PSA: AMD's Graphics Driver will Eat One CPU Core when No Radeon Installed

[Dave65]

Or ...

Just remove the driver before changing the GPU ?

Not as fun as bashing AMD!

 

[R-T-B]

You cant fix stupid and this article is just that.

Yeah, no. He gave a detailed breakdown of what and why it's stupid and I think you just got confused. That's fine.

 

[srsbsns]

Yeah, no. He gave a detailed breakdown of what and why it's stupid and I think you just got confused. That's fine.

It doesn't care about the why. Its software. You can explain why you tried using an unsupported graphics card all day but it doesnt change anything. AMD might need to patent some sort of mechanism that comes out of the PC and slaps the GPU out of your hand. Until that time comes software can only stop you from installing when you have an incompatible GPU in.

 

[R-T-B]

It doesn't care about the why. It was boneheaded with good intentions. Software dont care about intentions.

Software should always consider the user.

Software should never use bad coding practices as we just saw. Waiting for infinity without a timeout or throttle delay can die in a dumpsterfire. I have no idea what a loop like that is doing in a commercial product of any grade.

 

[Mussels]

This will mostly affect benchmarkers, end users changing hardware, or people with laptops


It's a bug not a conspiracy, but making waves about it is the quickest way to get it fixed

 

[windwhirl]

It doesn't care about the why. Its software. You can explain why you tried using an unsupported graphics card all day but it doesnt change anything. AMD might need to patent some sort of mechanism that comes out of the PC and slaps the GPU out of your hand. Until that time comes software can only stop you from installing when you have an incompatible GPU in.

I'll just repeat myself here:

"Imagine if you had to uninstall drivers every time you plug in a new USB device or it would peg your CPU."

 

[zenlaserman]

I'm really disappointed that this FUD-inducing "PSA" was written up just because RadeonSettings.exe happened to "hang" on a system.

I've used Radeons almost exclusively for over 15 years, and while AMD software is far from perfect, I've never had serious problems with it. Heck, I've had 3 different All-In-Wonder cards - THOSE were touchy when it came to software. I had several twin-GPU cards where one GPU had to be disabled to get playable framerates. I had far more problems with nVidia's software and the GeForces I ran than I ever did with Catalyst and beyond.

It's basic PC to open Task Manager and kill the offending process when one's at 100% (or pegging a core) for no apparent reason. SMH.

 

[ityrant]

do while loop looking for input. Lazy coding?

Who is writing RTG Graphics driver nowadays? I remember reading somewhere that almost all of Radeon's current driver at least coming from AMD Shanghai.

It could just be the inexperience of AMD China team that is causing so many problems like this.

OK found it, from one of AMD's Sr. Director of Software Engineering, Zhengsan Jian

So looks like AMD's GPU driver are Made in China after all. Damn



Author: Zhengsan Jian

Link: https://www.zhihu.com/question/24684566/answer/29352184 Source: Zhihu The copyright belongs to the author. For commercial reprints, please contact the author for authorization. For non-commercial reprints, please indicate the source.

I have been doing graphics driver development for many years at AMD. In fact, I came from ATI that year. AMD's shadow is almost invisible in the code. Most of the binary files are still ati*.dll. AMD is neither a large company nor a small company. There are many branches in the world. Basically, there are people in other continents except Africa and South America. Of course, the North/Arctic is not counted. In such an international company, the perceptions of people in different positions and departments must be quite different. My opinion is for your reference only. As far as the Shanghai R&D Center is concerned, from a technical point of view, GPU driver is very interesting work, anyway, I enjoy it. This is a very narrow field, and the learning curve is very steep. It usually recruits graduates of master's degree from prestigious schools. I have seen that I can't touch it after half a year. When writing an app, you can always Google some clues, but in the field of drivers, Google has no help. The driver works with the OS and requires high stability. It is often necessary to debug the kernel of the OS, and Microsoft bugs can be found from time to time. For those who like to deal with the bottom layer of the system and study a detail (such as the optimization of a structure initialization by the compiler) to the extreme, this is a very suitable field. And in Shanghai AMD GPU research and development work, there is almost no difference between China and the United States. Everyone works on the same source code server and can read all GPU hardware specs, except for some sensitive ones such as video encode/decode related Content, engineers here can see all the driver code. From an operational perspective, for a company with decades of history like AMD, the CEO is no longer the founder. Too many professional managers have the faults of most established companies: low process efficiency and a lot of people who eat too much. . Since Jobs released the iPhone in the mobile Internet revolution, many traditional established companies have had a hard time, including Microsoft, Intel, DELL, HP, SONY and other companies closely related to AMD. Naturally, AMD’s life is also very difficult. But as a technical engineer, the company's hard life does not mean that your life will be hard. As long as the salary can be paid, having an interesting and fulfilling job is actually good.



Another proof

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.expreview.com/32270.html











I wonder when did AMD outsourced their driver team out.

Ah, the AMD Shanghai team seems to be only responsible for the Linux driver, so why bother to let this Windows culprit go?

 

[Imsochobo]

So are you saying there's potentially millions of machines out there with one core at 100% load 24/7? I'll have to look at my kids i7 920/RX580 rig tonight. Losing 25% of his horsepower would be brutal.

I've never had this issue, or any issues apart from the first month coming back to amd in 2017 (came from driver issues on nvidia), first month of vega was brutal.

 

[marios15]

I must be getting old, but everytime i change motherboard/cpu/gpu or windows version i always do a clean install.
Regarding usb...try plugging different types of devices that require drivers on the same usb port without uninstalling the old drivers.
I will never forget the countless blue screens in old windows(7 and earlier) and even now there can be some odd problems when you make changes.

