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

[W1zzard]

When you point at those difficulties in getting accurate readings, I believe you have to use the benchmark. Even if you don't like it. Because you want to compare video cards, or cpus under the absolute same conditions. You do extra performance tests when you are reviewing the game to see how specific hardware, does in all those different situations and how the game's graphic engine performs in different areas of the game. In a city with multiple NPCs visible, in the woods with plenty of vegetation, in an open field with just that dynamic weather. Running the game under a specific scenario, for example in a city, could be making it more CPU bound giving an extra advantage in high IPC CPUs, in the woods maybe it needs higher memory bandwidth from the graphics card favoring those cards and in an open field maybe it can hide in a small degree the differences in performance between different hardware because the scene is less demanding from both CPU and GPU.

I guess this will end up "agree to disagree", but for everyone else:

I do compare them under the same conditions, using my own test scene. I played through the whole game to pick that scene, and I do claim my results will give you a more accurate representation than the benchmark of what to expect when you play the game. Obviously you can always pick a spot in any game that will give you different results than any other result. If you prefer to play the benchmark, so be it, look at other reviews. Don't you think my life would be MUCH easier if I just tested the benchmark, vs playing the same scene for hundreds of times? Another problem with nearly every integrated benchmark is that you are taking results off a cold card, which will boost much higher. For 30 seconds, and then performance drops. Ask your favorite reviewers about that.

Ultimately you'll have to trust me a little bit to do the right thing, if you don't, then you should absolutely not read my reviews.

but the settings app and services are still run in background.

By default, Windows will not start anything in background for non-present devices. You actually have to do work (and not care about your non-customers) to launch something, separately from the OS logic

 

[laszlo]

I guess this will end up "agree to disagree", but for everyone else:

I do compare them under the same conditions, using my own test scene. I played through the whole game to pick that scene, and I do claim my results will give you a more accurate representation than the benchmark of what to expect when you play the game. Obviously you can always pick a spot in any game that will give you different results than any other result. If you prefer to play the benchmark, so be it, look at other reviews. Don't you think my life would be MUCH easier if I just tested the benchmark, vs playing the same scene for hundreds of times? Another problem with nearly every integrated benchmark is that you are taking results off a cold card, which will boost much higher. For 30 seconds, and then performance drops. Ask your favorite reviewers about that.

Ultimately you'll have to trust me a little bit to do the right thing, if you don't, then you should absolutely not read my reviews.


By default, Windows will not start anything in background for non-present devices. You actually have to do work (and not care about your non-customers) to launch something, separately from the OS logic

@W1zzard is this "bug" present in older driver also or it can be pinned exactly from when appeared if case?

 

[W1zzard]

@W1zzard is this "bug" present in older driver also or it can be pinned exactly from when appeared if case?

I haven't checked, discovered it on 20.11.2 and only verified the newer drivers in case AMD fixed it in the meantime

 

[xantippe666]

Someone figured out that running a driver for incorrect hardware can be an issue.

Ha, you won the Internet for today, sir.

 

[Vayra86]

Maybe they can't find good graphics driver engineers in US/CA, they do not exactly grow on trees.

Mhm yeah they also totally havent been making and hopefully nurturing a driver team since forever, right?

This is inexcusable for such a big company. The only reason is what we have always suspected: lack of talent is cheaper. Its how they have kept both AMD and RTG afloat with minimal expense.

Its a trend, not an occurrence. And AMD condones the shit quality code. Driver and microcode oopsies happen all the time. Fix forward seems to be the approach and overall strategy. It is for that reason also that such anomalies in code exists. The impossible was forced to possible with dirty tricks. If you roll back and fix, you dont need those.

Service Recovery: Rolling Back vs. Forward Fixing

This post addresses two different methods, fixing forward and rolling back, to recover from failures and errors, in production and during development. First, let's establish a set of tenets that pertain to service recovery: Do It Right the First Time Recovery should be an event rather than business

www.linkedin.com

 

[RainingTacco]

I see hiring cheap indians really paid off AMD! ᕙ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ᕗ

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

This is inexcusable for such a big company. The only reason is what we have always suspected: lack of talent is cheaper. Its how they have kept both AMD and RTG afloat with minimal expense.

