The AMD Driver Thread

[Confused Stu]

A bit off topic, but I used a DVI - HDMI converter on one of my 290x DVI ports to connect my TV to my PC as a 2nd monitor... And it has sound???

What kind of witchcraft is that?

AMD introduced the ability to output sound using the DVI port with the HD2xxx series, using a non-standard DVI+Audio type of thing. I think they utilise the pins designed for the analogue part of DVI to carry sound instead but don't quote me on that! As it's a non-standard connection, it needs a DVI-HDMI adapter or cable designed to support it. Nvidia added the function with the 8800GT (I think) and later with Fermi refined it to no longer need the internal SPDIF cable, but I'm not sure they used the same connection pins as AMD used so initially you had to use the specific AMD/Nvidia adapter to match the card.

 

[spikeot]

I am sorry matt. But i just read you can finally go to sleep ?


wtf i have 1100 euros of AMD graphics cards but i cannot play the division the way i want too.. i run a 4k monitor with 2 of your high end cards AMD fury x''s

They are brilliant but my god do you guys let them down... i used to run 2x 7990's before the rig i have (the same rig you guys ran in the BF4 E3 demo shame you didn't support the hardware you showed off.)

Sort the bloody drivers out make drivers support crossfire from day one. yes i know game devs won't show you details if they are in bed with nvidia so why not just say so...

3 days now since the division came out and the latest driver tells me there might me some flickering in crossfire ? im sorry thats just rude ffs

please please please i want to see this running at 4k ultra but i cant because of game/driivers

rage over good night

I have a 295X2 and have also been frustrated by the lack of Crossfire profiles for AAA titles over the last 18 months. That said, I wouldn't dream of speaking to Matt like that. Have some manners, and don't trot out the fact that as a representative of AMD he's fair game, because he doesn't have to be telling us about new drivers at 22:30 at night.

It's not unreasonable for you to be annoyed about Crossfire profiles, but there's no need for that.

 

[Dygaza]

Made a test in Fire Strike combine test (for me that test has a start with 100% gpu bound, and in middle I get cpu bound a bit, so I think that was fast and effective way to test new power saving modes).

Afterburner was set to 100ms polling time to capture bigger gpu usage / clock frequency changes.

Here are the results:

16.2.1

Spoiler

16.3 Power saving On

Spoiler

16.3 Power saving Off

Spoiler

Things seems to be working just fine. There is no real performance difference between 2 modes, and any difference there is, is withing margin of error. I didn't ran into the problem I've had before,where clocks stay on lower values, even if there would be more performance room from cpu.

Power saving off keeps clocks at max rating all the time when under higher load, but gpu usage goes down.

When power saving is off, algorithm tries to keep gpu usage as close to 100% as possible, by lowering gpu clocks. Both modes work fine.

Personally gonna keep using power saving mode, as it gives same performance but uses less power , which equals less heat , which equals less noise

 

[shankly1985]

Every game mate, I've got a 144hz freesync monitor so don't use any v sync, I just set a 120fps limit and let my games run as fast as possible up to that limit.

And neither, not once on any game have I seen either my msiab cpu graph or gpu graph usage stuck at 100%. There is no bottleneck.

Tony can you test without a frame rate limit please also what you using to limit frame rate?

 

[Dave2150]

Every game mate, I've got a 144hz freesync monitor so don't use any v sync, I just set a 120fps limit and let my games run as fast as possible up to that limit.

And neither, not once on any game have I seen either my msiab cpu graph or gpu graph usage stuck at 100%. There is no bottleneck.

Your 3770k is not exactly a strong CPU these days, Haswell and Skylake added increased IPC over Ivy Bridge.

Just because CPU usage isn't at 100%, doesn't mean there isn't a small CPU bottleneck going on.

 

[Minstadave]

A 3770k at 4.6Ghz is more than enough to be considered a strong CPU. Haswell and Skylake offered single figure percentage increases in IPC.

Edit - just noticed who I was replying to, let's not rehash another Skylake debate.

 

[shankly1985]

Your 3770k is not exactly a strong CPU these days, Haswell and Skylake added increased IPC over Ivy Bridge.

Just because CPU usage isn't at 100%, doesn't mean there isn't a small CPU bottleneck going on.

I can second this back when I had I5 2500k and crossfire 7950s some games I couldn't get my GPU's to use all core crysis 2 being one I remember. I upgraded to i7 2600k and that helped a lot.

My CPU usage also wasn't 100% so at first I was convinced it wasn't a bottleneck. I think it was more a dx11 bottleneck, dx11 Games using the extra threads on the cpu more better going me better usage.

