Good for you. I in fact, unlikw you, I like AMD drivers and cards, they come long way in few years. Newer had any issues in past few years I'm using AMD cards. Now, this is a good news.
I upgraded to a 7850 from a GTX 460 and regretted it. It brought two major issues:
- Flickering of the screen when playing Flash games; I googled it and it seems that it's caused by the GPU switching between clock speeds
- The GPU occasionally not waking up from sleep, leaving me with no recourse but to press the reset button on my casing
- This is likely apply to very little of you, but my 7850 does motion interpolation of videos slower than the GTX 460 for some reason. I won't blame AMD for this, it's probably the software not optimized. Still, the first two issues are enough to make me be wary of AMD in the future.
It baffles me that people have these obscure problems like the ones you are describing as I have been a ATI/AMD user for over a decade and never anything like this.
And I have built platforms based on both Intel and AMD cpus and the only thing I have not tried is a crossfire configuration.
I have only ever built a single platform on an Nvidia graphics card and strangely enough the card died on me after 3 years (the only graphics card I have ever had die on me).
The sleep issue is fixed in 12.6 in addition to a couple of other long-standing 7-series issues.
I'm running a 7970 now and have zero problems. The 560 Ti I owned previously had a problem for about a month where the driver would randomly crash just sitting at the desktop or web browsing. Nvidia isn't immune from drive problems either.
I own a 560 TI and it worked fine when I bought it, but since two months or so, I have the mentioned bug. I watch a video and the card freezes. And I also exprienced some driver crashes since day one. I think both NVidia and AMD have issues, so none is really better.
It is funny. I'm in the camp with multiple good nVidia experiences, except for some occasional driver issues. I've had one ATI and one AMD card and have had hadware issues with each one. One failed completely and the other had overheating issues that would cause a crash during gaming. I know it is probably just bad luck, but I really feel compelled to stick with nVidia now...
I'm in the same boat. I LOVED AMD as a processor company back when they were sticking it to Intel in the price/performance, but was sad to see them buy up ATI. I understand it may have been a smart business move, but I have historically loathed ATI's drivers and the cards I have had to support since their purchase didn't seem to be any better.
I'm sure it's all the luck of the draw, but I have had historically no issues with nvidia cards and drivers and plenty to speak of from AMD/ATI. And not just in the gaming space, the laptops and desktops I support at work with AMD cards seem to always have the craziest resolution/multimontior/monitor switching issues I never encounter with the nvidia variety. That said, I would agree that neither is perfect, but for me personally I still haven't found an ATI driver I liked.
No nVidia isn't immune entirely, but the difference is like the last 15 years nVidia Olympic Gold Medalists lined up against amd Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome halfway house soup kitchen goers.
Oh boy, the troll returns. EVERY SINGLE article that has anything to do with AMD, and this kid/***** cogburn shows up.
Apart from writing unintelligible rubbish, you have never actually said anything worthwhile.
Really, what the ****?. Do you have absolutely nothing to do?
Anyways, although I've found certain anadtech articles to be suffering from highly questionable testing procedures and data analysis, Ryan Smith actually knows what he's talking about.
For me the solution was to uninstall Trixx or Afterburner (don't remember wich), and everything was OK again.
And I can understand peoples frustration wit AMD sometimes, and there might be more problems there than with nVidia, but I am not satisfied with any of them. But hopefully in the future sometime it will all be excellent :)
Yes, that is an issue that has been a bane of dynamic voltage switching cards since the probably the 5xxx series, as up to that point the memory voltage was the same.
A solution for your problem, although not optimal is getting a bios (or altering your card bios) and disable memory voltage switching (use RBE if your card is supported), another solution is trying to return your card and switch for other brand.
And I should note that this is also a problem on NVIDIA cards. My opinion is that there's poor quality control on the components being used by some manufacturers for some ranges of cards. Although it's also possible that your problem is originated on bad system ram or a bad psu (and yes I know it is a pain when people say that and you check and it's fine).
The cards themselves are great when you don't have any problems and a really sad problem is that for some reason (well I can think of a few reasons) publications or review sites are never plagued by these issues...
Eh, nVidia's no saint either. It took them six months to fix an issue with their cards being stuck at 2D clocks after running F@H and the silent stream bug on GF100 cards is a problem that has persisted for over a year with no fix in sight. Threw in a 6970 to replace my 470 and 465 and it works flawlessly with my receiver.
haha, yeah I'm with you. As a long time owner of multiple ati and nvidia cards, I'll say that my experience has led me to believe that AMD drivers are consistently more problematic. I currently run 5850s in xfire and they have been an absolute nightmare. Doesn't help that my 2 biggest games over the past 3 years have been BC2 and BF3 - but these aren't the only ones where I've been scuppered by shitty drivers.
Fanboys who want to justify their purchases always charge into these discussions to the cries of "BUT THEY'VE COME A LONG WAY" and yes, they have, but they still suck. Fixes are too slow to come out. xfire profiles will be released with bugs time after time.
I realise that the current slew of nvidia cards have had troubles with drivers, but as far as I can tell they vast majority of these issues have been with multi-monitor displays. I lived off a 7950 gtx for the longest time, a time when I was gaming muuuch more than I am now and I never _once_ encountered a game specific driver bug. I'm now moving back to nvidia, despite having supposedly experienced AMD at its new "peak" and despite the worrying reports of issues with the 6xx series. I guess that says it all.
Me too. I can almost guarantee they'll take 2-3 months for each release and they still won't be able to write a stable set of drivers to save their collective asses.
