Are the AMD drivers really that bad?

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I wish all the people who report black screens and crashes would include, first, if they have a reference or AIB card, then what if any custom WATTMAN (now just Radeon Settings I guess?) settings they are using, especially fan curve and clocks. There's so little information to go by.
 
My RX580 is running solid for over a year and always have the latest drivers, but it is an old card :D
 
I wish all the people who report black screens and crashes would include, first, if they have a reference or AIB card, then what if any custom WATTMAN (now just Radeon Settings I guess?) settings they are using, especially fan curve and clocks. There's so little information to go by.
aib: xfx 5700 ddu
stock clocks and power settings 1750/1750/985
no settings changed in radeon settings except popup crap
custom fan curve in AB - 25% til 45c then ramp to 100% at 80
thats how i had it before and after black screen issue. this is what i noticed:

19.12.1 worked fine - dont know core/mem speed
20.1* to 20.2.1 black screened - core dropped to 0, mem dropped to 0 minimums
20.2.2 works fine - core drops to 800, mem to 200 minimums
 
My RX580 is running solid for over a year and always have the latest drivers, but it is an old card :D
mine did too and when i switch to the 5700 it was fine too until the first few 2020 drivers. now its totally fine again on 20.2.2
 
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I guess I was lucky. I was running the 19.x drivers when I got the 5700 XT and hadn't updated this whole time (I use that PC as a backup) and only installed the latest 20.x driver that came out a week ago.

So I did see some of the early issues with flickering, Afterburner incompatibility, etc. but completely missed the black screen thing.
 
So for me 20.2.2 is definitily a step up stability wise.

Just sucks that were gonna have to hear another 6+ months of joe casual droning on about AMD's bad drivers and about how they can't recommend their cards when in reality, the 3+ years of updates (since crimson essentially) leading up to this fiasco were pretty much flawless.
 
So for me 20.2.2 is definitily a step up stability wise.

Just sucks that were gonna have to hear another 6+ months of joe casual droning on about AMD's bad drivers and about how they can't recommend their cards when in reality, the 3+ years of updates (since crimson essentially) leading up to this fiasco were pretty much flawless.

To some people, living in the now matters.
 
The 20.2.2 did seem like a step up for AMD. However they really need their dev team to get the ball rolling in VR and start optimizing for it. There is really no excuse that a GTX 1070 provides a more stable and consistent framrate in VR than my RX 5700XT does.
 
The 20.2.2 did seem like a step up for AMD. However they really need their dev team to get the ball rolling in VR and start optimizing for it. There is really no excuse that a GTX 1070 provides a more stable and consistent framrate in VR than my RX 5700XT does.

Oh no, I got the RX 5700xt just for vr. I am planning to purchase a vr headset. that does not sound good.
 
Oh no, I got the RX 5700xt just for vr. I am planning to purchase a vr headset. that does not sound good.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It's odd that the RX 5700XT shows better benchmark numbers like for instance the Steam VR benchmark but in actual games it's not always the case. Stormlands and Agard's Wrath come to mind as examples of very poor performance for the 5700XT. There is still constant stuttering and frame dips all over the palce that it starts to make you queezy in VR. That all goes away with the GTX 1070 and it's very disappointing.
 
this is the crazy thing about that...My Vega card is the most reliable problem free card i think i ever owned...but its also the first pure reference one i have purchased....go figure right? Thats not to say they never had bugs Before i got mine, as im sure they did when it was new, as always.
What drivers are you using?
 
is there any one driver that is actually flawless for the 5700xt I’ve been trying to remotely troubleshoot my buddy’s computer and it has been a hassle. Every time he and I are on Destiny and Discord he crashes At irregular times. Nothing in his system is overclocked and his ram is new and prime95 tested. Is there any driver out there that anyone can recommend with some confidence? He went through the 19.1 19.2 and all of the 2020 drivers and is still getting a blank screen after a seemingly random period of time and has to hard reset to move forward.
 
is there any one driver that is actually flawless for the 5700xt I’ve been trying to remotely troubleshoot my buddy’s computer and it has been a hassle. Every time he and I are on Destiny and Discord he crashes At irregular times. Nothing in his system is overclocked and his ram is new and prime95 tested. Is there any driver out there that anyone can recommend with some confidence? He went through the 19.1 19.2 and all of the 2020 drivers and is still getting a blank screen after a seemingly random period of time and has to hard reset to move forward.
ddu and install the newest 20.2.2
 
ddu and install the newest 20.2.2

I was a fan up until yesterday.

