New member: Hello from SAM and AMD

[wand3r3r]

Hey, I have what I think is a legitimate question. Before the whole issue about framepacing, frametimes, etc., came to light and the AMD driver team had to focus on that, there was talk about a memory controller rewrite for 7000 series cards. Is that still happening, and if so is there any estimate on when it will be released in a driver update? Or was it already released and we just didn't notice it?

This is a very good question. Has the memory revamp been scrapped or is it still coming?

 

[Leadbox]

Hey, I have what I think is a legitimate question. Before the whole issue about framepacing, frametimes, etc., came to light and the AMD driver team had to focus on that, there was talk about a memory controller rewrite for 7000 series cards. Is that still happening, and if so is there any estimate on when it will be released in a driver update? Or was it already released and we just didn't notice it?

This is what TechReport's Scott Wasson said on the issue:

Yeah, they did roll out the new memory manager, I believe in Catalyst 13.3 beta, IIRC. I could swear I've written about this, but can't find my own source to cite.

The improvements weren't that dramatic, and when I asked about it, the AMD rep told me they'd realized that the memory manager alone wouldn't be a universal cure for high frame latencies. He emphasized that AMD has changed its tuning process to look for trouble spots where there are rendering slowdowns, though. I believe the revamped memory manager can help with tuning once problems are found. The bigger change is that AMD's process now includes frame latency awareness.

You can see they are optimizing for smoothness now in our more recent results.

For what it's worth, it's also apparent that AMD doesn't care about eliminating some of those "heartbeat pattern" spikes that show up in Fraps, so long as they don't disrupt animation smoothness. Nvidia tends to optimize away even those, which is probably not entirely necessary but may pay dividends in scenarios where performance is just marginally good enough.

I think there are further opportunities from both sides, extending down into GPU hardware and driver architecture and especially power management schemes, now that folks have locked on to the proper optimization target, which is consistently low frame latencies, not FPS averages. You can imagine a power-management scheme that saves up TDP "credits" when latencies are acceptable and spends them (by clocking up) when frame latencies start to rise. Excited to see how the next few years play out.

This issue was raised before in another thread here (I forgot which) and there I asked what people's expectations of this memory rewrite and there were no takers.

 

[guskline]

Welcome Sam. Question. I have a Sapphire 7770 Flex in my wife's AMD 965BE in a MSI 790FX mb rig. She is running Win 7. Sometimes the screen becomes a series of horizontal lines. I have the latest AMD drivers. Any ideas?

 

[Stuka87]

Welcome Sam. Question. I have a Sapphire 7770 Flex in my wife's AMD 965BE in a MSI 790FX mb rig. She is running Win 7. Sometimes the screen becomes a series of horizontal lines. I have the latest AMD drivers. Any ideas?

I would suggest posting up your own topic for this. Sounds like an issue with the card itself. But we can help you troubleshoot it if you create a post for it.

 

[seitur]

Welcome SAM. Question about upcoming 9000 series GPU. Will video playback with hardware acceleration draw significantly less power than in series 7000?
I am asking both about high end 9950/70 and middle-high end 9850/70

While HD 7000 cards are very good piece of hardware, video playback use kinda suprsingly much power.

Example: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_7950_Vapor-X/26.html


I know this is not most important thing, but it does interest me.

 

[Warsam71]

Welcome.

I know you can't talk about upcoming products but do you have any useful authority in getting current problems on existing products/services fixed? Are you able to talk to the driver team and get bugs looked at?

What is it your goal here in Anandtech's forums? In a years time what impact are you hoping to have had?

I know what you can't do, tell us what you can do.

Yes I can do that for you. In fact, you can start a thread describing your issue, or send me a PM. From there I can/will reach out to internal teams and get back to you with an answer. My goal is help you, while adding an extra channel of communication between this community and AMD.

 

[Warsam71]

Hey Sam, welcome to the forums. It's good to have a rep from AMD here that actually makes himself known. Thank you sir.
I'd like to know where I can speak with you about AMD's advocacy program. Via PM? Another thread in another forum? Etc. Let me know. I hope you enjoy the forums.

-Keys


Public Service Announcement - do not ask off-topic questions or respond to off-topic questions as you are merely perpetuating a thread-derail.

This thread is about VC&G, not about employment, business practices, the temperature of the water in the office watercooler, the color of paint on the walls, etc.

Administrator Idontcare

Hi - why don't you send me a PM? Once I see the question(s), I can either reply to you directly and/or coordinate with my team to create a new post sharing the information with the entire community here.

 

[Coolhwip]

Hi Sam, welcome!

Since I can't send private messages yet (need 25 posts) I sent you an email with a couple of questions.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

[taq8ojh]

Does the driver team have any rough estimate for next stable Catalyst release? Last one was 13.4.

 

[Black Octagon]

No. They specifically departed from the old practice of monthly releases. Stable releases now come out as and when they are ready, depending on both internal bug corrections and the Microsoft/WHQL process

 

[taq8ojh]

Uh, what makes you think I don't know that?

 

[pandemonium]

Welcome to the forums, Sam!

 

[Black Octagon]

Uh, what makes you think I don't know that?

Sorry, was replying on my phone and had lost track of the thread I was posting in (screen had been dimmed for a while then I picked up where I left off)

 

[nemesismk2]

Welcome - thanks for the HD5xxx series! I loved my Vapor-X HD5850 - I think it will be the card with the best memories for me

i loved my sapphire 5850 xtreme which i played many games with like crysis 2 etc.

 

[brybir]

Welcome to the forums!

I look forward to reading your posts and getting some insight into how things operate inside AMD.

 

[KingstonU]

I approve of the cleverly veiled questions and will follow the non-answers carefully

 

[ikachu]

Hi Sam, welcome to the forums. You based in Austin or Sunnyvale or Markham (or elsewhere)?

 

[monstercameron]

sam is there any news on android drivers for hd6000 and up apus?

 

[Slomo4shO]

When can we expect the framepacing drivers for multi-screen resolutions?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I have to thank AMD Sam, I put together an FX6300 for my gf. I loved the bracket to hold the CPU instead of Intel's push pins. Its fairly cool & quiet with the stock fan.
Once again thank you.

 

[flexy]

"Community Manager, Enthusiast and Component Channel Communications" <-- can't help but that sounds like a fun job

 

[3DVagabond]

When can we expect the framepacing drivers for multi-screen resolutions?

Yes, an update on the driver situation would be good. Especially for someone who has quadfire in his sig, like you do.

 

[grant2]

Sam thank you for making yourself known here.

Many people are excited about the new high-end cards AMD is expected to release shortly (HD99xx, HD98xx cards).

Can you indicate whether the lower-end/lower-power cards (eg: 9750) will also be included in that launch, or would they follow after a few months?

 

[philipma1957]

hi warsam71 I have only owned amd cards as I used hi end cards to mine more then game.

I do like the 7750 ultimate fanless model for ht it is decent.


I was wondering the new series near new years or black friday. I realize you can't answer exactly. Due to NDA rules.

But I was hoping to replace one of my r7970's with and upgrade. Thanks and PS welcome to the forums also thanks for making cards that mined lots and lots of bitcoins for me. Thus allowing me to buy and use more of your products.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Sam,

Did you prefer this thread with it's 512 spam posts, or do you prefer it now after stalhart moderated out 256 garbage posts? Do you have an memory of the thread before?