I gave up on NVIDIA drivers after they messed up fan control and killed large swaths of cards, my 8800GTS512 included.
THAT was an example of real failure. If a game has problems for a month, I can live with that. But the fanbois like sweeping this particular one under the rug, and it killed cards.
Just bought a laptop with a 2670QM and a Radeon 7670M. Terrible driver support. AMD won't recognize it and the only driver is from Acer and weighs in at 380MB. You also have to manually copy over several files in order to get 64-bit OpenGL support, otherwise all 64-bit OGL applications crash upon execution. Also, the switchable graphics is spotty at best.
NVIDIA from now on. Being able to use one driver package for all GPUs - and have it work - is worth paying more.
Not really specifically an AMD topic. I had a laptop with a nVidia Go 440 a few years ago, which also was completely unsupported by nVidia drivers. Not much either nVidia or AMD can do if somebody decides to buy their chips and build them into a custom graphics card that is not supported by their drivers.
As I understand it for mobile with AMD you have to get driver updates from the maker of your laptop (e.g. acer). This means that it can take for ever to get fixes.
With nvidia you just download the standard driver package from nvidia released at the same time as the desktop ones.
This is the reason I stick to nvidia in any laptop I buy.
It is not specifically an AMD problem, unfortunately. There are plenty of laptops that require vendor specific drivers on both sides.
Also remember that we have nVidia to thank for an entire generation of failing mobile GPUs resulting in a class-action lawsuit being required for any resolution to happen.
There have been plenty of missteps from both suppliers. No-one is immune. For the average user to say "ATI drivers suck" as a blanket statement ignores a lot of great products with no issues. It also ignores the issues nVidia has had, sometimes with drivers, sometimes with hardware, in their own products.
Not being an early adopter of either vendor's products is a wise move, but it's possible to get burned either way.
That is true for any gpu, Intel, AMD or nVidia. Blame the vendor. Updated drivers are vital, you won't even be able to upgrade/update Windows otherwise.
Yup. Unfortunately, it sounds like NathanAndrews bought a laptop with AMD's switchable graphics. That explains the 380MB drivers (you get a package with both Intel's iGPU drivers and AMD's Radeon drivers rolled into one). NVIDIA addressed this problem with Optimus Technology, and other than brand new laptops that might miss a release or two, you can install their driver updates on any recent laptop. You can also install Intel's driver updates separately from NVIDIA's drivers. Until AMD fixes this issue, I have been warning people about the driver problem with AMD switchable graphics. Caveat emptor.
They can still require vendor specific Intel drivers I guess. They still have lots of problems with updating the graphics drivers too. But things should be improving. There is always issues buying notebooks in this regard. Nvidia reserves a mention I guess, but not praise here. Any switchable graphics is still a pain in GNU/Linux.
Wrong. See above. NVIDIA has not had this issue with Optimus laptops for two years now. This is only an AMD issue. NVIDIA also has support from all the major OEMs for their Verde drivers; Sony, HP, and possibly others do not always participate in AMD's driver program (e.g. even if you don't have switchable graphics).
"The following notebooks are not compatible with this tool: Notebooks equipped with switchable graphics "
Whether or not they meant only the 3 manufacturers listed is something I am unsure of, but it is separated from them, and the fact is your laptop appears to be one with switchable graphics so your computer needs some extra work done. I am not sure, but I think you need to install the drivers for the IGP, turn it off, and then install the ATI ones. Look it up, and remember that manufacturers do lock down their hardware, as I have learned the hard way with a Sony Vaio.
If you weren't such a noob your post would be taken seriously.
Not of the mobile providers allow you to use stock drivers you have to get them from the vendor. This hasn't changed in forever, there are unofficial hacks and what not to load other drivers but they aren't supported by the vendor.
I have this same issue with my Sony Vaio Z sony only provides drivers from 2010. I however am not like you and have found a workaround to run newer drivers on my laptop.
O and my Vaio has Hybrid intel and NV gpu and I still had to do this workaround so I don't where you go going with this i'm gonna switch to nv and not deal with it on a laptop.
How about you do YOUR research. Any laptop with manually switchable graphics needs drivers from the laptop vendor -- Sony in your case. If you have a discrete only GPU from AMD or NVIDIA, you can use their reference drivers. If you have a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus Technology (dynamically switchable graphics), you can also use NVIDIA's reference drivers.
The problem is you also said, "Not of the mobile providers allow you to use stock drivers you have to get them from the vendor." Assuming that was "none" and not "not", there's misinformation there and that's what I'm trying to avoid spreading. :-p
I had an HP laptop in the past (6510b or so) with only an Intel IGP. The Intel driver refused to install and I had to get an HP one.
That was a pure Intel computer, no switchable graphics discreet GPU.
ANY of t he graphics vendors web site will tell you to get mobile drivers from the computer manufacturer. Some may have drivers that work, but usually that's not the case.
The issue remains - NVIDIA solved the issue of mobile drivers years ago by rolling all dekstop and mobile drivers into one release. AMD has not. I knew this going in, that I would need to use the manufacturer's driver, but I didn't expect the poor 64-bit OGL support and clunky switchable interface.
For what is my experience in recent times, in the Mobile world, there are only a few "secure" spots where to stand. Nvidia optimus, Amd APUs, and eventually intel HD graphics (in between 945 Express and HD 2000 things may get ugly....).
