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AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta

HardOCP News

[H] News
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For those of you that like to walk on the wild side, there are brand new AMD Catalyst 13.10 beta drivers out today. Highlights of this driver release include:

  • AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta includes all of the features/fixes found in AMD Catalyst 13.8 Beta2
  • PCI-E bus speed is no longer set to x1 on the secondary GPU when running in CrossFire configurations
  • Rome Total War 2: Updated AMD CrossFire™ profile
  • improves CrossFire scaling up to 20% (at 2560x1600 with extreme settings)
  • Resolves corruption issues seen while playing the game
  • Saints Row 4: Updated AMD CrossFire profile
  • Improves CrossFire scaling up to 20% (at 2560x1600 with ultra-settings)
  • Metro Last Light: Updated AMD CrossFire profile
  • Improves CrossFire scaling up to 10% (at 2560x1600 with ultra-settings)
  • Includes a number of frame pacing improvements for the following titles:
  • Tomb Raider
  • Metro Last Light
  • Sniper Elite
  • World of Warcraft
  • Max Payne 3
  • Hitman Absolution
 
Thank you for the link! Excellent timing, as I just picked up Metro LL on the Steam sale :)
 
It seems unlikely that Metro LL will ever be playable in AMD hardware. As soon as AMD circumvents the odd behavior in game, a new game patch will bring performance back to normal unplayable levels. as fro WoW i am looking forward to see just how much better AMD fares now.
 
It seems unlikely that Metro LL will ever be playable in AMD hardware. As soon as AMD circumvents the odd behavior in game, a new game patch will bring performance back to normal unplayable levels. as fro WoW i am looking forward to see just how much better AMD fares now.

Runs great for me 70-50fps most the time very smooth. I'm on 13.6.
 
It seems unlikely that Metro LL will ever be playable in AMD hardware. As soon as AMD circumvents the odd behavior in game, a new game patch will bring performance back to normal unplayable levels. as fro WoW i am looking forward to see just how much better AMD fares now.

Intentionally or just by accident / poor design?
 
Still no frame pacing for Eyefinity :(

Not trying to be an Ahole, but did you really expect it this quickly, or without AMD making a big deal about it? They said back when they released Phase I of the FP fix, that it was going to roll out in 3 stages. Considering how they announced the first fix date nearly 3 months before it was ready, that should give you an idea of the amount of work they are having to put into getting it fixed, and fixed right the first time. The backlash against them would be insane if they rushed out the Eyefinity fix. They would be better off nuking their HQ..It would hurt less then the flame wars that would surely ignite on the forums!
 
It seems unlikely that Metro LL will ever be playable in AMD hardware. As soon as AMD circumvents the odd behavior in game, a new game patch will bring performance back to normal unplayable levels. as fro WoW i am looking forward to see just how much better AMD fares now.

I normally let this shit go, but:

What the fuck are you talking about? I play the shit out of metro ll on my amd hardware and I don't have a single bitch about it.

I really wish you guys would stop with this nonsense, you guys influence noobs and they don't buy amd hardware over stupid shit like your post.

good luck to you when there is one company(intel) providing everything. Stop with the over the fucking line AMD hate bullshit.

OMG THE UNDERDOG ISNT PERFECT AND I AM GOING TO BE A DRAMA QUEEN ABOUT IT UNTIL THERE IS A SINGLE COMPANY PROVIDING EVERYTHING!

Clue, you might wanna get one.
 
PCI-E bus speed is no longer set to x1 on the secondary GPU when running in CrossFire configurations

...oops? That hasn't been a thing for very long, has it? Wouldn't that have a major impact on performance?
 
Well I run a 7950 on 1440p and honestly the Metro LL performance has been good.
At launch, yes, the performance was not inspiring but a driver upgrade shortly after the game launch helped a lot.

Well if you enable PhsyX, the performance will take a hit on AMD cards and that is something no driver update can fix.
 
  • PCI-E bus speed is no longer set to x1 on the secondary GPU when running in CrossFire configurations
someone at amd has some explaining to do
 
Yea I did some bench marks before and after this driver and it was good for over 1k points in 3dmark 11.. Only reason I did is because tomb raider was running even better. Also WOW runs well with CF enable so now I don't have to switch back and forth all the time thank god..
 
I recommend a NV card if you want hardware PhysX.

Higher end AMD cards have massive compute capability's and if they where supported/marketed correctly, AMD can push hardware physics NP.

I'm sure down the road a year or 2 due to the next gen consoles...hardware PhysX will be near obsolete in the non professional market.
 
I recommend a NV card if you want hardware PhysX.

Higher end AMD cards have massive compute capability's and if they where supported/marketed correctly, AMD can push hardware physics NP.

