Are the AMD drivers really that bad?

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I'm having a lot of issues with my Ryzen 3400G. When I use the latest drivers from the AMD website the GPU spikes from 100% to 0% while I'm at idle doing nothing. When the GPU spikes my mouse stutters it's really annoying. I have a feeling it might be my motherboard though. If I use whatever drivers from Windows Update no issues.
 
Here is the system running DX 12 in 1080p Med with 20.3.1 driver and built in fps in upper right corner

 
so far,so good. not one of anything at this point. running 20.3.1 factory default.
 
I do not have an RDNA GPU but I've had several AMD cards from the GCN era and I always thought they were fine. Once in a while I ran into a problem with new games but I think it is because the games were buggy. But since everyone on the internet, many who don't even have an AMD card, repeat that AMD drivers have all sorts of problems, users tend to blame every crash, black screen and everything on the AMD. Windows has bugs too you know?
 
Staples said:
I do not have an RDNA GPU but I've had several AMD cards from the GCN era and I always thought they were fine. Once in a while I ran into a problem with new games but I think it is because the games were buggy. But since everyone on the internet, many who don't even have an AMD card, repeat that AMD drivers have all sorts of problems, users tend to blame every crash, black screen and everything on the AMD. Windows has bugs too you know?
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External factors are pretty difficult to isolate, and that's certainly a challenge here.
 
At least we have a culprit here, namely the black screens.

For the longest I hear people say "AMD drivers are bad" but without any specific reason for them being bad. Mostly second-hand or third-hand knowledge at that point.

Personally I have not had major issues with AMD. Well, truth be told, there were issues from time to time, but they were usually in special cases or with particular games, not across the board.

Like I had a problem with slow performance on Vega Crossfire with OpenGL games. Yes, it was an issue, but then again Crossfire is not popular, and OpenGL is only used rarely on Windows, so it was an edge case maybe I only found. Not a widespread problem.
 
Staples said:
I do not have an RDNA GPU but I've had several AMD cards from the GCN era and I always thought they were fine. Once in a while I ran into a problem with new games but I think it is because the games were buggy. But since everyone on the internet, many who don't even have an AMD card, repeat that AMD drivers have all sorts of problems, users tend to blame every crash, black screen and everything on the AMD. Windows has bugs too you know?
Click to expand...
For the love of all that is holy. This has been covered numerous times in this thread. This isn't one of those "AMD drivers sux!! My buddy's buddy has bad drivers!".

AMD, the maker of these cards, has stated that there were driver issues. Seriously.
 
cybereality said:
At least we have a culprit here, namely the black screens.

For the longest I hear people say "AMD drivers are bad" but without any specific reason for them being bad. Mostly second-hand or third-hand knowledge at that point.

Personally I have not had major issues with AMD. Well, truth be told, there were issues from time to time, but they were usually in special cases or with particular games, not across the board.

Like I had a problem with slow performance on Vega Crossfire with OpenGL games. Yes, it was an issue, but then again Crossfire is not popular, and OpenGL is only used rarely on Windows, so it was an edge case maybe I only found. Not a widespread problem.
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Current AMD driver issues I am having, 20.3.1, 5700XT AE: HDR is broke in Doom Eternal (now when opening the game this issue is noted with pop up and that AMD is working on fix), Relive HEVC recordings I cannot open and view with anything - appears issue with the encoding, Doom Eternal default keybinding uses both Alt and Ctrl keys which is also used by AMD, so it is tricky to get Relive going inside of game, Have not found good alternates in the game, already have muscle memory to those keys, will see if I can change the driver keybindings. Performance wise I am seeing better than reports for a 5700XT. Game wise I've been really happy with AMD drivers in general.
 
Audio over both HDMI and Displayport is heavily distorted (tons of clipping and popping) if the card is in its idle state. If you are running a game or load up a benchmark in the background, the audio becomes perfect. Many people on different forums have reported the issue and it still hasn't been resolved.
 
noko said:
Current AMD driver issues I am having, 20.3.1, 5700XT AE: HDR is broke in Doom Eternal (now when opening the game this issue is noted with pop up and that AMD is working on fix), Relive HEVC recordings I cannot open and view with anything - appears issue with the encoding, Doom Eternal default keybinding uses both Alt and Ctrl keys which is also used by AMD, so it is tricky to get Relive going inside of game, Have not found good alternates in the game, already have muscle memory to those keys, will see if I can change the driver keybindings. Performance wise I am seeing better than reports for a 5700XT. Game wise I've been really happy with AMD drivers in general.
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I hear you. The overlay is a PITA because Alt + R is used in plenty of games but it can be remapped if I remember correctly. I have had to remap NVIDIA overlays too because something like control F9 is somehow does not work in all games. Too many programs have shortcuts so all the popular combinations are used. I erase all the shortcuts that I do not use in hopes that it will save me some trouble in the future.
I can record the screen at 38Mbps HEVC on an RX580 but it has a slight hiccup once in a while so I just record in 100Mbps AVC because it is smooth 100% of the time. I wish NVIDIA let you record in HEVC, would save me a ton of space.