So, THAT's why AMD's driver updater has been so annoying. It seems like left and right the updater pops up "New update!" Then it's a massive download (for my DSL line anyway) and hogs the bandwidth and requires restarts and all that. In my opinion it's a dumb idea. Why release on a schedule? Release when needed.
QUOTE: Importantly for non-technical users however this means that they maintain the date in the driver number, making it easy to tell whether a driver is recent or not.
Now I feel ashamed, with my friend two. We are technical users and we did not realise 12.4 meant 2012, Apr...
You can also get information on the driver build date from AMD's drivers. For example, I have a desktop running Catalyst 12.1 drivers that reports a driver package of "8.93-111205a-132104C-ATI". The important part is the second set of numbers. 111205a is a package build from 2011, December 05 -- so basically it had a month of testing before officially releasing in Jan 2012.
For desktops running reference drivers, this isn't all that useful, but on laptops it certainly is. A Sony VAIO SE as another example doesn't report a Catalyst build but the driver package is "8.862.4.4-111222a-134541C-Sony". So that build is from 2011, December 22. At least, that's my understanding of the numbers. :-)
Yeah, even with the later updates (May 2012 got one for the S lineup), it's mostly just Sony product related bugfixes (i.e, the 3D screen filter addon), and the build date remains the same for the core AMD driver.
The CCC size is crazy. That the actual drivers is pretty complex is a given now though. Lots of stuff there, multiple architectures and whatever. D3D9-11, DirectCompute, OpenGL, DXVA, gamefixes and more. I believe the OGL driver in AMD's drivers is about 18MB itself. Mobile devices are lucky to have less legacy to support.
I don't want bundled physics and compute, not to mention the god-awful mess that is the driver control panel and 3 or 4!!! background apps running full time and crashing.
What happened to drivers that just freaking worked? Also if you can measure the time it takes to change a setting in the control panel with a sand timer there is something horribly wrong.
Not to mention that I can't even remove CCC because I switched back to the Intel HD, and then an nVidia card, but still get a damn failure message every time I had to use Regedit to remove.
Still don't understand how 30mb of driver and 140mb of crapware is necessary?
Since they've missed the Cat 12.5 release and Cat 12.5 was supposed to be the final monthly driver for the HD2000/3000/4000 series and the basis for future legacy drivers what does this mean? Is Cat 12.5 still coming?
I just got confirmation from AMD that 12.5 has been canceled entirely. It appears that 12.6 is what 12.5 would have been, but without support for legacy GPUs.
At this point I do not know what this means for legacy users. It seems unlikely that AMD will include support for legacy users with the WHQL version of 12.6. In which case it may be a few months until AMD releases an irregular Catalyst legacy driver.
I really hope AMD's DX10/10.1 GPUs will get support for DX11 multithreaded rendering, so they at least get the same features supported, that Nvidia's equivalents have
It's a shame when Nvidia's Geforce 8 cards(DX10) supports features that AMD's more advanced HD4000 cards(DX10.1) don't
Regarding the ending of the monthly updates, I see where they are coming from
It doesn't work that way. You can't add a DX11 feature that is not supported by DX10/10.1 hardware. Moreover, as mentioned in this article, AMD is in the process of moving DX10 cards to legacy status. Neither MS nor the GPU designers will be doing any further development for DX10.
That said, there are some features that both DX10 and 11 support that are not supported by DX9, e.g., Shader Model 4. As such, if a game offers you a choice between DX9 settings and DX11 settings, the latter may still be preferable if you have a DX10/10.1 card.
Anandtech's own The power of DirectX 11 article mentions that multithreaded rendering is one of the features that can be carried over to DX10/10.1 GPUs
This is taken from that article "The fact that Microsoft has planned multi-threading support for DX11 games running on DX10 hardware is a major bonus. The only caveat here is that AMD and NVIDIA will need to do a little driver work for their existing DX10 hardware to make this work to its fullest extent "
Nvidia already supports it as well, on both their DX10/10.1 and DX11 GPUs
It's because of AMD's DX10/10.1 cards moving to legacy that I whine about this, there is no reason to make them legacy and stop updating them with new features, when their DX10/10.1 cards still don't support all the features they can support...
Isn't it lame that Nvidia's first DX10 card supports multithreaded rendering, when AMD's latest/strongest DX10.1 card does not(nor their DX11 cards for that matter)?
On second thought, don't AMD DX10.1 drivers already use the new driver model? They've been in the same Catalyst package until now. The DX9 cards didn't get an upgrade, but DX10?
I, for the longest time, was a big fan of ATi/AMD GPUs. Only ever had one driver issue (until recently) when using them over the better part of a decade.
A couple months back I had some issues that really pee'd me of.. so I changed sides to see what its like. WOW! I have a ANCIENT 7300LE which Nvidia actually still writes drivers for! :O in contrast: AMD now want to move DX10 cards to 'legacy'... WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT?!?! seriously.. get a grip AMD! >:(
Does NVIDIA really still updates the drivers for these cards? I know they're part of the driver bundle, but I'd be surprised if they get any driver TLC.
You should honestly of been banned months (or maybe years) ago. Those whining about 10.1 multi-threaded support: seriously? Are you that incredibly ignorant or just playing dumb?
The level of understanding from cogburn and his crew is incredibly insufficient. Angering, in fact.
If you weren't incredibly ignorant(or just playing dumb), you would perhaps come to understand that some of us don't like it when our hardware is capable of something but doesn't get the support for it.
