AMD Catalyst 14.9.2 Beta Driver for Windows and for Civilization: Beyond Earth

Goomz said:
This is what it looks like when it happens on my XFX 290. Only happens during driver installs/uninstalls and not all the time so I'm not sure if I should be worried or not.

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This is exactly what I get every time I try and use Xfire or Mantle in BF4
 
After going back to Cat14.4 on my HD7950 system, I updated the bios & drivers for my motherboard, and decided to give these another shot. I did the "Express Uninstall all AMD software" option, rebooted, then installed the Cat14.9b2 drivers again. Rebooted, then fired up Civ:Beyond Earth. I was able to play just fine for at least an hour, no problems. Turned the game off, did some web browsing, watched some streaming video, when BAM. The machine just went kaput again, screen went dark. It didn't power down, but I had no image, and the keyboard was unresponsive. I had to hit the reset button to get the system back. I rebooted, went back to the same page, started streaming video again. This time it didn't last even 20 minutes before it crashed again. This time the machine did a full-on reboot.

Eff these drivers, at least as far as my Intel Z77 w/ Radeon HD7950 system goes. Sad thing is, the Cat14.4 drivers can't run Civ:Beyond Earth under Mantle, when I try it says it's not supported. The Cat14.9b1's can, but they gave me similar problems when I tried them, and after reading in the 14.9b1 release notes about the problems they fixed from the 14.9 WHQL's, no WAY am I trying those. I may see if I can dig up an old 14.6 beta set from somewhere, see if those work under Civ:BE.

Seriously, what the hell, AMD?
 
dewbak75 said:
Seriously, what the hell, AMD?
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Well they are marked "beta"...

That said, I'm about ready to give my HD 6970 the boot in my secondary rig, and side-grade to a GTX 750 Ti. Performance should be roughly the same, but power consumption, heat, and noise will all be a lot better (not to mention the better driver situation).
 
Unknown-One said:
Well they are marked "beta"...

That said, I'm about ready to give my HD 6970 the boot in my secondary rig, and side-grade to a GTX 750 Ti. Performance should be roughly the same, but power consumption, heat, and noise will all be a lot better (not to mention the better driver situation).
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True, but this is the first time I've had a problem this severe with an AMD driver set that I can remember, beta or not. I mean, this isn't even an issue of something 3D-related not looking right in a game, these things make the whole damn system unstable. I reported it to AMD, hopefully they'll find something. I see the same thing on that system with the 14.9.1's, but the 14.9.1's run fine on my main gaming rig that runs an R9-290X on an Intel Z97 motherboard(still haven't tried the 14.9.2's on that system yet, and Civ:BE runs just fine under Mantle already, so I have little incentive to risk it). So perhaps it's something to do with either the motherboard chipset or the older gpu generation, I dunno. I could've sworn one of the other people on this thread who mentioned a similar problem also had a Z77 motherboard in his specs.

I managed to find a download link for the 14.7rc3 drivers, I'm trying those now to see how they do. At the very least, it might narrow down WHEN the drivers started being sketchy for this machine.
 
magoo said:
Thanks for the info.
I finally got the drivers to load.
I have used DDU in the past, but this time I did this:

Disabled Crossfire, Overdrive and Afterburner.
Booted to safe mode.
Ran DDU.
Rebooted.
Ran the 14.9 Beta2 install.

SO NOW.....

I played Metro LL Redux for all of 5 minutes and the computer just flat out shut itself off.
I had to turn the PSU off at it's switch and restart it.
No BSOD, nothing. Just like someone flipped a switch.
I didn't believe it so I tried Crysis 3............same shit.

Jesus Christ.........:rolleyes:

I tried 14.9 whql and got an instant freeze up when I tried to load any game.
Had to hard restart.

I finally gave up on these and wiped them clean and went back to 14.4
Too bad I like the new EyeFinity setup software.

Guess I have to wait for 14.10.
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I have absolutely no idea what's going on with the power-off situation. I have to ask - are you sure there isn't something else weird going on with your system?

