

 

[EarthDog]

some TPU benchmarks showing manually OC Ryzen CPUs performing worse than OotB.

Well, they do undervolt and overclock so there is that use for it.

 

[Chrispy_]

lol, no. If there is anything we know, over the past year, amd drivers had notably more issues than nVidia. Come on now...

I'm just telling you what I've seen from about 850 machines that actually have dGPUs. I have the helpdesk ticket stats to prove it.
Note that I'm talking specifically about productivity machines that don't run games, so Unity/Unreal/Source driver stability for realtime 3D modelling/demos is all that's relevant to this discussion. Geforce drivers don't play as well with Adobe stuff as well as AMD, they give us grief in Autodesk Revit, Bentley Microstation, Enscape, V-RayRT, Materialise Magics and McNeel Rhino. AMD drivers have had issues with these too but AMD issues are less common for us and have been fixed by patches in the interim. There are still outstanding Nvidia driver bugs that are almost a decade old at this point.

What is missing in NVCP that AMD has? AMD's is pretty...if you're of elementary school age. But the NVCP has all of the functionality you need, no? I've never looked at it and said, where can I.....................................and not had an answer. What specifically is missing? Dated, sure. But it works well.

Clock, voltage, fan curve tuning; You need third party junk for Nvidia and MSI afterburner is the best I've found but it's still inferior to AMD's tuning options.
Overlay, monitoring, Hardware encoder settings and a half-decent recording/streaming suite; Relive is way easier than OBS, and Geforce experience is a dumpster fire.
Eyefinity makes a joke of Nvidia's multi-display setup options. I have to use third party software like DisplayFusion for some configs at work where Eyefinity just does it, for free, more seamlessly and better.
There are other things that I consider bloat but you can turn them off.

I just find myself wishing that my Nvidia machines had the AMD control panel. There is nothing really wrong with it but it's just too damn basic and hasn't had any attempt to update the interface in about 20 years, and it shows - looking like an IE6 browser window with frames, back when website frames were a thing....

 

[kruk]

After years of using a Polaris GPU I have to say the experience has been very good on Windows and almost flawless on Linux. I play a wide array of games from ancient to more modern titles, from AAA to indie games. I almost exclusively upgrade to new WHQL version on Windows, but run the latest stable kernel on Linux. Relive has had some bugs, but with the exception of audio in recording being cut off few seconds prematurely, the rest was pretty insignificant. I also keep my Windows installation clean, with exception of games and respective launchers. Didn't have any BSoDs or black screens in years ...

 

[EarthDog]

I just find myself wishing that my Nvidia machines had the AMD control panel. There is nothing really wrong with it but it's just too damn basic and hasn't had any attempt to update the interface

There you go. Thats better than "utterly useless"!

 

[wiak]

i have a 5700 XT Red Dragon and its been running nicely since i got it last christmas,i also have two friends that also has a amd card (one has 5700 and another has a 5700 XT) they have no issues either, no black screen etc

people has issues with the RTX 3000 series too like that black screen issue and bad capacitators, assuming you wont get issue with any card is just wishful thinking

so to make it simple, just get a amd card and try it, if you live in EU, you have 14 days return policy, no questions asked monkey back

Guarantees, cancelling and returning your purchases - Your Europe

How to claim the 2-year guarantee for EU purchases, get a repair, replacement or refund, how to cancel orders made outside shops (online, by phone, mail order).

europa.eu

Almost my path exactly. . I’m just waiting for the 6700XT as my next upgrade

fancy meeting you here

While I don't own a 5000 serie card but the RX 570 I have since late 2018 had almost no issues.

The only issue I had turned out to be a conflict with another software on my system 'Gigabyte's own software' which always reseted my custom undervolt/power target settings in the AMD driver.
Once I disabled that software all my issues vanished and its rock solid ever since.

I play all kind of games except for competitive games 'so my experience is probably useless to you ' but ye in my experience its fine and I would go AMD again if they have the better offer in my budget range.
To be honest I got used to their Adrenaline drivers so much by now that I kinda prefer it actually.

ive had a similar issue with msi afterburner stopping the fan
so people need to be aware of third party overclocking software might mess with amd drivers

 

[Aquinus]

Yup, on Nvidia, for years RivaTuner was the go-to solution.