I'm sure down the road a year or 2 due to the next gen consoles...hardware PhysX will be near obsolete in the non professional market.

PhysX is already "obsolete', most devs these days have been using Intel's Havok system for their games which is mostly all CPU based. Yet another thing our evolving CPU's have gobbled up into their workload.
 
PhysX is already "obsolete', most devs these days have been using Intel's Havok system for their games which is mostly all CPU based. Yet another thing our evolving CPU's have gobbled up into their workload.

Project Cars is running CPU based PhysX 3.2.4.1. The game is still in an alpha state. It runs great on my AMD FX and slightly faster on an Intel CPU. So far they haven't implemented any card based effects, but I'm expecting to see some sparkles to make Nvidia happy at some point before release. So while PhysX is still alive, it's changing to suit the times.
 
Not trying to be an Ahole, but did you really expect it this quickly, or without AMD making a big deal about it? They said back when they released Phase I of the FP fix, that it was going to roll out in 3 stages. Considering how they announced the first fix date nearly 3 months before it was ready, that should give you an idea of the amount of work they are having to put into getting it fixed, and fixed right the first time. The backlash against them would be insane if they rushed out the Eyefinity fix. They would be better off nuking their HQ..It would hurt less then the flame wars that would surely ignite on the forums!

If I recall, when the first frame pacing driver was released, the statement from AMD was indeed that they would release drivers in "phases".

That said, they mentioned in that release that EyeFinity resolutions were expected to be released at the end of that month.....

quote: "Phase 2 of the driver will come later this month. In Phase 2 CrossFire in Eyefinity resolutions will be supported."

That release was dated 1 August 2013.:(
 
If I recall, when the first frame pacing driver was released, the statement from AMD was indeed that they would release drivers in "phases".

That said, they mentioned in that release that EyeFinity resolutions were expected to be released at the end of that month.....

quote: "Phase 2 of the driver will come later this month. In Phase 2 CrossFire in Eyefinity resolutions will be supported."

That release was dated 1 August 2013.:(

I only heard this from PCPer. I was happy when I heard it from them, but they were the only reviewer that had said this. So the grain of sand I took with it was correct. When Eyefinity is supported, I'll be more than happy. I guess I'm not alone with that one.
 
AMD needs to have this set before the 9000 series launch. They need a bunch of happy 7000 series owners, and a confident 9000 buying public. Anything less AMD, will be regrettable.
Love my 7950 @ $200 as it is the best bang-for-buck going, but hate seeing the [H] bag Xfire 7950's for having poor performance in-spite of having high frame rates.
 
This 'frame pacing improvements' thing listing individual titles is very odd to me. I just don't understand how it can be a "per game" problem.

Oh well, they're still looking for people for the driver team. Seems like something where the candidate pool is preeety small.

Did you read the link? It has nothing to do with the frame pacing they are implementing. It's for a single position not "people", and it's specifically for Open GL.
 
I need to actually crossfire my 7970's and try this driver -- I've had two 7970's in my rig forever, but never linked them (just used mostly for litecoin mining)

Since I've made the jump to 1440p @ 96Hz -- now would be a good time I suppose to upgrade driver wise. I just know I had massive instability on the desktop unless you went into CCC and flipped on and off the LCD overdrive checkbox. (crazy drivers)
 
I only heard this from PCPer. I was happy when I heard it from them, but they were the only reviewer that had said this. So the grain of sand I took with it was correct. When Eyefinity is supported, I'll be more than happy. I guess I'm not alone with that one.

Actually, my quote about the EyeFinity availability was taken directly from HardOCPs article on August 1.
 
GPU #2 99% bug is still very prevalent in most of my games. Takes some doing to get everything working properly.
 
GPU #2 99% bug is still very prevalent in most of my games. Takes some doing to get everything working properly.

Mine was stuck at 99% reinstalled 13.10 same thing. Even after reboot and no games run. Installed 13.8b2 now the second GPU is not stuck at 99% and I can toggle CrossFireX.
 
This 'frame pacing improvements' thing listing individual titles is very odd to me. I just don't understand how it can be a "per game" problem.

Oh well, they're still looking for people for the driver team. Seems like something where the candidate pool is preeety small.

Why would it be that surprising? Crossfire support in general isn't 100% game-agnostic, neither is SLI support. Both companies put profiles in their drivers for certain games to try and maximize performance(which thankfully does not preclude having a generic option for games not specifically supported). So if multi-GPU performance in general can be tuned per game, why not frame pacing?
 
I normally let this shit go, but:

What the fuck are you talking about? I play the shit out of metro ll on my amd hardware and I don't have a single bitch about it.

