ATI CrossFireX Application Profile 10.8a Performance @ [H]

All I'm going to say is that so far 10.8 are junk. I install them reboot and then BSOD.

I'm sticking with 10.5a or TwL drivers until ATI get's their shit together.
 
I think both NVIDIA and AMD suggest you simply reinstall over the previous drivers. I know AMD does for sure.

Since when was uninstalling drivers wrong? Who said that? The convention on this forum has been that you need to uninstall the drivers, use driver sweeper / driver cleaner etc. to make sure the drivers are completely gone and then you can install your new drivers. I've even see people go so far as to recommend formatting your computer and reinstalling the OS just for a video card upgrade. (This is a recommendation I always argue against because its stupid.)
 
Kyle, could you please do a comparison between some official Catalyst releases (10.5a through 10.8) and TWL's drivers, especially in Eyefinity and CF/tri-CF/quad-CF setups?
 
If you can't figure out how to install drivers properly on your own I think you are in the wrong hobby.
 
All I'm going to say is that so far 10.8 are junk. I install them reboot and then BSOD.

I'm sticking with 10.5a or TwL drivers until ATI get's their shit together.

Wow, I thought I was the only one. I also got the blue screen of death. Why are ATI's drivers so shitty?! This is my first ATI video card, and so far, I'm very disappointed with the problems so far.
 
Wow, I thought I was the only one. I also got the blue screen of death. Why are ATI's drivers so shitty?! This is my first ATI video card, and so far, I'm very disappointed with the problems so far.

This was happening for me as well until I started uninstalling the old ones first. I haven't had a problem since. I'll admit that I hate taking those extra few minutes, but it's kept me running without issues.
 
This was happening for me as well until I started uninstalling the old ones first. I haven't had a problem since. I'll admit that I hate taking those extra few minutes, but it's kept me running without issues.

I also uninstalled my old drivers first before installing 10.8, yet I still got the blue screen of death. 10.8 works now, though, after a couple of tries.
 
I just installed 10.8 and the Crossfire Application Profile updates without issue over my existing drivers. No problems so far.
 
Right from the NEW 10.8 Catalyst page....

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp

ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 Display Driver for Windows XP Professional/Home Edition

* Release notes
* Installation Instructions.
click installation instructions


http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/GPU-2-ATICatalystSuiteDriverXP.aspx

Uninstall Any Legacy Display Drivers (If Applicable)

Before installing the latest Catalyst drivers, any legacy drivers must be uninstalled. This note only describes the uninstall process for legacy ATI drivers. This step can be skipped if the system currently has no legacy display drivers installed.

a) Go to Add/Remove Programs located in through Start | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs.
b) Run the ATI Software Uninstall Utility and restart when prompted

---
So, AMD still says to uninstall first. Apparently under windows 2000 and windows XP (ONLY) I guess. OOPS ! WRONG !

EDIT again:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticle...tallationInstructionforMicrosoftWindows7.aspx

for windows 7 based systems from windows 7 64 bit catalyst 10.8...

GPU-33: Graphics Driver Installation Instructions for Microsoft Windows 7

" 3. Uninstall any legacy ATI or other display drivers (where applicable)
Any pre-existing graphic drivers must be first uninstalled, to prevent any errors that may occur when installing the latest ATI Catalyst™ drivers.
Note! The following instructions only apply if a graphics driver pre-exists on the system. This step can be skipped if the system currently has no legacy graphics drivers installed."

Sorry, their matrix is so confusing it had me thrown for a loop for a sec.
 
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I just installed 10.8 and the Crossfire Application Profile updates without issue over my existing drivers. No problems so far.

Now they have a link underneath release notes that says install instructions. LOL hahaha ! Thank you :)

No well, still says all windows article GPU-33 is for windows 7 - still says must uninstall older drivers.

Yes people can certainly do otherwise and may be fine... not like people follow instructions. Good luck.
 
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Regardless of the official position of ATI, the issue of whether to uninstall before updating has been discussed ad nauseum on these boards. An example of a post almost two years ago: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1365158&highlight=catalyst+uninstall+install

Based on what I've read here, I've installed over top since at least 2008. So it's really not a deficiency of the software, just a lack of confidence in the customers to do it without breaking something. I'm sure that if problems do crop up it's better for the tech knowing it was a clean install.
 
what a weird series of posts... i've been installing overtop for 2yrs, & if you want, you can uninstall & driverclean on both ati or nv
although.. noticed a side effect of overtop, the windows repository keeps all those versions, so uninstalling is the same as rolling back, instead of standard vga driver from microsoft

you'd want newer than 10.5 drivers if you care about the random grass bug in bc2 (hardly), & possibly a few other things like whatever monitor/hdmi/video/etc fixes there are if you need them

those twl drivers sound interesting, he managed to fix some of the low fps 'jumps' seen when smoke is on screen
maybe i'll try his for the x2 fix, or just 10.5+10.8cap, need to see if 30player bc2 servers are as slow as i recently noticed (back in those months, i wasnt playing on full servers, so didnt notice if there was a drop...)
 
