Ten Years in, AMD to End Support for Radeon HD 7000, R200, R300 and Fury GCN Graphics Cards

[Operandi]

HD 7000 - Jan 2012
R200 - Oct 2013
R300/Fury - June 2015

So... ten years in since what?

Uhh.... yeah this 10 years thing makes no sense.

I get why AMD wants to do this aside from the obvious cost cutting reasons. GCN is old and wanting to clean up the driver code base makes sense but the R300 series isn't really that old and they are still supporting R400/500 which is GCN based which they obviously have to as those are only a few generations back so how much of a thing is that really? I think in a different market that was anything remotely normal where you could actually get a modern replacement this wouldn't be that big of deal but I feel like pulling the rug out from under some decently useful cards that people are still getting by with is a bad move.

 

[windwhirl]

What about iGPU in the mobile segment?

This is the full list of dropped products
From here

Product and OS Support Update for Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.6.1

Beginning with the release of Radeon™ Software Adrenalin 21.6.1 today, we are moving the following graphics products to a legacy model, with no additional driver releases planned. Their final supported driver will be Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.5.2. Additionally, Radeon Software support for...

community.amd.com

Pretty much everything is playable and since FSR came out, 7970 might still run games at 60 fps at 1080p high

Forget about FSR, it's not supported on anything from before Polaris (RX 400). Hell, the footnote for FSR says "RX 500" without mentioning 400 series, so I'm not even sure if original Polaris is supported (in theory they should, but I'd like official confirmation) Actually, forget this. RX 460 to 480 are also supported.

Can anyone else confirm whether these new cards can actually be used on the specified cards? Conflicting reports here...

Last driver for the cards that are dropping out of support is May's release, 21.5.2. The one that came out today won't work on them

 

[RH92]

Understandable for HD 7000 series but R200 / R300 / Fury reseries that sucks for peoples owning those GPUs man , some of them are still very capable for 1080p or even sometimes 1440p gaming and are nowhere near to be 10years old . Those GPUs could have had a second life with FSR which is precisely imo the reason AMD is cutting their support . Big time anti-comsumer move there from AMD but it seems peoples are too much blinded by fanboysme to call them out !

 

[The red spirit]

Forget about FSR, it's not supported on anything from before Polaris (RX 400). Hell, the footnote for FSR says "RX 500" without mentioning 400 series, so I'm not even sure if original Polaris is supported (in theory they should, but I'd like official confirmation)

Oh... But to card like this it would be really helpful and even without FSR it is still relevant at 1080p. Of course it's possible to enable RIS to sharpen things a bit and tweak it a bit here and there, but FSR could be a game changing for a card like 7970. And considering that it's still on GCN, I think it could get FSR. It would be really cool if it got FSR and lasted 3 more years.

 

[windwhirl]

Oh... But to card like this it would be really helpful and even without FSR it is still relevant at 1080p. Of course it's possible to enable RIS to sharpen things a bit and tweak it a bit here and there, but FSR could be a game changing for a card like 7970. And considering that it's still on GCN, I think it could get FSR. It would be really cool if it got FSR and lasted 3 more years.

Like I said, forget it. The feature requires driver 21.6.1, which doesn't support the 7970. And from AMD's note, there wont be any more updates. No new features, no bug fixes and no security fixes either. Support is dead and buried.

There's also no information on whether it's technically feasible to implement FSR on GCN 1-3. Anandtech's article implied that GCN 4 was very different from previous GCN iterations, which could be the reason why it works there and not on older GPUs (hence AMD deciding enough was enough and dropping support for older GCN iterations)

 

[iO]

Like I said, forget it. The feature requires driver 21.6.1, which doesn't support the 7970. And from AMD's note, there wont be any more updates. No new features, no bug fixes and no security fixes either. Support is dead and buried.

There's also no information on whether it's technically feasible to implement FSR on GCN 1-3. Anandtech's article implied that GCN 4 was very different from previous GCN iterations, which could be the reason why it works there and not on older GPUs (hence AMD deciding enough was enough and dropping support for older GCN iterations)

Nope, driver isn't needed, how else would it be able to run on Nvidia cards?
Tested Riftbreaker Prologue demo on my old 7850, definitely improves the graphics but the performance scales badly and is all over the place...

 

[The red spirit]

Nope, driver isn't needed, how else would it be able to run on Nvidia cards?
Tested Riftbreaker Prologue demo on my old 7850, definitely improves the graphics but the performance scales badly and is all over the place...
View attachment 205037

Maybe because of Windowed mode? It applies VSync.

