AMD Framepacing Driver 13.8 review

[BallaTheFeared]

Yep, and to be clear my issue stems from the GOP/UEFI bios they created for me for the 8+6 pin, it doesn't like ULPS.

It works fine if I don't touch anything, but then I can't OC... I sent them a kite, hopefully they can address it :|

 

[Black Octagon]

To everyone experiencing issues:

That sucks, I'm sorry to hear it, hope a solution presents itself soon etc etc

BUT:

Remember that this is a BETA. Frustration with bugs is understandable, but snarky remarks like "nice one, AMD" go too far when we're taking about anything other than stable release drivers!

 

[railven]

To everyone experiencing issues:

That sucks, I'm sorry to hear it, hope a solution presents itself soon etc etc

BUT:

Remember that this is a BETA. Frustration with bugs is understandable, but snarky remarks like "nice one, AMD" go too far when we're taking about anything other than stable release drivers!

13.6 Beta2 - CFX works fine.

13.8 Beta2 - CFX doesn't work as fine.

"Nice one, AMD."

If AMD as a corporation is hurt some how by this comment, tough cookies. Fix yo drivers, please.

 

[railven]

Are you overclocking at all?

I think I was doing it with 13.6, didn't you mention rolling back and it working properly for you?

Yeah, I do OC but only when gaming. I don't load any OC software on start up, so before I play a game turn on AB and load my profile.

The pics of GPU-Z were with the cards at stock settings.

I reverted back to 13.6b2 to test and sure enough it worked fine. So I'm gonna stick with 13.6b2, my volt settings on my OC profile stick too.

 

[Black Octagon]

It's not about AMD being hurt. It's about people not understanding what the word Beta entails.

 

[Black Octagon]

" Q:*What are beta drivers and should I use them?A:*Beta drivers are drivers that are not completely finished yet and may have problems that you won't experience with finalized drivers. However, beta drivers may have speed improvements and new features. Generally, unless you have a known problem with a stable version of graphics card drivers that are fixed in the beta versions, don't use them."

Source: http://www.overclock.net/t/802780/graphic-card-central

 

[railven]

It's not about AMD being hurt. It's about people not understanding what the word Beta entails.

Oh bother, I guess finding bugs and reporting them isn't part of the Beta process? We find bugs, we report them, at times we tend to discuss them, and sometimes the discussion is along the lines of "how did they manage to break something that was working?"

" Q:*What are beta drivers and should I use them?A:*Beta drivers are drivers that are not completely finished yet and may have problems that you won't experience with finalized drivers. However, beta drivers may have speed improvements and new features. Generally, unless you have a known problem with a stable version of graphics card drivers that are fixed in the beta versions, don't use them."

Source: http://www.overclock.net/t/802780/graphic-card-central

Awesome, AMD tells us they got a solution for their CFX issues. As a CFX user your response to me is "Generally unless you have a known problem with stable version of graphics card drivers that are fixed in the beta versions, don't use them."

Starting to get the feeling discussing issues is sort of taboo. Sheesh.

 

[Black Octagon]

I am not a CF user and have not been since I sold my second 7970 months ago. I sold it because I found CF to be unstable and microstutter to be unacceptable. I am not one to make excuses for AMD regarding this sorry state of affairs that is only just now in the early stages of being substantively fixed.

Finally we have something that's a real step in the right direction and that is a very positive thing. That said, the fix currently available is limited in many ways, and one of those ways is that the fix is only available via a BETA driver. This is a limitation because Beta drivers are not typically eligible for tech support, and because their intended purpose is to help AMD test drive incomplete (and often NEW) things. To this end, such drivers are not, in fact, yet a true fix. So no, my response to AMD saying they have a solution to microstutter is actually "your solution is still incomplete." If this was unclear from my earlier posts (and I don't think it was) then at least your now have it, in plain English.

Now that it's crystal clear that I am not defending AMD, I will again repeat my original point: people who complain about the fact that a Beta driver (from ANY company) has unresolved problems should re-educate themselves as to what a Beta driver is.

When this driver goes from Beta to WHQL, then any complaints you have about ongoing, unresolved issues are perfectly justified. Until then, I would suggest that the discussion is best kept focused on identifying and reporting the issues, rather than complaining about them.

...Goodbye. I'm unlikely to post again on this very simple matter.

 

[railven]

people who complain about the fact that a Beta driver (from ANY company) has unresolved problems should re-educate themselves as to what a Beta driver is.

Here is your official "Complaint" form from AMD themselves:

http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3F00

"Complaining" is one way to classify someone who is posting on a forum the issues they've come across while "beta testing" a new driver. The link above calls it a "bug report."

I think you should re-educate yourself on the purpose of what Betas are for.

Better yet, I guess using a forum for communicating found issues is something we shouldn't do. I mean, nothing is 100% stable

 

[jackstar7]

Also, to clarify one point, a lot of drivers are now going to be labeled "Beta" simply because they're not going to put through the WHQL testing process for certification.

Beta's that come out should be stable for most setups... but because of the very nature of our hobby here, they cannot be prepared for every random gathering of parts.

 

[Black Octagon]

Here is your official "Complaint" form from AMD themselves:

http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3F00

"Complaining" is one way to classify someone who is posting on a forum the issues they've come across while "beta testing" a new driver. The link above calls it a "bug report."

