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  • TheITS - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    It would be wonderful if they could fix overdrive so that lowering a memory overclock (to higher than stock) doesn't require a reinstall.
  • AS118 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    I agree. I ran into this problem myself even on the latest 16.1 update, and I had to uninstall and reinstall to fix the problem of ram never un-overclocking (even at idle) once you overclocked it even once.

    I even told AMD Care about it on Twitter. I like how they're trying so hard with Crimson, but to be honest, I would have preferred that they'd just stuck with Catalyst until they made sure Crimson was stable.

    The last "beta" Catalyst driver worked just fine for me.
  • nathanddrews - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    To be fair, if they kept plugging away at Catalyst while trying to support Crimson, then both products would have suffered. A clean break was needed and that's what we've got. Despite some quirks, Crimson has been really slick to use by comparison to Catalyst. I haven't upgraded since the first release, so I don't know if this is fixed, but what I found really strange was that the HDTV Overscan settings in Crimson actually open up the old CCC panel. Hopefully they have migrated all the menus over to the new platform by now.
  • bug77 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    You do realize Crimson is just a rebrand and a new GUI, don't you? Underneath it sits the same driver.
  • extide - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Yeah but his point is still valid, supporting two control panels in full swing means only half the effort on each one. And yeah some stuff hasn't been migrated to the new Radeon Settings tool yet, but I am sure they will eventually move it all and the old CCC will be gone for good.
  • nathanddrews - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Yes, this. It's the lack of thoroughness that bugs me. First thing I heard was "CCC is gone, long live Crimson!" Then the first thing I did in Crimson brought up CCC. LOL
  • mindbomb - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    I have to disagree. The first crimson driver fixed a lot of seemingly intractable bugs I had with the catalyst drivers.
  • D. Lister - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Crimson still apparently has a long list of "known issues":

    StarCraft II: Flickering may be observed in the ‘Episode 3’ campaign
    Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 – Flickering or poor performance may be experienced when running in AMD Crossfire™ mode
    Call of Duty Online – The game may crash if the Print Screen key is pressed on a 4K monitor
    A system restart may be experience when waking the system from sleep mode on some systems with Intel processors
    Star Wars™: Battlefront – Texture corruption may be experienced if the game “Field of View” setting is > 100
    Star Wars™: Battlefront – Some users may experience minor flickering or corruption at different game location or while viewing the in-game cinematics
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Building textures may be missing on some AMD Freesync™ displays with VSync enabled
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – The game may crash if the Gaming Evolved “In Game Overlay” is enabled. A temporary workaround is to disable the AMD Gaming Evolved “In Game Overlay”
    Total War™: Rome II – Choppy gameplay may be experienced
    Gaming Evolved client does not initiate when launching Metro Last Light if AMD CrossFire™ is enabled
    Far Cry 4 – A crash may occur after performing (ALT + Enter) to switch between windowed/full screen modes with the AMD Gaming Evolved “Video Capture” feature turned on
    Talos Principle – A crash may occur while changing Gaming Evolved Video settings or pressing ALT + Enter when “In Game Overlay” is enabled
    Mad Max – Low FPS performance may be experienced in game when AMD FreeSync™ and AMD CrossFire™ are enabled
    Battlefield Hardline – A crash may occur when changing graphics settings from “Ultra” to “High” during gameplay
    Some games may experience brightness flickering with AMD FreeSync™ enabled
    Radeon Settings – AMD OverDrive™ clock gauge needles for the secondary GPU may be in wrong position when the system is idle and the secondary GPU is inactive
    Radeon Settings – AMD OverDrive™ Power setting changes on the secondary GPU are not immediately displayed. This is seen only on dual GPU graphics cards, such as the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 and Radeon R9 295×2
    Game stuttering may be experienced when running two AMD Radeon™ R9 295X2 graphics cards in AMD CrossFire™ mode
    Display corruption may occur on multiple display systems when it has been running idle for some time
    Star Wars™: Battlefront – Corrupted ground textures may be observed in the Survival of Hoth mission
    Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 – Flickering may be observed is task switching is used during gameplay
    Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Building textures are missing and game objects stutter if VSync is enabled in Quad AMD Crossfire configurations


    18% market share, and dropping...
  • Creig - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Hey genius, guess what? Nvidia has their own long list of "known issues".
  • D. Lister - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Of course, no piece of hardware is perfect. It is just that some are more imperfect than others. Either that, or Nvidia has hired dark elves to mind-control the public into buying something more buggy for a higher price tag.
  • looncraz - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    That's exactly what they've done. I've built four or five nVidia systems (and about as many AMD systems) in the last couple of years and the nVidia issues are more frequent than the AMD ones. Not sure if that's just a matter of the usage pattern for my customers or a matter of expectations, but each time AMD had a fix, and only once did nVidia have a fix.

