The AMD Driver Thread

jonjay · 3 Dec 2015 at 10:09

I am going to go Nvidia. Fed up of this after spending hundreds of pounds for Crossfire.

Lost customer going forward.

spikeot · 3 Dec 2015 at 10:15

The contents of the last few pages are why my 295X2 will be my first and last attempt at multi-GPU and may well be my last AMD card. Woeful Crossfire support (whether it's devs or AMD) just means that owning a 295X2 at considerable expense is a waste of time.

WeSbO · 3 Dec 2015 at 10:45

Humm I fear that the bouncing core clock speeds are going to go on for a while, as it is supposed to be a feature ... -_-
It would be an interesting feature if it didn't work the bloody wrong way round!

It seems that my fury x is now working like a nano would in the witcher 3, in more demanding areas (Novigrad) the core clock goes down as if it is trying to stay within a certain power limit, like a nano would, and in less demanding areas the core goes back up to 1050mhz when it's not really needed...

Did someone screw up their powerstate implementations at AMD ? Coz it sure looks like it. I can't see any other reason why the clock would go down in more demanding areas if it isn't trying to stay within a powerlimit.

(Haven't activated overdrive, frame pacing deactivated

Dygaza · 3 Dec 2015 at 11:07

WeSbO said:
Humm I fear that the bouncing core clock speeds are going to go on for a while, as it is supposed to be a feature ... -_-
It would be an interesting feature if it didn't work the bloody wrong way round!

It seems that my fury x is now working like a nano would in the witcher 3, in more demanding areas (Novigrad) the core clock goes down as if it is trying to stay within a certain power limit, like a nano would, and in less demanding areas the core goes back up to 1050mhz when it's not really needed...

Did someone screw up their powerstate implementations at AMD ? Coz it sure looks like it. I can't see any other reason why the clock would go down in more demanding areas if it isn't trying to stay within a powerlimit.

(Haven't activated overdrive, frame pacing deactivated

Interesting, as my Fury X works just like it should work. It keeps 1100 core clock in demanding areas, and downclocks when gpu usage drops to save power. I haven't touched overdrive panel at all, and overclocking is done via profile with afterburner for both core and memory.

UTmaniac · 3 Dec 2015 at 11:19

Has anyone found disabling ULPS stops the clock bouncing?

I'm using an old 7850 as a sacrificial lamb with these updated Crimson drivers, after seeing stuck fan speeds on the initial release, while using my Nitro R9 390 (which appeared to lead to game crashes, but since then my PC became incredibly unstable, refusing to boot at 400 FSB with the 1:2 DDR3 divider).

I've activated Global Overdrive to boost the core to 1050 (from stock 900) and activate +20 Power, plus use a manual 60% fan speed when gaming. So far, all is well...

Woodsta888 · 3 Dec 2015 at 11:28

BAck in the days of 7990 (Still got mine) the clocks throttled up and down. AMDMatt made a non throttle BIOS which still works perfectly today.

I too on installing Crimson drivers had the up and down fans speeds from 800rpm to 2400 rpm but oddly only on one of the GPU's (shown by opening 2 instances of GPU-Z). Rolled back for now. I only upgraded as my Farcry 4 which has been fine for 60hrs of play developed a 'hitch' every second. Reinstalled same drivers - no luck - then tried both Crimsons.

Devs lose out as I never buy many games on release - onkly clan based ones where I dont want to miss out. But since BF4 I havent bought a game on release. Cheaper and halfway working by the time I get to play it.

HAve been tempted many times to upgrade GPU but for me too I will be going green next. If I'd have seen teh £450 980ti's on black friday I would have had one. Now though unless a game comes out that is a must play and I struggle at 4k or xfire has no support I'll try and eek it out until pascal. Jan sales may tempt me yet.

WeSbO · 3 Dec 2015 at 11:30

Dygaza said:
Interesting, as my Fury X works just like it should work. It keeps 1100 core clock in demanding areas, and downclocks when gpu usage drops to save power. I haven't touched overdrive panel at all, and overclocking is done via profile with afterburner for both core and memory.

