AMD Catalyst 12.2 Pre-Certified Driver 2/16/2012

[B^gD^ddy~CF~]

This CAT is missing the SDK, this causes all kinds of weird behavior if you try to cleansweep/atiman to remove prior CATs.

The simplest solution is to install 12.2 or before, then install this RC right over the top allowing CAT Manager to handle uninstalling necessarily components.

This will fix the AB OC issues, as well as the GPU-Z cat reporting issue...

The only thing ive found wrong with this release is after a length of time, powerplay ignores any unlocked vcore increases, and reverts to the bios default causing GPU resets if youve upped vcore and not flashed it to the bios.

I don't overclock so I can't really comment on that portion. But when I look at the installed components under the AMD Catalyst Install Manager I do see the AMD APP SDK runtime. I only ever do clean installs so if that's the SDK your speaking of then it is included in the pre-certified drivers. I've encountered no other issues with these pre-certified drivers other than they were missing those two files, and they continue to have the scaling bug when BF3 is launched from an Eyefinity grouped desktop but played at a single monitor resolution. I did notice however that GPU-Z and Afterburner don't seem to agree with each other as far as what the clocks are staticly stated as being versus what AfterBurner measures in real time.

Lets not forget the eyefinity prob launching BF3.. = BSOD for me.

You have an extreme configuration to be sure Eclypse. If I remember from earlier in the thread you said you only get the BSOD when you try to launch from more than one screen. Am I taking it correctly that by that you mean that when you launch from Eyefinity grouped displays you get a BSOD? Do you get the BSOD when you launch the game from an extended desktop or mirrored displays? This sounds like it could somehow be linked to the BF3 Scaling Bug but more extreme in your case. When I launch BF3 from Eyefinity desktop and the game is configured to play at a single monitor resolution then the scaling completely breaks. One card gets used completely while the other pretty much sits idle. When I launch the game and configure it for an Eyefinity resolution the game scales across the cards just fine. I'll have to test and see if launching from an Eyefinity grouped desktop to an Eyefinity resolution in the game gives me a BSOD. I usually play at a single monitor resolution so when I've tested it I've always just changed it while in game and not left it that way because the performance is not what I would want for competitive gameplay. Ok I can confirm that launching from an Eyefinity Desktop to an Eyefinity resolution did not cause a BSOD on my two card crossfire setup.

My only guess at this point is that it's just something they have yet to recognize and work out that affects crossfire setups with more than two cards. Judging from your setup alone I'm gonna guess you've already checked the file integrity of the pertinent hard drives, done an SFC /scannow to make sure there are no corrupt system files, done a "repair install" file integrity check on the BF3 files from within origin, and made sure you've used the latest PBSetup to make sure you have the latest PunkBuster files(for some reason this doesn't upgrade on it own from time to time). That being the case I would drop them a line with as much pertinent system information as they need here after you've made sure the issue is not in the knowledge base articles.

 

[Ketzer]

I just switched back to the RC11's as well. The "new" drivers actually seemed to perform worse in BF3. Off to play for a bit and see if it makes a difference.

^^^ Yup.. the RC11's definitely run better in BF3.


Oh.. and I'm also using the 11.12 CAP3 with them.

Could quantify what about the 12.2 Pre-cert drivers was 'worse' in BF3 versus the RC11 ones? Did you mean related to poor CF scaling or something else?

Saw others in this thread report the opposite and that BF3 actually performed better with the 12.2 pre-certs

Thanks!

 

[Evil Scooter]

Could quantify what about the 12.2 Pre-cert drivers was 'worse' in BF3 versus the RC11 ones? Did you mean related to poor CF scaling or something else?

Saw others in this thread report the opposite and that BF3 actually performed better with the 12.2 pre-certs

Thanks!

Sure thing. This was the most noticeable difference. GPU scaling was erratic as heck. Example, I'd see FPS drop into the mid to low 50's while GPU utilization was hovering between 70~90%.

With the RC11's the GPU utilization was about the same but the frame rates stay pegged at 60fps... no dips.

 

[eclypse]

No idea.. prior to the fresh install i did last time it does the same thing it did before which is just hang at a black screen when i launch the game and then finally a BSOD. Uninstall the drivers and go back to the 11.12 drivers and everything is fine. Fresh install and installed the 12.2 pre-cert drivers and it did the same crap as before but uninstall that and install the 11.12 drivers and bamb, it works perfectly.

I lunch from an eyefinity desktop.. No idea how i'd go from a single desktop to eyefinity in the game or vise versa.

Also one other strange then.. but when i boot into windows right before the log on screen pops up it hangs for atleast 30 secs at the windows screen and then goes to a black screen for a few seconds and then i see some crazy red symbols that goes accross the screen at the very top and then the screen finally goes black again and then the long on screen comes up.

That happend before and after a fresh windows install on the 12.2 pre-cert drivers ONLY!

 

[-Sn1PeR-]

These drivers still have the BF3 CF Scaling bug when launched from Eyefinity Desktop as well. Maybe 12.4 will have it fixed

I'm starting to think this is something to do with BF3 and multi-monitors in general. My friend was having scaling issues on his 260 gtx SLI rig and on a whim I mentioned that he should probably try turning off his second monitor. He did and suddenly the erratic ~60% gpu usage became 90%+.

All in all these drivers have been great on this end. DCS A-10c, Dota 2, BF3, Arma 2, Skyrim, Starcraft 2, Dungeon Defenders, Civ 5, Take on Helicopters, Batman AC, TF2, and FO:NV have all been played on them.

I have not tried any of the previous versions of HydraGrid. If anyone has let me know if it works. I miss hydragrid.

