Drivers!

And regarding "you get what you pay for" well.....let us not forget the RTX Space Invaders artifacting.


And that could have been issues with first-gen GDDR6 memory, or it could have been a flaw in the silicon. All we know for certain is that the exceptional reports of issues disappeared after 6 months.

Remember the first GDDR5 card from ATI, the HD 4870? That had a bug where if you changed the memory clock dynamically, the video would flicker onscreen. IT was never determined who was at fault (buggy memory controller on the chip, or could have been bugs in early GDDR5 chips), and ATI papered over the issue by using full memory clocks at idle.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-voltage-memory-clock-rate-bios-thread.67928/

Thy still didn't fix it with a core revision (4890), which points back to the memory hips being at-fault

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/powercolor-hd-4890/27.html

They also didn't fix it in the 4770 40nm die shrink

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ati-hd-4770/26.html

They finally fixed it a year after the 4870 , with the 5870.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ati-radeon-hd-5870/28.html

We never found out what was the cause because ATI was the only maker of early GDDR5 video cards, and they're not about to officially acknowledge the existence of a hardware error
(especially if they can't easily tell the cause, and it's tough enough that it will have to wait for their next product.) Instead, they hacked around the issue.

You can't really poke holes in a few bits and pieces or RTX + GDDR6, and hope to find gold. If Space Invaders was a serious long-term issue, they would have enough to take NVIDIA to court, like the GTX 970. But the drivers themselves have been a lot better experience than Navi.We also don't have to wait 6 more months for Big Navi to be available (you can get that today.)
 
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Issues i got so far (20.1.2 drivers):

1) Windows crashing while playing VLC at full screen. Fixed it by removing the driver with the Guru3d program before installing it again.
2) Sporadic stuttering that may or may not have anything to do with the graphic card. Happens rarely enough not to be bothersome.
3) At least one old game in my steam library showed up with black squares around the sprites, fixed it by using some custom wrapper called dgVoodoo2.

AAA games i tried so far as Witcher 3, Kingdom Come, Arma 3, Doom, and Assetto Corsa Competizione. No crashes on any of them, played around them at least for 20m each.

I'm installing more games as we speak. Had to wipe out my Steam folder because i needed the space a while back so i have to download my games as i go.

I had a 480 briefly for a few months and the only problem i had with that one is that Doom would sometime crash unexpectedly.

I'll say so far so good. Only the VLC crash seemed serious. It's fixed for now, but who knows if it can come back.

Steps i took before receiving the card were updating the bios on the motherboard (which broke windows and i had to format my PC, thanks MSI), and specifically setting my PCI slot for PCIe 3.0 instead of using it in automatic (my motherboard doesn't have PCIe 4.0). Read somewhere that fixed some issues for people. Not going to test it by reverting the setting, don't want to jinx it since it's working well so far in games.
 
To me, that would be a problem.

Maybe but it's really rare. In fact, so far i haven't encountered it again, maybe it has been fixed somehow. Or maybe it was something windows was doing i'm not sure. I found Windows 10 to be really capricious, even after all those years. Windows 7 was more stable honestly.
 
Maybe but it's really rare. In fact, so far i haven't encountered it again, maybe it has been fixed somehow. Or maybe it was something windows was doing i'm not sure. I found Windows 10 to be really capricious, even after all those years. Windows 7 was more stable honestly.


Or maybe you're just running more low-end hardware tools now than you did then? They tend to be buggy, and because they often access Kernel Memory (requires admin to run), more prone to crashing the system.

I am running the exact same tool set I did then, and Windows 10 has been noting but stable for me.
 
With 20.1.2, If I load a Tuning Profile (Wattman) the primary monitor goes to white. Very consistent in behavior, turn off monitor which causes windows to just use the second monitor and then back on and the display is restored. So something new on that, other than that I have not had any other notable problems.

As a note, the 5700XT is an Etherium beast! It does 51mh/s with virtually less than 130w of power. As a referece, Vega 64/FE would do around 40mh/s and the 1080Ti around 36mh/s (Edit: 50mh/s using program to modify DDR5 timings, cool beans). 5700XT is pretty much 24/7 for the last week, no crashes other than what was noted above.
 