Edit
Just to point out here what I saying is even if CPU isn't at 100% you can still be bottlenecked by dx11 api and how it handles Multi-GPU. Even worse when a dx11 game is also very CPU demanding.

 

[turbot1984]

but I just installed the last crimson a few days ago? do I need to do it all over again?

 

[shankly1985]

You just can't win lol either amd are taking to long to release a driver or people going to complain they updating to often Haaa

Man just update it doesn't take all that long.

 

[Dave2150]

A 3770k at 4.6Ghz is more than enough to be considered a strong CPU. Haswell and Skylake offered single figure percentage increases in IPC.

Edit - just noticed who I was replying to, let's not rehash another Skylake debate.

Haswell was a good 8-10% IPC gain over Ivy Bridge. Then factor in Skylake's increased performance over Haswell, even if it is only single digits.

 

[fs123]

Every game mate, I've got a 144hz freesync monitor so don't use any v sync, I just set a 120fps limit and let my games run as fast as possible up to that limit.

And neither, not once on any game have I seen either my msiab cpu graph or gpu graph usage stuck at 100%. There is no bottleneck.

Try using VSR to increase the resolution to 1440P or 4K which should load the gpu to 100% constantly. Sometimes the cpu may not be fast enough to feed an overclocked crossfire setup at lower resolutions hence why you might not be hitting 100% usage.
Try a single card test and if it's 100% usage in single card and not in crossfire then it's the cpu not feeding the cards. Tombraider is good game for loading a gpu. My 290X gets mostly 100% usage even at 1080p in this game when AA is maxed.

 

[Dygaza]

3770k for sure ain't enough to feed most modern games at 120 fps. Sad fact. You really need to keep resolution/settings high to get high gpu usage.

 

[TonyTurbo78]

Tony can you test without a frame rate limit please also what you using to limit frame rate?

yes mate can do, will be tonight though. I'm using MSIAB, in the Rivatuner statistics server.

 

[LtMatt]

Tracking issues of the power efficiency option not working, but not seeing many so far Tony apart from your report.

 

[TonyTurbo78]

Your 3770k is not exactly a strong CPU these days, Haswell and Skylake added increased IPC over Ivy Bridge.

Just because CPU usage isn't at 100%, doesn't mean there isn't a small CPU bottleneck going on.

Not sure I go along with that, its been said many times in reviews, youtube comparisons, that the jump up from the older gen Intel chips to the newer stuff is worth a couple percent fps gain at most. There is no need to jump from a I7 3770k running at 4.6GHz, there's plenty of performance there.

 

[Finners]

Does anyone know where crimson saves per game overdrive profiles? I'd like to back them up so if I do a DDU uninstall I can hopefully just copy them back.

I have to keep global overdrive clocks at stock and overclock with per game profiles to avoid getting black screens every time I boot into windows so that's why I'm not using afterburner before anyone asks.

 

[TonyTurbo78]

Tracking issues of the power efficiency option not working, but not seeing many so far Tony apart from your report.

I get the feeling that this is an issue with Crossfire and Freesync combo matt. I've seen plenty of ppl saying this new power saving feature is working much better, but these have all been on single card setups. Don't think I've seen one person so far saying anything about crossfire and this new driver and the clocks dropping yet.

 

[Dygaza]

Not sure I go along with that, its been said many times in reviews, youtube comparisons, that the jump up from the older gen Intel chips to the newer stuff is worth a couple percent fps gain at most. There is no need to jump from a I7 3770k running at 4.6GHz, there's plenty of performance there.

You can run I7-3770k fine if you are aiming 60fps gaming. But it doesn't have strenght to drive games up to 120 fps you aim, not constantly atleast. I know this aswell as I have that very same cpu. And I'm running only single Fury-X, and I'm getting cpu bound very often in various scenes.

 

[TonyTurbo78]

Ok, look at the difference, this is how it should be. In this example, Project Cars - pushing everything at Ultra @1440p, even using DSx2 as well to really make the GPU's work their butts off. Frame limit was 120fps, average fps looks around 70ish and the GPU loads are fluctuating between 90% and 100%. That's exactly what I would expect, GPU's not hitting the limit so are maxing out constantly. This has how it's been with every other crossfire setup I've had. Accidentally didnt show clock speed, but both cores stayed at max in this 5 minute test.

THIS IS USING ASUS GPUTWEAK to max out the 3d clocks.

will edit this when I do the same test with no forcing of the clocks via GPU tool, and will use the new driver with Power Saving turned off, and also wont put a 120fps limit on my MSIAB. Give me 10 mins and ill post up the comparison.

 

[Dygaza]

use detach on hardware monitor so you can shape it to be bigger to fit more stuff in it.