I think thats called outsourcing here.

 

[Vayra86]

I think thats called outsourcing here.

Yep and we are as customers way too lenient on the results of that business approach. Complexity = up, overall quality = down.

We see this with many software suppliers... and it fits well with us doing beta testing for free or even at cost, if you consider early access.

Ridiculous and Im not accepting it. Shit code? No buy

 

[GreiverBlade]

oh well, not uninstalling driver lead to issues... who knews ...



more seriously, hummm not a good thing indeed but nothing to scream at AMD who is doing quite fine this year and compared to Nv i will write it again : on AMD i had never to rollback a driver but once (the famous "ZOMGZOMG TEH NEW DIRVER WIL KEEL JOR R9 290!!!!" although not really a rollback ... as usual with drivers i let 3-5 weeks before updating, so, if any issues pop up, i stay on the previous one) on Nvidia? CTD TDR whatever you name it... always using a 6 month older driver than the current new one ... cool right?


well once the price madness will settle down ... i still think a 5600X (or above) and a RX 6800 (XT or heck even a RX 5700 XT would be an upgrade in my case ) are still in order ...


(for the fanboy calls ... please read my sys spec before blurting ineptness )

 

[medi01]

So this is settings software, not driver, tested in a weird condition (card by another manufacturer).

I doubt QA of any of any of the 3: Intel, AMD, Nvidia would bother checking that weird use case, mostly applicable to a small group called reviewers (and no, not to PC enthusiasts as those tend to reinstall entire windows system, and certainly the drivers)

Let's bitch about "AMD drivers" now, shall we, green FUD was not as intense recently, let's make up for it.

Something something, DLSS is better than 4k if you ignore blur and detail loss, something, something but RT in a handful of games is so very important, something.

I'm more of an IDA user

That stuff was always from "way too expensive" territory for me (on top of lack of reverse-engi-ng x86 code skills).
I know people who wrote decompilers of ECMAScript like language by just examining ARM code disassembly... to me it is some unholy magic.

 

[BiggieShady]

By default, Windows will not start anything in background for non-present devices. You actually have to do work (and not care about your non-customers) to launch something, separately from the OS logic

It seems like they chose a complete wrong part of the boot process to do any kind of initialization of a feature such as video streaming... the lifecycle part when you don't know either if device exists and it's not yet loaded, or it doesn't exist and it will never be loaded. I thought that's why drivers are separated into modules/containers, so that one module at the last boot lifecycle step initializes/activates everything safely.

 

[Cidious]

I'm so confused about the point of this issue.. why would you have the driver installed without a radeon card? Drama queen...

 

[cueman]

amd gpu drivers are usual BETA ones, but nvidia WHQL certified.


sure if drivers are beta, they are not ready,they are under testing and finalysing...

also dont waiste your time to get your 3Dmarks score for HOF table or any table there. cant,must be WHQL certified.

just thinking, why release out beta drivers? why??

 

[Max(IT)]

That’s so typical of AMD drivers...
They have excellent hardware engineers, but very poor software developers.

I'm so confused about the point of this issue.. why would you have the driver installed without a radeon card? Drama queen...

Easy. You had a Radeon card (i.e. an old 480) and upgraded the system with an Nvidia GPU (i.e. a GFX 1660 Super).

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

amd gpu drivers are usual BETA ones, but nvidia WHQL certified.


sure if drivers are beta, they are not ready,they are under testing and finalysing...

also dont waiste your time to get your 3Dmarks score for HOF table or any table there. cant,must be WHQL certified.

just thinking, why release out beta drivers? why??

To support new game's and fix issues.

And so that driver change can be further tested by a larger demographic, you aren't forced to use betas and of course AMD releases whql driver's like wut the fff.

So a few external Devs loose work over this hyperbolic tension, just uninstall the driver's, it's not rocket science.