Oh yeah, the good 'ol days of me and Rivatuner with pre-CUDA chips. To this day the 8600 GTS I had was the best overclocking chip I ever had, a whopping 40% improvement in benchmarks. You'll never see that ever again. RIP.

 

[wiak]

There are tons of posts on the web about MSI program woes. I saw a 10 to 15% increase in performance once I removed Dragon Center. I also no longer use afterburner to log usage when Gaming and that gave me another 5 to 10% increase in performance.

you do know you an log performance within the radeon software itself?

 

[Deleted member 24505]

you do know you an log performance within the radeon software itself?

Can you get a osd in games with fps etc using the AMD driver?

 

[Chrispy_]

I took exception to the words "shockingly useless" as that is just being toxic and, quite frankly, untrue.

I'm shocked at how useless the Nvidia control panel is for controlling the actual hardware. Many of the settings in the Nvidia control panel are just overrides that should be left on "let application choose" unless there's a compatibility problem with a particular game or application. What's left after that is a lot of stuff you can already do in Windows without the Nvidia control panel, plus a tiny handful of things like resolution scaling/DSR, creating custom resolutions, and enabling G-Sync. There, I may have just listed the only three useful things the Nvidia control panel does that aren't redundant duplicates.

If you want to control the fan noise, it's useless.
If you want to control the clockspeed, it's useless.
If you want to control the power consumption, it's useless.
If you want to control the LED lighting, it's useless.
If you want to control driver updates, it's useless.
If you want to control Shadowplay, it's useless
If you want to control Ansel, it's useless
If you want to setup game profiles, it's useless really poor. You can override a few 3D settings on a per-game basis I guess, but that's basically a last resort for broken/ancient games.

The cynic in me believes Nvidia left stuff out of the control panel on purpose, just to push people towards signing up for a Geforce Experience account. I mean, automatic driver updates really don't need to be locked behind the mandatory login of Geforce Experience.

 

[INSTG8R]

Can you get a osd in games with fps etc using the AMD driver?

Yes

 

[sneekypeet]

People, this thread has nothing to do with Nvidia drivers. Take that conversation elsewhere.

 

[natr0n]

AMD has poor opengl support when it comes to anything emulator(pcsx2/etc) based that needs/benefits it. Been like this for years.


Lately the drivers are getting kinda bloated though.


I use both red and green have many cards to play with now.

 

[dont whant to set it"']

So I've tried the most recent one (20.10.1 Beta) and it's a merde (french for sh_..t) for my Fury Nano:
fresh os win10 September 2020 build coupled with the latest amd chipset drivers for my x370 motherboard yellding a crap load of input lag , I'd say well over 100 milliseconds.

There I went to turn on all the reduced input lag and anti-lag features in the driver only to notice a stutter in the already above and over 100 milliseconds input lag.

Will investigate by installing all the according and appropriate drivers from the motherboard manufacturer.

Thankyou.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Yes

How do i do it please?

 

[ViperXTR]

Anyone here into console emulation? I tend to go nvidia because nvidia cards tend to have better compatibility, features and performance in emulation, AMD and the drivers tend to lag here sometimes

 

[Apocalypsee]

I agree that AMD latest driver control panel is getting bloated. I fixed my friends laptop that equipped with AMD GPU few days ago and I barely recognized the control panel. Some of the setting is missing and its getting too cluttered and messy. It felt slow to navigate too (could been the 4GB RAM with spinning disc on W10 cause this too)

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I agree that AMD latest driver control panel is getting bloated. I fixed my friends laptop that equipped with AMD GPU few days ago and I barely recognized the control panel. Some of the setting is missing and its getting too cluttered and messy. It felt slow to navigate too (could been the 4GB RAM with spinning disc on W10 cause this too)

Exactly my problem, there is too much not needed. Browser, game list, i don't need to see my game list in the video driver control panel at all. it needs simplifying and have a option on install for some all none driver only.