ATI/AMD Cat 8.8 finals ....There here so get testing...

[gOtVoltage]

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_ca...=xp/radeonx-xp

[RhoXeD]

so far no difference for me

running 2 3870's

[Particle]

I'll give them a spin on my 4850s when I get a chance.

[oldpueblo]

They finally recognize the onboard 3300. Before I had to use the CD drivers that came with the board.

[Oliverda]

Hybrid Graphics support for Windows XP

[Oese]

with cat 8.8 my 4850 undervolts and underclocks to 250/500 and 0.9v when idle, obviously due to powerplay profiles stored in the driver...

unfortunately, modded biosses do not work very well. overdrive limit of the 4850 can not now be overridden, only chance is to fill in every state in the bios, except last voltage entry, must be left blank..

that way it works with my 4850 and cat 8.8:

http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bioslr2.jpg

its penciled slightly so these clocks are at 1,24v..

[Particle]

They finally recognize the onboard 3300. Before I had to use the CD drivers that came with the board.

The deal was that you had to use OLD drivers for some reason (I experienced that too on my 790GX board). The last 3-4 months worth of Catalyst drivers didn't support the 790GX IGP but the release before that did, meaning you could download and install like 8.4 or something around there off the website and have it work...slowly.

[gOtVoltage]

There slowly getting better...
I think i was expecting alot from the 8.8's but coming from the 8.8beta i see sublte differences .. Hmm they consentrated on Powerplay(GOOD) and stability with game fixes thrown in...

I dont see any big Xfire or CROSSFIRE enhancements(speed or big FPS) although it is definetly smoother gaming AA// (*due to powerplay performance being better)I dont mind at all .

I do wish they would eliminate the Limits in CCC... I believe is causes more havoc than sanity

Its also nice to Know Hybrid is better now under XP/vista ,,seeing i will be getting a GXMobo soon and running XP32 and Vista64..Now with 4850 and Higher End cards i can actually make the Move 100% to DX10 with it actually making sense... Dx9 is still very supurb with all the new emerging Graphicscards .Since i have been putting things off DX10(Vista was not a thought for me Untill this 8.8 release of drivers...)

I highly believe (8.9beta or Final release) will bring the Optimized speed tweaks for Xfire and Crossfire we are still waiting for..ATi seems to be concentrating on Stability and propper Function rather than speed.

What i really like the best with 8.8 is that the Picture Quality//AA performance is more noticable or ALIVE NOW .It dosnt seem to broke like what ive seen or read about 8.7's. Again 8.7's seemed to not look as good, so i am happy No BSOD's even with Phenon @3450mhz.This means Its some what stable still for Overclocking madness..

I cant wait for my 4870x2 , if i do it will be cheaper in a week

[Mechromancer]

I dont know if it is the work unit or cat 8.8 drivers but I'm getting 3978 PPD on Folding@Home:



WTF?! I like it but I was only getting 2200 PPD yesterday with the 8.7s. Maybe this 548 point WU is to blame.

[Morais]

nice...thinking start folding on gpu when i get a decent cooler on it

[blaH]

I dont know if it is the work unit or cat 8.8 drivers but I'm getting 3978 PPD on Folding@Home:

WTF?! I like it but I was only getting 2200 PPD yesterday with the 8.7s. Maybe this 548 point WU is to blame.

its new WU now they are able to more effectivelly use big amount of shaders

[kazgirl]

Well I tried the 8.8 official drivers, display driver version 8.522 and I still find that the 8.8 Beta version 8.54 is much...much better, though even this still has stability problems with Vista x64 in Mass Effect "Driver failed and recovered" problem every 10mins or thereabouts, game go's to black screen for about 30s - 1min then will recover and game will resume...

This is has been the case with 8.7 official, 8.7 beta, 8.8 official and 8.8 beta's...

Really hoping that ATI can get the driver sorted in 8.9 starting to get fed up of it now really spoils gameplay....

I've also read about a MS Hotfix for Vista thats available for use with Cat 8.8 Crossfire configs, havn't tried it yet, anyone know anything about it or have any other suggestions...

Hotfix Link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948473/en-us

[Oese]

@ kazgirl: do you use modded bios? i have big problems with my modded biosses and the 8.8 also..

[kazgirl]

Hi Oese..

No using the reference BIOS ATM...

I've read that the newer Catalyst Drivers from 8.7 on read the BIOS version when searching for ATI Hardware so if a modded BIOS is used that doesn't have the same Vendor ID's etc as the original BIOS this is what causes the driver to give an error message saying no "ATI Hardware detected/Installed"

In my case though I have no problem getting it to install, its just really poor performance.... I've also read this MS article re: Vista performance and the "Display Driver failed and recovered" problem....

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...m_timeout.mspx

Timeout Detection and Recovery
Windows Vista attempts to detect these problematic hang situations and recover a responsive desktop dynamically. In this process, the Microsoft Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver is reinitialized and the GPU is reset. No reboot is necessary, which greatly enhances the user experience. The only visible artifact from the hang detection to the recovery is a screen flicker, which results from resetting some portions of the graphics stack, causing a screen redraw. Some older Microsoft DirectX applications may render to a black screen at the end of this recovery. The end user would have to restart these applications.

The following is a brief overview of the TDR process:

1.
Timeout detection: The Video Scheduler component of the Windows Vista graphics stack detects that the GPU is taking more than the permitted quantum time to execute the particular task and tries to preempt this particular task. The preempt operation has a "wait" timeout—the actual "TDR timeout." This step is thus the "timeout detection" phase of the process. The default timeout period in Windows Vista is 2 seconds. If the GPU cannot complete or preempt the current task within the TDR timeout, then the GPU is diagnosed as hung.