    It is definitely a stark contrast to the past, though, where problems on an AMD card meant finding a 3rd party fix (which usually existed) or just dealing with it for a few months, whereas nVidia would usually release a fix in their next driver. It genuinely seems that AMD has picked up the ball just as nVidia has stumbled.

    nVidia is providing better support for outdated architectures, though... even if their hardware doesn't age anywhere near as well as AMD's.
  • blppt - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    I cant remotely report the same. I have 2 systems currently, one with 2 290x (s) in CF and one with two Titan Blacks. I usually have to wait a couple of months for new games to get good CF support, whereas Nvidia's pretty much work from launch day. And AMD had been so slack in getting new drivers out in 2015 to get new CF profiles, I'm just about set on going single card for my next AMD build.

    The crimson control panel sure is slick though, and much less of an eyesore than Nvidia's. Actually, even the old CCC seemed more slick than Nvidia's CP.

    But I almost always have more issues with new games with AMD's drivers than Nvidia's. I'm sure some of it has to do with the rash of GW titles out there now, but for games like GTA5, which favored neither card (it had both AMD and Nvidia's own Shadow tech in game), or Battlefront, which if anything, favors AMD due to the Frostbite engine being AMD-friendly in the past (multiple Mantle releases) there is no excuse.

    Other than simply not having the resources to devote to the driver team that its competition does.
  • LordanSS - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    I have two desktop computers, one running nVidia and other AMD cards.

    I've always been quite surprised by this idea people have, that AMD drivers are inferior. Perhaps they were, once in the distant past. For the past few years, I've had more issues with nVidia drivers than AMD's.

    To each their own I guess.
  • silverblue - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Maybe AMD are more forthcoming? I don't know.
  • Colin1497 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Whether they list them or not, they're going to have a list of known issues. I'm going to say that publicly listing "known issues" is actually a good thing. It's insight into things that they're working to fix for users instead of them just being a black box.
  • tuxfool - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Yeah, lets never report what the currently known issue are, so then people can keep filing away at those bug reports ad infinitum.
  • D. Lister - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    What you said reminds me of that South Park episode about the Catholic priests. I have no problem with them reporting the issues - the problem is with the number of issues.

    I say it time and time again, AMD makes fairly competitive hardware, but than takes far too long to catch up on the software side, and even then often forego reliability for raw performance.

    This generation, with both GPU makers stuck at 28nm, AMD had ample opportunity to make changes. If, for example, instead of spending money on hurriedly putting out a 28nm Fury with 4GB HBM1, only to still remain at second place even in raw performance, they focused exclusively on making their existing lineup of hardware more efficient, and put a greater emphasis on software development, they would be in a much better position for the next die shrink. Then they could release Fury2.0 at 16nm with 8GB HBM2 with a Crimson software suite with a much smaller "known issues" list.
  • Holydiver19 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    You're saying that just by changing to 16nm, it will magically resolve tons of issues like this? From my understanding, it's just going to produce more efficiently and less power consumption.

    Also if AMD didn't push out the Fury. Everyone would be shitting on AMD saying how they don't have a 4k card that is comparable to the 980/980ti. Not to mention, people don't like waiting for huge advancements in tech when they want something now.

    If anything, Nvidia has to pull their socks up for DX12 or AMD will pull ahead in my opinion.
  • D. Lister - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    "You're saying that just by changing to 16nm, it will magically resolve tons of issues like this?"

    No, but allocating more resources to the software side certainly would. More money = More people working more hours = quicker fixes.

    "Everyone would be shitting on AMD saying how they don't have a 4k card that is comparable to the 980/980ti."

    Let's be realistic, the unfortunate fact of the matter is, they still don't. Having to resort to water-cooling just to barely keep up, with a 2GB VRAM handicap, isn't really comparable.
  • Intel999 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Funny, from all the reviews I've seen the Fury X holds up quite well against both the Titan and the 980ti. Go down to 1080P and that 980ti shines. Nothing better than 120 fps on a 60 hz screen. Money well spent!
  • kuttan - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    For your Trolling Attempt look else where.
  • D. Lister - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    For your writing attempt, look right here >> http://www.say-it-in-english.com/Lessons.html
  • bill.rookard - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    I wound up getting rid of the Crimson drivers - they kept causing BSODs on my system. Yes, I'm running closer to legacy hardware (dual 6000 series cards in Crossfire), but the rest of my system is very up to date, and the fact that they were beta drivers and weren't going to be updated ever meant a permanent problem.

    Since removing the drivers and rolling back - no BSODs.
    (system: Gigabyte Z97 board, i5-4670k, 16GB RAM, Samsung 830 SSD, assorted other drives, dual HD 6770s in Crossfire, Win7 Ultimate)
  • PrinceGaz - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    I didn't think the HD6000 (and everything back to the HD4000) series drivers were being updated either, but they are included as supported in this 16.1 beta version.