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With problems like that, I'd be wondering if it isn't a hardware issue needing an RMA. I mean that maybe you have a bad card.

Installed the 20.1.2 and haven't had a crash yet!

Maybe they finally fixed the drivers! Highly recommend this optional driver if you've had any stability issues since installing 5700xt in a system.
 
Installed the 20.1.2 and haven't had a crash yet!

Maybe they finally fixed the drivers! Highly recommend this optional driver if you've had any stability issues since installing 5700xt in a system.

Are you sure? I keep thinking I've got things fixed and then it freezes up again. I've been messing with an XFX 5700XT RAWII and I've had a crash since updating to the latest GPU and X370 chipset drivers yesterday (Windows 7) and I'm also getting the same behavior under Ubuntu. It seems to happen randomly while doing things on the desktop. I'm using a custom fan curve and the temps shown in the Radeon software look good.

I'm starting to wonder if its a bad card or if the software really is just this bad right now. For all the online whining/trolling about drivers I've honestly never had a serious issue with ATI/AMD drivers.
 
Or maybe you're just running more low-end hardware tools now than you did then? They tend to be buggy, and because they often access Kernel Memory (requires admin to run), more prone to crashing the system.

I am running the exact same tool set I did then, and Windows 10 has been noting but stable for me.

Well, regardless, the stuttering is gone.

Still no crashes, guess i'm one of the lucky ones, all though my library of games isn't large. I don't have some of the offenders i see mentioned around, like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, just the games i mentioned for now, plus some other stuff i loaded, like Dirt Rally, F1 2017, Dark Souls 3. Didn't spend any time with them, but they at least started up fine.
 
There have been some legit issues with AMD, I won't lie, but I feel like a lot of the time people parrot the "bad drivers" thing without first-hand knowledge or even an idea of what exactly is wrong with the drivers.

For the most part, it's been smooth sailing for me with AMD as long as I wasn't trying weird stuff.

For example, I had a problem with OpenGL running super slow, made some posts on AMD forums and contacted support with no help. Eventually I discovered it was a Crossfire issue present on Vega (but not on previous gens) and would happen as long as there were two cards in the system (disabling in software did not help). So yeah, the driver was bugged, but OpenGL is not that popular for AAA games and also no one cares about fixing multi-GPU anymore so I can't blame them (I mean, I might have been the only one with 2 Vega cards at the time, who knows?).

There was also a flicking/black screen issue on Navi when using OSDs likes RivaTuner/Afterburner, but I believe it was fixed after maybe 1 or 2 months. So not great, sure, but there were work-arounds (using Wattman, for example) so it wasn't a deal breaker. I also had an issue where custom resolutions would not work on Vega, I believe it's fixed since I tried on a different machine with Navi and it works now. So yeah, there are sometimes broken things but they are usually not mission critical and do eventually get fixed.
 
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5700xt. Nov driver was stable in windows but black screen hard locked in games once or twice daily with no oc. 20.1 deiver black screens loadong mozilla, watching vlc, and in games. Less stable than ever. Will update to todays 20.1.2 and post back. Its getting so frustrating i might sell this one for another 2080ti and say f it. I tried to go back to amd for my backup gaming rig bit this is the least stability ive seen since the 5870 launch disaster. At least that one was mostly hardware related.

New driver says windiws idle crash is fixed.

I leave pc on at night for...reasons...and every morning i wake up to it hard crashed.

I use this specific rig 10+ hours a day for work. Since october id say it has crashed 300+ times.

The 2080ti rig hasnt crashed since september...and i overclock the particlez out of it.

Say what u will u get what u pay for.
I wouldn't count space invaders as value added.

You need to troubleshoot it could be a dead card or some 3rd party software issue or power config.


Read that thread there are some great troubleshooting posts there.
 
I had issues with the launch 5700XT drivers, but then later I picked up a 5700 and it worked fine <shrug>.
 
My 5700 XT did not play well with my machine unfortunately, half of the time it will freeze my entire system during at least 10 minutes of gaming which was annoying. Oddly enough when I tried returning my video card to the store where I purchased it they tested it for a week without any issues. When my card was returned to me I decided to sell it.
 