Forgot to mention, I haven't overclocked, and I was actually thinking that maybe bringing up the powerlimit in my case may change something. I'd have to try but i've gone back to 15.11.1 CCC now ... I'll reinstall later, and I'll also take power readings from the wall to try and see what is going on...

It doesn't do this on all the games though, I play mostly Assetto corsa and Project cars which are fine (car simulation fan lol). But I like TW3 and GTA V every now and then.

On the bright side my fury x doesn't go over 45° in tw3 lol, on the ccc drivers I was at 50°, but that was just fine didn't need to gain 5°...

fs123 · 3 Dec 2015 at 11:31

Is it just me or is GTA5 running a fair bit faster with the crimson drivers? I tested it last night and was getting only 50% usage per card @ 1080P which I thought was too low even though vsync was on.

I upped the resolution to 1440P VSR and usage went up to 80% and the game was running at around 70-80 fps without vsync. Enabled MSA x4 and usage went to 92%+ and fps between 56-60fps

The shader cache feature also stopped any stuttering I used to have. Amazing result.

TNA · 3 Dec 2015 at 11:34

spikeot said:
The contents of the last few pages are why my 295X2 will be my first and last attempt at multi-GPU and may well be my last AMD card. Woeful Crossfire support (whether it's devs or AMD) just means that owning a 295X2 at considerable expense is a waste of time.

Same thing happened to me and I sold my 295x2 and now I am using a 290. But why would it be your last AMD card? Did things not work when crossfire was turned off? Mine worked fine, it was in crossfire that recent games did not work.

That's like going SLI and when realising it is also not that good, then saying I will never buy a Nvidia card again. Wha..?

If one was to use this logic, might as well not buy Nvidia GPU either, as they are also not supporting many new titles in SLI, even ones they sponsor. lol. So you saying you going to buy a Intel GPU then? :eek:

This is all assuming everything worked for you when you used the 295x2 in single GPU mode like it did for me. If you did have issues even then, please share them with us

jonjay said:
I am going to go Nvidia. Fed up of this after spending hundreds of pounds for Crossfire.

Lost customer going forward.

Go get a SLI system next, you will end up on a Intel GPU sooner than later. lol

Nexus18 · 3 Dec 2015 at 11:41

What TNA said, pointless giving of about crossfire and saying you will go nvidia when their SLI isn't much better

nashathedog · 3 Dec 2015 at 12:13

UTmaniac said:
Has anyone found disabling ULPS stops the clock bouncing?

Where is it so I can disable it?

I can't find it.

spikeot · 3 Dec 2015 at 12:14

TNA said:
Same thing happened to me and I sold my 295x2 and now I am using a 290. But why would it be your last AMD card? Did things not work when crossfire was turned off? Mine worked fine, it was in crossfire that recent games did not work.

That's like going SLI and when realising it is also not that good, then saying I will never buy a Nvidia card again. Wha..?

If one was to use this logic, might as well not buy Nvidia GPU either, as they are also not supporting many new titles in SLI, even ones they sponsor. lol. So you saying you going to buy a Intel GPU then?

This is all assuming everything worked for you when you used the 295x2 in single GPU mode like it did for me. If you did have issues even then, please share them with us

Go get a SLI system next, you will end up on a Intel GPU sooner than later. lol

I didn't explain myself very well there, I'd originally typed a different post. It's actually the lack of communication from on AMD issues with things like the Elite: Dangerous super cruise bug and the confusion over Project Cars issues at launch. When there's some good news, it's communicated quickly, when there's bad news, there's deafening silence. I do not blame Matt or Joe for this, I think they're in a difficult position and do a great job within their limitations.

I will wait to see how the next major architecture updates from AMD and nVidia perform before choosing what to buy next, but my 295X2 was my first AMD product since my old AMD 9800 Pro over ten years ago and (with the benefit of hindsight) I purchased it at a very poor time for multi-GPU title support. I know SLI is no better, I'll just be buying the best single card I can afford next time.

As ever, there's an element of "the grass is always greener" when looking to the competition as well. I'm sure if I look at the nVidia driver thread then there's no shortage of issues there too.