For the record I've had a similar software issue with AMD's drivers before - I would get a BSOD upon boot after installing an older 14.x branch, but the next release fixed it - but I don't see how the drivers alone could cause a power-off situation. That's bizarre.
 
dewbak75 said:
After going back to Cat14.4 on my HD7950 system, I updated the bios & drivers for my motherboard, and decided to give these another shot. I did the "Express Uninstall all AMD software" option, rebooted, then installed the Cat14.9b2 drivers again. Rebooted, then fired up Civ:Beyond Earth. I was able to play just fine for at least an hour, no problems. Turned the game off, did some web browsing, watched some streaming video, when BAM. The machine just went kaput again, screen went dark. It didn't power down, but I had no image, and the keyboard was unresponsive. I had to hit the reset button to get the system back. I rebooted, went back to the same page, started streaming video again. This time it didn't last even 20 minutes before it crashed again. This time the machine did a full-on reboot.

Eff these drivers, at least as far as my Intel Z77 w/ Radeon HD7950 system goes. Sad thing is, the Cat14.4 drivers can't run Civ:Beyond Earth under Mantle, when I try it says it's not supported. The Cat14.9b1's can, but they gave me similar problems when I tried them, and after reading in the 14.9b1 release notes about the problems they fixed from the 14.9 WHQL's, no WAY am I trying those. I may see if I can dig up an old 14.6 beta set from somewhere, see if those work under Civ:BE.

Seriously, what the hell, AMD?
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Did you try the steps I recommended on the previous page, and use DDU to uninstall the drivers?
 
Rizen said:
Did you try the steps I recommended on the previous page, and use DDU to uninstall the drivers?
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For my second attempt with 14.9.2, yes I did. Sadly, it did not bring a better result. The problems still ended up happening. Though I will say that if the full uninstall option presented in the driver itself does not work as intended, that in itself is something AMD needs to address. Having said that, doing "Express Uninstall All AMD Drivers", Reboot, Install new Catalyst, Reboot, Enjoy has been my standard procedure for quite some time and has proven quite successful. The only time I really feel the need to use a more thorough uninstall utility is when I'm switching between AMD/ATI and Nvidia.
 
dewbak75 said:
For my second attempt with 14.9.2, yes I did. Sadly, it did not bring a better result. The problems still ended up happening. Though I will say that if the full uninstall option presented in the driver itself does not work as intended, that in itself is something AMD needs to address. Having said that, doing "Express Uninstall All AMD Drivers", Reboot, Install new Catalyst, Reboot, Enjoy has been my standard procedure for quite some time and has proven quite successful. The only time I really feel the need to use a more thorough uninstall utility is when I'm switching between AMD/ATI and Nvidia.
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I actually use DDU because it seems to perform faster than the AMD included uninstall utility, even with a reboot (<3 SSDs and Windows 8). So yes, they probably do need to work on their uninstall tools.

Sorry that it doesn't work for you. It does seem that some people are having trouble with these, so hopefully the next release sorts it out.
 
Rizen said:
I have absolutely no idea what's going on with the power-off situation. I have to ask - are you sure there isn't something else weird going on with your system?

For the record I've had a similar software issue with AMD's drivers before - I would get a BSOD upon boot after installing an older 14.x branch, but the next release fixed it - but I don't see how the drivers alone could cause a power-off situation. That's bizarre.
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Yeah. I haven't got a clue. It's the same system that I've been running since I installed the 290Xs (when they were released) .....rock solid.
The only thing that's different is the 14.9 beta drivers.
Now, just for giggles, I loaded Half-Life 2 and the machine ran fine, of course one GPU can handle that game just fine.
When I loaded both GPUs.......BAM, system shut off, I mean OFF. Like turning a switch.

Now when I go back to the 14.4 drivers, everything is fine. Same settings, same everything.

The one thing that has me thinking is......maybe the 14.9 beta loads the GPUs more and they simply overwhelm the PSU and it shuts down......but I have a brand new Seasonic X 1050Watt PSU which should be more that enough for my system.
And why would it only happen with these driver sets? Also why do I have to disable Crossfire and Afterburner, plus run DDU just to install the beta 1,2 or whql 14.9 drivers, where I've never had to do that before??
It tells me there is just something in this version of the drivers that my system doesn't like......
but it's just not logical, and to tell you the truth I don't have the energy to tear the whole system down for a software issue.
About the only thing I am going to try if the weather this weekend doesn't allow me to go outside, is to reload the drivers and put the entire machine at stock clocks and see what happens.
 
