AMD Never Settle Catalyst 12.11 Driver Update

[Final8ty]

I don't see the huge deal with these drivers. They seem to be good, but if you compare stock to stock the FPS are fairly similar +-2fps. GHz edition is a overclocked 7970, so it's not a fair direct comparison against a stock 680.

I personally will never touch AMD again after the countless BSoD, shitty drivers and crossfire problems (negative scaling, micro stuttering). That it took them 10months to get a proper driver out speaks loads. Nvidia isn't perfect, but I also did not need to wait a few weeks to get a working driver after launch day.

Just to be clear, I owned 3 7970s at one point. Tri-fire was horrendously unstable, and crossfire was plagued with BSoD and micro-stuttering for months. I basically bought the 680s as soon as they came out. This was all on a Enermax Revo 1.25Kw PSU.

Right they improve there drivers and that's the green light to come out and moan.
I can understand the frustration of Multi GPU 7970 card users and there is a thread here already for that, but none of that applies to you now if it gets better or if it gets worse but you will thread crap either way, if it gets better moan, if it gets worse well of coarse more more moaning.

 

[Flopper]

Right they improve there drivers and that's the green light to come out and moan.
I can understand the frustration of Multi GPU 7970 card users and there is a thread here already for that, but none of that applies to you now it it gets better or if it gets worse but you will thread crap either way, if it gets better moan, if it gets worse well of coarse more more moaning.

early adopters, new tech arc, its bound to be issues.
sli 580 and vista took a year or more to function properly.

No issue with my 7970 but I waited until 7970 got price right and half the price vs release is for me a good price/performance deal.
new driver is getting there for amd.
I assume the 8000 series will function a lot better at release now.

 

[Final8ty]

early adopters, new tech arc, its bound to be issues.
sli 580 and vista took a year or more to function properly.

No issue with my 7970 but I waited until 7970 got price right and half the price vs release is for me a good price/performance deal.
new driver is getting there for amd.
I assume the 8000 series will function a lot better at release now.

I made up my mind even before the 7xxx was out to not buy it no matter how much better it was than what i had as its was a big Arch change and start from scratch drivers and the 8xxx was what i was going to wait for.

 

[Rizen]

My 4870x2s haul ass even still. The main reason I got my 2nd GTX680 is because with only one it was basically a sidegrade coming from 2x 4870x2. I don't mind old tech eventually being put out to pasture, but it should at least get to the point where games are slow on it before the driver rug gets pulled out from underneath. These cards have years left.

It's also comical to refer to tech from 2008 (that wasn't replaced until late 2009) as "old" when the majority of gaming these days takes place on XBox360s (2005) and Playstation 3s (2006).

And again, Nvidia seems to have no issues supporting cards going as far back as 2004. I guess none of this matters if you are the sort of person that just junks anything more than a year or two old. I don't.

NVIDIA is also in the process of phasing out 6 and 7 series cards, so it's not just AMD. Consoles to PCs is apples to oranges. 2008 is actually pretty old in the PC world. If they still work great than I am not sure what you are worried about anyways. There is no more performance to be had out of those designs. They are still going to update the drivers to fix serious bugs, it's just going to a quarterly cycle. Not a huge deal imo. Lots of people don't upgrade drivers regularly anyways. Especially since they are in a secondary computer now, yes? What's the big deal with less frequent updates, if they aren't even your primary cards?

 

[Final8ty]

From AMD rep

"We are pushing out a new beta, beta 4, some time today. It will be packaged under the same executable as driver revision 9.01.08, probably around 2 PM EST. This beta is primarily designed to fix a crash in MOH:WF on CrossFire configs.

It will not include the Tahiti idle clock fix, as we are still investigating the cause."

 

[DaveBaumann]

GHz edition is a overclocked 7970, so it's not a fair direct comparison against a stock 680.

GHz edition is not "an overclocked 7970" it is a full SKU with its own product definition, product test flow and full qualification. CPU speed grades are not considered "OC versions" of one another.

 

[Rogue_Apprentice]

Just installed 12.11. Installed right over old driver with no issues.

BF3- 10-20 FPS increase
Heaven Benchmark- +500 pts
3dMark + 1000 pts

Wow can't say enough good about these drivers. They have renewed my faith in AMD!

 

[Porter_]

GHz edition is not "an overclocked 7970" is it a full SKU with its own product definition, product test flow and full qualification. CPU speed grades are not considered "OC versions" of one another.

kudos to you guys on these drivers, they rock.

 

[haste]

im amazed at these drivers so far. Batman AC is playable finally... completely maxed out for me @ 6032x1080 with 2x MSAA. It would dip into the low 20s before during gameplay but the lowest i see now is 27 or 28. also, some of the hitching i would see during the in-game benchmark is now gone. im blown away. it's almost like a new video card!


and Poject C.A.R.S. is now completely playable maxed out....drool.

 

[LigTasm]

If these drivers are that good I may end up switching to a 7970. I'm building a 5760x1200 setup and it remains to be seen if 2GB on the 680 will be enough, I like a ton of HD texture mods on games like Skyrim.

I had two 7970's for a short period of time and I had a problem with both cards (one stock, one DCUII Top) that were hardware related and not driver related so I never got to see if the drivers worked well around 12.7.

 

[GotNoRice]

NVIDIA is also in the process of phasing out 6 and 7 series cards, so it's not just AMD.

AMD already moved their DX9 cards to the legacy driver in March of 2009. The last update to that legacy driver took place less than a year later in February of 2010. Those cards have now been completely abandoned. The cards AMD more recently moved to the legacy driver were their DX10 and DX10.1 cards. Nvidia doesn't have any plans to stop supporting their DX10 cards.

Consoles to PCs is apples to oranges. 2008 is actually pretty old in the PC world.

Point being that Consoles dictate the direction most modern games take and tend to keep standards low. The idea that a DX10.1 card from 2008 is too old to run DX9 console ports is silly. There is plenty of tech from 2008 still in use today. The i7 930 in your rig also dates back to 2008. Pretty old?

If they still work great than I am not sure what you are worried about anyways. There is no more performance to be had out of those designs. They are still going to update the drivers to fix serious bugs, it's just going to a quarterly cycle. Not a huge deal imo.

The last cards they moved to the legacy driver, that legacy driver wasn't updated more than a few times before it was abandoned less than a year later. I can only hope and pray that it works out better this time, but that is what I am "worried about". Crossfire configurations tend to be more sensitive to bugs and random quirks than single card configs so the potential for these cards to become useless as support fades is high.

The cards are VLIW5, the same underlying architecture that was still in use as recently as the 6870. I have a hard time believing that there is no more performance to be gained from drivers. Sounds more like lip service to me. Nvidia driver updates continue to bring new features and increased performance to even their older cards.

Lots of people don't upgrade drivers regularly anyways. Especially since they are in a secondary computer now, yes? What's the big deal with less frequent updates, if they aren't even your primary cards?

The computer still sees regular usage.

 

[SilverSliver]

Great drivers. ~7% increase in all benchmarks and noticeable FPS increases in all my games.

 

[DaveBaumann]

From AMD rep

"We are pushing out a new beta, beta 4, some time today. It will be packaged under the same executable as driver revision 9.01.08, probably around 2 PM EST. This beta is primarily designed to fix a crash in MOH:WF on CrossFire configs.

It will not include the Tahiti idle clock fix, as we are still investigating the cause."

The driver download page has been updated to include the MoH:Warfighter Crossfire fix.