Ah cool, thanks for the tip. Now I know to use FRAPS to test it with DAI. Now if only I could find out what the issue is with FRTC and Marvel Heroes. I've got 120+ FPS according to FRAPS.
Let's hope this driver fixes the occasional BSODs and graphical corruption on the desktop I get when coming out of power management modes (screen sleep, system sleep).
If you haven't cleaned the inside of your PC out in a while, dusting it out and such may help. Other than that, I can't really offer any advice besides uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, or swapping out your PSU if you have a cheap no-name PSU.
Crappy PSU's and motherboards cause so many problems that a surprising amount of people don't know about.
Quality Silverstone PSU, Asus P8Z77-I motherboard, system is clean and the issue has occurred on multiple AMD cards (7770, R9 270X). I'm not sure why you automatically assumed dust (and therefore heat) was a likely cause in low power usage situations.
You have an odd problem, though not an entirely uncommon one. However, it is a problem that I have never seen on a GCN GPU, the old VLIW GPUs were notorious for standby/resume issues.
I would suggest using DDU and wiping the drivers completely clean and reinstalling the latest version. I also found that setting a low idle clock overdrive profile helped, though you would have to remember to disable overdrive before gaming (I set up Ctrl-Shift-1~4 for different profiles, 1 being idle, 2, being light gaming, 3 being moderate gaming, 4 being turn off overdrive).
I've seen forum threads where the problem is most frequent on GCN cards, with many suspecting the ZeroCore functionality as a contributing factor. Another symptom I forgot to mention was that occasionally the system forgets to wake the screen back up again. I usually need to unplug then replug the DVI cable (and hearing the Windows hotplug event sounds) before I get a signal to the display again. I've also seen the issues on clean installs of Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, so DDU won't be of much help.
Just to let you in on an IT secret in my experience a BSOD is mainly caused by a bad ram stick check all ram 1 at a time and double check once you found the bad one, btw its very rare that a driver on a gpu gives you BSOD because if the vendor driver fails you will just reboot into the oem windows driver oh and also a bad harddrive will also give BSOD but yeah ram is the #1 problem 99% of the time.
I've run several passes of memtest and it's all clear. I've used windbg on the memory.dmp file from the BSOD and it clearly identifies the atikmpag.sys module.
My r9 290 had regular BSOD,tried everything. And it was almost impossible to do something(BSOD AT STARTUP!) What fixed it? Flashed that card,I simply asked for the bios so I can flash .They didn't want at first. But I said, I know i'm not allowed and I can srew this up but its too late both ways. and tada. NO issue at all!
AMD's drivers can have issues with updating where some of the old driver components stick around. I had a persistent driver crash issue which I eventually determined to be caused by a component DLL that was much older than the installed driver.
I recommend uninstalling the driver, running a driver cleaner program, and then installing completely fresh. You can't even trust the option to do a clean install.
Exactly, and that doesn't always work, but amd drivers have been over there problems for years now - that was like 4 years ago when amd had problems with drivers...
I am having an issue.I am not seeing the VSR on my 7950.I have done a uninstall twice now,not with DDU,wondering if that is the issue,been an Nvidia guy most my pc years,but loving AMD so far,anyways,Uninstall twice,reinstall twice,still not seeing it,i see the frame rate limiter,and i see i have catalyst 15.7 installed,driver packaged version 15.20.Anyone else having this issue? Or is it me not using DDU? Any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance.
I've used ATI/AMD for over a decade along with a few Nvidia cards. They're both extremely stable in my experience with the edge going to ATI. I think your comment is FUD, plain and simple.
Any driver with a x.y number where x is the year and y is the month. That's the general rule for major releases (WHQL and betas)
y>12 means a different branch (y = 15 means 5th month, rev 1.1). But the latest recommended is almost always where x is largest and y is largest up to 12.
So 15.7 is more recent than 15.15 is more recent than 15.5 etc.
If in doubt, keep the last number below 13 and go for the max on both.
We covered it in the Fury X review, but chances are the 50-95 limit is more to do with testing than anything else right now. AMD might adjust that range in the future when they are confident with performance.
As for reducing power, the control is more two fold. It helps bring the old games back down to normal levels rather than 1000FPS+ which might have issues, and power consumption on mobile devices. If you make it so the GPU on renders frames you'll use, then it has obvious power advantages. We still need to do testing to make sure on this and provide some numbers as an example.
