ATI cannot make working video drivers

[Ket]

People, stop flaming and be constructive or I will ask a mod to lock this thread, its helping nobody.

If there is anyone who wants to CONSTRUCTIVLY criticise Catalyst drivers why don't you go and track down their latest tweet / blog / whatever and voice your concerns with the poor quality of software. If everybody does that AMD (yes I call ATI AMD when theres issues like this because ever since AMD bought ATI drivers HAVE taken a sharp downfall in quality) they will have to listen.

@ Sentential. AMD mainboards aren't lousy. Even with a BIOS somewhat in its infancy (and ok I modded it too ) My Deluxe3 (which uses a all AMD based chipset) HAPPILY does 312MHz FSB, 3.9GHz, CPU-NB 2.8GHz 24/7. Your mobo, while for AMD, uses a nVidia chipset. Thats a whole BIOS worth of different coding.

[OC Nub]

You have an i7 @ 4.3 with 5870 Crossfire and an i7 @ 4.3 with 460 SLI. Playing through a large range of new and old games. What pros and cons have you noticed about the two setups - aside from what you've mentioned above about Bad Company 2 sucking on the 5870 CF.

How is game compatiblity, temperatures, drivers, performance, overclockability, noise, etc? Thank you.

I have only played BC2 with the GTX460's so I have nothing to go by other than reviews I read as to how well they run other games. As far as the 5870's they have been awesome in any other game I have played (which hasnt been many lately) and especially at 3D benches. This may have been fixed but when I installed the first 5870 I was playing an old game that ran best on a crt monitor at a higher refresh rate, I was unable to run any higher than 60hz.

The 5870's, at least the 2 reference cards I have, run cooler than the 460's and at a lower fan speed, the 460's are much quieter at higher fan speeds but I havent needed to run the 5870's at over 55% so noise isnt an issue. My PC is extremely loud anyway so any noise comming from the cards would be drowned out by the 5 scythe 133cfm's on my case and rad running at 3000rpm.

If crossfire ran BC2 well I would have no need for the GTX460's. I really dont play many of the newer games out, and when crossfire is working well in between the game closing randomly (about every other game) the framrates in BC2 are much higher with the 5870's at the same res and settings.

[KoHaN69]

I didn't come up with the ati are like buses quote, I've read it somewhere else.

I personally prefer ATI, because they offer better price/performance ratio most of the time.
Also, I've personally had more problems with nvidia drivers than ATI drivers.
I loved nvidia's pre-geforce fx drivers - esp w/ coolbits, but everything else that came later sucked.

As for ATI, I rarely used the drivers - First I used Omega drive pack, then I installed only drivers whiel using ati tray tools, but now I'm forced to use them and the interface isn't too friendly, I admit.

[audiofreak]

This is an interesting poll, especially when you consider the site where it has been posted:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33968184

It is heavily related to this topic.

[Funky]

to be honest, I have always managed to find at least one good driver that works with my setup. Be it Nvidia or ATI.
10.4 used to and still work beautifully with exception of odd game. To be honest none of their drives upto 10.7 gave me any trouble with stability. There were game related issues, but in the end i always found something that worked :P
Sure it will be only good thing if they release bug free drivers. But with monthly driver cycle, I can understand some bugs creeping in for some users.

Same with my current 460 and 480. People are praising their 260.xx. They are horrible on my system. Older 259.32 work better for me.
If you cant find a single set that works for you, i honestly believe its time to take a closer look at your system.
Sometimes too much is made out of irrelevant bugs (to the gamer ).
I have no issue with their GUI. I find it simple enough.

[audiofreak]

The Catalyst 10.9 is out:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=329014

And the votes are in:

vsync is broken in quake3. copying the atioglxx.dll from CAT 10.8 fixes it.

Second gpu does not work again FFS, can anyone confirm that 10.8b fixes it?

This is the same driver as 10.8/10.8a...

BC2 = Slow loading times.. i got 60 FPS LOWER.... 40FPS IN 32 PLAYER BATTLES WTF...