I switched to a 1660 Super recently and that is why I am comparing the two software packages. Oddly enough, I did it because the video editing software I use uses an old plugin and it has a problem with GCN GPUs.
 
Staples said:
I hear you. The overlay is a PITA because Alt + R is used in plenty of games but it can be remapped if I remember correctly. I have had to remap NVIDIA overlays too because something like control F9 is somehow does not work in all games. Too many programs have shortcuts so all the popular combinations are used. I erase all the shortcuts that I do not use in hopes that it will save me some trouble in the future.
I can record the screen at 38Mbps HEVC on an RX580 but it has a slight hiccup once in a while so I just record in 100Mbps AVC because it is smooth 100% of the time. I wish NVIDIA let you record in HEVC, would save me a ton of space.

I switched to a 1660 Super recently and that is why I am comparing the two software packages. Oddly enough, I did it because the video editing software I use uses an old plugin and it has a problem with GCN GPUs.
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Yup, used F10 for recording, F9 for the performance matrix, turned out to be easy. Except sometimes the performance matrix will flash on and off or strobe in the game.
 
New problem for me: monitors won't wake from sleep. Had this a long, long time ago before though, but Jesus how do you not fix a single problem while resurrecting two others in one update?

I honestly loved this card. It performs well, I can tweak it, the ASUS build is not the best variant but I am damn happy with the card when it works.

Picking up a 1080 Ti for 350 USD tonight. If I don't have half as many problems I'll be good.
 
blackmomba said:
New problem for me: monitors won't wake from sleep. Had this a long, long time ago before though, but Jesus how do you not fix a single problem while resurrecting two others in one update?

I honestly loved this card. It performs well, I can tweak it, the ASUS build is not the best variant but I am damn happy with the card when it works.

Picking up a 1080 Ti for 350 USD tonight. If I don't have half as many problems I'll be good.
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naaa, you won't have half the problems, maybe a quarter of the problems :D
 
I just got this system up and running from parts I been collecting for 8 months catching the sales .. as it started with a $45 refurbished MSI B350M Bazooka mother board / flashed it for a (2nd) Ryzen 5 3600 I own that had noting to do .. this mobo was never made for the 3000 series or seeing XMP profiles for 3200Mhz memory speed for Team Force brand or running driver 20.3.1 on an RX 570 4Gb with the cheap $44 Evga 600watt power supply (Best Buy) .. totally untested setup



 
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My Video Card History

1/29/2014 - EVGA GTX 780 FTW (Works great with no issues over the last 6 years.)
9/9/2011 - MSI Radeon HD 6950 x 2 - Crossfire (Same issues)
4/12-2011 - HIS Radeon HS 6950 x 2 - Crossfire (Black screen and hard reset, color distortion - sold and bought different brand of same card)
3/15/2011 - EVGA GTX 580 (Worked great but not enough power to push three monitors - moved to AMD for more power for cost)
12/1/2010 - Diamond Radeon 6870 (Upgrade from previous card and removal of crossfire to see if more stable)
11/29/2010 - Powercolor AX5870 (Watercooled version to cut down on temps. Still lingering issues with black screen and BSODs)
2/10/2010 - Sapphire HD5870 - upgrade to crossfire (Needed more power for eyefinity setup)
1/7/2010 - Sapphire HD5870 (Faster card for the money - eyefinity support to replace my triplehead2go)
3/18/2009 - EVGA GTX 260 x 2 - Upgrade to Tri-SLI (Great performance but hugely bottlenecked by core2duo lga775)
9/28/2008 - EVGA GTX 260 (Great card no issues)


I've always had bad luck myself with AMD cards, and always hoped for it to improve. Great performance and excellent pricing but stability and reliability has been an issue in my experience. It's almost like I'm the person that goes back to the abusive relationship after hearing promises of change. I don't like the fact nvidia costs more in general, but it's worth it not to tinker with drivers constantly.


