No more monthly drivers for AMD

[Olikan]

There should be a public announcement today, but I have been allowed to share this info right now:

- AMD will end monthly Catalyst driver releases starting with Catalyst 12.5 (which won't exist). They have decided to focus harder on quality and improvements vs regular updates which may not bring many new things. This way there will be no need for two separate driver development paths every month: one to get the official WHQL driver and another that keeps doing the regular driver development.
- We should expect more "hot fixes" and "preview drivers" when new games are released or urgent fixes are required.
- There is a beta driver we are testing right now that fixes the Eyefinity tearing on the third monitor when mixing outputs. I have verified that it works with Souther Islands based cards, so I don't know if it will work with previous cards. Anyway, if no major issues are found, this driver should be publicly available next week.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=363806
http://foro.noticias3d.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=391920

 

[guskline]

Makes sense. Is there an article that compares the Nvidia and AMD video card driver divisions?

 

[Phynaz]

Good, quality over quantity. Hopefully WHQL drivers will be released a little more often than Nvidia.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Good, about time. I like that approach much better, Nvidia does the same I think.

 

[SickBeast]

Good, about time. I like that approach much better, Nvidia does the same I think.

+1

 

[GrumpyMan]

Perfect, about time too.

 

[SirPauly]

I don't know, I liked their monthly support with certified drivers. If the quality is improved and new features and flexibility are added? Time will tell.

 

[exar333]

If they execute on better quality, this will be a good thing. :thumbsup:

 

[blastingcap]

About freaking time.

 

[tweakboy]

I'm shocked this is shocking me!! giggles.. gl

 

[JohnnyChuttz]

About time, their driver releases often break more than they fix.

 

[Don Karnage]

Thank god i'm going back to Nvidia. Amd Driver's team sucks

 

[Phynaz]

Thank god i'm going back to Nvidia. Amd Driver's team sucks

That's not needed here.

 

[Mistwalker]

I don't even care about the change in schedule, but getting away from 2+ concurrent driver paths is way overdue.

Was getting downright ridiculous.

 

[Anarchist420]

Good, quality over quantity.

Agreed. The 1 Driver per month thing was stupid. I doubt this will make their drivers any good though as nvidia releases drivers whenever they deem it necessary and their drivers aren't any good.

Both companies need to fire their entire driver teams and replace them with a team that actually cares about features, compatibility, and IQ (especially with all older games). It can't be that hard, especially for a company with as much revenues as AMD and nvidia make.

Hopefully WHQL drivers will be released a little more often than Nvidia. __________________

What difference does it make if it's WHQL?

 

[VivienM]

So 12.4 (and 12.3 before it) has BSOD issues for me... and they basically announce that there won't be the regularly scheduled replacement. And since it only BSODs after 3-3.5 weeks of uptime, it's not like I can easily go and try an older release.

Bloody hell. This is making me starting to regret having two ATI cards. (and yes, I will continue to call them ATI because I'm trying to avoid facing the fact that I've been doing business with the Dark Side)

 

[Jacky60]

About time! They clearly couldn't keep up with their own schedule and anything that sorts out their recent abortive update schedule is a good thing. I do wonder if things will get any better but hope they do-maybe they'll fix Skyrim in the next year or two.

 

[Barfo]

Hopefully they can copy other Nvidia practices to better their crappy products.

 

[Ropey]

Hopefully they can copy other Nvidia practices to better their crappy products.

Crappy products? That sounds rather fanboyish.

I remember more than a few catalyst driver issues with my last Ati card which was an x800 pro which was one of the reasons I moved to Nvidia and stuck with them until GTX460. Thermals were also another consideration of mine. That being said, these new drivers seem quite stable in comparison. My first ATi card was a Ati Rage 3D IIC and my first Nvidia card was the Geforce 256. Before that it was S3 and Diamond stand alone monster cards.

I seem to go back and forth from Ati-AMD/Nvidia.

 

[Don Karnage]

That's not needed here.

Im speaking from personal experience

 

[nemesismk2]

About time, their driver releases often break more than they fix.

+1

 

[Vesku]

Personally, I haven't had too many glitches with my bitcoin machine running 3 AMD cards. There was that one annoying release where AA settings in some games caused some odd squares to appear (fixed in the next release), so I'm definitely of the opinion they should go more by QA schedule than a tight monthly release schedule.

 

[Olikan]

i think that amd is going to do a driver per 3 months...
....just like for the pre-dx11 cards

 

[Phynaz]

Im speaking from personal experience

You have personal experience with the people that write the drivers? Aren't they in Canada?

 

[Atreidin]

Im speaking from personal experience

Yes, you do have a lot of trolling experience.