Is it fair that Nvidia's earliest DX10 cards have gotten multithreaded support, while AMD's more advanced DX10.1 cards never will? Of course some of us are pissed. If you have an AMD DX11 card you might as well get pissed too, because they haven't gotten support for it either right now.
Add also to that that AMD's Windows 8 driver for these "legacy" will be the "In-the-box AMD Graphics driver". Since when has such a driver ever included the CCC? Nvidia's Windows 8 driver however, says it's supported even on the Geforce 6 series!
I have used ATI graphics in the past and their drivers and software is pathetic from a reputable company. The drivers crash the system when Windows runs. The software that they include for All-in-Wonder or VIVO models, have tons of reliability issues that I had to use third-party software to use the features of the cards. The MPEG-2 decoder has a reliability issue because it is related to the drivers. Then when I used the same ATI card in Linux, it just works with out any problems.
ATI gave me a lot of run-around to just update because it supposed to fix my problem. Now AMD is changing the company they bought, ATI, to wait until the driver versions are matured to be used in production system. This is a smart move for AMD graphics. I may buy AMD graphics to test their all talk is action. Though it better be all models not just enthusiast models.
It's my understanding that generally the people working on a Linux port of a graphics driver also dabble in or are heavily involved in developing the various brandings of the OS, to a much greater extent than AMD could know about Windows' internal workings; likewise on Mac OSX systems the drivers are ported by people that know the inner workings of the OS. I think it's because they have access to the source and/or documentation for the OS' structural code that they can make the same driver (correct me if I'm wrong but I assume Apple and Linux devs don't code drivers from scratch) work much better than its Windows implementation.
I would advise against buying AMD products just because they changed the development schedule for their Windows graphics drivers. If you have other reasoning behind such a decision then go for it, but if you just have money to burn try something more productive like starting a business or aiding a charity.
Chipset - I wonder how this is going to affect chipset driver releases. They were on a similar release schedule. Frequent chipset drivers weren't really needed anyways.
Graphics - Hopefully we won't see problems similar to the Skyrim tearing problem in Catalyst 12.3 (Even though it's rare to see that happen). Even though it was easy to work around the problem at the time (Disable AA in-game, enable in CCC), the average user/gamer would go into a panic and bring their system in for service (Good for business, bad for AMD's image).
Anyways I hope this new release method works out for AMD's coders. More Q/A never hurt.
1st. of all i would say that i love this site. Keep up the good work guys. 2nd. I don't understand people that say they have been burnt when buying an AMD or NVIDIA product !!! They only deliver the chip's and drivers. All the other manufacturer's like ASUS, XFX, EVGA, BFG and so on. They design the actual hardware you buy. I have built alot of custom made pc's and yes there are some of them that have issues, but drivers aren't the major issue, usually the problem starts when hardware, cooling or power consumption design is bad on these cards and after that it's air flow/Heat in enclosure. No manufacturer has a 100% yield, so bad cards will always reach the customer. Both AMD & NVIDIA have been ok in releasing drivers, always a little behind schedule of course :) I love them both (NVIDIA & AMD) and i choose the GPU after what the system has to be used for. In my systems almost everything gets custom made cooling. Standard = Failure, after extreem usage. :)
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ShadeZeRO - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I gave up hope with AMD and their drivers a LONGGGGG time ago.dmk2000 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Good for you.I in fact, unlikw you, I like AMD drivers and cards, they come long way in few years. Newer had any issues in past few years I'm using AMD cards.
Now, this is a good news.
aegisofrime - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I upgraded to a 7850 from a GTX 460 and regretted it. It brought two major issues:- Flickering of the screen when playing Flash games; I googled it and it seems that it's caused by the GPU switching between clock speeds
- The GPU occasionally not waking up from sleep, leaving me with no recourse but to press the reset button on my casing
- This is likely apply to very little of you, but my 7850 does motion interpolation of videos slower than the GTX 460 for some reason. I won't blame AMD for this, it's probably the software not optimized. Still, the first two issues are enough to make me be wary of AMD in the future.
cknobman - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
It baffles me that people have these obscure problems like the ones you are describing as I have been a ATI/AMD user for over a decade and never anything like this.And I have built platforms based on both Intel and AMD cpus and the only thing I have not tried is a crossfire configuration.
I have only ever built a single platform on an Nvidia graphics card and strangely enough the card died on me after 3 years (the only graphics card I have ever had die on me).
aegisofrime - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
The second problem, the GPU not waking up is not that obscure. Google for "7850 not waking up" and you'll see a few others have experienced it.soloburrito - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
The sleep issue is fixed in 12.6 in addition to a couple of other long-standing 7-series issues.I'm running a 7970 now and have zero problems. The 560 Ti I owned previously had a problem for about a month where the driver would randomly crash just sitting at the desktop or web browsing. Nvidia isn't immune from drive problems either.
