AMD to Drop Support for Pre HD 5000 GPUs

[blckgrffn]

Current drivers have support for Windows 8, not that it matters because W8 is a piece of ****.

Haha, well, there is that

The word that MC will be some sort of add in that might cost money? Well, I use the crap out of MC on two HTPCs, so I guess they'll be staying on 7 unless there is really some attractive features in 8 that I haven't read about...

Also, thank you Ryan clearing the air

That makes sense, but like others have mentioned, we want AMD to actually stick with it this time. The older legacy driver is, well, pretty damn legacy at this point.

 

[poohbear]

surprised they're cutting support for the 4000 series, those are still capable cards no?

No, they think when a new game or OS comes out it wont work well with it.

huh? MS themselves said Win 8 is mostly for tablets and mobile devices, if u have win7 desktop u're not gonna notice much of a difference.

 

[bononos]

surprised they're cutting support for the 4000 series, those are still capable cards no?

.......

Definitely still capable and AMD is not cutting support. Its the hyperbolic internet telephone game going on. A few pages back someone posted an article saying AMD is reducing driver support for older models to quarterly updates.

 

[poohbear]

yea i just read that on another site, OP really needs to update this thread's title. This is what i read:

"Contrary to some rumors, AMD will not be discontinuing support for their legacy products. Rather, a new Quarterly Driver Release schedule will be put into place.

A few days ago, Hardware Canucks learned of rumors concerning a possible top to bottom discontinuation of support for AMD’s legacy products. After some investigation, Hardware Canucks uncovered the complete details.

In an understandable move, AMD will end the monthly driver updates for the HD 2000, HD 3000 and HD 4000 series of graphics cards and instead institute a quarterly new release schedule for these products. Considering some of these are more than half a decade old, no one should be surprised at this point."

personally i totally agree, come July (when this will be implemented) the 4000 series will be 4 years old, they really shouldn't be getting monthly updates.

 

[blckgrffn]

Well, Ryan mentions what some are concerned about in his piece on Anandtech, in that "quarterly updates" are a nice way of saying that they are being put out to pasture, and drive updates will slowly go away to keep the outrage to a minimum.

He is optimistic that we'll see reasonable W8 support though, which sounds fine to me.

 

[Spjut]

Really? While the 4XXX series is receiving legacy support, the GTX 2XX series received/receives multi-monitor support, 3d vision support, PhysX support, new features like FXAA, adaptive V-sync, frame-limiters, etc.

This

The quarterly updates are better than nothing(as long as it's better than last time AMD put their GPUs into legacy) but it feels really cheap when Nvidia cards from the same generation and the generation before that keep getting new features introduced

 

[Leyawiin]

Monthly to quarterly for older cards? Doesn't seem like a big deal - I own Nvidia and they don't put out more than four or five drivers a year.

 

[amenx]

Monthly to quarterly for older cards? Doesn't seem like a big deal - I own Nvidia and they don't put out more than four or five drivers a year.

WHQLs maybe, but incl betas (which are just as good for most users), they've released 16 drivers last year. Only 4 so far this year.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

 

[GotNoRice]

personally i totally agree, come July (when this will be implemented) the 4000 series will be 4 years old, they really shouldn't be getting monthly updates.

The cards might have came out 4 years ago but their replacement wasn't paper launched until September 23rd 2009. So up until about 2 and a half years ago, AMD's top dog card was the 4870x2.

2 and a half years from top-dog to the legacy driver is a bit hard to swallow, especially when my friend still using a 6800 Ultra from 2004 and still gets the benefit of regular driver updates.

The last time they moved products to the legacy driver, that started with 9.3 and ended without explanation at 10.2 - less than a year total.

I don't really see this as a Windows 8 support issue though either way, because WDDM 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 drivers are all forward and backward compatible. You could run Windows 8 even if you had nothing but Vista drivers to work with.

 

[poohbear]

The cards might have came out 4 years ago but their replacement wasn't paper launched until September 23rd 2009. So up until about 2 and a half years ago, AMD's top dog card was the 4870x2.

2 and a half years from top-dog to the legacy driver is a bit hard to swallow, especially when my friend still using a 6800 Ultra from 2004 and still gets the benefit of regular driver updates.

The last time they moved products to the legacy driver, that started with 9.3 and ended without explanation at 10.2 - less than a year total.

I don't really see this as a Windows 8 support issue though either way, because WDDM 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 drivers are all forward and backward compatible. You could run Windows 8 even if you had nothing but Vista drivers to work with.

Well u have reading comprehension problems, its NOT a legacy product, it's still supported with quarterly driver updates. The card was released 4 years ago and is STILL getting driver updates, it sounds fine to me. I dont even bother updating drivers every month unless there's an issue for a game i play, quarterly is fine.

Sent from my MB861 using Tapatalk 2

 

[RaistlinZ]

Good, I'd rather they spend the time on drivers for their newer cards.

Bout time people upgraded anyway.