I wouldn't count space invaders as value added.

You need to troubleshoot it could be a dead card or some 3rd party software issue or power config.


Read that thread there are some great troubleshooting posts there.

20.1.2 hotfix drivers fixed all crashes! Haven't crashed since installing them Friday and have had the system running 24/7 since then. Color me impressed.
 
Are you sure? I keep thinking I've got things fixed and then it freezes up again. I've been messing with an XFX 5700XT RAWII and I've had a crash since updating to the latest GPU and X370 chipset drivers yesterday (Windows 7) and I'm also getting the same behavior under Ubuntu. It seems to happen randomly while doing things on the desktop. I'm using a custom fan curve and the temps shown in the Radeon software look good.

I'm starting to wonder if its a bad card or if the software really is just this bad right now. For all the online whining/trolling about drivers I've honestly never had a serious issue with ATI/AMD drivers.

Dunno bud. the 20.1.2 fixed everything for me, literally. It was so bad before I was thinking of returning the card, or just selling it. Since Friday I've thrown everything I can at it, and overclocked it to the limit with nothing but stability. I don't know if I've ever seen a more dramatic driver fix in my entire 2 decades of buying discrete gpus. I'm literally blown away at the turn around. If this driver doesn't fix your card, then I would start looking at other possible areas to trouble shoot. Make sure you have the 20.1.2 it was an optional that you have to manually obtain.

Do you have an alternate videocard you can swap in? Always an easy way knock some potential problem areas off the checklist.
 
Dunno bud. the 20.1.2 fixed everything for me, literally. It was so bad before I was thinking of returning the card, or just selling it. Since Friday I've thrown everything I can at it, and overclocked it to the limit with nothing but stability. I don't know if I've ever seen a more dramatic driver fix in my entire 2 decades of buying discrete gpus. I'm literally blown away at the turn around. If this driver doesn't fix your card, then I would start looking at other possible areas to trouble shoot. Make sure you have the 20.1.2 it was an optional that you have to manually obtain.

Do you have an alternate videocard you can swap in? Always an easy way knock some potential problem areas off the checklist.
Wow... That's definitely something I didn't expect. Maybe a software fix for something you have running in the background? Can't see any other reason why. Either way, congrats... You must be happy!
 
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Do you have an alternate videocard you can swap in? Always an easy way knock some potential problem areas off the checklist.

Yeah, the freezes stop with a different GPU (RX560 or 580) and I've been trying each new optional driver. The power supply is an old but reliable 1000w Kingwin Lazer. Games run fine and the crash rate seems to have gone down with each new driver, but after a few days I eventually get a hard freeze and have to manually reboot. Still troubleshooting.
 
Yeah, the freezes stop with a different GPU (RX560 or 580) and I've been trying each new optional driver. The power supply is an old but reliable 1000w Kingwin Lazer. Games run fine and the crash rate seems to have gone down with each new driver, but after a few days I eventually get a hard freeze and have to manually reboot. Still troubleshooting.
Check that thread I linked earlier. Few people had similar issues and it's a pretty well condensed source of successful troubleshooting. Usually overlays/additional software or power related stuff.
 
upload_2020-1-21_9-16-5.png


I replaced pretty much every component in my machine trying to fix this. It's been since July 2019 for me. I had been using my Vega 64 for about 5 months without issues prior to that.

Hope this helps. Not even going to DDU, just going to let the installer do it's thing. I find DDU is less necessary since the Adrenaline revamp.
 
Looks like i spoke too soon, VLC crushing my computer is back with a vengeance. Had to turn off hardware acceleration to make it stop.
 
Not even going to DDU, just going to let the installer do it's thing. I find DDU is less necessary since the Adrenaline revamp.
DDU has saved me a few times, even with recent AMD drivers. They can still get corrupted.
 
DDU has saved me a few times, even with recent AMD drivers. They can still get corrupted.
yup. two versions ago i had to ddu as the driver installed errored, this last one i tried the clean install option and it worked fine.
 