UpSpin - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I own a 560 TI and it worked fine when I bought it, but since two months or so, I have the mentioned bug. I watch a video and the card freezes. And I also exprienced some driver crashes since day one. I think both NVidia and AMD have issues, so none is really better.kkwst2 - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
It is funny. I'm in the camp with multiple good nVidia experiences, except for some occasional driver issues. I've had one ATI and one AMD card and have had hadware issues with each one. One failed completely and the other had overheating issues that would cause a crash during gaming. I know it is probably just bad luck, but I really feel compelled to stick with nVidia now...gbTephlon - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
I'm in the same boat. I LOVED AMD as a processor company back when they were sticking it to Intel in the price/performance, but was sad to see them buy up ATI. I understand it may have been a smart business move, but I have historically loathed ATI's drivers and the cards I have had to support since their purchase didn't seem to be any better.I'm sure it's all the luck of the draw, but I have had historically no issues with nvidia cards and drivers and plenty to speak of from AMD/ATI. And not just in the gaming space, the laptops and desktops I support at work with AMD cards seem to always have the craziest resolution/multimontior/monitor switching issues I never encounter with the nvidia variety. That said, I would agree that neither is perfect, but for me personally I still haven't found an ATI driver I liked.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
No nVidia isn't immune entirely, but the difference is like the last 15 years nVidia Olympic Gold Medalists lined up against amd Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome halfway house soup kitchen goers.Gold Medals vs AIDS.
hahhahaha oh yes.
g101 - Saturday, June 9, 2012 - link
Oh boy, the troll returns. EVERY SINGLE article that has anything to do with AMD, and this kid/***** cogburn shows up.Apart from writing unintelligible rubbish, you have never actually said anything worthwhile.
Really, what the ****?. Do you have absolutely nothing to do?
Anyways, although I've found certain anadtech articles to be suffering from highly questionable testing procedures and data analysis, Ryan Smith actually knows what he's talking about.
Granseth - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
For me the solution was to uninstall Trixx or Afterburner (don't remember wich), and everything was OK again.And I can understand peoples frustration wit AMD sometimes, and there might be more problems there than with nVidia, but I am not satisfied with any of them. But hopefully in the future sometime it will all be excellent :)
setzer - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Yes, that is an issue that has been a bane of dynamic voltage switching cards since the probably the 5xxx series, as up to that point the memory voltage was the same.A solution for your problem, although not optimal is getting a bios (or altering your card bios) and disable memory voltage switching (use RBE if your card is supported), another solution is trying to return your card and switch for other brand.
And I should note that this is also a problem on NVIDIA cards.
My opinion is that there's poor quality control on the components being used by some manufacturers for some ranges of cards. Although it's also possible that your problem is originated on bad system ram or a bad psu (and yes I know it is a pain when people say that and you check and it's fine).
The cards themselves are great when you don't have any problems and a really sad problem is that for some reason (well I can think of a few reasons) publications or review sites are never plagued by these issues...
taken0prisoners - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Your loss dudethunderising - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
actually yours. AMD driver updates do not cause insane screen flickering, or overheating and possible melting of my GPUs, like nVidia'sOoops, I said it!
silverblue - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Isn't he replying to the OP? If so, you're actually in agreement with him.B3an - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
Immature fanboy prick.Homeles - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
You seem like you've got maturity issues as well.Assimilator87 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Eh, nVidia's no saint either. It took them six months to fix an issue with their cards being stuck at 2D clocks after running F@H and the silent stream bug on GF100 cards is a problem that has persisted for over a year with no fix in sight. Threw in a 6970 to replace my 470 and 465 and it works flawlessly with my receiver.Sufo - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
haha, yeah I'm with you. As a long time owner of multiple ati and nvidia cards, I'll say that my experience has led me to believe that AMD drivers are consistently more problematic. I currently run 5850s in xfire and they have been an absolute nightmare. Doesn't help that my 2 biggest games over the past 3 years have been BC2 and BF3 - but these aren't the only ones where I've been scuppered by shitty drivers.Fanboys who want to justify their purchases always charge into these discussions to the cries of "BUT THEY'VE COME A LONG WAY" and yes, they have, but they still suck. Fixes are too slow to come out. xfire profiles will be released with bugs time after time.
I realise that the current slew of nvidia cards have had troubles with drivers, but as far as I can tell they vast majority of these issues have been with multi-monitor displays. I lived off a 7950 gtx for the longest time, a time when I was gaming muuuch more than I am now and I never _once_ encountered a game specific driver bug. I'm now moving back to nvidia, despite having supposedly experienced AMD at its new "peak" and despite the worrying reports of issues with the 6xx series. I guess that says it all.
Malih - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
regardless of manufacturers, based on my experience multi GPU setup has the most issues,so you might want to consider that because your previous 7950GTX setup was a single GPU setup before deciding on AMD/nVidia,
check carefully which driver is better in the case of multi GPU.
Spunjji - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
*yawn*Golgatha - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
Me too. I can almost guarantee they'll take 2-3 months for each release and they still won't be able to write a stable set of drivers to save their collective asses.hansmuff - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
I gave up on NVIDIA drivers after they messed up fan control and killed large swaths of cards, my 8800GTS512 included.THAT was an example of real failure. If a game has problems for a month, I can live with that. But the fanbois like sweeping this particular one under the rug, and it killed cards.
nathanddrews - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Just bought a laptop with a 2670QM and a Radeon 7670M. Terrible driver support. AMD won't recognize it and the only driver is from Acer and weighs in at 380MB. You also have to manually copy over several files in order to get 64-bit OpenGL support, otherwise all 64-bit OGL applications crash upon execution. Also, the switchable graphics is spotty at best.NVIDIA from now on. Being able to use one driver package for all GPUs - and have it work - is worth paying more.
ShieTar - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Not really specifically an AMD topic. I had a laptop with a nVidia Go 440 a few years ago, which also was completely unsupported by nVidia drivers. Not much either nVidia or AMD can do if somebody decides to buy their chips and build them into a custom graphics card that is not supported by their drivers.prophet001 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
thisDribble - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I think it is specifically an AMD problem.As I understand it for mobile with AMD you have to get driver updates from the maker of your laptop (e.g. acer). This means that it can take for ever to get fixes.