On top of still having black screen issues, I've got a new problem when I try to ALT+TAB out of a game running in full screen mode. Machine just stops responding but sound keeps playing in the background. Even the stupid lighting effect for my keyb freezes. Never had this before but I think it was a known issue

I've at a point where I can't afford all this downtime so I put my card up for sale this morning. I think I've been patient enough anyway
 
I was a fan up until yesterday.

On top of still having black screen issues, I've got a new problem when I try to ALT+TAB out of a game running in full screen mode. Machine just stops responding but sound keeps playing in the background. Even the stupid lighting effect for my keyb freezes. Never had this before but I think it was a known issue

I've at a point where I can't afford all this downtime so I put my card up for sale this morning. I think I've been patient enough anyway
Is this with the 20.2.2 drivers?
 
Is this with the 20.2.2 drivers?

Yeah, with Vega 64, running Balanced tuning profile (stock), Gaming profile (Sharpening, Boost on)

I had a crash last week, but I was also still on a Windows install that had crashed dozens of times over the past few weeks. To eliminate any possibility of OS corruption, I reinstalled W10 and installed

20.2.2
Latest x470 chipset drivers from AMD.com
Latest Corsair iCue
Latest SteelSeries Engine
Afterburner
Firefox
Steam
Battle net
Origin
Games
NordVPN client
Plex
7zip
Notepad++
Intellij
MRemoteG

I W10 game bar running, haven't turned off all the overlays for each launcher yet.
 
I was a fan up until yesterday.

On top of still having black screen issues, I've got a new problem when I try to ALT+TAB out of a game running in full screen mode. Machine just stops responding but sound keeps playing in the background. Even the stupid lighting effect for my keyb freezes. Never had this before but I think it was a known issue

I've at a point where I can't afford all this downtime so I put my card up for sale this morning. I think I've been patient enough anyway

Out of curiosity, does it do this with every game, or with just a particular game. I know from personal experience this is an issue that happens with Sins of a Solar Empire, for example (and has been a thing since I started playing the game years ago). The Steam Overlay has to be turned off for that game for it not to happen...
 
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It's odd that the RX 5700XT shows better benchmark numbers like for instance the Steam VR benchmark but in actual games it's not always the case. Stormlands and Agard's Wrath come to mind as examples of very poor performance for the 5700XT. There is still constant stuttering and frame dips all over the palce that it starts to make you queezy in VR. That all goes away with the GTX 1070 and it's very disappointing.

Asgards wrath runs very well for me on my regular rx5700. Its honestly one of the better performing games i have played. You sure you don't have some other issue? I have only played a couple hours so far but no dips into reprojection at all with default settings, nice and smooth 80fps on my rift S with about 10-20% headroom checked with the Oculus performance tool a few times always the same.

I do agree though something's up with VR performance in certain games but UE4 VR games are the exception and all run really well for me.

What's the rest of your system?
 
HUB seems to think there are no more driver issues. But they personally had no problems to begin with.

 
Out of curiosity, does it do this with every game, or with just a particular game. I know from personal experience this is an issue that happens with Sins of a Solar Empire, for example (and has been a thing since I started playing the game years ago). The Steam Overlay has to be turned off for that game for it not to happen...


That's the thing, it doesn't happen as often in games as it does at the desktop EXCEPT heroes of the storm. That game has something that causes the black screen thing to happen pretty fast. The alt tab thing never happened to me before but I can confirm it happens in everything I've tried which was bfv, gtav and project cars 2 and systematically
 
That's the thing, it doesn't happen as often in games as it does at the desktop EXCEPT heroes of the storm. That game has something that causes the black screen thing to happen pretty fast. The alt tab thing never happened to me before but I can confirm it happens in everything I've tried which was bfv, gtav and project cars 2 and systematically
have you disabled any and all overlays yet?
 
have you disabled any and all overlays yet?

Nah not yet man, I'm tired man, tired of chasing these flipping ghosts man, it's been months. I'm the most optimistic DIY kinda guy you'll meet, but I thought I've had this shit fixed like 10 times already only to find it's still a problem. When it happened last night I just left everything there and went to bed. Fed up man.