Tried clean install with 20.1.3, the same issue with monitor going to white/pink isolated when changing GPU memory timings. Other settings do not cause this. Just a nuisance issue for me, I do change settings a lot with games, mining and normal usage. Normal gaming and other stuff so far no new issues and works well.
 
Issues i got so far (20.1.2 drivers):

1) Windows crashing while playing VLC at full screen. Fixed it by removing the driver with the Guru3d program before installing it again.

Only issue I'm seeing with the 20.1.2 driver right now is the random VLC crashing / compatibility issue. It always happens awhile after launching the video, so i'm wondering if it has to due with some kind of powerstate / management in the drivers. Doesn't happen with anything else besides VLC though.
 
Yep. The funny thing is that once it goes, it goes. I load up the system, run VLC, and it crashes. Load it up again, and it crashes again. Load it up a third time and now it works and it keeps working until i restart windows, than i have to play the boot up lottery again.

Aside for that, so far it has handled every game i threw at it.
 
View attachment 217277

I replaced pretty much every component in my machine trying to fix this. It's been since July 2019 for me. I had been using my Vega 64 for about 5 months without issues prior to that.

Hope this helps. Not even going to DDU, just going to let the installer do it's thing. I find DDU is less necessary since the Adrenaline revamp.

That is why you always start with the easiest stuff first. When you start having problems the first question you need to ask yourself is "what has recently changed" and then go from there.
 
I'm sorry I thought your problem was a driver-related issue.

Well the only time its been listed in the known or fixed issues has been for the last release.

Still have the problem though. Always at the desktop, almost always during video playback on YouTube with Chrome. I don't use VLC at all often.
 
Well the only time its been listed in the known or fixed issues has been for the last release.

Still have the problem though. Always at the desktop, almost always during video playback on YouTube with Chrome. I don't use VLC at all often.

Yeah I can see how with win 10 (assuming here) you wouldn't even necessarily know when the driver gets updated so you wouldn't be able to tell that changed. What I was saying before was usually you would update driver -> have problem pop up -> rollback driver change -> problem goes away. That way you can avoid all of the hardware changes you tried.
 
I found this to be a good read and what I've seen a lot of lately with Navi: https://www.reddit. com/r/Amd/comments/evc94o/went_from_a_5700xt_to_a_2070_super_story/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossm

I added a space between reddit and .com since the forum always breaks the link.

FrgMstr reddit links never work when I paste them.

100% agree with that story. My experience was different though. Single monitor I didn't have any issues but multimonitor the 2nd screen would just randomly turn off and older games would stutter. I was locked in on driver 19.10.3 which was good but not an optimized driver for Modern Warfare. I would have the black screen occur maybe once a week but I could just disconnect the cable and reconnect and all was fine. In the end I ended up with an EVGA RTX 2070 Super Ultra XC, no issues with multimonitor anymore. Shame because I have an R9 Fury that used to never black screen and now it suffers the same issue Navi does now.
 
100% agree with that story. My experience was different though. Single monitor I didn't have any issues but multimonitor the 2nd screen would just randomly turn off and older games would stutter. I was locked in on driver 19.10.3 which was good but not an optimized driver for Modern Warfare. I would have the black screen occur maybe once a week but I could just disconnect the cable and reconnect and all was fine. In the end I ended up with an EVGA RTX 2070 Super Ultra XC, no issues with multimonitor anymore. Shame because I have an R9 Fury that used to never black screen and now it suffers the same issue Navi does now.

Yeah I'm seeing a lot of stories like yours and the one I linked. Seems AMD is having early teething issues with RDNA and it's why I didn't wait on Big Navi like I had planned (was going to buy it day 1) and grabbed a 2080 ti instead. I'm worried that RDNA 2 will have driver problems too if it's significantly different than RDNA 1. Some people may have no issues but they likely don't use the same apps/games/setup that a lot of people with these issues do.

I don't want to turn this into an nVidia vs AMD fanboy brawl but I've honestly had zero issues with nVidia since switching to them back in 2010-2011 (my last was two 6970 x fire I think). The nVidia tax is totally worth it to me for peace of mind.

I do want AMD to improve because I'd like to try one of their top gfx cards someday.
 
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