Regardless of the official position of ATI, snip!... I've installed over top since at least 2008. So it's really not a deficiency of the software, just a lack of confidence in the customers to do it without breaking something.snip

So what you're telling me is ATI doesn't trust it's customers, but Nvidia does.
Not a good thing to try to say. It's wrong anyway.

What the AMD/ATI website does say, and I've posted it already here in this thread is, the older drivers should be uninstalled to prevent a possible installation error occurring with the newer driver/different card.

That's why sometimes it works, and other times it doesn't, obviously. That's so basic and so obvious, no one should miss it.
It's really got nothing to do with end users clicking through the install dialogues, as they've made that as idiot proof as it possibly can be.

So the bottom line is AMD/ATI err RADEON is aware it's installer sometimes fails or has errors with older drivers/cards already in the system. They aren't insulting their card users by thinking "they might screw it up".

Furthermore, with your note about endless discussion of this, I'll just say that I am the only one who has ever brought to knowledge ATI's actual recommendation vs NVIDIA's, and it is clear by the responses there wasn't a clue about it winding up in here. Even after all that "endless discussion". On page 4 of this thread, there is plenty of discussion about uninstalling - too.

Now if no one piles again, I'd like to stop talking about it. Next thing I put in here if anything is going to be a 10.8 driver report.
Thanks
 
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What a grouch man. I've paid good money for good graphics cards too, but I'm not having a cow. Are you perfect in everything you do? Have some patience and understanding. Trust me, I share your frustration, but freaking out isn't the way to solve anything. Just offer to help the ATI/AMD rep. That's helpful information, not ranting. He already knows people are frustrated.
 
Right from the NEW 10.8 Catalyst page....

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp

ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 Display Driver for Windows XP Professional/Home Edition

* Release notes
* Installation Instructions.
click installation instructions


http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/GPU-2-ATICatalystSuiteDriverXP.aspx

Uninstall Any Legacy Display Drivers (If Applicable)

Before installing the latest Catalyst drivers, any legacy drivers must be uninstalled. This note only describes the uninstall process for legacy ATI drivers. This step can be skipped if the system currently has no legacy display drivers installed.

a) Go to Add/Remove Programs located in through Start | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs.
b) Run the ATI Software Uninstall Utility and restart when prompted

---
So, AMD still says to uninstall first. Apparently under windows 2000 and windows XP (ONLY) I guess. OOPS ! WRONG !

EDIT again:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticle...tallationInstructionforMicrosoftWindows7.aspx

for windows 7 based systems from windows 7 64 bit catalyst 10.8...

GPU-33: Graphics Driver Installation Instructions for Microsoft Windows 7

" 3. Uninstall any legacy ATI or other display drivers (where applicable)
Any pre-existing graphic drivers must be first uninstalled, to prevent any errors that may occur when installing the latest ATI Catalyst™ drivers.
Note! The following instructions only apply if a graphics driver pre-exists on the system. This step can be skipped if the system currently has no legacy graphics drivers installed."

Sorry, their matrix is so confusing it had me thrown for a loop for a sec.

Dude- seriously- you need to chill out first of all. Second- you do realize that there is a big difference between LEGACY DRIVERS and all the current CATALYST DRIVERS right? Legacy drivers are the ones that are NO LONGER SUPPORTED.
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/legacy-end-of-life-components.aspx
"Legacy and end-of-life (EOL) components are products that are no longer supported by the manufacturer."
So yeah- you really ought to uninstall a legacy ATI driver before installing a new card and new Catalyst drivers, just like you ought to uninstall an Nvidia driver before installing a new ATI card and Catalyst driver. I see nothing that says you should uninstall the current Catalyst drivers. Just the way I see it.

Also- just to throw it in the bucket here, I've been running 5750 xfire for a while now, and haven't had any problems, minus with the SC2 beta, but that was a pretty well known problem. I haven't had a chance to really test out the catalyst 10.8 nor the 10.8 CAP, but it all installed just fine right over the top of my previous drivers, and I haven't had any problems yet.
 
