So I got my X2600XT today to replace an old x1800XL, installed it and all was fine Video works, but when I tried to install drivers for the on board "High Definition Audio Bus", I get no drivers found. This is the same audio solution as the 2900XT so its been around for 3 driver revisions now, so why are no audio driver found! First since this card is for an HTPC I figured sub-par video performance was ok, but then to find that the built in audio solution has no drivers now I was mad.
After a bit of searching I located drivers for the Audio, but only at Realteks site (not on AMD's site). Now if a device (say an MB), as a feature then the manufacture provides drivers for what ever is built on. In the case of Sapphire and AMD this is not the case. First the manual (small that it is) that comes with the card does not talk about an audio driver anywhere, second the CDROM that comes with it does not include the required RtHDMIX.sys for Windows 64bit. On the Vista side vista finds the Audio part of the card as being realtek and then installs a driver (but this driver is missing the RtHDMIV.sys so it does not work either). Bottom line is that AMD needs to include documentation about how to setup the Audio built on all x2000 series card better and also provide a download for said driver. By the way the driver is called: HDMI_R168.exe
Now this card crashes all the time (say within 5 minutes of starting Windows XP x64 SP1). The problem occurs using purevideo MPEG2 decoders, PowerDVD 7.3 build 2911 and just performing simple explorer operations (such as copy). I thought this was due to bad hardware so I brought it into work and went to town on it in my LAB (I tested the card with the following OSes: Linux, XP, XP x64, and Vista) here is what I found:
Usng the 7.6 version of the drivers (the latest available).
Linux: there are no drivers and it was not recognized
XP: Seems to work fine (PowerDVD aceleration seems to work).
Vista: Seems to work fine (PowerDVD aceleration seems to work), MPEG2 acceleration using purevideo is broken though (know issue I think).
XP x64: crashes same as I saw at home.
(Note all 4 systems are teh same 2GB ram intel 965, core 2 duo only the OS changes).
Conclusion the x64 drivers are bad, well completely broken (they seem to be feature complete), but since I've only managed 5 minutes before a video crash I could not even test acceleration. Since 2 separate systems show the exact same problems and since 2 other OSes work fine, the problem seems to be driver related. I'm interested if anyone else has seen similar issues with this card?
In conclusion: Its kind of a mute point as if I wait on a set of 7.7 driver I will be unable to return the card, so I will have to accept that it will cost me nearly $40 dollars by the time I'm done and return the card. However I personally am much upset that AMD seems to have neglected to ship a functional and stable 64bit driver for the card, at least when the Linux driver is not ready they simply do not list it as a download option, however for x64 they have a download that appears to be completely unusable.
Always an experience testing new hardware,
ERIC
After a bit of searching I located drivers for the Audio, but only at Realteks site (not on AMD's site). Now if a device (say an MB), as a feature then the manufacture provides drivers for what ever is built on. In the case of Sapphire and AMD this is not the case. First the manual (small that it is) that comes with the card does not talk about an audio driver anywhere, second the CDROM that comes with it does not include the required RtHDMIX.sys for Windows 64bit. On the Vista side vista finds the Audio part of the card as being realtek and then installs a driver (but this driver is missing the RtHDMIV.sys so it does not work either). Bottom line is that AMD needs to include documentation about how to setup the Audio built on all x2000 series card better and also provide a download for said driver. By the way the driver is called: HDMI_R168.exe
Now this card crashes all the time (say within 5 minutes of starting Windows XP x64 SP1). The problem occurs using purevideo MPEG2 decoders, PowerDVD 7.3 build 2911 and just performing simple explorer operations (such as copy). I thought this was due to bad hardware so I brought it into work and went to town on it in my LAB (I tested the card with the following OSes: Linux, XP, XP x64, and Vista) here is what I found:
Usng the 7.6 version of the drivers (the latest available).
Linux: there are no drivers and it was not recognized
XP: Seems to work fine (PowerDVD aceleration seems to work).
Vista: Seems to work fine (PowerDVD aceleration seems to work), MPEG2 acceleration using purevideo is broken though (know issue I think).
XP x64: crashes same as I saw at home.
(Note all 4 systems are teh same 2GB ram intel 965, core 2 duo only the OS changes).
Conclusion the x64 drivers are bad, well completely broken (they seem to be feature complete), but since I've only managed 5 minutes before a video crash I could not even test acceleration. Since 2 separate systems show the exact same problems and since 2 other OSes work fine, the problem seems to be driver related. I'm interested if anyone else has seen similar issues with this card?
In conclusion: Its kind of a mute point as if I wait on a set of 7.7 driver I will be unable to return the card, so I will have to accept that it will cost me nearly $40 dollars by the time I'm done and return the card. However I personally am much upset that AMD seems to have neglected to ship a functional and stable 64bit driver for the card, at least when the Linux driver is not ready they simply do not list it as a download option, however for x64 they have a download that appears to be completely unusable.
Always an experience testing new hardware,
ERIC