    I may be wrong here, but it looks like all AMD has done with these older cards is to no longer provide WHQL versions of the updated drivers for them: the 15.12 WHQL did *not* support the HD6000 series, despite the non-WHQL but otherwise identical 15.11.1 beta release officially supporting them.

    Presumably a WHQL version of this new driver will be released at some point and again they will not support HD6000 cards, but the beta driver it is based on will still be listed as the most recent driver for it.
  • extide - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    I bet we will see some form of support for the VLIW cards until the next major/semi-major driver branch.
  • tarqsharq - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    From AMD in November:

    "AMD Radeon HD 8000 Series (HD 8400 and below), Radeon HD 7000 Series (HD 7600 and below), Radeon HD 6000 Series, and Radeon HD 5000 Series Graphics products have reached peak performance optimization as of November 24th, 2015. These products have been moved to a legacy support model and no additional driver releases are planned. This change enables us to dedicate valuable engineering resources to developing new features and enhancements for graphics products based on the GCN Architecture", says Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

    I think this means you'll not want to download the latest drivers like Crimson anymore...
  • PrinceGaz - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link

    The question that leaves is: why are AMD suggesting that the latest beta is the most recent driver for those cards? It's a big 300+MB download that I've downloaded three times now (15.11, 15.11.1, now 16.1). They must be fixing something, otherwise it's a waste of bandwidth for everyone involved.
  • Colin1497 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Comments on why this is a "hotfix?" Normally I think of a hotfix as an release to fix a specific problem that is outside the normal release cycle and that may not be fully regression tested.
  • geogan - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Anyone know if this Hotfix fixed the problem of Star Wars Battlefront not actually being able to use more than a single AMD GPU at all without total corruption and extremelly low framerates???? It's a disgrace having one GPU sitting at 0% while the other is being battered at 100% trying to get anywhere near 60fps on a 1920x1200 display... seriously looking at replacing this AMD card with a 980Ti at this stage...
  • BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    There's not a lot of effort put into multi-GPU configurations for either AMD or NV at this point by game developers because of the very small number of systems where more than one GPU is present. In addition to the tepid acknowledgement from developers, there are a lot of additional bugs introduced by attempting to use a second GPU as listed by the manufacturer in their known issues publications. Adding a second card always exposes you to those additional problems. With DX12 pushing multi-GPU support out to game developers, it seems like there's never been a better time to just go with a single graphics card regardless of what company's logo is on the cooling fan sticker.
  • geogan - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Seems developers have given up on SLI/crossfire because PS4 does not and will never have it. AMD and NVidia can't say this either because they make a lot of money selling second cards and dual GPU cards to mugs like me.
  • Holydiver19 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    The funny thing is that you'd run into very similar issues if you ran Dual Nvidia cars in SLI. Gaming Developers are very inept it seems in creating suitable crossfire/sli suitable software. AMD/Nvidia can only do so much.

    Also if you want to go Nvidia in prepping for DX12. I feel sorry for you son..
  • geogan - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Since I installed this hotfix, I now am no longer able to disable the second GPU at all on the card. So now I am stuck with low framerates (25-50fps) ans glitching/corruption instead of what I was getting by turning one of them off (60fps+). Why is the game ignoring the Disabled crossfire setting in control panel now?!?!?
  • Blendeles - Sunday, January 17, 2016 - link

    Really dissapointed with crimson drivers both new hotfix version and the previous version. I have a single r9 290x after installing any crimson version I get 15-20fps drops across all games plus stuttering. I have uninstalled previous drivers and installed new ones correctly, I have checked all GPU settings to see if it is downclocked, if fan is limited, vrm, voltages, temps etc etc etc - all are fine. I have tried virtually every option/setting in crimson interface/CCC 1 by 1 to see if I could find the problem - nada nothin helps. Uninstall Crimson (properly) and re-install CCC 15.7.1 problem dissapears immediatley and fps jumps back up. Really dissapointed was hoping for a bit of a boost with crimson and instead got the exact opposite!
  • ss1lsah - Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - link

    Same situation here - RoG rampage 4 black edition i7-4720K 2xR290X - system totally crashes after crimson and trying to enable or disable CF. Win 7 disables both cards in device manager. This made me pissed as i uninstalled all amd drivers, then the cards as devices, several restarts as amd couldnt uninstall comletely, reg cleaning etc. Tried installing crimson + hot fix right after but no success. System crashes again and again cards are disabled by windows. Same procedure for deleting all again and back to 15.7.1 working need and tidy. Very dissappointed by all new drivers bla bla something working good was .......

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