Thanks again for responding Ian, yes that makes sense. I'd have thought up to at least current 'fast refresh' monitors (120-144hz) might be better if possible? BTW I play Day of Defeat: Source (still) and that must run up against its internal limit (300fps) a lot. I can see the advantages for mobile now where heat and noise are more of an issue.
It's always quite baffling to hear the GPU fan really kick in when you're playing something old, for example the original UT which has speed (and dodging?) issues above about 200fps (I imagine some people are getting five or more times that rate now).
Other Anandtech readers should take a moment and read this comment section. People are legitimately discussing the driver (article topic), problems and potential solutions. It's so mature. No company bashing, no insults, no rants. Thank you for the great read everyone. Picked up some good tips along the way.
I always enjoyed Chizow, as he corrected you amd fanboy crybabies and liars over and over and over again, and gave links, and straightened out your massive lies, it was AWESOME watching you amd fanboys getting SPANKED for your evil.
I'm afraid I have to agree with extide, bit hard not to when one has been reading about AMD on the comments section for a while. There are some people who really *are* trolling pointlessly :-( Just an 'ignore' function would help a lot IMO...
amd fanboy praises the "peaceful" drivers crashing thread, translated:
amd freakazoid fanboy, inside, feeling very disturbed at all the amd driver problems listed, page after page of amd fanboy tearing their hair out, responders having had the same problem with fixes that don't work...hahahhahahhaa
amd fanboy: " boy I sure hope no nvidia fanboy sees this crap - it will prove everything they think !" " my GOD, what if an nvidia fanboy comes here we will be soooo ebarrassed ! " " I've got to think of something quick, some protection is needed for my shrinking e-peen ! " "ummmmmm.... uhhhhhhhh" " errrrrr ehhhhhhh" " I've got it ! How we can hide our massive driver issues in plain sight and stroke our e-peens, preening each other and donning the condom ! "
" Isn't it peaceful here without evil nvidia fanboys spoiling it all, don't you guys wish we could ban and downvote and hate corrrectly, because we gotsa keep our crashing shrinking amd e-peen free from "terroorist troll attacks !" " " I want you all to notice how mature we are and at peace! Peace be with you ! "
( there that should do it, now we're all in love uner one giant amd e-peeen condom, and no on can see through it, to our terrible driver crashing problems ! Dang I sure hopee this works if an nvidia fanboys see this thread they might think amd driver issues are still around ! That's not fair ! I sure wish I could make certain Chizoww doesn't see this crap ! "
I've got a 7850 and got no VSR support, tried reinstalling with and without DDU a couple of times and I still don't get the option. Wrote an email to the AMD support and this is what I got: "I understand that you don't have the option to enable VSR in the catalyst control center.
The graphics card HD 7850 is not compatible for VSR option. Hence you don't have the option in the Catalyst control center." Weird thing they wrote 7800 series is supported though.
On the HD7000 series, maybe VSR works only on HMDI 1.4 and DisplayPort? I think a lot of people are using VGA and that's why VSR is not showing for them ?
no one knows and amd ain't saying, it's a corpo pig secret, as amd has great drivers
"it's working for me" ( that should look very familiar, it's the standard amd fanboy response, as well as the amd driver forums moderators response, before locking the thread, of course)
Hope this fixes the World of Tanks crash that the most recent beta drivers had. I had to roll back to the Omega drivers. Great to see these new features get back ported to older cards.
Use the search function and type "scale" which should have one result, click on that result, select your main monitor from the drop-down list (assuming you have more than one), then click "Enable virtual super resolution." Hit apply. Next, of course, you will need to change your resolution in games that support higher resolutions.
The other way is to select "My Digital Flat Panels" then Select "Properties (Digital Flat-Panel)," which will get you to where you need to go.
The 6000 series is very different. That uses a VLIW-type architecture and doesn't offer the necessary flexibility needed to support DX12 command lists and memory management.
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freeskier93 - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
Downloading now! Hopefully though Windows Update doesn't try to revert it back to the "engineering sample" driver on W10...Jtaylor1986 - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
FRTC seems to be completely broken in Dragon Age Inquisition for me no matter the setting or API. What gives?AS118 - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Are you using Mantle? If so, try DX11. If you're on DX11, try Mantle. If that doesn't fix it, I recommend going to AMD's support forums.Jtaylor1986 - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
The problem is the frostbite internal fps counter doesn't work with it. FRAPS seems to show the cap as workingAS118 - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Ah cool, thanks for the tip. Now I know to use FRAPS to test it with DAI. Now if only I could find out what the issue is with FRTC and Marvel Heroes. I've got 120+ FPS according to FRAPS.Gigaplex - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
Let's hope this driver fixes the occasional BSODs and graphical corruption on the desktop I get when coming out of power management modes (screen sleep, system sleep).zodiacsoulmate - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
I have that too on the firepro M4000.... have never solved itAS118 - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
If you haven't cleaned the inside of your PC out in a while, dusting it out and such may help. Other than that, I can't really offer any advice besides uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, or swapping out your PSU if you have a cheap no-name PSU.Crappy PSU's and motherboards cause so many problems that a surprising amount of people don't know about.
