AMD Unlikely to Fix DX9 Games Bugged by Adrenalin Driver

[btarunr]

AMD ended 2017 with its year-end mega driver release, the Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition (17.12), which introduced a large number of new features. The drivers, incidentally, also inadvertently caused bugs with some 10-year old games running on the older DirectX 9 API. When AMD Radeon users took to Reddit, and other tech forums to report these issues, AMD responded on its official support forums that it is "unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue."

Among the games affected, old as they may seem, are AAA blockbusters, including "C&C3 Tiberium Wars," "C&C3 Kane's Wrath," "C&C Red Alert 3," "C&C Red Alert 3 Upising," "C&C4 Tiberian Twilight," "Battle for Middle Earth 1-2," and "The Witcher Enhanced Edition." AMD blames its inability to fix these issues to outdated API models. The company's full statement reads "This title is from 2007, so we are unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue, which is most likely caused by outdated API modules."



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[R-T-B]

NVIDIA runs them fine somehow...

Also, this post is missing a negative near the break...

 

[SirMango]

This must be the Reddit being referred to: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7na5ws

 

[Darksword]

I'm also having issues running Sim City 2000 with this new driver.

 

[evernessince]

AMD, why are you so stupid. People love to play old games, there's even a whole group of PC players devoted to it. This is just like announcing "Hey guys we don't care about you so don't buy our cards!". Backwards compatibility has been one of the tenents of PC gaming.

 

[ZoneDymo]

tsk tsk AMD, these games are games people love to play... they are still being sold, fix this nonsense.
Does anyone even know what issues are actually present?

EDIT, nvm just read the post, games not even starting up...thats a preeeeetty big problem there, yeah that needs to be fixed.

 

[natr0n]

The problem is the amd/radeon/whoever people are just collecting paychecks and not doing their jobs. As if to say "It's not my problem".


My next card will be nvidia even if i have to save up for months.

 

[xkm1948]

The problem is the amd/radeon/whoever people are just collecting paychecks and not doing their jobs. As if to say "It's not my problem".


My next card will be nvidia even if i have to save up for months.

Same here, while waiting for next gen GPU to drop.

At the same time I am waiting for those angry AMD mobs show up to blame TPU for passing this on as "news" because as we all know from them, "AMD can do no wrong, it is always someone else's fault"

 

[newtekie1]

So their latest drivers broke games that have worked fine for over a decade, and then they refuse to fix it and try to blame the games for the problems?!? Nice.

 

[xkm1948]

So their latest drivers broke games that have worked fine for over a decade, and then they refuse to fix it and try to blame the games for the problems?!? Nice.

Some (quite a lot) TPU members disagree with you.

Meanwhile where is my popcorn

 

[dj-electric]

Like Radeon team needed more bad PR at this point.

 

[yotano211]

I still play some of those games. I think I send about 10-15 hours per month on old C and C games.

 

[ShurikN]

When I read the title I thought it was 50% of DX9 titles. Turns out it's 5 games. Install older drivers when you want to play those titles and case closed.
Although I would hate it if I had to rollback drivers every time I wanted to play these games, and the fact that they managed to screw it somehow is inexcusable, it's also not the end of the world.

 

[pigulici]

This is a bad move, well, my money will go to nvidia , then...

 

[R-T-B]

When I read the title I thought it was 50% of DX9 titles. Turns out it's 5 games. Install older drivers when you want to play those titles and case closed.
Although I would hate it if I had to rollback drivers every time I wanted to play these games, and the fact that they managed to screw it somehow is inexcusable, it's also not the end of the world.

Until you have a card that requires newer drivers, then it's broke for good.

 

[Solaris17]

This is a bad move, well, my money will go to nvidia , then...

nvidia has there share of incompatible games, we just cry less about it.

 

[dicktracy]

AMD is a CPU-first company. It's no doubt that their Radeon department is severely starved in resource. It also makes sense why Raja left that ship ASAP because AMD's main goal is to bring back their CPUs to former glory over developing a superior graphics solution. Sad thing for us enthusiasts is that they're going to hold Radeon hostage while their competitiveness against Nvidia diminishes every year.

 

[pigulici]

nvidia has there share of incompatible games, we just cry less about it.

Well, at least yesterday I was able to play Witcher 1 with the last nvidia driver, on win 10 FCU, nothing is perfect in life, but the response from AMD it show how far from real life are some from this company. In past I was a supporter of amd, they just lied/broke promises so many times, I still remember the Fusion thing, now I just want something to work, don't care so much about the label.

 

[RejZoR]

Congrats AMD, you lazy incompetent imbeciles. You just ensured with this I'll NEVER ever buy Radeon again. I play old games regularly and if you broke a MASSIVE range of DX9 games which I still play (3/4 of the listed ones), that means I cannot afford to buy Radeon anymore even if it's by some miracle the best shit again. I mean, why would I if I'll have garbage experience with those games now? Yay, good business model right there AMD, you don't have much of a market share as it is and you just sacked away a part of people who buy top end cards and also still like to play old games.

Adrenalin release wasn't even all that good. All they did was introduce bunch of overlay features I'll probably never use or need but in return they broke freaking DX9 games. Whoever was in charge for this release QA should be fired.

I was just praising AMD how much better software they have than NVIDIA (NVIDIA's software just is an outdated buggy shit) and then they pull a stunt like this. Really AMD, really? I hope Intel goes into discrete graphics as a 3rd player now they have Raja. Graphics market is getting depressive at this point...

 

[Readlight]

Witcher 1 game engine is old, its also best, cheapest game. i also own it.

 

[R-T-B]

nvidia has there share of incompatible games, we just cry less about it.

I've yet to encounter one I could blame on the GPU driver with the exception of some gamebryo games that honestly, were coded horribly from day 1 and there are workarounds available.

 

[RejZoR]

I've yet to encounter one I could blame on the GPU driver with the exception of some gamebryo games that honestly, were coded horribly from day 1 and there are workarounds available.

Only game I'm aware of being incompatible with NVIDIA is Midtown Madness 1. That game started having problems the moment GeForce cards were released, something to do with rendering method (gets flying and flickering polygons all over the screen). It's possible it got fixed since so much time has passed, GPU's changed and there have been a lot of drivers in between. It's possible it fixed itself on its own. Gotta try it one day, but I know it didn't work from day I got GeForce 2...

 

[wiak]

real men copy the working driver files into the game folder and play the game like a sensei

 

[kruk]

we are unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue

IMHO, at this point they should just open source the Windows driver. The community would then be able to help fix bugs, improve the driver and they would save a lot on resources. Just look at their open source Linux driver - it's superb! It's also one of the major reasons I'm using a Radeon card.

 

[zlobby]

Lol! If this was a Star Wars movie, the title would be 'The rage of the shilling bots'.

'Whaaaa! I'll never buy AMD again!' Well, don't. I couldn't care any less. With so much brain capacity you deserve what you get.