With nvidia you just download the standard driver package from nvidia released at the same time as the desktop ones.
This is the reason I stick to nvidia in any laptop I buy.
LoneWolf15 - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
It is not specifically an AMD problem, unfortunately. There are plenty of laptops that require vendor specific drivers on both sides.Also remember that we have nVidia to thank for an entire generation of failing mobile GPUs resulting in a class-action lawsuit being required for any resolution to happen.
There have been plenty of missteps from both suppliers. No-one is immune. For the average user to say "ATI drivers suck" as a blanket statement ignores a lot of great products with no issues. It also ignores the issues nVidia has had, sometimes with drivers, sometimes with hardware, in their own products.
Not being an early adopter of either vendor's products is a wise move, but it's possible to get burned either way.
Penti - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
That is true for any gpu, Intel, AMD or nVidia. Blame the vendor. Updated drivers are vital, you won't even be able to upgrade/update Windows otherwise.thunderising - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Download AMD's Mobility Catalyst Driver from the website will you.Do that before complaining.
DigitalFreak - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I see we have a fanboi in-da-house!JarredWalton - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Yup. Unfortunately, it sounds like NathanAndrews bought a laptop with AMD's switchable graphics. That explains the 380MB drivers (you get a package with both Intel's iGPU drivers and AMD's Radeon drivers rolled into one). NVIDIA addressed this problem with Optimus Technology, and other than brand new laptops that might miss a release or two, you can install their driver updates on any recent laptop. You can also install Intel's driver updates separately from NVIDIA's drivers. Until AMD fixes this issue, I have been warning people about the driver problem with AMD switchable graphics. Caveat emptor.Penti - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
They can still require vendor specific Intel drivers I guess. They still have lots of problems with updating the graphics drivers too. But things should be improving. There is always issues buying notebooks in this regard. Nvidia reserves a mention I guess, but not praise here. Any switchable graphics is still a pain in GNU/Linux.A5 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
This has always been an issue with laptops. Nothing new or unique to AMD there.JarredWalton - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Wrong. See above. NVIDIA has not had this issue with Optimus laptops for two years now. This is only an AMD issue. NVIDIA also has support from all the major OEMs for their Verde drivers; Sony, HP, and possibly others do not always participate in AMD's driver program (e.g. even if you don't have switchable graphics).mangatron - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
You should have been paying attention to something interesting at the driver download page (http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Page..."The following notebooks are not compatible with this tool:
Notebooks equipped with switchable graphics "
Whether or not they meant only the 3 manufacturers listed is something I am unsure of, but it is separated from them, and the fact is your laptop appears to be one with switchable graphics so your computer needs some extra work done. I am not sure, but I think you need to install the drivers for the IGP, turn it off, and then install the ATI ones. Look it up, and remember that manufacturers do lock down their hardware, as I have learned the hard way with a Sony Vaio.
Makaveli - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
If you weren't such a noob your post would be taken seriously.Not of the mobile providers allow you to use stock drivers you have to get them from the vendor. This hasn't changed in forever, there are unofficial hacks and what not to load other drivers but they aren't supported by the vendor.
I have this same issue with my Sony Vaio Z sony only provides drivers from 2010. I however am not like you and have found a workaround to run newer drivers on my laptop.
O and my Vaio has Hybrid intel and NV gpu and I still had to do this workaround so I don't where you go going with this i'm gonna switch to nv and not deal with it on a laptop.
Do your research or shut up!
JarredWalton - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
How about you do YOUR research. Any laptop with manually switchable graphics needs drivers from the laptop vendor -- Sony in your case. If you have a discrete only GPU from AMD or NVIDIA, you can use their reference drivers. If you have a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus Technology (dynamically switchable graphics), you can also use NVIDIA's reference drivers.For someone telling people to "Do your research or shut up!" you're unfortunately about two years behind the current standard:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2934/nvidia-optimus-...
Makaveli - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Jarred that is what I said. He needs to use the drivers from the laptop vendor and not AMD or NV.I'm aware of the optimus driver situation on the newer models that support it. Anything previous to that requires the vendor drivers.
JarredWalton - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
The problem is you also said, "Not of the mobile providers allow you to use stock drivers you have to get them from the vendor." Assuming that was "none" and not "not", there's misinformation there and that's what I'm trying to avoid spreading. :-pMakaveli - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
You are correct i should have used a difference choice of words.my bad :)
haplo602 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Sorry Jarred but you are wrong.I had an HP laptop in the past (6510b or so) with only an Intel IGP. The Intel driver refused to install and I had to get an HP one.
That was a pure Intel computer, no switchable graphics discreet GPU.
ANY of t he graphics vendors web site will tell you to get mobile drivers from the computer manufacturer. Some may have drivers that work, but usually that's not the case.
nathanddrews - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
The issue remains - NVIDIA solved the issue of mobile drivers years ago by rolling all dekstop and mobile drivers into one release. AMD has not. I knew this going in, that I would need to use the manufacturer's driver, but I didn't expect the poor 64-bit OGL support and clunky switchable interface.Marburg U - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
For what is my experience in recent times, in the Mobile world, there are only a few "secure" spots where to stand. Nvidia optimus, Amd APUs, and eventually intel HD graphics (in between 945 Express and HD 2000 things may get ugly....).For all the rest, do it at your own risk.
jabber - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
Thats probably more to do with choices Acer made than AMD.It's not a case of AMD wont recognise it, ACER modified it that way so they wouldn't.