 

[windwhirl]

Nope, driver isn't needed, how else would it be able to run on Nvidia cards?
Tested Riftbreaker Prologue demo on my old 7850, definitely improves the graphics but the performance scales badly and is all over the place...
View attachment 205037

Ok, I stand partially corrected. Though that begs the question of what exactly is going on there. You're actually having full feature support or partial or none? Since you say performance is not scaling right, it could be that FSR requires some hardware feature that is not present (hence trying to do whatever that feature does by "bruteforce"), maybe it actually works and it just needs a more refined implementation on the game developer side or if it's just a bug and it's not actually working at all (though this is highly unlikely)

 

[Operandi]

Ok, I stand partially corrected. Though that begs the question of what exactly is going on there. You're actually having full feature support or partial or none? Since you say performance is not scaling right, it could be that FSR requires some hardware feature that is not present (hence trying to do whatever that feature does by "bruteforce"), maybe it actually works and it just needs a more refined implementation on the game developer side or if it's just a bug and it's not actually working at all (though this is highly unlikely)

If its working on another vendors hardware its pretty clearly just using what hardware is needed to support the API. It ran but not well on the 1060 and it sounds like the same thing here with the 7800 series. So yeah maybe you'd never get the gains you would from new archs but all the optimizations and gains come from the driver so AMD could make this happen if they wanted to.

Given the shit state of the GPU market I think it would be the right thing to do, 300 series isn't that old.

 

[iO]

So 21.6.2b really improves performance on my RX580 by like 30%, both FSR on or off.
The old cards could also might get a similiar performance boost if they would get the same driver support... Oh well..

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

I never knew 2011 GPUs were supported till now, that's crazy, good job AMD.

 

[mechtech]

I never knew 2011 GPUs were supported till now, that's crazy, good job AMD.

Ya 10 years is adecent run, and it will still work for the foreseeable future. I've seen ski-doos, and other "toys" like that with no parts after 8 years. Think of that a $5k piece of equipment dead because that $75 part is not made anymore and all stock is used up!!

 

[ratirt]

7970 isn't bad:

Pretty much everything is playable and since FSR came out, 7970 might still run games at 60 fps at 1080p high. That's very respectable for card this old.

Never said it was bad but believe me, seeing how things progress with graphics these will be obsolete within 2 years time. AMD and NV are going to release chiplets for graphics. The need for more processing power for GPUs is growing so fast, games progress so fast, it will be obsolete quick.
Yes FSR. I would rather use FSR with RT enabled not to use it because my card can't push 60FPS at 1080p High settings in a game.

 

[cyberloner]

my 7770 still running well............. long lasting good gpu

 

[The red spirit]

Never said it was bad but believe me, seeing how things progress with graphics these will be obsolete within 2 years time. AMD and NV are going to release chiplets for graphics. The need for more processing power for GPUs is growing so fast, games progress so fast, it will be obsolete quick.
Yes FSR. I would rather use FSR with RT enabled not to use it because my card can't push 60FPS at 1080p High settings in a game.

For people that are fine with card as long as it offers acceptable performance 7970 will deliver 4 more years for sure. However, if your requirements are 1080p medium settings and 50-60 fps then this card is just so so. For people that don't want to upgrade 7970, FSR would be great and I don't think that it will be obsolete in 2 years. The main problem with it is VRAM buffer, which back then was great, but today is small. VRAM size will be the main reason why 7970 will become obsolete, meanwhile memory bandwidth and core speed seems to be still fine. Depending on how FSR works, it might help to reduce VRAM capacity requirements a bit.

 

[ratirt]

For people that are fine with card as long as it offers acceptable performance 7970 will deliver 4 more years for sure. However, if your requirements are 1080p medium settings and 50-60 fps then this card is just so so. For people that don't want to upgrade 7970, FSR would be great and I don't think that it will be obsolete in 2 years. The main problem with it is VRAM buffer, which back then was great, but today is small. VRAM size will be the main reason why 7970 will become obsolete, meanwhile memory bandwidth and core speed seems to be still fine. Depending on how FSR works, it might help to reduce VRAM capacity requirements a bit.

Sure true. My point was if we are going for progress and advancement we should not look or be hold back by older graphics cards. That's all I'm saying.
If you don't want to upgrade from 7970 for instance, that's your choice. You have to put into account that this card is an old relic and it will not work with modern games the way you would want and you should not expect AMD or any other company with equivalent graphics card to make it happen because you want to use the card and not upgrade.

 

[The red spirit]

Sure true. My point was if we are going for progress and advancement we should not look or be hold back by older graphics cards. That's all I'm saying.
If you don't want to upgrade from 7970 for instance, that's your choice. You have to put into account that this card is an old relic and it will not work with modern games the way you would want and you should not expect AMD or any other company with equivalent graphics card to make it happen because you want to use the card and not upgrade.

How exactly supporting 7970 is holding back any other card?

 

[ratirt]

How exactly supporting 7970 is holding back any other card?

You should read my previous posts when you have pointed out the 7970 not being brought by anyone which I have used as an example.
Basically it's company's resources focusing on a new tech rather than an older cards which are being too slow to compete anyway. This means the company can put more effort assign resources to develop stuff for new tech and/or upcoming instead of a 10 year old stuff. As you may or may not know, the resources are limited.

 

[The red spirit]

You should read my previous posts when you have pointed out the 7970 not being brought by anyone which I have used as an example.
Basically it's company's resources focusing on a new tech rather than an older cards which are being too slow to compete anyway. This means the company can put more effort assign resources to develop stuff for new tech and/or upcoming instead of a 10 year old stuff. As you may or may not know, the resources are limited.

