I always have problems with AMD drivers installing. It can take up to 4 tries before it decides to work. They still dont come close to Nvidia driver quality... so lets see whats broke this time now i've installed these...
I only have issues with the drivers when trying to update through Steam. the drivers always fail to load. The past 2 times though I dl'd the drivers directly from AMD's website and they loaded with no problems. The issues I want fixed with Skyrim though have nothing to do with AMD but with Bethesda itself because the random walking halfway through walls or taking a swing at something to have it disappear and end up 20 ft away.
I haven't had problems installing drivers for my 5 series cards but have had problems with 6 series. Here is what you can do to work around that issue.
1. Install the driver package, let the gpu driver fail to install 2. Go into Device Manger (XP, Hold Start+Pause on keyboard, select advanced then Device Manger. Vista-7, Press start and type Device Manager in search) 3. Under "Display Adapters" double click on your display card (ATi/AMD Radeon 2,3,4,5,6000 series) 4. Under "Driver" select "Update Driver". Select "Install from list or Specific Location" 5. Point the installer to where you extracted the ATi/AMD driver (Default "C:\Ati\Support\11-11_Vista64(or 32).....\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76_INF. Your system should say "Installing drivers". When that is finished your driver should be installed 6. (Optional). If you want you can run the Catalyst Installer again and it should say successful at the end.
Sorry this is pretty much a rough "How to". The steps may vary based on your OS but should be relatively the same.
Installed ATI drivers on many computers and never have seen it not work 3 times and on the 4th work. Normally if its a mobile driver it either works or it doesn't.
And it's pretty much ALWAYS worked. I'd say ATI drivers are every bit as good as Nvidia except for perhaps SLI / Crossfire profiles.
I've installed ATi drivers on several of my machines probably a total of 20 times between them all. Never once had a single issue. Must be your machine.
How can a virus stop a driver installing? You fanboy kids are so moronic it's unreal.
And i've built over 200 machines this year alone, AMD ALWAYS have more drivers issues than Nvidia. And the installing issue isn't just for my personal machine, i have this with other systems too with all different kinds of hardware. It only affects about 10% of them but it certainly exists.
according to the driver issue statistics released by MS, Nvidia has had more driver issues in the past couple of years. What you say is your own "personal" experience.
Im calling BS on the over 200 machines as well. There are only about 240-260 working days a year. Unless your only job is a lowly tech building computers, in which case I would like to introduce you to this thing we call a contract where you can get OEM's to do this mundane task for you. I mean really, is that what you want to do with your life? Tech world is huge. You should find another specialty and broaden your horizons.
Viruses often times cause installation issues for numerous things, not just drivers, though drivers are definitely affected.
I haven't built 200 machines, probably not even a dozen in my lifetime, but never had an AMD/ATI issue. Never had it with any Dell's we had at a school that had ATI chips, or when installing Windows on Macs, with ATI chips.
Never had issues installing drivers as part of a pxe boot, and pushing the OS and drivers through network either.
That isn't to say that issues do not exist, but sometimes a driver install error has nothing to do with the driver, and something to do with the user, or the hardware, or some other problem with the OS.
This is FUD, 10 years ago this was true. You're showing your gray hairs.
nVidia Drivers have been the primary cause of XP crashes. period. (by sheer number of errors, in absolute numbers, yes partially due to market share.)
Additionally guys who switch back and forth, need to completely uninstall the drivers before you can hope to have a decent experience with moving from/to AMD/nVidia. (2 complete restarts here people)
Ive had 3 amd cards since Win 7 R2 not one issue. I probably reinstall windows more often than most, and I'm willing to bet is the root of my stability. nVidia for the last few years has been selling cards data center cards that have the capability of running video. Add a huge tesselator +Crysis 2 'tessalate water in every frame fiasco" and you have a claim for better performance, add how hot they run (think pentium 4) and were on to the issue.
AMD could pull off a clawhammer in the next 6 months if they pulled their head out.