Seen quite a few Nvidia laptop GPUs that wouldn't use the standard drivers either and would only take the 4 year old Acer/Asus/Dell/HP ones.
Remember MS/AMD/Nvidia make great hardware and software.
It's just ACER/ASUS/HP/DELL/Toshiba/Fujitsu etc. screw it all up with crazy decisions and crapware.
bobsmith1492 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
So, THAT's why AMD's driver updater has been so annoying. It seems like left and right the updater pops up "New update!" Then it's a massive download (for my DSL line anyway) and hogs the bandwidth and requires restarts and all that. In my opinion it's a dumb idea. Why release on a schedule? Release when needed.scaramoosh - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Good news because their drivers has been what are holding them back the most.I hope they turn it around and bring them up to Nvidia quality.
AnnihilatorX - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
QUOTE: Importantly for non-technical users however this means that they maintain the date in the driver number, making it easy to tell whether a driver is recent or not.Now I feel ashamed, with my friend two. We are technical users and we did not realise 12.4 meant 2012, Apr...
AnnihilatorX - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
EDIT: two -> too*JarredWalton - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
You can also get information on the driver build date from AMD's drivers. For example, I have a desktop running Catalyst 12.1 drivers that reports a driver package of "8.93-111205a-132104C-ATI". The important part is the second set of numbers. 111205a is a package build from 2011, December 05 -- so basically it had a month of testing before officially releasing in Jan 2012.For desktops running reference drivers, this isn't all that useful, but on laptops it certainly is. A Sony VAIO SE as another example doesn't report a Catalyst build but the driver package is "8.862.4.4-111222a-134541C-Sony". So that build is from 2011, December 22. At least, that's my understanding of the numbers. :-)
jeremyshaw - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Yeah, even with the later updates (May 2012 got one for the S lineup), it's mostly just Sony product related bugfixes (i.e, the 3D screen filter addon), and the build date remains the same for the core AMD driver.dagamer34 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Video card drivers are like hard drives, everyone claims to have been burned by one manufacturer and moved to someone else.bryanb - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
The actual driver is only a few megabytes. Over 150+ MB of the package is the extremely bloated .NET based Catalyst Control Center.Ryan Smith - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Basic display drivers; 104MBOpenCL Drivers: 25MB
Various video encode/decode packages: 10MB
Visual C++ Redistributable: 18MB
CCC: 62MB
Penti - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
The CCC size is crazy. That the actual drivers is pretty complex is a given now though. Lots of stuff there, multiple architectures and whatever. D3D9-11, DirectCompute, OpenGL, DXVA, gamefixes and more. I believe the OGL driver in AMD's drivers is about 18MB itself. Mobile devices are lucky to have less legacy to support.nubie - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
The drivers don't need to be this big you know.I don't want bundled physics and compute, not to mention the god-awful mess that is the driver control panel and 3 or 4!!! background apps running full time and crashing.
What happened to drivers that just freaking worked? Also if you can measure the time it takes to change a setting in the control panel with a sand timer there is something horribly wrong.
Not to mention that I can't even remove CCC because I switched back to the Intel HD, and then an nVidia card, but still get a damn failure message every time I had to use Regedit to remove.
Still don't understand how 30mb of driver and 140mb of crapware is necessary?
ltcommanderdata - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Since they've missed the Cat 12.5 release and Cat 12.5 was supposed to be the final monthly driver for the HD2000/3000/4000 series and the basis for future legacy drivers what does this mean? Is Cat 12.5 still coming?Ryan Smith - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I just got confirmation from AMD that 12.5 has been canceled entirely. It appears that 12.6 is what 12.5 would have been, but without support for legacy GPUs.At this point I do not know what this means for legacy users. It seems unlikely that AMD will include support for legacy users with the WHQL version of 12.6. In which case it may be a few months until AMD releases an irregular Catalyst legacy driver.
Wreckage - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I've been saying for a long time that their marketing driven driver release schedule has been detrimental to their quality.Release drivers when they are done, not when your marketing dept says so.
Spjut - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
I really hope AMD's DX10/10.1 GPUs will get support for DX11 multithreaded rendering, so they at least get the same features supported, that Nvidia's equivalents haveIt's a shame when Nvidia's Geforce 8 cards(DX10) supports features that AMD's more
advanced HD4000 cards(DX10.1) don't
Regarding the ending of the monthly updates, I see where they are coming from
ggathagan - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
It doesn't work that way.You can't add a DX11 feature that is not supported by DX10/10.1 hardware.
Moreover, as mentioned in this article, AMD is in the process of moving DX10 cards to legacy status.
Neither MS nor the GPU designers will be doing any further development for DX10.
That said, there are some features that both DX10 and 11 support that are not supported by DX9, e.g., Shader Model 4.
As such, if a game offers you a choice between DX9 settings and DX11 settings, the latter may still be preferable if you have a DX10/10.1 card.
Spjut - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
Anandtech's own The power of DirectX 11 article mentions that multithreaded rendering is one of the features that can be carried over to DX10/10.1 GPUsThis is taken from that article
"The fact that Microsoft has planned multi-threading support for DX11 games running on DX10 hardware is a major bonus. The only caveat here is that AMD and NVIDIA will need to do a little driver work for their existing DX10 hardware to make this work to its fullest extent "
Nvidia already supports it as well, on both their DX10/10.1 and DX11 GPUs
It's because of AMD's DX10/10.1 cards moving to legacy that I whine about this, there is no reason to make them legacy and stop updating them with new features, when their DX10/10.1 cards still don't support all the features they can support...
