catalyst 8.3 is worse??

[xMrBunglex]

i got moving horizontal lines in CoD4 with the 8.3 driver too (CrossFire). my framerate was also about 1/3 what i usually get. i immediately tried to uninstall the driver, which didn't work. i had to go into the Device Manager to uninstall it. then i ran DC Pro and reinstalled 8.2. this is possibly their worst driver ever - hopefully they're working on a hotfix or patch right now.

[KoHaN69]

90 points lower score here too.

The good news is Ray Adams should be getting his 3870 next week, meaning we should see 3xx0 series support in the next version of Ati Tray Tools!!!

That'll make the 3870 worth getting!

[everlast247]

I have been trying to get 8.3 to love my 3870x2.

It doesn't. I'm going back to 8.2.

[road-runner]

Managed to squeeze almost 25,000 with 8.3s. I am about at my limit with water cooling or my 9650 sucks... http://service.futuremark.com/result...eResultType=14

[Waymon3X6]

only 1 gig of ram?

[cadaveca]

almost 22,500 with E8400 @ 4500mhz, something msut be wrong, road-runner.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=5621463

[road-runner]

almost 22,500 with E8400 @ 4500mhz, something msut be wrong, road-runner.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=5621463

Yea but what is it the 8.3 drivers? I was getting almost 20,000 with a single card and a Q6600 on xp. I ran 03 and got 100,000 in it with Vista/8.3 and 2 cards. Seems to me like in 06 it is kinda jerky, the video is not smooth.

[cadaveca]

yeah 8.3, it says hello to stutter easily noticed, you may have heard me complaining about it before.

Of course, the thread quickly deteriorated into "nah, it's not that" crap. I've been dealing with this problem and crossfire for a while, no luck in getting it to go away...but I tihnk I understand.

Listen, what brand of cards do you have? Do they default to 825mhz core, or 775mhz? I had ATI-brand cards that ran 775mhz core, now working with one ASUS and one Sapphire, 825mhz core for soem reason.

Mind you I've been installing all sort of drivers, reg hacking, blah blah, so I thought maybe I did something that made the stutter worse...good to hear I'm not the only one see it.

[jimmyz]

are you guys noticing this mainly in firefly? usually firefly and proxycon run similar fps after installing 8.3 my firefly is 55 fps and proxy is 85+ so my sm2 scores are way down (1500pts lower) but my sm3 scores are 200 points higher?

[road-runner]

yeah 8.3, it says hello to stutter easily noticed, you may have heard me complaining about it before.

Of course, the thread quickly deteriorated into "nah, it's not that" crap. I've been dealing with this problem and crossfire for a while, no luck in getting it to go away...but I tihnk I understand.

Listen, what brand of cards do you have? Do they default to 825mhz core, or 775mhz? I had ATI-brand cards that ran 775mhz core, now working with one ASUS and one Sapphire, 825mhz core for soem reason.

Mind you I've been installing all sort of drivers, reg hacking, blah blah, so I thought maybe I did something that made the stutter worse...good to hear I'm not the only one see it.

I have two sapphires with the 825 clock speed. I guess I need to update sig...

[cadaveca]

are you guys noticing this mainly in firefly? usually firefly and proxycon run similar fps after installing 8.3 my firefly is 55 fps and proxy is 85+ so my sm2 scores are way down (1500pts lower) but my sm3 scores are 200 points higher?

Getting it in anything ...certian FPS ranges make it appear...29-47FPS most easily noticible @ 2650x1600.

I can't get U3-engine games to work, tons of other issues. I see large increase in SM3.0 scores, and that's it. One test only seems to benefit, Canyon Flight, even @ 2560x1600. I mean, seeing basically the same scores(-2k-3k) going up to 2560x1600 instead of default is nice, kinda, NFS Pro Street works, FEAR, lots of games that don't need it, Crysis has artifacts again, Company of heroes has REALLY bad stutter...

So while the driver allows some functionality, it seems to have broken alot of things. It's progress, I suppose, but Crossfire has been borked since day one. I remain skeptical.

[road-runner]

Are there any other drivers that work better than the 8.3s?

[gOtVoltage]

Wow, now it seems my Catalyst 8.3s are acting up... They worked fine yesturday, but now the screen gets weird horizontal lines - graphics corruption if I play a game. I need to do a hard reboot to get it working again.

Re downloading 8.2s...

I had that problem with Crysis after about 10minutes of game play..8.2 does not even do that even with out the Crysis 1.1 or 1.2patch.

I just reinstalled OS and am getting ready to install 8.3 soon building up courage

Note: i even ran the Beta Relase driver with 8.2 control center and had better results than the 8.3..It was about the same as the 8.2 whql. The games all played better and no more lines coruption in Crysis even with out the patches installed..

[xMrBunglex]

Are there any other drivers that work better than the 8.3s?