**** you ATI. your drivers are getting worse and worse...

Meh.. Back to 10.5a with 10.7 Profile.

I've downloaded the drivers and made a quick test, and all I can say is not a single bug was fixed, and the announced performance improvements are a lie.

Call of Prypiat benchmark results are exactly the same as 10.8, so 0% improvement.
Starcraft 2 performance is worse than 10.8. I've tested Devil's Playground level.
CAP 10.9=CAP 10.8A, no difference there either.

Unigine 2.1 has pop in or complete distant objects dissapearing. It begins at the town square with the dragon. Above options where used, nothing was overclocked. 10.8 ran just fine.

Installeld 10.9 and 10.9 profiles.

1. RUSE - Still hanging whole system as soon as intro starts.
2. BFBC2 - Still 50% slower than 10.5a
3. Open GL - Cant use Vsync.

I've just tried the Lost Planet 2 Benchmark, you know that one month old demo that crashes under DX11 with CrossFireX and guess what? Yup, it still crashes!

POP Forgotten Sands still have crossfire issues when the prince dies and performance drops to half. 4 months bug.
They even managed to drop the performance in crossfire in SC2, it runs even worse than 10.8.

Still no OpenCL v1.1 profile in the drivers (even though they had them in a hotfix/beta @ 10.7). Not terribly important but still!

The graphics issues with invisible textures, distorted graphics, etc. that were introduced with ATI 10.7 and Mount&Blade Warband v1.127 are still unsolved with this 10.9 driver.

Arma2 doesn't work for me with this driver. Keeps crashing. Back to 10.8b.

And this pretty much sums up what I have been saying here:

he Battlefield: Bad Company 2 -up of fixing, breaking, fixing then breaking it is a positive embarrassment, made worse by the fact that they admitted at one point that they weren't even aware of the issues!!! This has been an outstanding issue on the forums, including their own, since June!

Regression testing, they heard of it... NOT!

[Ket]

Beyond funny now isn't it? I just installed 10.9 hotfix drivers on my backup rig (now using the 5830 just because its better than the 4830) Will test out the Heaven benchmark claims..

[Hickeydog]

I thought I would try ATI for a change, and got a 4850x2. I know, not the best performing card, but the drivers drove me up a wall. I ended up selling it and getting a few GTX 460's. If AMD could get the driver development team of nVidia, they could really romp all over nVidia. Didn't the GTX 480 get, like a 30% performance boost across the board with new drivers?

[Ket]

I think the Fermi cards are up to around a 18% increase across the board atm. Few more driver releases I can see it going up to 25% quite easily.

I also tested the Heaven benchmark comment made. For me at least, I didn't notice any missing textures or things randomly vanishing, but I do always clean drivers out fully before installing new drivers.

[Blkout]

Seems like Nvidia could fix their poor 2D image quality since most people spend 95% of their time on their desktop or browsing the web, but I guess Nvidia is unable or unwilling to fix it. ATI has no issues with 2D image quality, but hey, this is an ATI flamefest so I guess Nvidia gets a free pass since this image quality issue has only been present for a few years now.

[Ket]

You seem to be another who missed me highlighting both ATI and nV downfalls. Ever read a thread properly before making a comment? I suggest you start to do so.

[Blkout]

You seem to be another who missed me highlighting both ATI and nV downfalls. Ever read a thread properly before making a comment? I suggest you start to do so.

I've read the entire thread, I even read your GTX 460 review where you mentioned this issue so I don't need your advice. I was simply pointing out an issue which seems that most others fail to mention when they're praising Nvidia and flaming ATI.

Nvidia's 2D image quality is FAR more of an issue to me than ATI's loss of a few FPS in 3D from one driver release to the next or a broken V-sync issue in one game here or there. The bottom line is that I can live with ATI's mistakes more than I can live with Nvidia's since I spend MUCH more time in 2D mode on the internet or at my desktop working.