I'll try it again later after turning off all overlays to see if it helps but honestly if I'm lucky enough to find a buyer that either won't be affected by the same issues I have because of a different setup or straight up doesn't care I'm getting rid of it, I've enjoyed this card for tops 4 months.
 
Nah not yet man, I'm tired man, tired of chasing these flipping ghosts man, it's been months. I'm the most optimistic DIY kinda guy you'll meet, but I thought I've had this shit fixed like 10 times already only to find it's still a problem. When it happened last night I just left everything there and went to bed. Fed up man.

I'll try it again later after turning off all overlays to see if it helps but honestly if I'm lucky enough to find a buyer that either won't be affected by the same issues I have because of a different setup or straight up doesn't care I'm getting rid of it, I've enjoyed this card for tops 4 months.
understandable. for me it was only a blip but if it was months of grief i'd probably bail too. i also didnt realize the black screens were a prob for the vega cards, thought it was just the new 5000 series.
 
Asgards wrath runs very well for me on my regular rx5700. Its honestly one of the better performing games i have played. You sure you don't have some other issue? I have only played a couple hours so far but no dips into reprojection at all with default settings, nice and smooth 80fps on my rift S with about 10-20% headroom checked with the Oculus performance tool a few times always the same.

I do agree though something's up with VR performance in certain games but UE4 VR games are the exception and all run really well for me.

What's the rest of your system?
My VR system is fine and has no problems in anything else. Some games work fine in VR and are relatively problem free like Boneworks, Dirt Rally 2 and Pistol Whip can be played just fine. This system is my secondary system and I use it almost exclusively for VR save for when the kids what to play Fortnite or Apex Legends on a bigger screen. I've done all the usual testing, return everything to stock speeds, wipe and reinstall drivers even went so far as a reinstall of windows to ensure no driver fragments or other underlying issues would arise.

Ryzen 5 3600
ASUS ROG B450i Gaming
16GB 3600Mhz DDR4
RX 5700XT
EVGA 750w G3 SuperNova
 
Yeah, with Vega 64, running Balanced tuning profile (stock), Gaming profile (Sharpening, Boost on)

I had a crash last week, but I was also still on a Windows install that had crashed dozens of times over the past few weeks. To eliminate any possibility of OS corruption, I reinstalled W10 and installed

20.2.2
Latest x470 chipset drivers from AMD.com
Latest Corsair iCue
Latest SteelSeries Engine
Afterburner
Firefox
Steam
Battle net
Origin
Games
NordVPN client
Plex
7zip
Notepad++
Intellij
MRemoteG

I W10 game bar running, haven't turned off all the overlays for each launcher yet.


Ahh yes, HBM cards.

Lets start with the R9 Fury, Memory clocks are stuck at full blast from launch, when they introduced Vega with HBM2, they started relaxing the idle clocks on the memory. Honestly with HBM cards, running at full clocks really doesn't increase the memory temperatures or even the power consumption much at all so they should just default the clocks on those cards to run at max memory frequency and that should solve the black screen problems. The GDDR cards with the memory clocks set to max is where heat and power consumption really start to affect and saturate throughout the cooler. I recall my Radeon Vii had the max mem clock bug most of its life and it didn't bother me much because the temperatures/power consumption were well in check at idle.
 
I recently bought my computer when all this stuff started happening. The driver issue can be so random in nature, it can look like bad memory, bad power supply, bad cpu, etc. It really really sucked having a ghost driver issue when you just built your pc. I was thinking "oh great my memtest comes back flawless, my benchmarks run without freezes or errors, do I return everything and try again?"

It was driving me nuts. Even the progress that has been made with 20.2.2, it still misses the mark and is unacceptable even if these were the drivers released for the launch.

Yet here I am, hoping that these massive wrinkles get smoothed out. It feels like there has been progress made, but it's at a snails pace.

You know a software/hardware issue has reached a whole new level when comments and threads about the issue feels more and more like group therapy. We are not alone lol
 
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I fired up the 3700x / RX 5700 ref card and did there factory reset with - in the driver before installing 20.2.2 ... Only thing I have noticed is Relive is having some issues recording smooth ,

 
Man, I still haven't finished BL1. Gotta get caught up to speed.