Isn't it lame that Nvidia's first DX10 card supports multithreaded rendering, when AMD's latest/strongest DX10.1 card does not(nor their DX11 cards for that matter)?
ET - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
DX11 has features which are the result of a new driver model and don't require newer hardware.ET - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
On second thought, don't AMD DX10.1 drivers already use the new driver model? They've been in the same Catalyst package until now. The DX9 cards didn't get an upgrade, but DX10?Ryan Smith - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
Under Windows 7 their DX10 and DX11 cards use WDDM 1.1 and will continue to do so. Under Windows 8 their DX11 cards will use WDDM 1.2.tiro_uspsss - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
I, for the longest time, was a big fan of ATi/AMD GPUs. Only ever had one driver issue (until recently) when using them over the better part of a decade.A couple months back I had some issues that really pee'd me of.. so I changed sides to see what its like. WOW! I have a ANCIENT 7300LE which Nvidia actually still writes drivers for! :O in contrast: AMD now want to move DX10 cards to 'legacy'... WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT?!?! seriously.. get a grip AMD! >:(
ET - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
Does NVIDIA really still updates the drivers for these cards? I know they're part of the driver bundle, but I'd be surprised if they get any driver TLC.Spjut - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
Nvidia's Windows 8 driver claims to support even the Geforce 6 series, so they must do some work at least even on those old cardsAs it is now for "legacy" AMD users, they won't even get a CCC in Windows 8 however...
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
As always, nVidia is so much better, it is with disbelief that the truth is met.g101 - Sunday, June 10, 2012 - link
What a ****ing idiot.You should honestly of been banned months (or maybe years) ago. Those whining about 10.1 multi-threaded support: seriously? Are you that incredibly ignorant or just playing dumb?
The level of understanding from cogburn and his crew is incredibly insufficient. Angering, in fact.
Spjut - Sunday, June 10, 2012 - link
If you weren't incredibly ignorant(or just playing dumb), you would perhaps come to understand that some of us don't like it when our hardware is capable of something but doesn't get the support for it.Is it fair that Nvidia's earliest DX10 cards have gotten multithreaded support, while AMD's more advanced DX10.1 cards never will? Of course some of us are pissed.
If you have an AMD DX11 card you might as well get pissed too, because they haven't gotten support for it either right now.
Add also to that that AMD's Windows 8 driver for these "legacy" will be the "In-the-box AMD Graphics driver". Since when has such a driver ever included the CCC?
Nvidia's Windows 8 driver however, says it's supported even on the Geforce 6 series!
tecknurd - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
I have used ATI graphics in the past and their drivers and software is pathetic from a reputable company. The drivers crash the system when Windows runs. The software that they include for All-in-Wonder or VIVO models, have tons of reliability issues that I had to use third-party software to use the features of the cards. The MPEG-2 decoder has a reliability issue because it is related to the drivers. Then when I used the same ATI card in Linux, it just works with out any problems.ATI gave me a lot of run-around to just update because it supposed to fix my problem. Now AMD is changing the company they bought, ATI, to wait until the driver versions are matured to be used in production system. This is a smart move for AMD graphics. I may buy AMD graphics to test their all talk is action. Though it better be all models not just enthusiast models.
Sogekihei - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
It's my understanding that generally the people working on a Linux port of a graphics driver also dabble in or are heavily involved in developing the various brandings of the OS, to a much greater extent than AMD could know about Windows' internal workings; likewise on Mac OSX systems the drivers are ported by people that know the inner workings of the OS. I think it's because they have access to the source and/or documentation for the OS' structural code that they can make the same driver (correct me if I'm wrong but I assume Apple and Linux devs don't code drivers from scratch) work much better than its Windows implementation.I would advise against buying AMD products just because they changed the development schedule for their Windows graphics drivers. If you have other reasoning behind such a decision then go for it, but if you just have money to burn try something more productive like starting a business or aiding a charity.
Glibous - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
Chipset - I wonder how this is going to affect chipset driver releases. They were on a similar release schedule. Frequent chipset drivers weren't really needed anyways.Graphics - Hopefully we won't see problems similar to the Skyrim tearing problem in Catalyst 12.3 (Even though it's rare to see that happen). Even though it was easy to work around the problem at the time (Disable AA in-game, enable in CCC), the average user/gamer would go into a panic and bring their system in for service (Good for business, bad for AMD's image).
Anyways I hope this new release method works out for AMD's coders. More Q/A never hurt.
bhima - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
12.4 was pretty bad... glad I didn't upgrade to it. Now AMD can focus on actually testing their drivers before launching them.WaauBau - Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - link
1st. of all i would say that i love this site. Keep up the good work guys.2nd. I don't understand people that say they have been burnt when buying an AMD or NVIDIA product !!!
They only deliver the chip's and drivers. All the other manufacturer's like ASUS, XFX, EVGA, BFG and so on. They design the actual hardware you buy.
I have built alot of custom made pc's and yes there are some of them that have issues, but drivers aren't the major issue, usually the problem starts when hardware, cooling or power consumption design is bad on these cards and after that it's air flow/Heat in enclosure.
No manufacturer has a 100% yield, so bad cards will always reach the customer.
Both AMD & NVIDIA have been ok in releasing drivers, always a little behind schedule of course :)
I love them both (NVIDIA & AMD) and i choose the GPU after what the system has to be used for.
In my systems almost everything gets custom made cooling. Standard = Failure, after extreem usage. :)