Gigaplex - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Quality Silverstone PSU, Asus P8Z77-I motherboard, system is clean and the issue has occurred on multiple AMD cards (7770, R9 270X). I'm not sure why you automatically assumed dust (and therefore heat) was a likely cause in low power usage situations.looncraz - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
You have an odd problem, though not an entirely uncommon one. However, it is a problem that I have never seen on a GCN GPU, the old VLIW GPUs were notorious for standby/resume issues.I would suggest using DDU and wiping the drivers completely clean and reinstalling the latest version. I also found that setting a low idle clock overdrive profile helped, though you would have to remember to disable overdrive before gaming (I set up Ctrl-Shift-1~4 for different profiles, 1 being idle, 2, being light gaming, 3 being moderate gaming, 4 being turn off overdrive).
Gigaplex - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
I've seen forum threads where the problem is most frequent on GCN cards, with many suspecting the ZeroCore functionality as a contributing factor. Another symptom I forgot to mention was that occasionally the system forgets to wake the screen back up again. I usually need to unplug then replug the DVI cable (and hearing the Windows hotplug event sounds) before I get a signal to the display again. I've also seen the issues on clean installs of Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, so DDU won't be of much help.FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
ROFLMAO - AMD IS OVER IT'S DRIVER ISSUES !HAHAHHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
DEF1ANT - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Just to let you in on an IT secret in my experience a BSOD is mainly caused by a bad ram stick check all ram 1 at a time and double check once you found the bad one, btw its very rare that a driver on a gpu gives you BSOD because if the vendor driver fails you will just reboot into the oem windows driver oh and also a bad harddrive will also give BSOD but yeah ram is the #1 problem 99% of the time.Oxford Guy - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
I got BSODs when undervolting the GPU too much with Afterburner as I recall.Gigaplex - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
I've run several passes of memtest and it's all clear. I've used windbg on the memory.dmp file from the BSOD and it clearly identifies the atikmpag.sys module.Lunisford - Friday, July 10, 2015 - link
My r9 290 had regular BSOD,tried everything. And it was almost impossible to do something(BSOD AT STARTUP!)What fixed it?
Flashed that card,I simply asked for the bios so I can flash .They didn't want at first. But I said, I know i'm not allowed and I can srew this up but its too late both ways. and tada.
NO issue at all!
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
ISN'T AMD WONDERFUL ?hahahhahha OMG the suckage is unbelievable - how did you not kill yourself ?
twtech - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
AMD's drivers can have issues with updating where some of the old driver components stick around. I had a persistent driver crash issue which I eventually determined to be caused by a component DLL that was much older than the installed driver.I recommend uninstalling the driver, running a driver cleaner program, and then installing completely fresh. You can't even trust the option to do a clean install.
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
Exactly, and that doesn't always work, but amd drivers have been over there problems for years now - that was like 4 years ago when amd had problems with drivers...BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Fastvedub - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
I am having an issue.I am not seeing the VSR on my 7950.I have done a uninstall twice now,not with DDU,wondering if that is the issue,been an Nvidia guy most my pc years,but loving AMD so far,anyways,Uninstall twice,reinstall twice,still not seeing it,i see the frame rate limiter,and i see i have catalyst 15.7 installed,driver packaged version 15.20.Anyone else having this issue? Or is it me not using DDU? Any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance.freeskier93 - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
Using DDU and cleaning out everything in C:\AMD fixed it for me.Fastvedub - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
Ok thank you,will try that now.FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
Get used to it, it will go on for years like that - that's exactly how amd cards are.The rarity is getting no problems - and why that occurs is unknown as well.
It's always a mystery - you can hack till your hair falls out and then some.
Shoulda stuck with nvidia.