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magoo said:
Yeah. I haven't got a clue. It's the same system that I've been running since I installed the 290Xs (when they were released) .....rock solid.
The only thing that's different is the 14.9 beta drivers.
Now, just for giggles, I loaded Half-Life 2 and the machine ran fine, of course one GPU can handle that game just fine.
When I loaded both GPUs.......BAM, system shut off, I mean OFF. Like turning a switch.

Now when I go back to the 14.4 drivers, everything is fine. Same settings, same everything.

The one thing that has me thinking is......maybe the 14.9 beta loads the GPUs more and they simply overwhelm the PSU and it shuts down......but I have a brand new Seasonic X 1050Watt PSU which should be more that enough for my system.
And why would it only happen with these driver sets? Also why do I have to disable Crossfire and Afterburner, plus run DDU just to install the beta 1,2 or whql 14.9 drivers, where I've never had to do that before??
It tells me there is just something in this version of the drivers that my system doesn't like......
but it's just not logical, and to tell you the truth I don't have the energy to tear the whole system down for a software issue.
About the only thing I am going to try if the weather this weekend doesn't allow me to go outside, is to reload the drivers and put the entire machine at stock clocks and see what happens.
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It sounds to me like it could potentially be a PSU problem but if it works on an older branch of drivers I don't see how the software alone could be causing that. I've had CFX 290Xs for a year and the performance hasn't increased too much with just software alone so I don't think the load on 14.9 would be markedly higher than 14.4.

Honestly if I was you I'd probably stay with 14.4 rather than tear down my watercooling loop unless you have a lot of spare time, haha. Did you try the 14.7 WHQLs? Do they have the same issues?
 
Hmm. Are you'll using factory overclocked cards? Maybe the driver is using more of the GPU and stressing the card too much in it's overclocked state? I remember when I had a HD7950 and a new driver set came out that increased performance it would shut my PC down when the card overheated. My old overclock no longer worked and I had to find out my new limits.

Just throwing some ideas out there. I hope that everyone reports exactly what problems they are having to AMD.
 
zero issues for me.

Running Beyond Earth in Mantle. No crashes, or any other problems that I have detected.

Came from 14.7 wqhl drivers. Only reason to move to these drivers is if you have Beyond Earth.
 
ebduncan said:
zero issues for me.

Running Beyond Earth in Mantle. No crashes, or any other problems that I have detected.

Came from 14.7 wqhl drivers. Only reason to move to these drivers is if you have Beyond Earth.
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Actually, the 14.9.2 drivers aren't *required* to run Beyond Earth in Mantle. My primary gaming pc with an R9-290X is running the 14.9.1 and runs Civ:BE under Mantle just fine. My secondary machine with a Radeon HD7950 is currently running the 14.7rc3 drivers, and is also able to run Civ:BE under Mantle. When I tried using the 14.4 drivers, Mantle didn't work.

If I remember correctly, the release notes for 14.9.2 say these drivers offer "optimized" performance for Civ:BE under Mantle. I'd be curious to know what they mean by "optimized". Are they only referring to that new custom Crossfire mode(split-frame rendering)? Are there any performance optimizations for single-GPU performance with the 14.9.2 drivers compared to 14.9.1 or any pre-14.9 drivers?
 
Rizen said:
It sounds to me like it could potentially be a PSU problem but if it works on an older branch of drivers I don't see how the software alone could be causing that. I've had CFX 290Xs for a year and the performance hasn't increased too much with just software alone so I don't think the load on 14.9 would be markedly higher than 14.4.

Honestly if I was you I'd probably stay with 14.4 rather than tear down my watercooling loop unless you have a lot of spare time, haha. Did you try the 14.7 WHQLs? Do they have the same issues?
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I looked on the AMD website under past/legacy drivers and the most recent is 14.4?
Was there a 14.7 or 14.8??
If so where do I find them?

cageymaru said:
Hmm. Are you'll using factory overclocked cards? Maybe the driver is using more of the GPU and stressing the card too much in it's overclocked state? I remember when I had a HD7950 and a new driver set came out that increased performance it would shut my PC down when the card overheated. My old overclock no longer worked and I had to find out my new limits.

Just throwing some ideas out there. I hope that everyone reports exactly what problems they are having to AMD.
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I was thinking if my overclock had anything to do with the problem it would be artifact under stress or blue screen, not the computer just shutting off?
My cards don't overheat, period, due to wayercooling they stay a constant 42C.