 

[GotNoRice]

Well u have reading comprehension problems, its NOT a legacy product, it's still supported with quarterly driver updates.

That is exactly what the legacy driver is.

 

[bononos]

That is exactly what the legacy driver is.

Do we really know what new drivers do for older cards? Do new Nvidia drivers fix or improve anything for the Geforce 6 series?

 

[nismotigerwvu]

Was anyone really expecting them to squeeze anymore performance out of these 4+year old cards anyways? That or are there any major game-breaking bugs that haven't ironed out yet? I'm actually glad they are forking here as at this point the changes they make to benefit the newer cards may introduce bugs for these older cards. Give me nice stable drivers with bug fixes as they arise and I'm a happy camper (along with my aging, but still useful 4850).

 

[ViRGE]

Was anyone really expecting them to squeeze anymore performance out of these 4+year old cards anyways?

Out of general performance? No, of course not. However...

That or are there any major game-breaking bugs that haven't ironed out yet?

The issue isn't old games, it's new games. Their DX10 GPUs won't be any more immune to bugs in new games than their newer cards will, so it's important that AMD continues to promptly fix any bugs so that new games are playable on their older GPUs.

 

[Meaker10]

The cards might have came out 4 years ago but their replacement wasn't paper launched until September 23rd 2009. So up until about 2 and a half years ago, AMD's top dog card was the 4870x2.

2 and a half years from top-dog to the legacy driver is a bit hard to swallow, especially when my friend still using a 6800 Ultra from 2004 and still gets the benefit of regular driver updates.

The last time they moved products to the legacy driver, that started with 9.3 and ended without explanation at 10.2 - less than a year total.

I don't really see this as a Windows 8 support issue though either way, because WDDM 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 drivers are all forward and backward compatible. You could run Windows 8 even if you had nothing but Vista drivers to work with.

That's why its silly to buy an old card on the cusp of a new generation.

 

[SirPauly]

Really?

And pay the premiums of a new GPU release.

 

[KAZANI]

Out of curiosity, what is your definition of "Latest and Greatest"? And I can't help but chuckle at you saying any game that makes use of current hardware as a "Plague on the PC game market".

Portal 2, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Black Mirror III, Machinarium, Botanicula, to name a few great games I played recently. Allow me to chuckle back at you for buying any poorly coded game that requires you to buy a 500$ GPU to run it. I mean seriously, the last overhyped games I checked were Dead Island and Deus Ex:HR. HUGE resource hogs, not to mention much earlier games like Tomb Raider Underworld looked better than that crap...heck even Noone Lives Forever 2 looked better than that(that's almost 10 years back). And of course gameplay and stories were far superior! Upgrading hardware every year for the sake of using the latest DirectX features is senseless, when more mature implementations of them, in the form of playworthy games, take 3-4 years to emerge.

 

[Jaydip]

Are u serious?I understand ur point but the graphics comparison was totally out of the place.

 

[jacktesterson]

Does anyone know if the Windows 7 Drivers for 4850's work with Win 8 CP?

I just pieced together a cheap G530 Rig out of parts laying around the house and actually picked up a 4850 yesterday local for a whole $20.00.

Anyways I was using Win 8 on this 2nd rig rather than buying Win 7 or using a torrent copy. (I prefer to be legit with Windows)

Anyways, was planning on taking advantage of Win 8 being free for a while but then read through here again and see there are no drivers for Win 8 for the 4000 series.

 

[KAZANI]

Are u serious?I understand ur point but the graphics comparison was totally out of the place.

It's purely POV. If cluttered, boring gameworlds rendered with the latest directX satisfy your aesthetic standards, then I can't talk you out of throwing your money into them. I personally look at the artistic and cultural value of a video game and I can't find it in silly shooters like Crysis and the likes. It's the same reason why RPGs like Oblivion or Skyrim will never take precedence over Baldur's Gate II in my book.

 

[Jaydip]

Well i kinda understand u now
But very few game can satisfy u today.

 

[Barfo]

They have Linux support to drop?

I lol'd

 

[GotNoRice]

Does anyone know if the Windows 7 Drivers for 4850's work with Win 8 CP?

I just pieced together a cheap G530 Rig out of parts laying around the house and actually picked up a 4850 yesterday local for a whole $20.00.

Anyways I was using Win 8 on this 2nd rig rather than buying Win 7 or using a torrent copy. (I prefer to be legit with Windows)

Anyways, was planning on taking advantage of Win 8 being free for a while but then read through here again and see there are no drivers for Win 8 for the 4000 series.

Yeah you can use windows 7 drivers on windows 8 just fine. You can even use vista drivers if you have to. Vista is WDDM 1.0, win7 is WDDM 1.1, win8 is WDDM 1.2, but its all forward and backward compatible.

 

[SirPauly]

Well i kinda understand u now
But very few game can satisfy u today.

Great titles are simply rare in the past, present and probably future, imho.