2.
Preparation for recovery: The operating system informs the WDDM driver that a timeout has been detected and it must reset the GPU. The driver is told to stop accessing memory and should not access hardware after this time. The operating system and the WDDM driver collect hardware and other state information that could be useful for post-mortem diagnosis.

3.
Desktop recovery: The operating system resets the appropriate state of the graphics stack. The Video Memory Manager component of the graphics stack purges all allocations from video memory. The WDDM driver resets the GPU hardware state. The graphics stack takes the final actions and restores the desktop to the responsive state. As mentioned earlier, some older DirectX applications may now render just black, and the user may be required to restart these applications. Well-written DirectX 9Ex and DirectX 10 applications that handle "Device Remove" continue to work correctly. The application must release and then recreate its Microsoft Direct3D device and all of its objects. DirectX application programmers can find more information in the Windows SDK.


Top of page
Error Messaging
Throughout the process of GPU hang detection and recovery, the desktop is unresponsive and thus unavailable to the user. In the final stages of recovery, a brief screen flash occurs that is similar to the one when the screen resolution is changed. After the desktop has been successfully recovered, the following informational message appears to the user:

"Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered"


The message is also logged in the Windows Vista Event Viewer. Diagnosis information is collected in the form of a debug report that is returned to Microsoft through the Online Crash Analysis (OCA) mechanism if the user opts in to provide feedback.

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Registry Keys
The following registry keys are documented for testing purposes only. These registry keys should not be manipulated by any applications outside targeted testing or debugging.

The TDR-related registry keys are located under HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDriv ers.

• TdrLevel: REG_DWORD. The initial level of recovery. The possible values are:

• TdrLevelOff (0). – Detection disabled.

• TdrLevelBugcheck (1) – Bug check on detected timeout, for example, no recovery.

• TdrLevelRecoverVGA (2) – Recover to VGA (not implemented).

• TdrLevelRecover(3) – Recover on timeout. This is the default value.


• TdrDelay: REG_DWORD. The number of seconds that the GPU is allowed to delay the preempt request from the scheduler. This is effectively the timeout threshold. The default value is 2.

• TdrDdiDelay: REG_DWORD. The number of seconds that the operating system allows threads to leave the driver. After a specified time, the operating system bug checks the system with the code VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (0x116). The default value is 5.

• TdrTestMode: REG_DWORD: Internal test usage.

• TdrDebugMode: REG_DWORD: The debugging-related behavior of the TDR process.

• TDR_DEBUG_MODE_OFF (0) breaks to kernel debugger before the recovery to allow investigation of the timeout.

• TDR_DEBUG_MODE_IGNORE_TIMEOUT (1) ignores any timeout.

• TDR_DEBUG_MODE_RECOVER_NO_PROMPT (2) recovers without break into the debugger. This is the default value.

• TDR_DEBUG_MODE_RECOVER_UNCONDITIONAL (3) recovers even if some recovery conditions are not met (for example, recovers on consecutive timeouts).

[Oese]

mmh vendor id's cannot be the problem over here, as i modded my original bios (and you can compare the id's during the flash, its all the same). the modded bios with removed ccc overclocking limit will cause the system not to recognize the card, clocks that are higher then 700mhz will be overridden by Overdrive unless one sets them in all three sections, but then gray stripey screens occur.

worst is with voltages entered in the bios, this will cause blackscreens if entered in the last section.. horrible. on stock bios with 700/1125 now..

[MrMojoZ]

Doesn't look good for these with the amount of problems I am seeing reported. I'm waiting to buy a new card until Ati gets their drivers more solid or nvidia is forced to further reduce prices.

[charged3800z24]

I installed and haven't tried much,.. just played some Grid and BF2. I also used RBE to modify the bios and set my 4850 to 800/ 1050. ATI CCC shows it correctly and GPU-Z. so far so good..

[Oese]

do you use voltages or different clocks in bios? does your card clock down in 2d or does it run at 800mhz all the time? how come ccc shows you a 800mhz clock? do you have a screenshot or could you send me the bios? sounds very interesting..

[BertM]

i use a hd3870 on which i adjusted the bios for lower 2d voltage and mhz.
winxp32 and no problems so far in gta sa and crysis.
i had an error message in the beginning of install but when i clicked 'ok' it continued without further problems.

[drizzt5]

So if you have a modded bios stay away from these drivers? 8.7 is working fine for me, I don't feel like giving up my bios <3

[charged3800z24]

do you use voltages or different clocks in bios? does your card clock down in 2d or does it run at 800mhz all the time? how come ccc shows you a 800mhz clock? do you have a screenshot or could you send me the bios? sounds very interesting..

I will get a screen shot when I get off work... I have 2d down clocking working.. and it shows true in ATI CCC. It also shows true in GPU-Z. I use the FUR in ATI Tool to verify. I made an hard mod for voltage, running 1.25v I haven't modded the mem.

[mr2sw21]

I have installed the 8.8 last night and seem like it is nothing better but making FPS a little slower but I can't tell the different during the games.

[AliG]

I personally think ati is fine to set a limit on the ocing, but just a mere 75 and 40 mhz for the 4850 and 4870 respectively is way too little. The limit should be at something like 900mhz for both. Then again we have free ocing warranty with the limit

[drizzt5]

I don't care... I voided my warranty when I hack sawed the stock heat sink in half to cool my vr's ...(as did many others)... give me liberty to OC a lot or give me death (not rly)

[Oese]

rbe 1.14 is out and opens oc to 720mhz for 4850 and some 990mhz or so for 4870.

bur with downcloking and ocing by bios i have remaining problems with cat 8.8..

charged: i'd really like to have your bios. could you send it to me? or post an rbe screenshot of the clocking tab?