Question Returned to Team Red after 20 years... What do I need to know?

[Jabberwocky79]

Hi friends,

I have owned Radeon cards back when they were still ATI and loved them, but switched to Team Green many years ago, starting with a EVGA 450, then two MSI 580's in SLI, then a EVGA 690, a MSI 1080, and most recently a ASUS 1080Ti. After building a new system last year and desperately needing a new card right when entering the GPU dark ages, I finally had the chance to buy a 9070XT and took it. So I'm now using a Gigabyte Aorus Elite 9070XT.

I know Nvidia quirks & features, software, and best practices inside-and-out. But I am starting completely fresh on AMD.... what do I need to know about their software? Other quirks or what-not that would be helpful? Just curious.

 

[NanoSuit3]

You know I feel kinda proud of you in a way that you made your 20 year long switch back to Team Red for some reason whereas my FIRST ever GPU was a Radeon PowerColor HD 6570 2GB. However my breakup to Team Red was that . . . I had owned an AMD R9 280e 3GB and for some reason outta nowhere . . . it basically exploded inside my case . . . so . . . not taking anymore chances on that BUT...............................with that said AMD has made huge HUGE leaps from 2005 to now as their basically the top best selling of GPUs SO FAR until Nvidia figures out that their new 50-Series is a mockery shamed knockoff 40 Series RebootREBOOT...................................Quirks aside are that you can basically run a lot better with these cards and with RayTracing too . . . & that's basically all I know I just wanted to tell my story of my last AMD GPU I ever owned LOLOLOLOLOL.............................

 

[Jabberwocky79]

Well, my brand loyalty only extends to its usefulness. In the case of Nvidia, I hopped on the Stereoscopic 3D train and loved playing in 3D for years. They slowly let it die, which meant that my only loyalty to them was because they DO make the fastest cards. But that has become a less compelling reason to stick with them at this point. I think Nvidia has gotten too big for their britches and somebody needs to take them down a notch. I'm happy to oblige, however little a dent it makes.

 

[beyondlogic]

Hi friends,

I have owned Radeon cards back when they were still ATI and loved them, but switched to Team Green many years ago, starting with a EVGA 450, then two MSI 580's in SLI, then a EVGA 690, a MSI 1080, and most recently a ASUS 1080Ti. After building a new system last year and desperately needing a new card right when entering the GPU dark ages, I finally had the chance to buy a 9070XT and took it. So I'm now using a Gigabyte Aorus Elite 9070XT.

I know Nvidia quirks & features, software, and best practices inside-and-out. But I am starting completely fresh on AMD.... what do I need to know about their software? Other quirks or what-not that would be helpful? Just curious.

honestly the 9070xt drivers seem fairly solid

there hasn't been any major issues from what i can tell these chips ate monolithic so they dont have the teething issues of the 7900 xt etc.

there may be a couple of resolution tweaks in windows.

for whatever reason my Radeon 6700xt for example zoomed in by 25 percent instead of native depends on your monitor it can make it look blurry so check the display is correct in windows.

fsr has a nasty habit of being on most games by default turn it off if you feel everything's over sharp.

you may feel certain hair textures might not look as nice that's a observation coming from NVidia to amd.

instead of flowing hairy Gerald from Witcher may have air that looks like a pomp pomp going up and down instead of flowing it may look stiffer.

these are my own observations others may see it differently.

i used to get character model problems on tales of arisen that made the flaws of the game come out a bit too perfect. ( it wasnt buggy gpu i used 3 models to test it.) it was less noticable on the nvidia.

also some older games anti aliasing wont work you have to do it threw the adrenline software.

 

[stuff and nonesense]

I know Nvidia quirks & features, software, and best practices inside-and-out. But I am starting completely fresh on AMD.... what do I need to know about their software? Other quirks or what-not that would be helpful? Just curious.

Have a look at Ancient Gameplays on YouTube, he dissects each AMD gpu driver release and if you are interested he gives an OC guide.

 

[JayGau]

You don't need to know much beside that you have to use DDU to remove all Nvidia stuff and make sure to install Adrenalin (the software is great, it's the thing I miss the most from my short journey with a RX 7900 XTX two years ago).

 

[Jabberwocky79]

Thanks for all this - great suggestions.

I'm finding the Adrenalin software to be a bit hard to wrap my brain around (this coming from a UI designer). One day I go in and find all of my installed games lined up in a grid that allows me to select different performance profiles for each, the next day they aren't listed anywhere.

Lastly, (this is more of a Gigabyte thing) I downloaded Gigabytes Control Center to change the RGB color on the card, then immediately uninstalled the Gigabyte software since it's craptastic. The RGB color stayed true, however apparently there was some kind of performance profile left behind that overrides the performance profile of Adrenalin. I know this because the fans spin up to max speed anytime a profile is selected other than default (in Adrenalin). They literally sound like a jet engine taking off. I searched for this issue and someone else confirmed that it's due to a performance profile from the Gigabyte software. So, I haven't been able to experiment with OC'ing because no matter what I adjust in Adrenalin (including fan curves), the Gigabyte profile takes over.