Biggest Issues:
-Black Screens Intermittent - screens would just turn off while playing
( $100 active adapter recommended to fix issue active - did nothing)
-Some custom maps crashing on amd cards not nvidia (codwaw)
-BSODs
 
noteworthy said:
My Video Card History

1/29/2014 - EVGA GTX 780 FTW (Works great with no issues over the last 6 years.)
9/9/2011 - MSI Radeon HD 6950 x 2 - Crossfire (Same issues)
4/12-2011 - HIS Radeon HS 6950 x 2 - Crossfire (Black screen and hard reset, color distortion - sold and bought different brand of same card)
3/15/2011 - EVGA GTX 580 (Worked great but not enough power to push three monitors - moved to AMD for more power for cost)
12/1/2010 - Diamond Radeon 6870 (Upgrade from previous card and removal of crossfire to see if more stable)
11/29/2010 - Powercolor AX5870 (Watercooled version to cut down on temps. Still lingering issues with black screen and BSODs)
2/10/2010 - Sapphire HD5870 - upgrade to crossfire (Needed more power for eyefinity setup)
1/7/2010 - Sapphire HD5870 (Faster card for the money - eyefinity support to replace my triplehead2go)
3/18/2009 - EVGA GTX 260 x 2 - Upgrade to Tri-SLI (Great performance but hugely bottlenecked by core2duo lga775)
9/28/2008 - EVGA GTX 260 (Great card no issues)


I've always had bad luck myself with AMD cards, and always hoped for it to improve. Great performance and excellent pricing but stability and reliability has been an issue in my experience. It's almost like I'm the person that goes back to the abusive relationship after hearing promises of change. I don't like the fact nvidia costs more in general, but it's worth it not to tinker with drivers constantly.


Biggest Issues:
-Black Screens Intermittent - screens would just turn off while playing
( $100 active adapter recommended to fix issue active - did nothing)
-Some custom maps crashing on amd cards not nvidia (codwaw)
-BSODs
Click to expand...
Turn off the AMD HDMI/Display port audio to see if that solves it, more exact:
Go to device manager, find the AMD audio device and disable it. That fixed the intermittent black screens in Doom Eternal for me. Appears to be a monitor/windows/displayport or HDMI trying to configure the hardware because it see's it again or periodically with the monitor. Could be the monitor is looking for audio - who knows.

With my 1080 Ti, Vive Pro, I use this for VR, I will loose audio over and over again going to Nvidia audio vice the Vive audio. I've found neither to be 100%, AMD's just has the more serious issues while Nvidia has many nuisance issues combined with draconian GeForce Now signing in, pick out the cross-walk, opps that was wrong, do again, something went wrong issues, loss of memory that you signed in and thus repeat. So I removed GF Now garbage once again today.
 
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noteworthy said:
My Video Card History

1/29/2014 - EVGA GTX 780 FTW (Works great with no issues over the last 6 years.)
9/9/2011 - MSI Radeon HD 6950 x 2 - Crossfire (Same issues)
4/12-2011 - HIS Radeon HS 6950 x 2 - Crossfire (Black screen and hard reset, color distortion - sold and bought different brand of same card)
3/15/2011 - EVGA GTX 580 (Worked great but not enough power to push three monitors - moved to AMD for more power for cost)
12/1/2010 - Diamond Radeon 6870 (Upgrade from previous card and removal of crossfire to see if more stable)
11/29/2010 - Powercolor AX5870 (Watercooled version to cut down on temps. Still lingering issues with black screen and BSODs)
2/10/2010 - Sapphire HD5870 - upgrade to crossfire (Needed more power for eyefinity setup)
1/7/2010 - Sapphire HD5870 (Faster card for the money - eyefinity support to replace my triplehead2go)
3/18/2009 - EVGA GTX 260 x 2 - Upgrade to Tri-SLI (Great performance but hugely bottlenecked by core2duo lga775)
9/28/2008 - EVGA GTX 260 (Great card no issues)


I've always had bad luck myself with AMD cards, and always hoped for it to improve. Great performance and excellent pricing but stability and reliability has been an issue in my experience. It's almost like I'm the person that goes back to the abusive relationship after hearing promises of change. I don't like the fact nvidia costs more in general, but it's worth it not to tinker with drivers constantly.


Biggest Issues:
-Black Screens Intermittent - screens would just turn off while playing
( $100 active adapter recommended to fix issue active - did nothing)
-Some custom maps crashing on amd cards not nvidia (codwaw)
-BSODs
Click to expand...

How many monitors?
 
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