N8SLC - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
I've used ATI/AMD for over a decade along with a few Nvidia cards. They're both extremely stable in my experience with the edge going to ATI. I think your comment is FUD, plain and simple.NinjaJedi - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
Is that in the options? The one that says not recommended?schuey7 - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
It worked straight away on my 7950.I did use ddu before updating the drivers.toyotabedzrock - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Maybe they would have a faster development process if they used a sane numbering system for the drivers.RussianSensation - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Their driver number cannot be any easier. 15.7 means year 2015, 7th month (July).TesseractOrion - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
No, there was a recent crop of weirdly numbered releases of the drivers themeselves (not Catalyst as a whole). Quite confuzzling tbh...Ian Cutress - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Any driver with a x.y number where x is the year and y is the month.That's the general rule for major releases (WHQL and betas)
y>12 means a different branch (y = 15 means 5th month, rev 1.1).
But the latest recommended is almost always where x is largest and y is largest up to 12.
So 15.7 is more recent than 15.15 is more recent than 15.5 etc.
If in doubt, keep the last number below 13 and go for the max on both.
TesseractOrion - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Wasn't there a 15.20? So 'zeroeth month, Rev 2.0'? Or was I dreaming it LOL... Thanks for trying to clear it up Ian :-)Fastvedub - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
UPDATE: DDU fixed my no VSR feature with my 7950,all is well now,gonna play with the VSR and some gaming now, and see how it does.;)TesseractOrion - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Is there a reason FRC only goes up to 95? Does it really reduce power consumption (and therefore fan speed and heat)? CheersIan Cutress - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
We covered it in the Fury X review, but chances are the 50-95 limit is more to do with testing than anything else right now. AMD might adjust that range in the future when they are confident with performance.As for reducing power, the control is more two fold. It helps bring the old games back down to normal levels rather than 1000FPS+ which might have issues, and power consumption on mobile devices. If you make it so the GPU on renders frames you'll use, then it has obvious power advantages. We still need to do testing to make sure on this and provide some numbers as an example.
psychobriggsy - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Does the Frame Rate Control work hand in hand with FreeSync?I could see significant power saving benefits to enabling the former on a mobile device, whilst retaining smooth gameplay at non-60Hz limits.
TesseractOrion - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Thanks again for responding Ian, yes that makes sense. I'd have thought up to at least current 'fast refresh' monitors (120-144hz) might be better if possible? BTW I play Day of Defeat: Source (still) and that must run up against its internal limit (300fps) a lot. I can see the advantages for mobile now where heat and noise are more of an issue.silverblue - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
It's always quite baffling to hear the GPU fan really kick in when you're playing something old, for example the original UT which has speed (and dodging?) issues above about 200fps (I imagine some people are getting five or more times that rate now).ToTTenTranz - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Does the new VSR support more resolutions on older cards?For example until now, only the Tonga and Fiji cards supported 4K VSR, whereas Bonaire and Hawaii only went up to 2560*1440/1600.
kuttan - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Finally Official VSR on my 7950. Yeah.TesseractOrion - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Hmm FRTC only works on DX10+ which is a bit annoying. I cannot see where to enable VSR but I'm probably being incredibly dense LOL...anandreader106 - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Other Anandtech readers should take a moment and read this comment section. People are legitimately discussing the driver (article topic), problems and potential solutions. It's so mature. No company bashing, no insults, no rants. Thank you for the great read everyone. Picked up some good tips along the way.extide - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Yeah, thats because nVidiot trolls like chizow haven't shown up yet.Agent Smith - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Well he was apparently booted by Discus on Fudzilla so no wonder he turned up at Anand.tuxfool - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Kinda makes you wish for some sort of moderation system, automatic or otherwise on this site.FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
I always enjoyed Chizow, as he corrected you amd fanboy crybabies and liars over and over and over again, and gave links, and straightened out your massive lies, it was AWESOME watching you amd fanboys getting SPANKED for your evil.kuttan - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
He is busy at WCCFtech. Trollers heaven.FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
You miss him greatly. Don't let anyone see you blowing the kiss.D. Lister - Friday, July 10, 2015 - link
anandreader106 said:"...It's so mature. No company bashing, no insults..."
extide said:
"Yeah, thats because nVidiot trolls like chizow haven't shown up yet."
@anandreader106
Well, so much for that, eh?
tuxfool - Friday, July 10, 2015 - link
TBH, while I don't agree with the tone of the comment, I certainly understand the sentiment behind it.TesseractOrion - Friday, July 10, 2015 - link
I'm afraid I have to agree with extide, bit hard not to when one has been reading about AMD on the comments section for a while. There are some people who really *are* trolling pointlessly :-( Just an 'ignore' function would help a lot IMO...kuttan - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
Yes I too noticed that. Everything here are peaceful, calm and informative.FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
Driver crashes and issues - peace for amd fans tearing their hair out with non running and crashing amd crap... awesome !I mean a SANE PERSON HAS TO LAUGH AT YOU DIRTBAGS !