I was all about nVidia until gforce 2xx's, (yes the 260 was decent). but performance/watt has been way off since before then.
Additionally, Ive personally deployed about 220 nVidia chip laptops in the last year and 20% have video flicker issues. (The driver is missing the power options all the others have, setting it to default to lowest power to the backlight.)
They both have their issues, but Ive had more issues with Steam than AMD vid drivers.
I've never had a problem that couldn't be solved by uninstalling the old version and then installing the new version. So I guess your geek cred really is in jeopardy .
Both have driver issues and both can have install problems. Once the driver gets messed up on a system it can be a nightmare installing update. Both have cleaning tools to remove ALL traces of their drivers and if you are having problems I suggest finding and using them.
Your blanket statement that "AMD always has more drivers issues" is just false and makes me think you're the fan boy.
I just installed the 11.11's yesterday. No issues so far with my 5870. I get some visual glitches while running Skyrim, but I think they're known Skyrim issues and not related to the 11.11's.
ATI just keeps botching driver releases. Luckily I had no problem with my 4870 setup using the Rage/BF3 "preview 2" drivers. I played through rage with no issues and have no reason to go back and play it at this point. On another 5850 setup however, not a single driver has worked to fix RAGE including this release. This one is actually worse than the previous two "preview releases" causing some weird geometry popping. At this point I don't care because I've already beaten the game, but it just shows ATI's incompetence in the driver department.
... you can enable the "Workaround install", and the "Show update" options editing the "installmanager.cfg" file inside the "config" folder. That still works...
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JonnyBlaze - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
They didn't work for me. Everything would install but the driver so I had to back to the 11.10'sB3an - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I always have problems with AMD drivers installing. It can take up to 4 tries before it decides to work. They still dont come close to Nvidia driver quality... so lets see whats broke this time now i've installed these...MrSpadge - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Strange, never had such issues (and owned a few ATIs already..)MrS
JonnyDough - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Haha, me either. I've had more issues with my NVidia card drivers. Their chips run so hot too.Silverkinggames - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
I only have issues with the drivers when trying to update through Steam. the drivers always fail to load. The past 2 times though I dl'd the drivers directly from AMD's website and they loaded with no problems. The issues I want fixed with Skyrim though have nothing to do with AMD but with Bethesda itself because the random walking halfway through walls or taking a swing at something to have it disappear and end up 20 ft away.Glibous - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I haven't had problems installing drivers for my 5 series cards but have had problems with 6 series. Here is what you can do to work around that issue.1. Install the driver package, let the gpu driver fail to install
2. Go into Device Manger (XP, Hold Start+Pause on keyboard, select advanced then Device Manger. Vista-7, Press start and type Device Manager in search)
3. Under "Display Adapters" double click on your display card (ATi/AMD Radeon 2,3,4,5,6000 series)
4. Under "Driver" select "Update Driver". Select "Install from list or Specific Location"
5. Point the installer to where you extracted the ATi/AMD driver (Default "C:\Ati\Support\11-11_Vista64(or 32).....\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76_INF. Your system should say "Installing drivers". When that is finished your driver should be installed
6. (Optional). If you want you can run the Catalyst Installer again and it should say successful at the end.
Sorry this is pretty much a rough "How to". The steps may vary based on your OS but should be relatively the same.
Greg
SlyNine - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Installed ATI drivers on many computers and never have seen it not work 3 times and on the 4th work. Normally if its a mobile driver it either works or it doesn't.And it's pretty much ALWAYS worked. I'd say ATI drivers are every bit as good as Nvidia except for perhaps SLI / Crossfire profiles.
inighthawki - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I've installed ATi drivers on several of my machines probably a total of 20 times between them all. Never once had a single issue. Must be your machine.JonnyDough - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Agreed. Maybe he has viruses or has one of those "special machines" that nobody else has...B3an - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
How can a virus stop a driver installing? You fanboy kids are so moronic it's unreal.And i've built over 200 machines this year alone, AMD ALWAYS have more drivers issues than Nvidia. And the installing issue isn't just for my personal machine, i have this with other systems too with all different kinds of hardware. It only affects about 10% of them but it certainly exists.