Now that the troll is gone, I would really like to see Terry make an additional follow up response on the thread and if they able to replicate the issues listed.
 
Gosh, Doc, you use a lot of words to say the same thing over and over again ;)

Regardless, Terry has been quiet on both Twitter and in the thread for some time now, so I'm assuming that means he's working hard at fixing our problems :)

I'm here man, just wondering how this thread became a debate about whether an uninstall is needed for AMD and NV, and trying to find weed out the noise to find any real problems I can get looked at.

Good news though, we are now very aware of the issue that 4870X2 owners are complaining about, we have reproduced it, and we have a potential hotfix getting built early next week. I will get it posted as soon as possible.

And for the record - the install new drivers debate - uninstalling old drivers before installing new drivers is the safe thing to do, however I have never ever uninstalled anything ever. I just install over top. ..... wait.... how did i get sucked into that debate? sigh ;)
 
I'm here man, just wondering how this thread became a debate about whether an uninstall is needed for AMD and NV, and trying to find weed out the noise to find any real problems I can get looked at.

Good news though, we are now very aware of the issue that 4870X2 owners are complaining about, we have reproduced it, and we have a potential hotfix getting built early next week. I will get it posted as soon as possible.

And for the record - the install new drivers debate - uninstalling old drivers before installing new drivers is the safe thing to do, however I have never ever uninstalled anything ever. I just install over top. ..... wait.... how did i get sucked into that debate? sigh ;)

Thanks, any chance you could look at the issues with BFBC2 which I posted a few pages back. I think all multi gpu users are in the same boat as me.?

"At the moment 10.5 + 10.5 profiles are still the best drivers for Battlefield BC2 due to a few issues with any driver above 10.5. I am currenlty running an HD 5970 + 5870 in tr-fire.

1. Performance in the 10.8 is a great improvement over 10.5, higher minimimum and maximum framerates but,

2. Slow loading is back with these.

3. Laggy spawn screen in hardcore servers. (framerate is 5-7 fps whereas the 10.5's are in the 70-80 range) which makes it difficult to select kit and squad)

4. CTD is very frequent with the 10.8's (never happens with 10.5) especially at the end of a round."



As I said, the performance is way up over the 10.5's but with some of these issues.

Many thanks.
 
@CATALYST MAKER

Just got my second 5870 2GB card back from RMA and the crossfire color adjustment bug from 10.7 and 10.7a is still present. I use an HDTV for my screen, this screen when in PC mode disables all image processing including color control turning it into a dumb panel. To compensated for the lack of color I use the display color saturation slider in CCC. In both releases of 10.7 and 10.8 there is bug with crossfire setups.

Essentially the color adjustment only appears to apply to one card and not the other. The most obvious example of this issue is in Starcraft 2 where the screen essentially cycles from high color to low color 60 times a second (the displays refresh rate). This results in what I can only describe as color flickering. Other games like Left4Dead 2 and Just Cause 2 will flicker between colors in the opening movies and splash screens and then pick one level of color or the other for the rest of the time the application is open (Just Cause seems to prefer dull color while L4D2 strong color).
 
Hi Catalyst Maker, quick question. For my 5970, one card always goes to full speed @ desktop when it's idle, unless I load msi Kombustor, that seems to bring both down to 150/300, I'm wondering what causes that?

oops:

System: Win 7 x64 Ultimate
i7 920
Asus P6X58D-premium
12GB DDR3 1600
enermax revo85+ 850
sapphire 5970 OC(735vs 725 ~.~)
 
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Good news though, we are now very aware of the issue that 4870X2 owners are complaining about, we have reproduced it, and we have a potential hotfix getting built early next week. I will get it posted as soon as possible.

Will this fix also extend to the 4850 X2?
 
I'm here man, just wondering how this thread became a debate about whether an uninstall is needed for AMD and NV, and trying to find weed out the noise to find any real problems I can get looked at.

Good news though, we are now very aware of the issue that 4870X2 owners are complaining about, we have reproduced it, and we have a potential hotfix getting built early next week. I will get it posted as soon as possible.

And for the record - the install new drivers debate - uninstalling old drivers before installing new drivers is the safe thing to do, however I have never ever uninstalled anything ever. I just install over top. ..... wait.... how did i get sucked into that debate? sigh ;)

Thank you.
 
Terry, can you answer me an question?
If I'll buy an 6xxx cards when released, can I get an CF with my actual 5850 for more performance vs single 6850?
-> 6850 main - 5850 slave.

Thank you in advance.
 