And arguably 7970 support is now more needed than ever before, because you can't buy whatever 6000 series Radeon now and due to that they barely matter. Meanwhile 7970 might be what some blokes bought years ago or bought used and are still trying to get by with in 2021 and for them it a difference between useful and potentially ruined performance. But obviously AMD wants to sell 6000 series, and don't give a damn about 7970 today. That's normal, however cutting support for Fury series and R9 300 series is a bit vile. Those cards aren't even that old and both perform very well in games. And to be honest, if they support GCN, the nit's probably very easy for them to support all GCN cards, instead of the latest GCN cards.

 

[ratirt]

And arguably 7970 support is now more needed than ever before, because you can't buy whatever 6000 series Radeon now and due to that they barely matter. Meanwhile 7970 might be what some blokes bought years ago or bought used and are still trying to get by with in 2021 and for them it a difference between useful and potentially ruined performance. But obviously AMD wants to sell 6000 series, and don't give a damn about 7970 today. That's normal, however cutting support for Fury series and R9 300 series is a bit vile. Those cards aren't even that old and both perform very well in games. And to be honest, if they support GCN, the nit's probably very easy for them to support all GCN cards, instead of the latest GCN cards.

You still have drivers that will work. Just take the explanation I gave you or leave it. You are not even trying to understand you just keep saying same thing over and over.
You don't have to buy 6000. get an RX 580 and you are good. You can't blame this on GPU shortage now, this situation will be over.
Just get an older driver and go with it. It's not like fury or r9 390 performance is going to be worse due to driver not being updated with this cards, it is going to be worse because games are getting more demanding.
Maybe there is a reason we don't know about GCN not being supported?

 

[Mussels]

10 years of support, and the drivers continue working anyway.



Aint no reason that's an issue, and W10 drivers will likely work for W11 as well for many years to come.

 

[jpvalverde85]

For the users of the affected GPUs or those who believe this droped GPUs are still worthy I made a petition to keep them supported here:

Esta petición es tendencia

15 Todavía se necesitan firmas, Review the drop to legacy support for GCN based GFX8 ISA GPUs from AMD

chng.it

 

[Zyll Goliat]

For the users of the affected GPUs or those who believe this droped GPUs are still worthy I made a petition to keep them supported here:

Esta petición es tendencia

15 Todavía se necesitan firmas, Review the drop to legacy support for GCN based GFX8 ISA GPUs from AMD

chng.it

FSR actually working on ANY AMD&NVIDIA GPU I just tried game Rift Breaker(demo) that have FSR as an option in settings and it's working on R9 Fury but also apparently working on any other Nvidia or AMD cards....saying this it's still don't change the fact that any possible future bugs/glitches/errors/black screens...etc...on those AMD cards ain't going to be fixed as AMD ended their driver supports....

 

[bug]

How exactly supporting 7970 is holding back any other card?

The same as supporting any other legacy product does: it eats away at resources. You do a little tweak to your shaders for your latest architecture? You have to go back and retest that on all supported architectures, making sure you didn't break anything. Many tests can be automated and won't take much time to run, but at the same time many side effects are incredibly subtle and will evade the most experienced QA teams.
Once an architecture has a number of years under its belt, support is pretty much done. What you have is reasonably stable and you won't add further features. When that happens, it makes sense to park everything in a separate branch where you will only deliver fixes for further security and critical issues that may arise.

 

[The red spirit]

The same as supporting any other legacy product does: it eats away at resources. You do a little tweak to your shaders for your latest architecture? You have to go back and retest that on all supported architectures, making sure you didn't break anything. Many tests can be automated and won't take much time to run, but at the same time many side effects are incredibly subtle and will evade the most experienced QA teams.
Once an architecture has a number of years under its belt, support is pretty much done. What you have is reasonably stable and you won't add further features. When that happens, it makes sense to park everything in a separate branch where you will only deliver fixes for further security and critical issues that may arise.

Well they can offer a partial driver support, only adding control panel features, without driver tweaks and they still support GCN cards like RX 480 and 7970 with early GCN shouldn't be all that different.

You still have drivers that will work. Just take the explanation I gave you or leave it. You are not even trying to understand you just keep saying same thing over and over.
You don't have to buy 6000. get an RX 580 and you are good. You can't blame this on GPU shortage now, this situation will be over.
Just get an older driver and go with it. It's not like fury or r9 390 performance is going to be worse due to driver not being updated with this cards, it is going to be worse because games are getting more demanding.
Maybe there is a reason we don't know about GCN not being supported?

While generally old drivers may work, in some games there could be unexpectedly low performance due to some driver tweaks needed or some other major graphical glitching. You never know. And since those cards are still GCN, maybe even fixes for RX 480 can be applied to 7970 without any issues. I would understand if AMD discontinued aging product with totally different architecture (like Terrascale 2), but GCN?

For the users of the affected GPUs or those who believe this droped GPUs are still worthy I made a petition to keep them supported here:

Esta petición es tendencia

15 Todavía se necesitan firmas, Review the drop to legacy support for GCN based GFX8 ISA GPUs from AMD

chng.it

It doesn't seem to go well, if you want petition to actually work, perhaps post it on r/AyyMD.