I've used video cards from both manufacturers so I'm not brand loyal, but I'm always happier when I switch back from Nvidia to ATI due to the 2D image quality. For the 10% of time I spend gaming, I can excuse an anomaly here and there in a particular game compared to dealing with fuzzy text, low gamma, and washed out colors using Nvidia's cards the other 90% of the time I'm using my PC.

To each his own though...just my preference.

[CedricFP]

The debacle with 48x0x2 cards is appalling with recent driver releases. The second GPU not going into 3D is just quite simply a ludicrous problem to have.

I've been a happy ATI user for many a year, with this 4870x2 and my old X800GTO, not to mention 9800 Pro and X1900XTX. This is the first time I've had real driver problems, and it has come with these 10.x drivers that just can't get the second GPU working on the last-gen flagship card of theirs. I find it so mind boggling how they could break such a fundamental part of the driver and then either fix it only in hotfixes, which some reports have shown didn't work, but then in the next iteration of standard drivers FAIL to fix it and require hotfixes again.

Don't get me wrong - I don't dislike ATI. I've hopped preetty much evenly between the brands. But this recent spate of drivers has been a catastrophe for anyone not on 5xxx series cards which is simply unacceptable.

[demonkevy666]

drivers past 10.4 mess up my TV tuner.
I'm must be the only person using a 5870 and a ati 650 pro theater. :/
only solution I found was install driver separate from catalyst so far.

[BeepBeep2]

The debacle with 48x0x2 cards is appalling with recent driver releases. The second GPU not going into 3D is just quite simply a ludicrous problem to have.

Fixed with 10.8 Hotfix and 10.9.

[audiofreak]

Nvidia's 2D image quality is FAR more of an issue to me than ATI's loss of a few FPS in 3D from one driver release to the next or a broken V-sync issue in one game here or there.

I underlined the important part -- your priority versus ours.

Broken V-SYNC is unexcusable for ANY game (and here it is for all OpenGL titles). Period. You cannot play on TFT/LCD without V-SYNC unless you want to watch tearing fest.

The bottom line is that I can live with ATI's mistakes more than I can live with Nvidia's since I spend MUCH more time in 2D mode on the internet or at my desktop working.

That explains your usage pattern -- it is now clear that you are just trolling here because you obviously don't play enough games to even be affected with the problems others are having.

...compared to dealing with fuzzy text, low gamma, and washed out colors using Nvidia's cards...

Fuzzy text = if you have TFT/LCD change from driver scaling to monitor scaling or vice versa. One of them will fix it unless you are using cheap VGA input only TFT/LCD. Gamma and washed out colors further suggest that you are using analog connection.

[CedricFP]

Fixed with 10.8 Hotfix and 10.9.

Yes but if you went on to read the rest of my post, you'd realise that the hotfixes are not what I care about. The need for a hotfix to fix a 1-gen-old flagship card is appalling.

Did ATI just forget about owners of 4xxx cards?

Reverting back to the 9 series of drivers works well, but then you don't get the present-time game optimisations. Why should users of cards only 1 generation old be afterthoughts?

Why were hotfixes even required?

[Blkout]

I underlined the important part -- your priority versus ours.

Broken V-SYNC is unexcusable for ANY game (and here it is for all OpenGL titles). Period. You cannot play on TFT/LCD without V-SYNC unless you want to watch tearing fest.



That explains your usage pattern -- it is now clear that you are just trolling here because you obviously don't play enough games to even be affected with the problems others are having.



Fuzzy text = if you have TFT/LCD change from driver scaling to monitor scaling or vice versa. One of them will fix it unless you are using cheap VGA input only TFT/LCD. Gamma and washed out colors further suggest that you are using analog connection.

Many people play games with V-sync disabled, in fact, I think it would surprise you that the majority of gamers don't use V-sync, but at least I agree with you in this regard as I do use it and its a necessity for me and I don't like it when it doesn't work properly but D3DOverrider fixes that issues on Gears of War which is the only PC game that I have V-sync issues.

You don't know anything about my usage pattern, I can't think of a single person who doesn't spend more time on a PC surfing the internet or working rather than playing games. To say otherwise is complete BS unless you never turn your PC on except when you want to play a game, if so you're by FAR in the minority.