Any ideas on how to remove that profile? I have no idea if it's a leftover folder somewhere, or something in the registry.... I used Revo Uninstaller to remove the Control Center.

 

[alceryes]

AMD doesn't suffer from the poor driver issues that haunted them 15+ years ago. Actually, NVIDIA seems to have recently taken up that mantle. Other than that, I don't really use the Adrenalin software much, other than setting everything up initially.

Ray tracing has been vastly improved with the 9070-series, but it still does lag behind NVIDIA in the performance hit. Overall, the performance hit may only be worth the visual improvement in some games.

FSR 4 is going to be a game changer for AMD. They really need to throw money at getting it into all the most popular games - it's that much of an improvement over FSR 3. See Hardware Unboxed's review of FSR 4.

Undervolting to keep the card cooler AND get better performance works very well with the 9070 XT.

My nephew has been running with the 9070 XT for almost a month now and has had zero issues. He games at least 6 hours a day, every day, and plays a dozen different games ranging from CP2077 to some weird 8-bit-looking game.

Any questions - just ask.

 

[Jabberwocky79]

AMD doesn't suffer from the poor driver issues that haunted them 15+ years ago. Actually, NVIDIA seems to have recently taken up that mantle.

Any questions - just ask.

I believe it.

Actually that does bring up a question: Any issues with micro-stuttering on your nephew's rig? I'm having a bad issue with micro-stuttering on Need for Speed Unbound. But that being said, I had the same problem with Nvidia drivers on every driver release after the one released for that game. I couldn't update Nvidia drivers while playing that game for that reason. Of course after switching to AMD, now I have no choice, so the micro-stuttering is really irritating. I thought it was a 100% Nvidia driver problem, but now I'm thinking it's an issue inherent to the game along with driver issues.

 

[JayGau]

Thanks for all this - great suggestions.

I'm finding the Adrenalin software to be a bit hard to wrap my brain around (this coming from a UI designer). One day I go in and find all of my installed games lined up in a grid that allows me to select different performance profiles for each, the next day they aren't listed anywhere.

Lastly, (this is more of a Gigabyte thing) I downloaded Gigabytes Control Center to change the RGB color on the card, then immediately uninstalled the Gigabyte software since it's craptastic. The RGB color stayed true, however apparently there was some kind of performance profile left behind that overrides the performance profile of Adrenalin. I know this because the fans spin up to max speed anytime a profile is selected other than default (in Adrenalin). They literally sound like a jet engine taking off. I searched for this issue and someone else confirmed that it's due to a performance profile from the Gigabyte software. So, I haven't been able to experiment with OC'ing because no matter what I adjust in Adrenalin (including fan curves), the Gigabyte profile takes over.

Any ideas on how to remove that profile? I have no idea if it's a leftover folder somewhere, or something in the registry.... I used Revo Uninstaller to remove the Control Center.

I don't know the Gigabyte software but sometimes, those programs write the profile directly to the card's firmware. I did that with MSI Afterburner (on purpose) so I don't need to have it running in background to have my custom fan curve active. If the Gigabyte software did that I guess you could flash the card's BIOS or reinstall the Gigabyte software and figure out how to remove the saved profile with it.

But it's really strange that Adrenalin can't overide that. You could also try MSI Afterburner and see if you can change the fan curve with it. If your card supports the firmware curve setting try to enable it (that should overide the Gigabyte profile), then reboot and disable the firmware fan curve (still in Afterburner). Then close Afterburner, go back to Adrenalin and see if you can set the fan curve.

 

[beyondlogic]

I believe it.

Actually that does bring up a question: Any issues with micro-stuttering on your nephew's rig? I'm having a bad issue with micro-stuttering on Need for Speed Unbound. But that being said, I had the same problem with Nvidia drivers on every driver release after the one released for that game. I couldn't update Nvidia drivers while playing that game for that reason. Of course after switching to AMD, now I have no choice, so the micro-stuttering is really irritating. I thought it was a 100% Nvidia driver problem, but now I'm thinking it's an issue inherent to the game along with driver issues.

Try turning off GPU acceleration under graphics in display in windows it plays foul with some games causing frame tearing I. Hogwarts legacy. And kept crashing fornite

 

[alceryes]

I believe it.

Actually that does bring up a question: Any issues with micro-stuttering on your nephew's rig? I'm having a bad issue with micro-stuttering on Need for Speed Unbound. But that being said, I had the same problem with Nvidia drivers on every driver release after the one released for that game. I couldn't update Nvidia drivers while playing that game for that reason. Of course after switching to AMD, now I have no choice, so the micro-stuttering is really irritating. I thought it was a 100% Nvidia driver problem, but now I'm thinking it's an issue inherent to the game along with driver issues.

He hasn't experienced any stuttering, as far as I know.

Micro-stuttering can be several things. Are you using a good/fast NVMe drive? How much stuff do you have running in the background? Are you overclocking/undervolting/adjusting memory timings?