I really wish you guys would stop with this nonsense, you guys influence noobs and they don't buy amd hardware over stupid shit like your post.

good luck to you when there is one company(intel) providing everything. Stop with the over the fucking line AMD hate bullshit.

OMG THE UNDERDOG ISNT PERFECT AND I AM GOING TO BE A DRAMA QUEEN ABOUT IT UNTIL THERE IS A SINGLE COMPANY PROVIDING EVERYTHING!

Clue, you might wanna get one.

cheers to this. it takes money and time to fix problems, and even with uber amount of both some companies still have no clue, but hey, some can do no wrong, and others have to do it all perfect every time it seems lol.
 
Did you read the link? It has nothing to do with the frame pacing they are implementing. It's for a single position not "people", and it's specifically for Open GL.

Yes. Never claimed it did. Manner of speech, yes.
 
Why would it be that surprising?

Because it's a bad way to work. It's like fixing rendering bugs in a browser by special casing individual websites. I'm sure that's been done, but it's idiotic.

So if multi-GPU performance in general can be tuned per game, why not frame pacing?

I'm not saying it can't, I'm saying it sounds like a bad approach to the problem. They're literally just creating more problems waiting to happen as these 'special fixes' age.

There must be a comprehensive solution to the core problem. I think perhaps they're not willing to pay the cost for that, especially if they can simplify the solution with a new generation of hardware.
 
Because it's a bad way to work. It's like fixing rendering bugs in a browser by special casing individual websites. I'm sure that's been done, but it's idiotic.



I'm not saying it can't, I'm saying it sounds like a bad approach to the problem. They're literally just creating more problems waiting to happen as these 'special fixes' age.

There must be a comprehensive solution to the core problem. I think perhaps they're not willing to pay the cost for that, especially if they can simplify the solution with a new generation of hardware.

I think you're missing the point. It's not that they're choosing to fix Crossfire and/or frame-pacing on a per-game basis instead of just trying to fix it for everything. It's that there may not be a global fix that's optimal for every game. Yes, I'm sure there are general code optimizations that will improve performance on many if not all games. But there are also probably quite a few things they can do that will improve only one or a couple of games. And there's even a chance that some of those things that help one game might hurt performance in another game. So, do they stick to a single performance profile that works "ok" for every game but doesn't maximize performance on any of them? Or do they implement what improvements they can when they find them and test them?

I'm not a professional programmer, but I do have a little bit of experience, and I can tell you without a doubt that if the Catalyst team could have a single set of code that ran all games optimally, they would ABSOLUTELY be writing the drivers that way. No programmer worth their salt likes to have unnecessarily complex code. It's a pain in the ass to debug, and it's a waste of both human and computing resources. Plus, they're not getting paid by the line. But their overriding goal isn't simplicity. It's stability and performance in as many games & applications as possible. If that means they have to special-case certain games, especially really popular ones or ones that for some reason do things in a way the default code isn't well-equipped for, then that's what they'll do.
 
I think you're missing the point.

It's certainly possible. Well not "point" maybe, more that I may have too superficial an understanding about the core issue. If this is merely a performance issue you may be right. So far I've been under the impression that it's an correctness issue (the proper frames are not sent out) with all games.

But their overriding goal isn't simplicity. It's stability and performance in as many games & applications as possible.

The primary goal should be correctness, not performance. When you have correctness, only THEN do you work on performance. "It's easy to be fast when you're not correct" is a thing you'll find me muttering from time to time.

If that means they have to special-case certain games, especially really popular ones or ones that for some reason do things in a way the default code isn't well-equipped for, then that's what they'll do.

I understand them spending time on special cases for popular titles on the performance front, but I actually wish they didn't. It's not good long term.

They should focus on having drivers that implement the standards correctly. If the standards are ambiguous or bad, fix the standards and the drivers. If the games are using the APIs in a bad way or have poorly written shaders, fix the damned game, don't hack in optimized shader substitutions into the driver!

By being proactive and working with developers BEFORE the game is out, drivers and game can evolve side by side instead of as an intermingled snakepit of horribleness. This is furthermore hindered, of course, by the "Gaming Evolved" and "TWIWMTBP" nonsense of the world.

(This is actually one of the things that are exciting about Valve getting into linux, because they seem to know what the fuck they're doing and they have helped at least Intel improve their drivers, and not "10% better in Half-Life 2"-style, but real across the board performance and compatibility improvements)

Are nVidia doing the same thing, do they have to patch their drivers for each game to fix frame pacing "performance" issues? I'm guessing not. Therefore it is logical to me to conclude that there is indeed some sort of 'global fix', even if it's not economically viable at this point.

But I'll grant you that I may be wrong.
 
These 13.10 beta's works superb with my setup, no problems what so ever. The earlier 13.8 beta crashed with frame pacing enabled.
 
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