AMD and driver issues =/

[Maximilian]

I thought this was a decade old myth or only applied to crossfire setups

I finally upgraded from my HD5850 to a Gigabyte R9 280X and I find it flickers when browsing websites. Apparently manufacturers released a bios update that fixes this, all except gigabyte Anyway that was with the 13.12 drivers. I tried the 14.3 betas and its fixed in that. However WoW now crashes... fantastic then. Gonna gamble with the 13.10's they apparently don't have flickering and WoW may work, im not sure.

Anyone else had a similar experience?

 

[Stuka87]

I do not play Wow, so I cannot comment on that. Well, I am also running 14.2, as it has been very stable for me. I have had no reason to upgrade to 14.3. I never got the flickering issue, it may be a 280X only issue. But there is not much of a difference between a 7950/7970 and a 280/280X.

14.3 is a beta, so there will be bugs in it. Thats par for the course with beta anything. Is Wow crashing with 14.3 a common issue with others?

 

[yepp]

13.12 was giving me strange GSOD with my 7870 tahiti while browsing flash videos, not just in boring grey but pink, blue or red wavy vertical lines. So far no syptoms with 14.3 betas.

Edit: BSOD with 14.3 instead of GSOD, back to 13.9.

 

[el etro]

Deactivate Hardware Accel for great browsing. A 3930k will no have problems loading web content alone.

Latest Catalyst driver(14.3) gave problems to me on some things(HD 7970 Lightning) on Windows 8.1.

 

[Gloomy]

Chrome is prone to issues on everything, even Nvidia. I've tried to coerce my family away from the damn thing, but they love it-- and I'm tired of dealing with it. The only thing to do is disable hardware acceleration.

 

[Maximilian]

Well WoW seems to be okay now... it hasent stopped responding since I posted this.

Thing is I have a choice between a gigabyte 7970 and a gigabyte 280x, ive got both and am gonna sell one of them. Decided to keep the 280x because the cooler looks slightly better. But ive been running the 7970 the past few days and its been flawless. When I try the 280x today I get issues. I still did the whole uninstall/reinstall dance despite the cards being basically the same.

Its kind of weird, I put it down to the drivers or the BIOS. Other people have said they had the flickering issue with MSI/Sapphire etc but a BIOS update fixed it for them. Gigabyte have no update for my cards F60 bios, they have F3 and F12, neither can be flashed to this card. Might just go with the 7970 instead and save myself hassle. As far as I know WoW crashing isnt a common issue with 14.3, seems to happen with the 280x on occasion but dosent seem to be widespread, the flickering issue seems more widespread.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

14.3 are betas in every sense of the word and have quite a few issues. 13.12 is what you should use if you want a stable experience.

 

[Maximilian]

Aite problem solved. Took the cooler off the 280x and stuck it on the 7970. Using the 7970 with 13.12's, flicker free!

 

[Bateluer]

Chrome is prone to issues on everything, even Nvidia. I've tried to coerce my family away from the damn thing, but they love it-- and I'm tired of dealing with it. The only thing to do is disable hardware acceleration.

Chrome web browser? I don't ever recall having problems like described under an HD2000, HD3000, Radeon HD 8250, Radeon 7950B, or Radeon R9 290X. Last time I owned an Nvidia card, Chrome didn't exist.

 

[Warsam71]

Aite problem solved. Took the cooler off the 280x and stuck it on the 7970. Using the 7970 with 13.12's, flicker free!

Sorry for being late,

I'm glad to see you were able to find a solution.

One of the tricks I've recently learned when doing a clean install (uninstalling an existing driver and installing a new one) is to go back to your Program and Features in the control panel and see if the AMD/ATI Catalyst Install Manager is still listed. If it is, then click on it again, and select "Change", then click on the "Uninstall" or "Uninstall ALL AMD Software". This will manually remove existing drivers and related programs. BUT, make sure you have already downloaded the newer driver before removing the existing one. (Please keep in mind 14.1, 14.2 and 14.3 are beta)

One more thing, we are planning to release the WHQL driver this month. I'll make sure to post here at AT as soon as it's available.

 

[kawi6rr]

I have the ASUS DCII 280x and I get the same thing. I went to the 14.? beta can't remember and didn't notice to much of a change so I just left it as is. I do not get the pixelation anymore so I guess that's a bonus. I have not tried the bios update but I'm going to look into it, thanks for the info on that.

 

[blackened23]

Had the same problems with eyefinity and 7970cf before I just gave up and went green. Nowadays I prefer green.

