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Question Speculation: RDNA2 + CDNA Architectures thread

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As a Linux user, I will be cautious about recommending AMD cards for my friends (all windows). Still no real alternative for Linux, I would welcome some first party contributions to mesa.
 
As per usual everyone overreacted and AMD is too transparent for their own good, which is bad PR when people understand how these things actually work.
NV has had Maxwell/Pascal in the same mode for years, Turing is also delayed from a bunch of new things due to lack of FP8 support which requires extra work.
NV just doesn't say anything unless they have to avoid a lawsuit.
RDNA1/2 simply require extra work to support some things and cannot support others, so now they get fewer driver updates per year but still day 1 for major stuff.
Will be much easier in the future for the driver team to keep many generations updated, some work has gone into RDNA3/3.5/4 for this but RDNA5 is where things become much smoother to maintain.
 
branch_suggestion said:
As per usual everyone overreacted and AMD is too transparent for their own good, which is bad PR when people understand how these things actually work.
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Well, people were asking why the driver didn't apply to RDNA2 cards. AMD should learn from Nvidia: always distribute new driver packages for maintenance mode GPUs even if there are no changes that impact that series and even if the latest features aren't enabled. Oh and make sure Vulka/OGL features trickle down (eventually) to archs that are ~9 years old yet.

And maybe explain why they're disabling features like USB C PD...
 
Game working on old GCN, despite AMD "Abandoning" drivers for them.
7cc4114ef7ccf1dbc0de3998b329babe.jpg
 
This driver thing is a complete youtuber hallucination.

It is the new hardware that generally needs.optimizations and bug fixes on games that were designed before that hardware existed.

And most optimizations happen in the first 12-24 months. And you can see that on how performance differences evolve between products
For example the 1080Ti was generally faster than the 5700xt. But as newer games came out, the 5700xt started to gain ground on it, even if Nvidia stills releases game ready drivers for the 1080ti.
 
GaiaHunter said:
This driver thing is a complete youtuber hallucination.

It is the new hardware that generally needs.optimizations and bug fixes on games that were designed before that hardware existed.

And most optimizations happen in the first 12-24 months. And you can see that on how performance differences evolve between products
For example the 1080Ti was generally faster than the 5700xt. But as newer games came out, the 5700xt started to gain ground on it, even if Nvidia stills releases game ready drivers for the 1080ti.
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Theyre making billions from AI profits. How hard is it to get more resources for the driver team? There's still no official FSR4 for RDNA3 and RDNA2. which we've seen is capable of working and is the default better option even if you get less fps. I'm almost sure the driver team is right now in a crunch trying to get out Redstone before the "H2 2025" deadline ends. That's probably the reason for this sudden and unexpected change.
 
Vikv1918 said:
Theyre making billions from AI profits. How hard is it to get more resources for the driver team? There's still no official FSR4 for RDNA3 and RDNA2. which we've seen is capable of working and is the default better option even if you get less fps. I'm almost sure the driver team is right now in a crunch trying to get out Redstone before the "H2 2025" deadline ends. That's probably the reason for this sudden and unexpected change.
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What does any of that have to do with RDNA 1 & 2 drivers going on maintenance mode?

And in fact FSR4 works best with older drivers for RDNA2. I bet there will be very few (any) new games that actually work/perform better with recent drivers compared to drivers from 2 years ago for 6000 series cards.

If I go dust off my RX480 and install drivers from 6 years ago, games that are able to run on it, will run without any game ready drivers.
 
GaiaHunter said:
It is the new hardware that generally needs.optimizations and bug fixes on games that were designed before that hardware existed. And most optimizations happen in the first 12-24 months.
Click to expand...
GaiaHunter said:
It is like firmware and bios updates - once it is running properly you shouldn't have to update it.
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According to 3dCenter.org, Polaris got support for 7.5 years before getting demoted to legacy. Are your saying AMD offered optimizations for ~2.5 years and then spent the next 5 years pretending to optimize?
 
coercitiv said:
According to 3dCenter.org, Polaris got support for 7.5 years before getting demoted to legacy. Are your saying AMD offered optimizations for ~2.5 years and then spent the next 5 years pretending to optimize?
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So these companies keep relaunching and rebadging the same hardware but somehow if they release a driver that you can apply to a plethora of GPUs it has to have optimisations to all GPUs listed.

They can barely keep up with fixing the problems of new products and keep the schedule of features promised for the newer products but somehow they have people working 24/7 to get an extra 1% for a GPU 7 years old in some title that either works fine or the performance is really bad... right.

And what would they be optimising 7 years on? Game developers and dx12 still don't understand how to use the resources of the hardware, 7 years on?
 
Ranulf said:
Hmm, so I really should have sold off my 6700xt and used that cash to buy a 9060xt 16gb a few months ago. I thought dropping hawaii chip support in 2020 or so was annoying but sort of understandable. This makes little sense to me given how many 6000 series cards are out there.
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I just upgraded 2 weeks ago from a 290x to a 9070xt. So yeah you could still just play older games even in 2025. of course I was using an old driver. but it's not like it immediately stops working. Still if I would have waited another 2 weeks I probably would have gone with a 5070 Ti. I was on the fence anyway.

RDNA2 on legacy is kind of early especially due to all the iGPU products this move is highly questionable.
 
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beginner99 said:
RDNA2 on legacy is kind of early especially due to all the iGPU products this move is highly questionable.
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But what is the real impact?
It shouldn't be to hard for GPU reviewers to test it.

Grab a 5700xt and install a driver from 3 years ago and the most recent one. Test some games released after that older driver, especially games that had game ready drivers and then show the impact.
 
adroc_thurston said:
They just don't care.
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Sure looks like they care.



We’ve heard your feedback and want to clear up the confusion around the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.10.2 driver release.

This update introduces two optimized driver paths: one for RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 (Radeon RX 5000 and RX 6000 series), and one for RDNA 3 and RDNA 4 (Radeon RX 7000 and RX 9000 series).

Here’s What this Means for You:
This is not the end of support for RDNA 1 and RDNA 2. Your Radeon RX 5000 and RX 6000 series GPUs will continue to receive:
  • Game support for new releases
  • Stability and game optimizations
  • Security and bug fixes
The difference is that these products now benefit from a dedicated, stable driver branch, one built on years of tuning and optimization. This approach helps deliver a smoother, more consistent experience for your games while insulating previous generation GPUs from rapid changes designed for newer architectures.

Why We’re Doing This:
Our goal is simple: to give every Radeon gamer the best experience possible. By separating the code paths, our engineers can move faster with new features for RDNA 3 and RDNA 4, while keeping RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 stable and optimized for current and future games.

Our Commitment:
We’ve supported Radeon gamers for generations and that commitment isn’t changing. Whether you’re gaming on an RX 5000, RX 6000, or the latest RX 9000, you’ll continue to get the reliability, performance, and care you expect from AMD. Because we’re all part of the same gaming community and every Radeon gamer matters.
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