Load up HWiNFO64 (sensors only, logging on) and game with the micro-stuttering for at least 30 mins. If you have any major stutters, keep note of the times they occur and post them. Upload the log file somewhere we can download it (without loggingg in) so we can have a look under the hood.

 

[Jabberwocky79]

I don't know the Gigabyte software but sometimes, those programs write the profile directly to the card's firmware.

I think you're right about the Gigabyte CC. Writing it to the firmware, or onboard memory(?) would explain why the RGB color persisted even after uninstalling the software. I might try flashing the BIOS... never done that with a GPU before. Where do I even find it?

Micro-stuttering can be several things. Are you using a good/fast NVMe drive? How much stuff do you have running in the background? Are you overclocking/undervolting/adjusting memory timings?

Load up HWiNFO64 (sensors only, logging on) and game with the micro-stuttering for at least 30 mins. If you have any major stutters, keep note of the times they occur and post them. Upload the log file somewhere we can download it (without loggingg in) so we can have a look under the hood.

For sure about the NVMe... Gen 4 drives on a PCIE Gen 5 mobo. Haven't OC'd the CPU yet but running the RAM on XMP @ 6200mhz (Stock is 6000). As for background apps... yeah, a fair bit. I used to be more diligent about that stuff when I was running a really old system. FWIW, that game is the only one I'm having any issues with. Everything else is running excellent.

I will take you up on the offer to look at logs but it'll be down the road. Thanks

 

[JayGau]

I think you're right about the Gigabyte CC. Writing it to the firmware, or onboard memory(?) would explain why the RGB color persisted even after uninstalling the software. I might try flashing the BIOS... never done that with a GPU before. Where do I even find it?

I've never done that either with a GPU and it doesn't look like Gigabyte makes it easy to find. But it's always risky to do that and I would really first try to either remove the profile with the Gigabyte app or override it with MSI Afterburner.

About the RGB, it's always like that. Most software set it in the card internal memory so it stays even when you uninstall the software (I did the same with my MSI 4080, I installed MSI Control Center just to set the RBG and then uninstalled it).

By the way, that reminds me that I couldn't set my GPU fan curve with any other software (even Afterburner) until I completely uninstalled MSI Control Center. You may have a similar issue. Maybe reinstalling the Gigabyte utility and uninstalling it could help (uninstall it with Revo Uninstaller and make sure you delete every file and registy entry).

 

[Jabberwocky79]

By the way, that reminds me that I couldn't set my GPU fan curve with any other software (even Afterburner) until I completely uninstalled MSI Control Center. You may have a similar issue. Maybe reinstalling the Gigabyte utility and uninstalling it could help (uninstall it with Revo Uninstaller and make sure you delete every file and registy entry).

I'll try. But that's what I did the first time (Revo Uninstaller/deleted everything.). I can't remember tinkering with any performance-related settings in the Gigabyte CC, but maybe I did. I may have set it to high performance and then uninstalled. So, it might be a case of needing to change it/set it to a default profile before uninstalling it.

 

[JayGau]

I'll try. But that's what I did the first time (Revo Uninstaller/deleted everything.). I can't remember tinkering with any performance-related settings in the Gigabyte CC, but maybe I did. I may have set it to high performance and then uninstalled. So, it might be a case of needing to change it/set it to a default profile before uninstalling it.

You can try MSI Afterburner too. Install it and in the settings, go to the "Fan" tab and click on "Use Firmware Control Mode". Then set the fan curve, click on apply and see if it changes your fan speed.

 

[Jabberwocky79]

You can try MSI Afterburner too. Install it and in the settings, go to the "Fan" tab and click on "Use Firmware Control Mode". Then set the fan curve, click on apply and see if it changes your fan speed.

Update: I reinstalled the Gigabyte Control Center and ensured that all parameters were set to default, then uninstalled again. That seemed to fix the weird fan curve issues 😎

 

[JayGau]

Update: I reinstalled the Gigabyte Control Center and ensured that all parameters were set to default, then uninstalled again. That seemed to fix the weird fan curve issues 😎

Glad to read that!

 

[Jabberwocky79]

Have a look at Ancient Gameplays on YouTube, he dissects each AMD gpu driver release and if you are interested he gives an OC guide.

I really appreciated you pointing this out. I watched one of his videos and it helped me understand Adrenaline a lot more.

Another update: After tweaking some settings in Adrenaline, I have all but eliminated the micro-stuttering issues I was having in one game. It's not that they are gone necessarily, but the average fps is so high they are all but imperceptible. Everything else has been rock solid. Haven't tried OC-ing yet but I'm really liking this card, and not regretting the extra $700 saved from NOT getting a 5080.

 

[stuff and nonesense]

I really appreciated you pointing this out. I watched one of his videos and it helped me understand Adrenaline a lot more.

Another update: After tweaking some settings in Adrenaline, I have all but eliminated the micro-stuttering issues I was having in one game. It's not that they are gone necessarily, but the average fps is so high they are all but imperceptible. Everything else has been rock solid. Haven't tried OC-ing yet but I'm really liking this card, and not regretting the extra $700 saved from NOT getting a 5080.

You’re welcome.