 

[B^gD^ddy~CF~]

HydraVision can be installed you just need to make sure that there is a copy of atipdlxx.dll in the Windows\SysWOW64 folder and a copy of atipdl64.dll is in the Windows\System32 folder. I got my files directly out of the RC11 setup extraction location and installed them in safe mode. Alternatively you can do an upgrade installation and they should be there. Only atipdlxx.dll has to be present I did the other one just in case as it also wasn't present. I have not had any issues since then. If not HydraVsion(HydraGrid) will not work and will inform you that no display driver was detected when you go to apply it. I'm using the 12.1 HydraVision Package

I'm going to do some BF3 benchmarks to see which driver RC11 or 12.2 Pre-Certified actually performs better on my rig and post them in a different thread.

 

[txsizzler]

I am getting ready to move up from a GTS 250 to a Radeon 6950 2gb model. What drivers are recommended? Obviously, the 12.2 ones seem to be faulty. Would 12.1 be best? I will be using 1080p resoulution on Win Vista.


Ian

 

[{NG}Fidel]

Well I switched my 7970 from its PCIe slot and the drivers work great now.
Plus im getting full PCIe 2.0 x16 mode now.
Temps are a bit higher now since its closer to my CPU but its only a 1 to 2 degree diffference. Doesnt affect my OC at all.

 

[-Sn1PeR-]

I am getting ready to move up from a GTS 250 to a Radeon 6950 2gb model. What drivers are recommended? Obviously, the 12.2 ones seem to be faulty. Would 12.1 be best? I will be using 1080p resoulution on Win Vista.


Ian

12.2's work fine for the vast majority of users. I would go straight to those. I've read of a few problems with crossfire, but they work great on my two 6950's. In general for single card use you really shouldn't worry about drivers.

 

[edge929]

Just chiming in with my experiences with 12.2. Received my single Sapphire 7950 yesterday and installed 12.2 (uninstalled old ones, reboot, safe mode, driver cleaner, reboot, installed 12.2).

Trixx kept giving me the "you must disable ULPS to overclock" error message even though "Disable ULPS" was checked in the options of Trixx. I also got an error on startup for OpenCL from the 12.2 drivers, kbdsync.exe I think it was. I googled/read and attempted to do the registry hack to disable ULPS but decided to try the older/original 8.921.2 RC11 drivers first. Uninstalled 12.2, installed RC11 and Trixx worked fine, no error message.

With 12.2 and using Overdrive I couldn't get 950 stable on stock voltage (GPU-Z reported .983). After installing RC11 I was able to use Trixx to bump voltage to 1.100 (GPU-Z reported 1.090 at the highest) and was able to get 1000 core/1400 mem stable. Didn't have time to push further. Will be happy with 1050/1450 stable.

 

[Starrbuck]

I am getting ready to move up from a GTS 250 to a Radeon 6950 2gb model. What drivers are recommended? Obviously, the 12.2 ones seem to be faulty. Would 12.1 be best? I will be using 1080p resoulution on Win Vista.

I'm running 12.1 on my new 6950 with good framerates and no issues at 1920x1080 in BF3, WoW, and SWTOR. I am OC'd to 875/1325 with the additional shaders unlocked and the warmest mine gets is 63C.

They are the official drivers on the AMD website right now.

Good enough for me!!!

 

[Falkentyne]

Just chiming in with my experiences with 12.2. Received my single Sapphire 7950 yesterday and installed 12.2 (uninstalled old ones, reboot, safe mode, driver cleaner, reboot, installed 12.2).

Trixx kept giving me the "you must disable ULPS to overclock" error message even though "Disable ULPS" was checked in the options of Trixx. I also got an error on startup for OpenCL from the 12.2 drivers, kbdsync.exe I think it was. I googled/read and attempted to do the registry hack to disable ULPS but decided to try the older/original 8.921.2 RC11 drivers first. Uninstalled 12.2, installed RC11 and Trixx worked fine, no error message.

With 12.2 and using Overdrive I couldn't get 950 stable on stock voltage (GPU-Z reported .983). After installing RC11 I was able to use Trixx to bump voltage to 1.100 (GPU-Z reported 1.090 at the highest) and was able to get 1000 core/1400 mem stable. Didn't have time to push further. Will be happy with 1050/1450 stable.

You can use the 12.2's (8.950's) and 8.960's with Trixx. You will need a dll driver file that was removed from the 12.2 drivers (this is what is causing Trixx to show the 3d clock as 300/150), and you put that in syswow64. There should be links to that file on guru3d in the ati driver section. That file is required for low level overclocking to work. So give it a try. May have to put it in safe mode. I do not know if that file also needs to be in the system32 folder or not. The file name is ATIPDLXX.DLL. I think the file date you want is 1/19/2012, and version 6.14.10.2563

Just make sure you get the correct file. There were two files uploaded, one from I think the 7970 RC11 drivers and one from the 12.1's (which didn't support 7970). YMMV on if that one will work.

 

[Absolute0]

hey guys

7970 single card, 12.2 pre certs, 2x monitor nothing special

games, BF3, everything works FINE

Trixx gives ULPS error

MSI Afterburner doesn't work with "enable unofficial overclocking =1" but "= 0" works, but max clocks are 1125/1575.


So my only issue is Afterburner max clocks are limited

 

[Tanquen]

I have a new system with a new install of Windows 7 64bit with all updates. I started with Catalyst Version 11.12, Dirver Packaging 8.921.5-111229a-131232C-ATI and only used the system for a few days but everything seemed to be fine. I then installed the Catalyst Version 12.2 Pre-Certified Driver afterwards I had a system lockup with no BSOD screen about once a day. Yesterday I went back to the Catalyst 11.12 driver and it not crashed again, so far.

Single card and I’m not overclocking anything.