 

[rtwjunkie]

It seems like pretty specialized subject, not something for your average programmer. Nvidia probably hoard them all anyway

Apparently Nvidia is just hoarding them, as you say, instead of actually having them write code, because they have had numerous bad drivers the last 5 years...on the order of 3 or 4 a year.

You cant fix stupid and this article is just that

For you to think that, you literally have no clue about him.

 

[Max(IT)]

So a few external Devs loose work over this hyperbolic tension, just uninstall the driver's, it's not rocket science.

it's not rocket science maybe, except AMD developers aren't able to fix a very basic issue (you don't have the hardware, don't load the driver).
Not every user is aware of this problem. But AMD developers should be.

 

[rtwjunkie]

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.

Apparently you have reading comprehension issues. His article clearly said he made a user-level mistake. Go back and try again. His investigation, code breakdown, and further, the programs he has written as well as his history of testing clearly show he is well above a standard level of intelligence and competence.

This is the kind of thing that average users do in large numbers every year. So yes, this information is useful, worth reading, and hopefully educating some of those many users who will do internet searches for the exact same type problem.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

it's not rocket science maybe, except AMD developers aren't able to fix a very basic issue (you don't have the hardware, don't load the driver).
Not every user is aware of this problem. But AMD developers should be.

Hyperbolic Bs in bold, aren't able ,,balls they weren't aware and should definitely now be.

Hell no most, like 90% of users couldn't tell you what GPU is in the prebuilt they bought.
Out of the 10% that do how many are getting tripped over by this issue?! , Not many at all like in the few 0.0001%, probably less, Drammaaa.

AMD need to fix this shit no doubt but get a grip ,of that 10% , those that do upgrade GPU ,do typically do so correctly.

Not like this.

 

[Max(IT)]

Hyperbolic Bs in bold, aren't able ,,balls they weren't aware and should definitely now be.

Hell no most, like 90% of users couldn't tell you what GPU is in the prebuilt they bought.
Out of the 10% that do how many are getting tripped over by this issue?! , Not many at all like in the few 0.0001%, probably less, Drammaaa.

AMD need to fix this shit no doubt but get a grip ,of that 10% , those that do upgrade GPU ,do typically do so correctly.

Not like this.

why do you fell the need to defend AMD on every matter, even when they clearly are wrong like this, is something beyond my understanding...

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

why you fell the need to defend AMD on every matter, even when they clearly are wrong like this, is something beyond my understanding...

I said they need to fix this issue.

I took issues with your hyperbolic statement.

Why do you feel the need to throw hyperbolic statements out?.


And wtaf anyway I don't even post in every AMD thread unlike your neg AMD pro Intel self.

 

[JMccovery]

Easy. You had a Radeon card (i.e. an old 480) and upgraded the system with an Nvidia GPU (i.e. a GFX 1660 Super).

Who swaps things like GPUs without uninstalling the drivers and/or software first? That should be basic knowledge for people who know how to change parts.

 

[Max(IT)]

I said they need to fix this issue.

I took issues with your hyperbolic statement.

Why do you feel the need to throw hyperbolic statements out?.


And wtaf anyway I don't even post in every AMD thread.

from the article itself:

If you're a programmer you'd have /facepalm'd by now

quite clearly you are not.
This is an amateurish mistake. There is no "hyperbolic statements" pointing this out.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Who swaps things like GPUs without uninstalling the drivers and/or software first? That should be basic knowledge for people who know how to change parts.

You’d be surprised at the vast numbers of people who want to upgrade their GPU and just do it, without knowing any of this. Many of these average users luck out and nothing gets screwed up (that time), while others are left scratching their heads.

 

[Max(IT)]

Who swaps things like GPUs without uninstalling the drivers and/or software first? That should be basic knowledge for people who know how to change parts.

it really takes 2 minutes to swap a video card.
Everyone is able to do that. Most of the new cases are tools free.

But an uninformed user could think "Windows will take care of the software, once I install the right drivers" since Windows is supposed to be plug&play since a while. And in this case Windows really is, but AMD developers messed thing up nevertheless...