Yes, I did report this.....I'd be interested to hear what the AMD guys have to say....but by the time they work on my issue it will be 2015.:eek:
 
this is excactly why I won't buy ATI/AMD Video cards for my main PC.

I have two AMD APUs in other systems, and AMD engineers really need to go back school and learn how to write drivers/installers properly.


If you can, skip AMD and get Nvidia, got 3 systems at the house with nvidia and never have install problems.
 
i ONLY buy AMD,

Ive never had a single installation problem since my 9700pro AIW.

Everyone has their own experiences.
 
Yeah, I mostly use AMD parts and also support FirePRO workstations so I've been using AMD drivers for many, many years and I've never had any big issues, been very smooth.

This is the first WTF driver I've had.
 
I stopped buying NVIDIA due to their shitty drivers, since moving to AMD I have had no issues.
 
nekrosoft13 said:
this is excactly why I won't buy ATI/AMD Video cards for my main PC.

I have two AMD APUs in other systems, and AMD engineers really need to go back school and learn how to write drivers/installers properly.


If you can, skip AMD and get Nvidia, got 3 systems at the house with nvidia and never have install problems.
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I have had any number of both GPUs. Dozens in fact.
Generally, though the AMD drivers can be aggravating and they used to be slow to support new games, I have never had the problems I'm having with the 14.9 betas before.
 
Out of curiosity, I just installed these (14.9.2) on my girlfriend's PC - i7 920, 12GB RAM, X58 EVGA motherboard and an XFX 7870 - and they installed fine, no problems. Installed them on top of the old 13.11 set that was on there from last year, didn't even uninstall those first. No issues.
 
Rizen said:
Out of curiosity, I just installed these (14.9.2) on my girlfriend's PC - i7 920, 12GB RAM, X58 EVGA motherboard and an XFX 7870 - and they installed fine, no problems. Installed them on top of the old 13.11 set that was on there from last year, didn't even uninstall those first. No issues.
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Why don't you just rub it in some more.......get off my lawn......:p
 
Worst thing is, it was at win 8.1 desktop. I did try civ be, it froze/crashed right after the first menu. Otherwise, when I would scroll through a web page (amazon, ffs), I would get flickers on my desktop, then, just a black screen and crash, music would go to a buzz. I gave the beta a few more chances, 3 boot/reboot cycle before I backed out to the generic windows video drivers (after I used ddc to get rid the old stuff completely, didn't realize I still had 7950 drivers left), and the desktop was quiet as can be. So that left out my r9-290 as a problem. it might still be a problem, but not with the win drivers. I loaded up 14.9 and no problems so far, but I'll let a few boot/reboot cycles go by before i can say for certain. And, to eliminate temps as a cause, my r9-290 temp never got above 33c (ambient is 17c).

pek
 
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Rizen said:
LOL sorry. I wish I had better advice to offer you.
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Well then..............

I finally got this to work, I think it was/is sheer luck, but what the hell.

1 part crappy drivers and 1 part bad UPC.

I was looking to see what the system drew as far as wattage, thinking maybe I had a PSU issue; so I plugged my kill-a-watt in on another circuit. The computer ran flawlessly under full stress.
I checked the UPC to find it was flaky.......hmmmmmm. How that relates to a driver install, who knows. The computer was only acting up at stress.

Next I repeated the 9.2 beta download. Ran DDU. The drivers loaded flawlessly this time.
No artifacts, no problems.
Runs everything I throw at it just fine now.:D

I have to say.....that DDU thing is pretty slick, works better and much faster than DriverCleaner. I sent the guy some cash.
 
magoo said:
Well then..............

I finally got this to work, I think it was/is sheer luck, but what the hell.

1 part crappy drivers and 1 part bad UPC.

I was looking to see what the system drew as far as wattage, thinking maybe I had a PSU issue; so I plugged my kill-a-watt in on another circuit. The computer ran flawlessly under full stress.
I checked the UPC to find it was flaky.......hmmmmmm. How that relates to a driver install, who knows. The computer was only acting up at stress.

