Problems with frame latency with the 7950 (and apparently other 7000 series cards) were quantified late (December) last year IIRC. The result was new sets of drivers from AMD that addressed latency and not just frame rate. This was a generic issue, not specific to crossfire setups.
In February of this year, there was some notion that Crossfire may have a serious issue. Work started to quantify what exactly this was. Some time in April, AMD acknowledged that there was a problem and it had totally taken them by surprise. It has been less than a 1/2 year since then.
Nvidia has apparently been working on the FCAT toolset for something like 2 years, but how would AMD know that. Yes AMD has issues that they should be able to resolve with proper frame pacing. Yes, Nvidia figured this out well more than two years ago (kudos to them). However, it took them more than two years to get to the point where they were ready to show the world. Why do so many people expect the same out of AMD in less than 1/4 the time.
Bottom line: I don't recommend AMD for multiGPU solutions and won't until they get their lack of smoothness fixed. That has been my standpoint long before FCAT and frame latency measurements showed up on review sites as it stuttering was pretty obvious. In fact, I didn't really recommend multiGPU setups at all until the GTX200 series and I still didn't particularly like them until the GTX400 series. That all said, I don't see how people can reasonably expect AMD to fix this problem in less than half a year when Nvidia took well more than two years to do the same. Just continue dodging AMD for multiGPU setups until they get it straightened out. People who are fine with AMD multiGPU setups should still be fine with them. They didn't suddenly get any worse. It just became easier to test for the problem.
Unfortunately, it presently appears that the AMD Mobility Radeon Driver Verification Tool web link is presently in the crapper. Hope AMD (or the article author) gets that link fixed real soon. Have a great day!
For some reason this or the beta 13.10 wont seem to install on my A10-4655M with Radeon 7620G. 13.4 worked fine but this one the display driver portion either says up to date or wont show anything if I try to install from scratch...annoying...
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
12 Comments
Back to Article
Elixer - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Sadly, it seems AMD has dropped support for Vista with this WHQL driver, and all the new beta drivers as well.This seems really shortsighted on AMD's part.
Both Intel & Nvidia still support Vista.
Gigaplex - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
While it does seem short sighted, I doubt many users wishing to stay on the bleeding edge on graphics drivers are still using Vista.HGLatinBoy - Friday, September 20, 2013 - link
GottemRyan Smith - Friday, September 20, 2013 - link
We've been trying to get a comment out of AMD on that, which is why this wasn't posted right away. If we succeed we'll be sure to update this article.dragonsqrrl - Friday, September 20, 2013 - link
Thanks for the infoElixer - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Still no word on this ?I thought at the GPU event, it would have been easy to ask ?
RU482 - Sunday, September 22, 2013 - link
not sure if seriousBonee - Friday, September 20, 2013 - link
Well, as I see they still failed to address the graphics accelerating related bugs in windows 8 x64...Wreckage - Friday, September 20, 2013 - link
Still no official support for frame pacing. It's been nearly 2 years.JPForums - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link
Two years since when?Problems with frame latency with the 7950 (and apparently other 7000 series cards) were quantified late (December) last year IIRC. The result was new sets of drivers from AMD that addressed latency and not just frame rate. This was a generic issue, not specific to crossfire setups.
In February of this year, there was some notion that Crossfire may have a serious issue. Work started to quantify what exactly this was. Some time in April, AMD acknowledged that there was a problem and it had totally taken them by surprise. It has been less than a 1/2 year since then.
Nvidia has apparently been working on the FCAT toolset for something like 2 years, but how would AMD know that. Yes AMD has issues that they should be able to resolve with proper frame pacing. Yes, Nvidia figured this out well more than two years ago (kudos to them). However, it took them more than two years to get to the point where they were ready to show the world. Why do so many people expect the same out of AMD in less than 1/4 the time.
Bottom line: I don't recommend AMD for multiGPU solutions and won't until they get their lack of smoothness fixed. That has been my standpoint long before FCAT and frame latency measurements showed up on review sites as it stuttering was pretty obvious. In fact, I didn't really recommend multiGPU setups at all until the GTX200 series and I still didn't particularly like them until the GTX400 series. That all said, I don't see how people can reasonably expect AMD to fix this problem in less than half a year when Nvidia took well more than two years to do the same. Just continue dodging AMD for multiGPU setups until they get it straightened out. People who are fine with AMD multiGPU setups should still be fine with them. They didn't suddenly get any worse. It just became easier to test for the problem.
TheBeagle - Sunday, September 22, 2013 - link
Unfortunately, it presently appears that the AMD Mobility Radeon Driver Verification Tool web link is presently in the crapper. Hope AMD (or the article author) gets that link fixed real soon. Have a great day!ketacdx - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link
For some reason this or the beta 13.10 wont seem to install on my A10-4655M with Radeon 7620G. 13.4 worked fine but this one the display driver portion either says up to date or wont show anything if I try to install from scratch...annoying...