Blackjack Davy · 3 Dec 2015 at 12:22

WeSbO said:
Humm I fear that the bouncing core clock speeds are going to go on for a while, as it is supposed to be a feature ... -_-
It would be an interesting feature if it didn't work the bloody wrong way round!

Hmm my 390 is behaving itself at least. Quite pleased with the fps gain.

TBH its my first foray into grabbing the latest and greatest I usually stick with tried and tested drivers for an age so don't normally see these issues.

fs123 said:
Is it just me or is GTA5 running a fair bit faster with the crimson drivers?

I gained about 10-15fps with Skyrim just enough to whack a basic ENB on (detailed shadows+sunsprites) which was my primary reason for taking a punt on the driver lottery this time around otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered.

TNA · 3 Dec 2015 at 12:40

spikeot said:
I didn't explain myself very well there, I'd originally typed a different post. It's actually the lack of communication from on AMD issues with things like the Elite: Dangerous super cruise bug and the confusion over Project Cars issues at launch. When there's some good news, it's communicated quickly, when there's bad news, there's deafening silence. I do not blame Matt or Joe for this, I think they're in a difficult position and do a great job within their limitations.

I will wait to see how the next major architecture updates from AMD and nVidia perform before choosing what to buy next, but my 295X2 was my first AMD product since my old AMD 9800 Pro over ten years ago and (with the benefit of hindsight) I purchased it at a very poor time for multi-GPU title support. I know SLI is no better, I'll just be buying the best single card I can afford next time.

As ever, there's an element of "the grass is always greener" when looking to the competition as well. I'm sure if I look at the nVidia driver thread then there's no shortage of issues there too.

Yeah, single gpu card is the way forward for me. Get best you can afford.

I also do not like how AMD go silent when things not going well. Annoys me. This is why I personally feel both companies got issues and do not care for brand loyalty. If nvidia release a really good card with pascal and do not take the biscuit with price, I will have no issue buying it. Even if I have a freesync monitor at the time.

If AMD want customer loyalty from me, they need to communicate better. None of this going silent when people asking questions and requiring help.

Sh4rkie · 3 Dec 2015 at 12:49

UTmaniac said:
Has anyone found disabling ULPS stops the clock bouncing?

Nope, i disable mine by default in AB as soon as a new driver set is installed (after initial reboot). It unlocks the memory clock control on my Fury which are otherwise hidden in the Overdrive panel.

thecremeegg · 3 Dec 2015 at 12:51

Well my friend is giving me his 970 to replace my 280x Xfire - can't bloody wait to be rid!

shankly1985 · 3 Dec 2015 at 12:54

Not being fully here so no one take this the wrong way..

Why is it I have never had any issues? like ever? this is even when I used to own Nvidia GPUs way back.

I just don't understand how some can have so meny issues while others can just enjoy there gaming.

Dygaza · 3 Dec 2015 at 12:59

Sh4rkie said:
Nope, i disable mine by default in AB as soon as a new driver set is installed (after initial reboot). It unlocks the memory clock control on my Fury which are otherwise hidden in the Overdrive panel.

Are yoi sure it's that which gives you memory overclocking? For me, I have to extend official overclocking limits.

I'm not sure ULPS can force voltages in AB anyways on fury series, as it doesn't support fiji yet. We should be getting new AB this week with fiji support.

Nexus18 · 3 Dec 2015 at 13:00

Nvidia aren't any better than amd for communication, in fact they are probably worse, how often do you see nvidia reps posting on here? Where were they when they were going through a very bad patch a few months ago with regards to driver stability?

I do agree though, they are quick to post good news and very slow/silent when it comes to problems but aren't most companies like that? All part of marketing strategy.

thecremeegg · 3 Dec 2015 at 13:00

You got lucky, or don't notice the issues?
I've had nothing but issues with stutter, poor GPU usage, random performance drops depending on drivers for the last few years since having AMD cards...never had that before with Nvidia.
I'm not the sort of person to get involved in childish GPU arguments so I'm not trolling, I'm just fed up with AMD and their seeming lack of ability to acknowledge they're often sub-par