Next I repeated the 9.2 beta download. Ran DDU. The drivers loaded flawlessly this time.
No artifacts, no problems.
Runs everything I throw at it just fine now.:D

I have to say.....that DDU thing is pretty slick, works better and much faster than DriverCleaner. I sent the guy some cash.
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Might be that something is just a bit more stressed under the 14.9.2 build than under the 14.4s. And that stress sends it over the wattage limit of the UPC? That's a first for sure, but I am glad you figured it out.
 
Sweet! Glad to see that you figured out what was wrong with it. May I ask what your system pulls at the wall?
 
Rizen said:
Might be that something is just a bit more stressed under the 14.9.2 build than under the 14.4s. And that stress sends it over the wattage limit of the UPC? That's a first for sure, but I am glad you figured it out.
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I really don't know......I think it was just old. Who knows, my other system was plugged in there too and never had a problem. This system isn't that hard on the wattage. But anyhow, when I plugged it into another completely different electrical circuit, it was fine doing the same things. I also don't think it was that wall circuit as there are other things plugged in there that are fine and it's a 15 AMP circuit.
I have swapped things out and I'm using the same circuit now and the computer ran perfectly last night.
Unfortunately, after all this nonsense I don't see any big gains using these drivers. Hahahaha. Figures.
I do like the new EyeFinity set-up software though.

cageymaru said:
Sweet! Glad to see that you figured out what was wrong with it. May I ask what your system pulls at the wall?
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Sure......under full load on both GPUs and the system running as it is in my sig......600-650Watts. System idle is 160W (system at idle, both GPUs at idle, in Crossfire the second GPU is completely shut down at idle), kind of high but it's a fully watercooled system with 10 fans and an MCP 655.
 
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Is your powersupply active PFC?

some older UPS have issues deling with it.
 
The Mac said:
Is your powersupply active PFC?

some older UPS have issues deling with it.
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Yes, it's a less than 1 year old SeasonicX- 1050.
My first thought with the symptoms I was having was a PSU issue......but not so, at least so far.

The whole thing was/is weird.
 
Worked fine for me on a r9 285 with an old C2D on a ip35 pro. Mantle sure helps with the old processor
 
magoo said:
Thanks for the info.
I finally got the drivers to load.
I have used DDU in the past, but this time I did this:

Disabled Crossfire, Overdrive and Afterburner.
Booted to safe mode.
Ran DDU.
Rebooted.
Ran the 14.9 Beta2 install.

SO NOW.....

I played Metro LL Redux for all of 5 minutes and the computer just flat out shut itself off.
I had to turn the PSU off at it's switch and restart it.
No BSOD, nothing. Just like someone flipped a switch.
I didn't believe it so I tried Crysis 3............same shit.

Jesus Christ.........:rolleyes:

I tried 14.9 whql and got an instant freeze up when I tried to load any game.
Had to hard restart.

I finally gave up on these and wiped them clean and went back to 14.4
Too bad I like the new EyeFinity setup software.

Guess I have to wait for 14.10.
Click to expand...

Could your power supply not have enough amperage on whatever rail the video card uses?
 
Robstar said:
Could your power supply not have enough amperage on whatever rail the video card uses?
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No.
It's got a giant single rail.
I kill-a-watt-ed the system and it never even draws over 650W, a long way from 1050.

It came down to a problem with my UPC, at least I think that's what, because with a different set-up everything is good and I changed nothing hardware-wise.
 
You have a problem with your Universal Product Code?

lol

I assume you mean UPS.

Like i said Active PFC screws with some UPS, it confuses them.
 
The Mac said:
You have a problem with your Universal Product Code?

lol

I assume you mean UPS.

Like i said Active PFC screws with some UPS, it confuses them.
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Yes. Sorry.
IDK what the deal is.....but so far it looks like the UPS.
I'm just happy I didnt have to tear the whole thing apart!
 
I'm still running 14.4 . I tried 14.9 and it crashed and had a bunch of issues. Has anyone updated going from 14.4 to 14.9.2 beta?
 
do you mean xfire specificallt? or single?

im single, havent had any issues with any of the 14.xs
 
XViper said:
I'm still running 14.4 . I tried 14.9 and it crashed and had a bunch of issues. Has anyone updated going from 14.4 to 14.9.2 beta?
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Read my posts in this thread.
I had plenty of problems.

I found that disabling CrossFire, Afterburner and running DDU was the key to success.

That said, other than the new EyeFinity software in the 14.9s there was no real improvement in any of the games I am playing currently.
 
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