Now i'm saying this without trying to start an argument. I truly am not. I won't even respond if anyone disagrees with me. With that prefaced, this is an absolutely huge problem on the AMD side; now nvidia is not perfect in terms of software and never has been but I feel they're quicker with fixes and more consistent, but what i've noticed on the AMD side driver wise is that a subsequent driver may fix 2-3 problems, and in the process brings 5-6 problems with it. I continually felt like it was a 1 step forward 2 step backward type of thing when I used 7970s. I truly did HATE that. It's just annoying as a user. AMD just needs to throw more money at their software engineering team. That's all there is to it. No if's ands or buts.

I should note that it was mostly with surround and some crossfire to a smaller extent. With single GPU I didn't notice much in the way of problems but they were still there. Crossfire...had it's own share of issues, but not always necessarily a deal breaker. It was worse than SLI though. There was obviously the microstutter thing but that was fixed. Like wake from sleep crashing, HDMI audio never working, always having to disable ULPS to have a functional crossfire setup, etc. These were minor in comparisons to switching to surround. Once I did that it was just. Not good, and drivers were always 1 step forward 2 steps back.

I guess the main thing i'm saying is that the big problems happen when you step outside of the single GPU "box". That's when I noticed AMD drivers wreaking havoc. Not sure if that changed, but that's really how I felt with 7970s. Just my .02. Like I said. These are my honest observations having used AMD - not trying to start a war here and I won't respond to anything. But, yeah, I think you'll find more than one user agreeing to this. Even some threads here bearing that fact with multiple driver issues.

I want AMD to improve in this aspect. They truly need to. Their software team is either underfunded or understaffed, while (IMO) their marketing budget is far higher than it should be. That's way backwards. IMO. Software is critical to good hardware, and I hope AMD can improve more in this aspect, they've improved a tad but it is not anywhere close to where they need to be, given their competition. What I would like to happen is this. Someone at AMD, and i'm sure someone (warsam) is reading this thread, take this feedback and take it to heart so to speak. For goodness sake, give your software team more funding or more staffing. Whatever you need to do. That's my feedback.

 

[Jodell88]

Had the same problems with eyefinity and 7970cf before I just gave up and went green. Nowadays I prefer green.

Now i'm saying this without trying to start an argument. I truly am not. I won't even respond if anyone disagrees with me. With that prefaced, this is an absolutely huge problem on the AMD side; now nvidia is not perfect in terms of software and never has been but I feel they're quicker with fixes and more consistent, but what i've noticed on the AMD side driver wise is that a subsequent driver may fix 2-3 problems, and in the process brings 5-6 problems with it. I continually felt like it was a 1 step forward 2 step backward type of thing when I used 7970s. I truly did HATE that. It's just annoying as a user. AMD just needs to throw more money at their software engineering team. That's all there is to it. No if's ands or buts.

I should note that it was mostly with surround and some crossfire to a smaller extent. With single GPU I didn't notice much in the way of problems but they were still there. Crossfire...had it's own share of issues, but not always necessarily a deal breaker. It was worse than SLI though. There was obviously the microstutter thing but that was fixed. Like wake from sleep crashing, HDMI audio never working, always having to disable ULPS to have a functional crossfire setup, etc. These were minor in comparisons to switching to surround. Once I did that it was just. Not good, and drivers were always 1 step forward 2 steps back.

I guess the main thing i'm saying is that the big problems happen when you step outside of the single GPU "box". That's when I noticed AMD drivers wreaking havoc. Not sure if that changed, but that's really how I felt with 7970s. Just my .02. Like I said. These are my honest observations having used AMD - not trying to start a war here and I won't respond to anything. But, yeah, I think you'll find more than one user agreeing to this. Even some threads here bearing that fact with multiple driver issues.

I want AMD to improve in this aspect. They truly need to. Their software team is either underfunded or understaffed, while (IMO) their marketing budget is far higher than it should be. That's way backwards. IMO. Software is critical to good hardware, and I hope AMD can improve more in this aspect, they've improved a tad but it is not anywhere close to where they need to be, given their competition. What I would like to happen is this. Someone at AMD, and i'm sure someone (warsam) is reading this thread, take this feedback and take it to heart so to speak. For goodness sake, give your software team more funding or more staffing. Whatever you need to do. That's my feedback.

I couldn't agree more. While AMD's hardware is good, they are let down on the software side. They really need to focus on having quality software and with all the current initiatives they are undertaking, I fear they may be stretching themselves too thin.