A bug/issue report is NOT the same thing as a complaint

Bug/issue report = "I experience persistent secondary GPU spikes when frame pacing is enabled. It persists even if I disable ULPS and OverDrive, and happens with both Beta 1 and Beta 2."

Complaint: "Beta 2 is out and GPU spiking bug still isn't fixed. 13.8 was meant to fix CF issues. Nice one, AMD."

 

[Nearox]

Will this also work for the HD6000 series (and the hd6950 in particlar)?

In the reviews I haven't seen anyone testing this on Skyrim. Does any of you know/have experience with the .8 drivers in Skyrim in xfire?

 

[Leadbox]

Will this also work for the HD6000 series (and the hd6950 in particlar)?

In the reviews I haven't seen anyone testing this on Skyrim. Does any of you know/have experience with the .8 drivers in Skyrim in xfire?

Yes it will work with HD6000 series

No it wont work with DX9 titles of which Skyrim is one, hopefully a fix for dx9 is on its way soon(ish)

Here is a Skyrim test

 

[ozzy702]

I'm getting strange frame drops with explosions in BF3 with xfire 7950's. Frame pacing is turned on. For the most part it seems smooth but frames are dropping into the single digits when before with a single heavily OC'd 7970 they were more or less 60fps constant.

Nvidia really seems to have BF3 on lock. :|

 

[railven]

A bug/issue report is NOT the same thing as a complaint

Bug/issue report = "I experience persistent secondary GPU spikes when frame pacing is enabled. It persists even if I disable ULPS and OverDrive, and happens with both Beta 1 and Beta 2. Nice one, AMD"

Word for word, if I used that for my ticket, is it a complaint or a bug report? Just curious on your take on that.

Complaint: "Beta 2 is out and GPU spiking bug still isn't fixed. 13.8 was meant to fix CF issues. Nice one, AMD."

Frankly at this point I don't even understand why you are so upset by me saying "Kudos AMD, you guys sure do know how to make a man hate you."

It's as if I personally insulted you. If you work for AMD, fix your drivers, if you don't help me get them to fix their drivers

What makes this more ironic is, no one in this thread said anything remotely close to your "complaint" example. :hmm:

 

[MBrown]

I'm now thinking about getting a second card now. Would my PSU be able to handle another 7950? Rig in Sig.

 

[3DVagabond]

I'm now thinking about getting a second card now. Would my PSU be able to handle another 7950? Rig in Sig.

650w should be fine if you don't max over volt everything.

 

[railven]

For starters, I am sweating my balls off! If that is inappropriate language, my apologies Mods. It's in good humor.

So I decided to give 13.8b2 another shot since it claims to have FFXIV improvements.

Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 13.8 Beta2 Driver for Windows:
Final Fantasy XIV: Improves single GPU and CrossFire performance

With the FFXIV servers all screwy, figured I'd benching them. Not sure if anyone will really care about this, but frankly it's just another dent in the 13.8b2 driver set in terms of what I need.

System: 'Me' in Sig
Stock settings: 925/1425
OC Settings: 1050/1525
For stability purposes 1.15v + 20% Powertune
In-game settings: Maximum @ 1440p
Average of 3 runs for each test using the FFXIV benchmark tool.

13.6 Beta 2
Stock: ~6700
OC: ~7250
CFX Stock-Default: ~6700
CFX Stock-AFR: ~12300
CFX Stock-1x1: ~11900
CFX OC-AFR: ~12900

[Note: I did 1 run of each CFX mode and kept the mode that had the highest score.]

13.8 Beta 2
Stock: ~6750
OC: ~7100
CFX Stock-Default: ~10850
CFX OC-Default: ~11300
CFX OC-AFR: ~11000

[Note: At this point pretty much disappointed with the results, I didn't bother testing CFX-1x1. Also, default scored higher than AFR which I found interesting, but still both were slower than 13.6b2 CFX-AFR Stock.]

So in terms of performance based on the benchmark, 13.8b2 is worse than 13.6b2 on my system, and I sort of know why:
13.6b2 - During benchmarking since I wasn't CPU limited, both GPUs were pegged at 99%
13.8b2 - During benchmarking, Master never broke 80% and Slave was always pegged at 99%

Would explain the performance difference to a degree. But not 100% sure, since single card performance wasn't that much better, actually OC'ed 13.8b2 was slower.

During game play:
Since I use v-sync, both had about the same in-game experience. Nothing in 13.8b2 made me realize it was a better driver. I still got CPU bottlenecked in towns and I was pegged at 60FPS during dungeons, BUT, the 99% Slave issue made my room get hot. Incredibly hot. Uncomfortably hot. Sure I can crank on the A/C, but I didn't have this issue with 13.6b2 and was enjoying pretty much the same experience.


Outside of fixing the Default-CFX option I found no real reason to use 13.8b2 over 13.6b2 specifically for FFXIV.

Welps, I managed to kill about an hour or two, and now time to get ready for dinner.

 

[ozzy702]

Anyone else experience less than smooth performance in BF3 with crossfire even using these drivers? I just popped my heavily OC'd 7970 back in because the 7950's were bugging me.

 

[exar333]

I thought the summary/conclusion in the recent TH review was interesting. While the driver helped a lot in the FCAT results, the videos still show the AMD solution as much worse.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/catalyst-13.8-frame-pacing-crossfire,3595-10.html