how bad are amd's driver support issues?

[HughofArc]

I'm trying to decide between the msi gx60 3be(8970m) and gt60 2oc(gtx 770m but $100 more). I've been reading about people's bad experiences with amd. I'd like to know if amd driver issues are frequent and how bad they can get?

 

[bryonhowley]

AMD/ATI drivers are every bit as good as Nvidia. They both have good and bad points but I do not feel either are worse than the other. I own two AMD/ATI rigs and one i5/Nvidia rig and all three run great. You should not have any real problems with either one.

 

[smeezekitty]

Most of the so called driver issues are spread by NVidia fanboys. I had one minor issue with Catalyst 13.4 in Firefox PDF viewer but other then that, no problems at all.

 

[boboftw]

Only real issue with AMD drivers are with Crossfire cards but they've fixed it in the latest beta.

 

[mehcrim]

As I just purchased a MSI GX60 3ae, is a slightly cheaper version of the 3be, with a 7970m instead of 8970 but with the the same CPU, I feel I should ask which games you intend to play (if that is your intention) as the CPU can be quite a bottleneck in CPU intensive games (like mmo's and large multiplayer games ie. 32vs32), but handles other games very well.

 

[HughofArc]

quotemsg=1154470 6,0, 207260]As I just purchased a MSI GX60 3ae, is a slightly cheaper version of the 3be, with a 7970m instead of 8970 but with the the same CPU, I feel I should ask which games you intend to play (if that is your intention) as the CPU can be quite a bottleneck in CPU intensive games (like mmo's and large multiplayer games ie. 32vs32), but handles other games very well.[/quotemsg]

I dont intend to play mmos and the like.
Mostly games like far cry 3, bioshock infinite and such. Would I have issues with those? For the price I'm paying, I'd like to eliminate potential for any problems as much as I can. Have you had any major issues?

 

[Mousemonkey]

I have a single 7790 that gets random BSOD's and GSOD's and if you add the fact that it can't fold and run a flash video at the same time because the driver crashes then yes, AMD drivers are still rubbish and its only the fanATIc's that would say different.

 

[Kari]

I've never had any problems with my ati/amd cards.... never run crossfire thou.
maybe I'm just lucky

edit also, I use flash videos (youtube) to force the clocks at lower levels when running GPGPU stuff (BOINC projects) so the card makes less noise. And the driver doesnt crash while doing it lol

 

[Mousemonkey]

I don't think luck has any part to play.

https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=Tw#hl=en&q=amd+gsod

 

[Kari]

^^ninja edit

well one could google something like 'nvidia driver killing cards' or something and get tons of complaints about nvidia users whose cards mysteriously ceased to work at all after a driver update, not that I would. One time thing and all that, wouldn't be fair...

 

[Mousemonkey]

^^ninja edit

So you have to downclock to avoid driver crashes and yet you reckon you have never seen driver problems? How does that work?

 

[Kari]

^^ninja edit

So you have to downclock to avoid driver crashes and yet you reckon you have never seen driver problems? How does that work?

ah, it doesnt crash, The fan on it just gets a bit loud when it is running at 60%+
edit and just to make it clear, the driver doesnt crash when running at full tilt, nor when the flash is running to lower the clocks, if that's the way you understood it.

 

[Mousemonkey]

^^ninja edit

So you have to downclock to avoid driver crashes and yet you reckon you have never seen driver problems? How does that work?

ah, it doesnt crash, The fan on it just gets a bit loud when it is running at 60%+
edit and just to make it clear, the driver doesnt crash when running at full tilt, nor when the flash is running to lower the clocks, if that's the way you understood it.

Try running F@H and watching a flash video, see if you get a proper crash.

 

[Kari]

Try running F@H and watching a flash video, see if you get a proper crash.

runs fine
lol imageshack needs me to register to get the darn links lol
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/o6hq.png/
there

yeah it's an 5770. but i didnt actually get it like yesterday u know... been running it for years, and boinc too...

 

[Mousemonkey]

Try running F@H and watching a flash video, see if you get a proper crash.

runs fine
lol imageshack needs me to register to get the darn links lol
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/o6hq.png/
there

yeah it's an 5770. but i didnt actually get it like yesterday u know... been running it for years, and boinc too...

You're running Core16 not the OpenCL Core17 which is the one that actually works the GPU, set the beta flag then see what happens.

 

[Kari]

Try running F@H and watching a flash video, see if you get a proper crash.

runs fine
lol imageshack needs me to register to get the darn links lol
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/o6hq.png/
there

yeah it's an 5770. but i didnt actually get it like yesterday u know... been running it for years, and boinc too...

You're running Core16 not the OpenCL Core17 which is the one that actually works the GPU, set the beta flag then see what happens.

lol wut?
100% load on the gpu as shown by gpu-z
and what beta flag where?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Try running F@H and watching a flash video, see if you get a proper crash.

runs fine
lol imageshack needs me to register to get the darn links lol
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/o6hq.png/
there

yeah it's an 5770. but i didnt actually get it like yesterday u know... been running it for years, and boinc too...

You're running Core16 not the OpenCL Core17 which is the one that actually works the GPU, set the beta flag then see what happens.

lol wut?
100% load on the gpu as shown by gpu-z

Try it and you might see what I mean.

 

[Kari]

Try it and you might see what I mean.

dont know how...
never used f@h before

but anyways you get a crash when running on some unstable beta stuff?

edit nope cant find anything about beta anything in there, nor core 16/17

edit I need to get some stuff done outside before it starts to rain here, will chek back at the evening.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Try it and you might see what I mean.

dont know how...
never used f@h before

but anyways you get a crash when running on some unstable beta stuff?

edit nope cant find anything about beta anything in there, nor core 16/17

edit I need to get some stuff done outside before it starts to rain here, will chek back at the evening.

The crashes are not from running the beta because my Nvidia cards run it just fine but the AMD card that's not so good, which is odd because AMD cards are supposed to be better at OpenCL.

Where to set the beta flag:-

 

[Kari]

ok got it to run with FahCore 0x17 showing in the WU info box, no problems so far 3.5min in, so no immediate crash anyways. it is still using quite a bit cpu power though at anywhere between 10-20%

 

[Mousemonkey]

ok got it to run with FahCore 0x17 showing in the WU info box, no problems so far 3.5min in, so no immediate crash anyways. it is still using quite a bit cpu power though at anywhere between 10-20%

You should get a Passkey and fold for a team for a while.

 

[smeezekitty]

Wheres my crash?
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/9397/kqgr.jpg

 

[Mousemonkey]

Wheres my crash?
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/9397/kqgr.jpg

Do you understand the concept of random crashes? And my flash vids have all been live TV streams not YT test vids.

 

[boboftw]

I have a single 7790 that gets random BSOD's and GSOD's and if you add the fact that it can't fold and run a flash video at the same time because the driver crashes then yes, AMD drivers are still rubbish and its only the fanATIc's that would say different.

Try right click a flash video and turn off hardware acceleration.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

amd driver issues arent frequent, but they are more-so than nvidia, and they are often slower to fix driver issues than nvidia. The crossfire issues still exist, the new beta addresses some of them......