The AMD Driver Thread

[LtMatt]

The drivers will be released when they're ready. We're not waiting for a specific date or event before releasing them.

 

[LtMatt]

Well, it's good to at least know they aren't holding them up for something in particular...

We release drivers once we're happy with them, not before.

 

[LtMatt]

AMD are no fun at all.

You get quite a thrill if your card blows up or catches fire like some other manufacturers drivers allow.

Yes we're not in the habit of rushing out multiple drivers to fix bugs introduced by the last driver set.

That's a wonderful philosophy to have, but it appears entirely unpractical.

I may sound like I am moaning a lot, but I am still ok to wait a bit.

No matter what though, I simply can't see a reason for not releasing smaller, more frequent updates, at least for small wins to keep customers happy.

We put a lot of work into the 14.12 Omega drivers, as a result everyone loved them and we've received record lows of people reporting driver issues as a result.

The next drivers have taken a little longer than normal, but this does not mean there will be such a long wait between future driver releases.

We're focused now on maintaining the high standards set by the stability and performance of the 14.12 drivers and will look to continue this from hereon in.

 

[LtMatt]

Matt, regardless of the entire work on the driver, IMO IF DX11 is a problem (DX12 will be better about this?), you should find a method to auto update/download by the client with profiles/performance improvements/stability related to the new released games only... and then release the entire set when it's ready.

is this thing feasible? I don't think that you have to do a complete rework on the code every time, isn't it?
thanks

Sorry i don't think it works like that. I'm not an expert on writing drivers though, so by all means leave all your good ideas here.

 

[LtMatt]

No need to apologise eyetrip, they'll be released when ready.

 

[LtMatt]

I remember you saying two to three weeks ago, we can expect the new drivers sometime in February. Can you comment on this other than the "released when ready" phrase?

There is no set date for the driver, but as soon as it's ready I'll post it here. Back when Omega was released we set a rough estimate of February as the next release.

We'll release them when we're happy that they're ready for our customers.

 

[LtMatt]

This is why im put off buying AMD gpus
with thier long release drivers.

Typically about once a month or thereabouts.

 

[LtMatt]

but giving us (the customers) an idea on the progress of the drivers. would help the customers.

just saying We'll release them when we're happy that they're ready doesn't give the customers any information and or the progress of the drivers.

giving information like the driver are not ready just yet because we found some bugs or an issue, that would give the customers an idea on why it's taking so long.

The reason the driver has not been released is because it's not ready yet.

 

[LtMatt]

but saying that doesn't give the customers any information and or the progress of the drivers hence why customers are moaning and some want to jump over to nvida due to this..

It gives as much information as I'm allowed to give due to NDA Gareth. When the drivers are ready, I'll be posting them here and informing everyone, as i have done every month or so prior to the 14.12 Omega launch.

 

[LtMatt]

Exactly. I'm a crossfire user, and I cant get the performance I want without graphic artifacts in Far Cry 4 (a game that was bought for me as a Christmas present), so I'm waiting for the new driver. It's frustrating.

We had a profile ready for launch, but unfortunately we've been unable to enable it due to issues with the game. Below is taken from the release notes of 14.1.2.

"The AMD CrossFire™ profile for Far Cry 4 is currently disabled in this driver while AMD works with Ubisoft to investigate an issue where AMD CrossFire™ configurations are not performing as intended. An update is expected on this issue in the near future through an updated game patch or an AMD driver posting."

Since this there have been multiple updates to the game and we're now at a stage where we can enable it in our next driver.

 

[LtMatt]

Does MSI Afterburner still have those issues with reading GPU usage properly on the latest AMD GPU's? That might explain this.

Enabling unified gpu usage monitoring should fix inconsistent gpu usage readings.

 

[LtMatt]

Just had a thought - Omega oftens means "end"

Maybe they were the last drivers we will ever get

Definitely not.

 

[LtMatt]

I have a concern with that. If I enable the unified monitor feature, will I get a false usage reading on a game that does not support crossfire? If not, I'll go ahead and enable it.