 

[CropDuster]

I'll agree that the AMD software/drivers don't seem as polished. However, nvidia really soured me with their 6+ months of driver crashes on the Fermi cards post 314.

 

[Maximilian]

Yeah it crossed my mind about joining team green as well but its the first hassle ive had with an AMD/ATI card and ive been using them since the 9800 PRO so ill let it slide... for now :| Plus the HD5850 was an amazing card for me the past 4 years, probably the longest ive ever kept any piece of computer hardware tbh.

 

[Maximilian]

Sorry for being late,

I'm glad to see you were able to find a solution.

One of the tricks I've recently learned when doing a clean install (uninstalling an existing driver and installing a new one) is to go back to your Program and Features in the control panel and see if the AMD/ATI Catalyst Install Manager is still listed. If it is, then click on it again, and select "Change", then click on the "Uninstall" or "Uninstall ALL AMD Software". This will manually remove existing drivers and related programs. BUT, make sure you have already downloaded the newer driver before removing the existing one. (Please keep in mind 14.1, 14.2 and 14.3 are beta)

One more thing, we are planning to release the WHQL driver this month. I'll make sure to post here at AT as soon as it's available.

Sounds good. You should ditch that APP that seems to force install itself though Uninstalling it is a pain too because its named something like "AMD gaming evolved" but when you look in the programs & features list its not there.... its actually listed there as "raptr".

You guys really dont wanna go down that road of bundling annoying crapware with your stuff.

 

[chimaxi83]

Just had my first real AMD driver issue myself. Had a crash during BF4 to BSOD, with SYSTEM THREAD EXCEPTION NOT FOUND error, listing one of the driver files. System came back up with both cards being listed as MS basic display adapters. After nuking my system of all AMD files, driver reinstall causes the same exact crash to BSOD.

Anyone ever come across this?

 

[monstercameron]

I couldn't agree more. While AMD's hardware is good, they are let down on the software side. They really need to focus on having quality software and with all the current initiatives they are undertaking, I fear they may be stretching themselves too thin.

I don't agree with this, In my personal experience, I have never had an issue with drivers, both on my 6850 nor my kaveri rig running the latest beta drivers [nor my then nvidia 9600gt or current gtx650]. Maybe it is hardware specific or config specific but to denounce a whole company[or its capabilities] because of temporal issues seems abit...rash.

Then again all I can provide is anecdotal evidence.

aside: not many issues on linux either but performance is lacking.

 

[Hitman928]

I don't agree with this, In my personal experience, I have never had an issue with drivers, both on my 6850 nor my kaveri rig running the latest beta drivers [nor my then nvidia 9600gt or current gtx650]. Maybe it is hardware specific or config specific but to denounce a whole company[or its capabilities] because of temporal issues seems abit...rash.

Then again all I can provide is anecdotal evidence.

aside: not many issues on linux either but performance is lacking.

What distro/kernel are you running for linux?

 

[cytg111]

Chrome web browser? I don't ever recall having problems like described under an HD2000, HD3000, Radeon HD 8250, Radeon 7950B, or Radeon R9 290X. Last time I owned an Nvidia card, Chrome didn't exist.

Yea, i get that with chrome, gtx780, but only on the secondary display .. all of the UI is not rendered properly in some scenarios.

 

[monstercameron]

What distro/kernel are you running for linux?

I must confess that i am using my kaveri build with the radeonsi drivers...as for the distro, ubuntu trusty 14.04 with the latest kernel and the oibaf ppa for the latest mesa packages.

With a few tweaks i got unigine heaven and valley running, also natural selection 2 but all 3 have performance issues. Havent tested catalyst yet.

 

[DrDoug]

I don't agree with this, In my personal experience, I have never had an issue with drivers, both on my 6850 nor my kaveri rig running the latest beta drivers [nor my then nvidia 9600gt or current gtx650]. Maybe it is hardware specific or config specific but to denounce a whole company[or its capabilities] because of temporal issues seems abit...rash.

Then again all I can provide is anecdotal evidence.

aside: not many issues on linux either but performance is lacking.

My experience mirrors yours, I really can't remember an issue I've had with ATI/AMD drivers. I went Red after the FX 5xxx disaster and other than an HD 1950 puking (replaced under warranty), no problems for the games and stuff I throw at it. Linux performance is a lot better than it used to be. I've run a couple of my Steam games (TF2, L4D2) at it am impressed with the performance.

It's just anecdata but there it is. :biggrin: Some problems may be hardware-combo specific and maybe I've just been lucky in the hardware lottery...lol!