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
All I saw was frustrated amd fanboys with driver crashes and driver problems.Not mature, not good at all, a bunch of massive headaches and failure.
Somehow "that's great!" according to you.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Nice you got in your little whining dig, instead of telling the truth - amd drivers are a disaster.
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
amd fanboy praises the "peaceful" drivers crashing thread, translated:amd freakazoid fanboy, inside, feeling very disturbed at all the amd driver problems listed, page after page of amd fanboy tearing their hair out, responders having had the same problem with fixes that don't work...hahahhahahhaa
amd fanboy: " boy I sure hope no nvidia fanboy sees this crap - it will prove everything they think !"
" my GOD, what if an nvidia fanboy comes here we will be soooo ebarrassed ! "
" I've got to think of something quick, some protection is needed for my shrinking e-peen ! "
"ummmmmm.... uhhhhhhhh"
" errrrrr ehhhhhhh"
" I've got it ! How we can hide our massive driver issues in plain sight and stroke our e-peens, preening each other and donning the condom ! "
" Isn't it peaceful here without evil nvidia fanboys spoiling it all, don't you guys wish we could ban and downvote and hate corrrectly, because we gotsa keep our crashing shrinking amd e-peen free from "terroorist troll attacks !" "
" I want you all to notice how mature we are and at peace! Peace be with you ! "
( there that should do it, now we're all in love uner one giant amd e-peeen condom, and no on can see through it, to our terrible driver crashing problems !
Dang I sure hopee this works if an nvidia fanboys see this thread they might think amd driver issues are still around ! That's not fair ! I sure wish I could make certain Chizoww doesn't see this crap ! "
BWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
YEAH, YOU ARE PATHETIC !
I'd say man up but you already blew that.
Theophany - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
"YEAH, YOU ARE PATHETIC !"Glad to see irony isn't lost on you.
Meas21 - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
I've got a 7850 and got no VSR support, tried reinstalling with and without DDU a couple of times and I still don't get the option. Wrote an email to the AMD support and this is what I got:"I understand that you don't have the option to enable VSR in the catalyst control center.
The graphics card HD 7850 is not compatible for VSR option. Hence you don't have the option in the Catalyst control center."
Weird thing they wrote 7800 series is supported though.
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
iT'S AMD DUDE, for A DECADE I HAVE HAD TO FIGHT THEIR STUPID DRIVERS.soccerballtux - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
2 days ago I was about to update my driver. Glad I waited!FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
that is truly sad ...Cryio - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
On the HD7000 series, maybe VSR works only on HMDI 1.4 and DisplayPort? I think a lot of people are using VGA and that's why VSR is not showing for them ?FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
no one knows and amd ain't saying, it's a corpo pig secret, as amd has great drivers"it's working for me" ( that should look very familiar, it's the standard amd fanboy response, as well as the amd driver forums moderators response, before locking the thread, of course)
Stuka87 - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Hope this fixes the World of Tanks crash that the most recent beta drivers had. I had to roll back to the Omega drivers. Great to see these new features get back ported to older cards.looncraz - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Use the search function and type "scale" which should have one result, click on that result, select your main monitor from the drop-down list (assuming you have more than one), then click "Enable virtual super resolution." Hit apply. Next, of course, you will need to change your resolution in games that support higher resolutions.The other way is to select "My Digital Flat Panels" then Select "Properties (Digital Flat-Panel)," which will get you to where you need to go.
Hardtarget - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Huh, any reason dx12 is not supported on the cayman 6000 series? I thought it was pretty similar to the 7000 line?Ryan Smith - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
The 6000 series is very different. That uses a VLIW-type architecture and doesn't offer the necessary flexibility needed to support DX12 command lists and memory management.Hardtarget - Saturday, July 11, 2015 - link
Ah! Hm, maybe it's time to finally replace my 6950 then sadly...mapesdhs - Sunday, July 12, 2015 - link
Has CF/DX9 been fixed yet?FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
no of course not - that's the "years down the road wonderful amd future drivers upgrade"Maybe after DX12 turns amd cards into top of the line spaceships taking on the Federation. Of course "that's going to happen too, we promise !"