SandmanWN - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
according to the driver issue statistics released by MS, Nvidia has had more driver issues in the past couple of years. What you say is your own "personal" experience.Im calling BS on the over 200 machines as well. There are only about 240-260 working days a year. Unless your only job is a lowly tech building computers, in which case I would like to introduce you to this thing we call a contract where you can get OEM's to do this mundane task for you. I mean really, is that what you want to do with your life? Tech world is huge. You should find another specialty and broaden your horizons.
SilthDraeth - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Viruses often times cause installation issues for numerous things, not just drivers, though drivers are definitely affected.I haven't built 200 machines, probably not even a dozen in my lifetime, but never had an AMD/ATI issue. Never had it with any Dell's we had at a school that had ATI chips, or when installing Windows on Macs, with ATI chips.
Never had issues installing drivers as part of a pxe boot, and pushing the OS and drivers through network either.
That isn't to say that issues do not exist, but sometimes a driver install error has nothing to do with the driver, and something to do with the user, or the hardware, or some other problem with the OS.
Autisticgramma - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
This is FUD, 10 years ago this was true. You're showing your gray hairs.nVidia Drivers have been the primary cause of XP crashes. period. (by sheer number of errors, in absolute numbers, yes partially due to market share.)
Additionally guys who switch back and forth, need to completely uninstall the drivers before you can hope to have a decent experience with moving from/to AMD/nVidia. (2 complete restarts here people)
Ive had 3 amd cards since Win 7 R2 not one issue. I probably reinstall windows more often than most, and I'm willing to bet is the root of my stability. nVidia for the last few years has been selling cards data center cards that have the capability of running video. Add a huge tesselator +Crysis 2 'tessalate water in every frame fiasco" and you have a claim for better performance, add how hot they run (think pentium 4) and were on to the issue.
AMD could pull off a clawhammer in the next 6 months if they pulled their head out.
I was all about nVidia until gforce 2xx's, (yes the 260 was decent). but performance/watt has been way off since before then.
Additionally, Ive personally deployed about 220 nVidia chip laptops in the last year and 20% have video flicker issues. (The driver is missing the power options all the others have, setting it to default to lowest power to the backlight.)
They both have their issues, but Ive had more issues with Steam than AMD vid drivers.
Divide Overflow - Saturday, November 26, 2011 - link
I've never had a problem that couldn't be solved by uninstalling the old version and then installing the new version. So I guess your geek cred really is in jeopardy .piiman - Sunday, November 27, 2011 - link
Both have driver issues and both can have install problems. Once the driver gets messed up on a system it can be a nightmare installing update. Both have cleaning tools to remove ALL traces of their drivers and if you are having problems I suggest finding and using them.Your blanket statement that "AMD always has more drivers issues" is just false and makes me think you're the fan boy.
RaistlinZ - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I just installed the 11.11's yesterday. No issues so far with my 5870. I get some visual glitches while running Skyrim, but I think they're known Skyrim issues and not related to the 11.11's.Divide Overflow - Saturday, November 26, 2011 - link
Try running the 11.11a hotfix driver for Skyrim performance improvements and a single GPU.They are supposed to release 11.11b for muti-GPU systems soon.
jkostans - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
ATI just keeps botching driver releases. Luckily I had no problem with my 4870 setup using the Rage/BF3 "preview 2" drivers. I played through rage with no issues and have no reason to go back and play it at this point. On another 5850 setup however, not a single driver has worked to fix RAGE including this release. This one is actually worse than the previous two "preview releases" causing some weird geometry popping. At this point I don't care because I've already beaten the game, but it just shows ATI's incompetence in the driver department.Ethaniel - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
... you can enable the "Workaround install", and the "Show update" options editing the "installmanager.cfg" file inside the "config" folder. That still works...