I didn't get it free this time lol … my kid plays on Xbox 1 X and I let her play on the 3700x and she was in love with the AMD system .. but 15Gb of system memory was off the hook usage lol ..
 
Building 2 new computers right now and thinking about getting either 5500XT and 5600XT or GTX 1650 Super and 1660 Ti.

I use my computer for work and fun. I absolutely can NOT have it crashing or glitching on me costing me hours of work or time tracking down problems. I won't tolerate it, at any cost.

I used to have AMD cards way back, and I don't remember having any issues. But all I see on Reddit and other places is how horrible the drivers are, black screens, BSOD, etc.So what is the deal? Are there real issues, or is it mostly user error?

Then you need to buy a worlstation line of products, where drivers are released with scrutinous testing for workplace stability. Consumer level hardware can always get a bad driver release, especially on Windows.
 
I wish all the people who report black screens and crashes would include, first, if they have a reference or AIB card, then what if any custom WATTMAN (now just Radeon Settings I guess?) settings they are using, especially fan curve and clocks. There's so little information to go by.

I'm using an XFX RAWII 5700 xt. I've had zero issues that I can remember in Linux. In Windows I was relatively lucky until I started playing one of the witcher 3 DLCs. Heart of Stone & the main game played fine without any issues, but then I started getting black screens in the blood & wine DLC. I don't use any custom wattman settings, turned off everything that's supposed to make life better (all the new fancy vsync type stuff like freesync on my monitor, etc.) and nothing fixes it except for turning game settings to load and then reloading and playing through the sections where I get black screens and then turning up the settings again until I run into another area.
 
As of the last update I haven't had issues the drivers seems a lot more stable now.
 
20.2.2 still causes black screens. my card is stock and stock drivers. been dealing wit these random black screens for awhile now
 
I moved back over to my 3600/RX 5700 rig today and installed 20.3.1 .. once you download and get it to installers page , look below and see additional settings and click it open .. that is where factory reset is hiding and it will uninstall the current drivers ( just like DDU ) and reboot you to 800 x 600 mode on restart .. then once into desktop it will start auto install of new driver .. pretty smooth for me do far .
 
I'm using an XFX RAWII 5700 xt. I've had zero issues that I can remember in Linux. In Windows I was relatively lucky until I started playing one of the witcher 3 DLCs. Heart of Stone & the main game played fine without any issues, but then I started getting black screens in the blood & wine DLC. I don't use any custom wattman settings, turned off everything that's supposed to make life better (all the new fancy vsync type stuff like freesync on my monitor, etc.) and nothing fixes it except for turning game settings to load and then reloading and playing through the sections where I get black screens and then turning up the settings again until I run into another area.

I had an issue like that in AC: Odyssey, but Ubisoft patched the game to fix it with the 5700 series. So hard to tell if it was an AMD driver issue or a game optimization issue. Other than that, I've had zero problems with my 5700 series cards.
 
I recently replaced my Vega 64 in my main rig with a Radeon VII (They had them on sale for $550 and EK is fire-saling the liquid blocks for them, so why not - it works great with the 4K TV I have connected to it). So far it has worked perfectly in every game I've thrown at it. It's been very fast and stable on 20.2.2, but I have had exactly 1 issue with the card, and it is more of a minor annoyance.

For whatever reason, there is an occasional split-second flash on my primary screen (the 4K TV - there is also a Dell P2418D 1440p monitor as the secondary). It only happens on the Windows desktop - full screen apps and games are just fine, and it only happens a couple of times an hour. Both monitors are running at their recommended resolutions and at 60Hz refresh, and both are set to use GPU scaling. Safe Mode DDU and driver reinstall did not fix it. The card has been tried at both Stock settings and Auto Undervolted - no difference.

It distracts my attention when it happens, but is otherwise fine. Just weird.
 
I still get crashes on 20.3.1, can`t get rid of this card fast enough

Play Heroes of the Storm (I know) in windowed fullscreen
High settings
Play youtube in a browser while playing hots
Radeon settings to Standard (which means all the driver features turned off or at default)
Freesync : Auto

This is the only scenario where I can reproduce the problem 100%. In under an hour my machine crashed. I had been playing GTA, Tropico, and Deus Ex during the 3 hours before...
 
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