The Nvidia fuzzy text issue has nothing to do with the driver scaling or monitor scaling, certainly one or the other will look better depending on the quality of your monitor, but when you go from an ATI to Nvidia card or vice versa, the difference in text sharpness is immediately apparent. Its just sharper on ATI cards and has been for as long as I can remember and my PC usage goes back before ATI and Nvidia were even players. I've been using a DVI connection since I bought my Dell 2405 five years ago so that's obviously not the issue. Bottom line is that Nvidia's drivers have always suffered from darker gamma profiles and color that just looks slightly washed out in comparison to ATI. That being said, you can adjust the gamma and color in the Nvidia driver panel, but its still annoying that you should have to do this when this issue has been there for many years now. There is no fix for the lack of ext sharpness issue in Nvidia cards.

It's pretty obvious by your post that you don't have a long history with ATI or Nvidia, these are known isssues with Nvidia that have been there for years and stated by many people. Some people don't notice, some people don't care, most people just live with it. Basically the same as your issue with the ATI drivers. Really not so different, ATI and Nvidia, just a different set of issues and it just comes down to what you can live with.

[Carfax]

I've been using Nvidia cards for years, and I also owned 2x 4870s at one point. Never have I ever noticed any kind of discrepancy with Nvidia's 2D image quality.

[Blkout]

I've been using Nvidia cards for years, and I also owned 2x 4870s at one point. Never have I ever noticed any kind of discrepancy with Nvidia's 2D image quality.

As stated above in my last post:

"Some people don't notice, some people don't care, most people just live with it"

There are lots of people that can't tell the difference between HDTV and SDTV, that doesn't mean the difference doesn't exist, some people just don't have keen eyes for such things.

[Carfax]

As stated above in my last post:

"Some people don't notice, some people don't care, most people just live with it"

There are lots of people that can't tell the difference between HDTV and SDTV, that doesn't mean the difference doesn't exist, some people just don't have keen eyes for such things.

There are also lots of people that "claim" to see large differences in image quality between various drivers from both Nvidia and AMD, yet when they are actually examined, no such differences exist.

And I have 20/15 vision, so it's not as though my eyes are bad.

[Final8ty]

There are also lots of people that "claim" to see large differences in image quality between various drivers from both Nvidia and AMD, yet when they are actually examined, no such differences exist.

And I have 20/15 vision, so it's not as though my eyes are bad.

Most people have 20/20

[Carfax]

Most people have 20/20

20/10 is the best vision a human can have, so mine aren't far off from that. When I have my eyes checked, I can read all but the finest letters on the bottom row.

And I can certainly tell the difference between HD and SD.. I can even see the difference between 720p and 1080p..

Anyway, I think it's a bogus claim that Nvidia has inferior 2D image quality.....unless Blkout has some evidence.

[Blkout]

There are also lots of people that "claim" to see large differences in image quality between various drivers from both Nvidia and AMD, yet when they are actually examined, no such differences exist.

And I have 20/15 vision, so it's not as though my eyes are bad.

You can't examine what someone else's eyes see. Having 20/15 vision has nothing to do with how your brain processes and interprets what your eyes see. Be thankful you can't see the difference dude, I wish I couldn't see the difference because it really annoys me when I have to use Nvidia video cards.

Some people can see 60Hz flicker on an analog monitor, some people can't though, once again just another example of how some people see what others can't. It doesn't mean that the 60Hz flicker isn't there, just that some people can't see it.

[Blkout]

20/10 is the best vision a human can have, so mine aren't far off from that. When I have my eyes checked, I can read all but the finest letters on the bottom row.

And I can certainly tell the difference between HD and SD.. I can even see the difference between 720p and 1080p..

Anyway, I think it's a bogus claim that Nvidia has inferior 2D image quality.....unless Blkout has some evidence.

Yea dude, I made it up because I just like to fabricate such things. I just joined the internet two days ago so please bear with me.