No you will not, go ahead and use it without worry.

 

[LtMatt]

Sweet, I will try it.

Edit: As I feared, wrong usage on 2nd card. When I'm getting usage on both cards the usage between the cards are identical. I'm getting usage on both cards just when browsing the internet.

Does disabling ULPS make any difference?

 

[LtMatt]

Monitoring gpu usage on 290's is something I have given up on entirely. It's just broken.

Enabling unified gpu usage monitoring just seems to average the load, or something along those lines.

Not having it enabled results in usage results, that if they were true, would be utterly unplayable.

These days I just check all clocks jump to 3d clocks, and watch temps and frame rate, and try and guess if things are loading ok.

To be honest, the only time I really care about any of that is if things appear to not be working ok.

I find that bizarre, works normally here provide unified usage monitoring is ticked.

 

[LtMatt]

I'm afraid not.
Also, I just tested Crysis 3 in window mode. I was still getting equal and identical usage on both of my 290X's. Looks like my fears and concerns were correct.

I'm using 14.12 CCC and MSI 4.10 on Win 8.1 64-bit.

Crossfire only works in full screen mode?

 

[LtMatt]

What? Yes, CFX only works in FULL Screen mode for Direct-X games.

What I'm saying is that I got identical usage on BOTH cards when running window mode, which proves unified monitoring is wrong. (I should have only seen usage on my first GPU in window mode).

I believe that was the point he was making?

If he is windowed and crossfire should be disabled, then he should not see an equal load (through monitoring) on both cards.

Ah sorry, I'm with you.

I know it reports high gpu usage, but the clock remains in 2d mode so i don't think it's actually doing anything.

 

[LtMatt]

Hi, for Homeworld Remastered, should I use Crossfire or not? At 4xAA and everything else maxed, it still drops below 60fps occasionally even though GPU usage is 100%. I wouldn't have expected this game to push a single 290X that hard, let alone a 295X2. Performance is still good, but I thought it might be like CoD:AW where frame rates are actually better with CF disabled.

If nobody knows, I'll mess around a bit and report back.

What sort of usage is the second gpu seeing?

You can try custom profiles of AFR Friendly or 1x1 Optimize.

I have this image in my head of Matt, hunched over a computer, single-handedly working furiously to get the drivers done.

Cuts have bitten hard at AMD. Matt has no programming knowledge.

I wish i had the knowledge to program drivers.

 

[LtMatt]

Is that still the case?

Just bought it today for some quick satisfaction shooter action.

Not touched a COD game in years, and was going to make my way through Ghosts and AW single player and the MP for AW.

A Crossfire profile was added for that a long time ago, unfortunately the game is just not very multi gpu friendly.

 

[LtMatt]

What do you mean by Gameworks stuff?

I have tried FarCry 4 with Crossfire, and find performance very poor with AA. SMAA is acceptable, but produces very distracting visual artefacts - which Ive found from other forums is due to the lack of a proper profile.

I'm running at 6000x1200, so really need crossfire to be working properly.

We had a profile ready for launch, but unfortunately we've been unable to enable it due to issues with the game. Below is taken from the release notes of 14.1.2.

"The AMD CrossFire™ profile for Far Cry 4 is currently disabled in this driver while AMD works with Ubisoft to investigate an issue where AMD CrossFire™ configurations are not performing as intended. An update is expected on this issue in the near future through an updated game patch or an AMD driver posting."

Since this there have been multiple updates to the game and we're now at a stage where we can enable it in our next driver.

However, you can use Crossfire right now. Using QuadFire in these screenshots below at 4K. This is on 14.12 Omega.



4K

Spoiler

Spoiler

Unless I'm missing something the game seems to be locked at 60 fps? I removed Vsync but i could not lift the fps cap. Forgive me I've spent no time playing this title at all.

EDIT

Tommy mentioned that Ubisoft broke MSAA in a recent patch, so i used SMAA which worked fine as far as i could tell.