8.2 is a great driver. this is just a little disappointing because of all the cool features 8.3 introduced. i guess those of us that are having issues with 8.3 are just gonna have to wait until next month's release and go straight from 8.2 to 8.4.

[Jungle+=]

Have any of you guys used the Daidalos Bios Pack Bios' for your 3870's?

I was having disastrous bsods and system freezes and false powerplay overheat messges with Cat 8.3 in crossfire mode with UT3 (on first install).... Error messages with faulting modules atiumdag.dll , ut3.exe ,kernek32.dll and ATI External Event Monitoring crashes.

Apparently the new drivers rely on the Vista hotfixes for Windows LDA Technology and multiple GPU's. The sytem had suffered registry corruption from cold reboots and crashes of the video driver on the unclean install ( driversweeper after the add/remove programs uninstall of 8.2)

I am now on a triple erased and reformatted CLEAN Vista x64 install with all relevent updates...especially the LDA/multi GPU hotfixes. They were installed before installing the cat drivers to be safe.mobo drivers were installed prior to vista updates.
I'm no longer getting false Powerplay overheat messages but am suffering from the lock ups, driver failures and bsod's just like the Anandtech skulltrail rig that tested crossfirex.... read about it here--> CrossFireX Arrives: First Look at 3 and 4 GPUs in 2 Card Setupshttp://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3256

I'm baffled at this point....I'm ready to grovel for some assistance here

[Waymon3X6]

^Yes, I am actually. They work fine for me... So far.

[Jungle+=]

I checked my UT3 logs for more info on what's going on...
Hope someone can help me decypher it all, as this system crash and driver failures are getting to me. ( I do use a custom bios to reduce stutter that makes CCC recognize my cards as 3800 series instead of 3870's)



OpenAdapter() Address = 0x6f285a21 (filename not found) [in C:\Windows\system32\atiumdag.dll]

Critical: Windows GetLastError: The operation completed successfully. (0)
Log: === Critical error: ===
Rendering thread exception:
General protection fault!

History: OpenAdapter() Address = 0x6f285a21 (filename not found) [in C:\Windows\system32\atiumdag.dll]
OpenAdapter() Address = 0x6f285a21 (filename not found) [in C:\Windows\system32\atiumdag.dll]


RaiseException() Address = 0x76933843 (filename not found) [in C:\Windows\syswow64\kernel32.dll]
CxxThrowException() Address = 0x73ec8e69 (filename not found) [in C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft.vc80.crt_1fc8b3b9a 1e18e3b_8.0.50727.762_none_10b2f55f9bffb8f8\MSVCR8 0.dll]
Address = 0xb9da32 (filename not found) [in C:\Program Files (x86)\Unreal Tournament 3\Binaries\UT3.exe]
Address = 0xe873f24c (filename not found)
Address = 0xe873f24c (filename not found)

Exit: Executing UObject::StaticShutdownAfterError
Exit: Executing UWindowsClient::ShutdownAfterError
Exit: Executing UWindowsClient::ShutdownAfterError
Exit: UALAudioDevice::ShutdownAfterError
Log: Shutting down FaceFX...
Log: FaceFX shutdown.
Exit: Exiting.
Exit: Name subsystem shutting down
Uninitialized: Log file closed, 03/09/08 00:22:43


This is after a clean reformatted install of Vista Ultimate X64 with mobo driverrs installed first, Vista updates next, then the new microsoft "LDA" hotfixes for multiple GPU's.(8.3 relies on these hotfixes)
Finally I add sound and monitor drivers and Unreal Tournament 3 with the latest patch 1.2

No hitches in install, whatsoever, yet I am still getting system lock up's driver crashes and game crashes in crossfire...gratefully, at least the false powerplay overheat warnings stopped am I missing something?

[xMrBunglex]

i have no idea. i'm running the Sapphire Fanfix BIOS and i don't have CrossFire stuttering, overheating, or crashes at all.

[KoHaN69]

noticed lower performance in FEAR COMBAT as well

I hope 8.4s are out soon..

[Viss]

Cat 8.3 for Vista works fine here, XP not....

[heanwi]

Same situation here loc.o. 8.3 is a disaster in XP, but works very well in Vista (64 bit).

[Waymon3X6]

^Maybe it has something to do with when ATi said that the 8.3s will incorporate CF-X, and that's for Vista only... So maybe CF does not work in XP?

[road-runner]

^Maybe it has something to do with when ATi said that the 8.3s will incorporate CF-X, and that's for Vista only... So maybe CF does not work in XP?

No it does not appear work in XP or it didn't for me, the crossfirex check box is there and I saw 4 GPUs but my 3DMark scores were the same with two cards as it was with one...

[Waymon3X6]

Hmm, then I guess CF doesnt work in XP with 8.3s.

I guess the only work around is to have 8.2s for XP and 8.3s for vista...

[heanwi]

I guess the only work around is to have 8.2s for XP and 8.3s for vista...

Yep, thats what I'm doing. Seems like ATI didn't even test 8.3 in XP.