 

[R-T-B]

I'm really disappointed that this FUD-inducing "PSA" was written up just because RadeonSettings.exe happened to "hang" on a system.

I've used Radeons almost exclusively for over 15 years, and while AMD software is far from perfect, I've never had serious problems with it. Heck, I've had 3 different All-In-Wonder cards - THOSE were touchy when it came to software. I had several twin-GPU cards where one GPU had to be disabled to get playable framerates. I had far more problems with nVidia's software and the GeForces I ran than I ever did with Catalyst and beyond.

It's basic PC to open Task Manager and kill the offending process when one's at 100% (or pegging a core) for no apparent reason. SMH.

He decompiled the program to show why and how this happens. Just because it hasn't happened to you (it wouldn't if you are an AMD loyalist) does not mean the problem does not happen.

 

[hurakura]

So AMD bad, Intel and nVidia good. This is BS article to make AMD look bad. Why do you have drivers installed for a hardware not in the PC? I guess next to test is nVidia driver on a system whit Intel CPU and AMD gpu?

 

[mouacyk]

Looks like Wizzard kicked over a hornets nest before leaving for the weekend.

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

1. Remember the WHQL certified NV driver that made Watch Dogs 2 instantly crash on start or even won't allow to start it?
2. The Chrome video playback problems with WHQL NV driveres not too long ago?
3. The RTX 3000 series drivers at the beginning?

That is whataboutism. Realistically speaking Nvidia has few duds in their drivers, yes. But comparatively AMD has few working bug-free drivers. I'm said ut before and saying it again now, if CPUs were driver-dependent like GPUs, Ryzen couldn't do anything to turn AMD's fortune.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

Bad drivers has been a bane of the Radeon line for as long as it's been around. ATI had problems and AMD seems to have more. If they want to be taken seriously, they should fix the intangibles like drivers and their encoders and the like. Otherwise, they look great until people start trying to use their cards to do anything except get framerates in benchmarks.

 

[srsbsns]

So AMD bad, Intel and nVidia good. This is BS article to make AMD look bad. Why do you have drivers installed for a hardware not in the PC? I guess next to test is nVidia driver on a system whit Intel CPU and AMD gpu?

He literally put the system into an unsupported configuration then gets puzzled by issues. The installer stops you from installing if it cant detect a compatible GPU but he found the work around. Rather than admit his mistake he then tries to spin to into some news item. This is some end user level stuff if I ever saw it.

 

[mouacyk]

He literally put the system into an unsupported configuration then gets puzzled by issues. The installer stops you from installing if it cant detect a compatible GPU but he found the work around. Rather than admit his mistake he then tries to spin to into some news item. This is some end user level stuff if I ever saw it.

You really think an average user cannot find himself/herself in the same situation?

 

[Dave65]

So AMD bad, Intel and nVidia good. This is BS article to make AMD look bad. Why do you have drivers installed for a hardware not in the PC? I guess next to test is nVidia driver on a system whit Intel CPU and AMD gpu?

Exactly right!

 

[Xzibit]

You really think an average user cannot find himself/herself in the same situation?

I look forward to the accompanied PSAs.

Logitech G-HUB still running if Logitech mouse isn't being used
Corsair iCUE still runs if Ducky Keyboard is used
Razers synapse still runs after a week of headphones not being used
etc..

 

[1sanpedro1]

This article is such crap. Usually I like reading techpowerup, but a professional video card reviewer who doesn't do a DDU when switching GPUs??? Then saying there is a definite performance drop, 150 vs 151, a whole .5%. That sounds within margin of error. To top it off, there's no test to see if this is true going from Nvidia to AMD.

Then there are people on here who seem to believe that there's no need to uninstall drivers for major hardware changes. I'm sorry, but a GPU is a major hardware change. Do you guys also not cleanup your systems when you change from CPU vendors or change chipsets?

 

[mouacyk]

This article is such crap. Usually I like reading techpowerup, but a professional video card reviewer who doesn't do a DDU when switching GPUs??? Then saying there is a definite performance drop, 150 vs 151, a whole .5%. That sounds within margin of error. To top it off, there's no test to see if this is true going from Nvidia to AMD.

Then there are people on here who seem to believe that there's no need to uninstall drivers for major hardware changes. I'm sorry, but a GPU is a major hardware change. Do you guys also not cleanup your systems when you change from CPU vendors or change chipsets?

Are you suggesting that Wizzard shouldn't have discovered this rogue behavior that could have plagued regular users, who fall within the possibility of your question that some do not clean up their systems, whatever their reason may be?

 

[srsbsns]

Are you suggesting that Wizzard shouldn't have discovered this rogue behavior that could have plagued regular users, who fall within the possibility of your question that some do not clean up their systems, whatever their reason may be?

That goal post just keeps moving.

 

[employee24601]

God! The more I browse the internet the more I come to know that AMD software sucks.

I've much respect for AMD given how much they've improved their hardware in recent years, but software-wise they've got a LONG way to go.

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

I've much respect for AMD given how much they've improved their hardware in recent years, but software-wise they've got a LONG way to go.

I've just accepted that they'll never invest software-wise and will always be lagging behind not just Nvidia but also Intel. They won't disappoint me if I never expect anything.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I really don't think AMD did this deliberately. It's got to be an unintentional problem...

I've just accepted that they'll never invest software-wise and will always be lagging behind not just Nvidia but also Intel.

No. Just no. No hardware maker has ever had a perfect track record for their drivers and software suites. However, few have ever failed to to provide fixes and updates.