Terry, can you answer me an question?
If I'll buy an 6xxx cards when released, can I get an CF with my actual 5850 for more performance vs single 6850?
-> 6850 main - 5850 slave.

Thank you in advance.

Since he probably can't answer any questions regarding 6xxx I doubt you'll get anything from that.

but from the history of CF and card releases, you can only xfire the same generation of cards, eg 5870 with 5970 or 5850, but you can't do 5850 with a 4890
 
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trying to find weed out the noise to find any real problems I can get looked at.

I think many people will agree that one of the biggest problems with the current ATI drivers is Crossfire/CrossforeX scaling. Anything you can do to improve on that is certainly appreciated.
 
Hi Catalyst Maker, quick question. For my 5970, one card always goes to full speed @ desktop when it's idle, unless I load msi Kombustor, that seems to bring both down to 150/300, I'm wondering what causes that?

oops:

System: Win 7 x64 Ultimate
i7 920
Asus P6X58D-premium
12GB DDR3 1600
enermax revo85+ 850
sapphire 5970 OC(735vs 725 ~.~)

Digital Viper-X-
I believe that may just be an artifact of what CCC shows, not the actual case for the clocks of the card, unless I'm missing something from your post. On my 5750 X-fire, the second card always shows as running at max clocks when idle in 2d, but I can tell from temperatures and things that the card is actually clocking down- when I go to active idle, the clocks match the idle clocks of the primary card, and obviously, both clock up to full when I launch a 3d game (if I go direct to a 3d game, then the secondary card steps through the intermediate idle/2d clocks then back up to the max clocks). Seems like GPU-z/CCC show max clocks when it appears that the card has actually dropped to its full idle state. I hope this makes sense as lack of sleep due to having a newborn is really taking its toll on my brain function:p.
 
I'm here man, just wondering how this thread became a debate about whether an uninstall is needed for AMD and NV, and trying to find weed out the noise to find any real problems I can get looked at.

Good news though, we are now very aware of the issue that 4870X2 owners are complaining about, we have reproduced it, and we have a potential hotfix getting built early next week. I will get it posted as soon as possible.

And for the record - the install new drivers debate - uninstalling old drivers before installing new drivers is the safe thing to do, however I have never ever uninstalled anything ever. I just install over top. ..... wait.... how did i get sucked into that debate? sigh ;)

Great news for us 4870x2 users! And thanks :)
 
Thanks for the response Terry. I think the main issues in this thread are:

***4xxx X2 series with the second gpu not clocking or working properly.
***Hotfix released. http://support-prod.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATICatalyst108bHotfix.aspx

***10.8a BFBC2 crossfire 5870 or 5850 (2 cards 1 monitor), users experiencing low FPS, approximately half of 10.5a. Frames actually increase turning crossfire off.
***Open issue. ATI needs assistance in reproducing this one in their labs. Quote from Terry "We dont see this in our lab, so I will need full info such as system config, maps, in game settings, CCC settings, and FPS observed in 10.5 vs 10.8". For those that have this issue please post in this thread.

***Users with HDTV via HDMI: reporting over scan not remembering settings and color saturation slider not functioning properly with crossfire.
***Known Issue. ATI is working on solution.

***Crossfire scaling including quadfire. Nvidia has seen strong improvements in SLI over the last few releases.
***ATI needs clear examples of where crossfire is lacking and needs improvement. Specific numbers and games. Please post in this thread and give full system specs.


I am in the process of re-reading this thread and filtering through all the troll comments. I will update this post with issues that have been reported by more than 2 users on this thread. Hopefully that will help the team that is looking at this. I am sure that most of us, my self included, would be willing to give more details or clarification. So just ask.

Updated 9/8 10pm
 
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@DaKon: Anyone with crossfire setups should be able to replicate my issue, simply turn up the saturation slider.
 
I think you guys forgot about that the 5770's in crossfire also suffer the same fate at the 4 series, with BSOD and CTD with BFBC2. BFBC2 has reintroduced long load times on 10.8a cap.
 
Another few things I've run into.

Borderlands - Enabling catalyst AI still results in application freezing up during gameplay (appears to be a memory leak issue). This has been present in 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8 releases. Disabling Catalyst AI resolves the issue, however this renders Crossfire worthless.

Mafa II - Framerate with Crossfire enabled lower than single card mode. While an application profile for this title may not yet be availible It's not unreasonable to expect an increased framerate by default. The fact that your worse off running 2 cards really raises an eyebrow.
 
Is anyone else taking a hit using AF with this driver. It used to only cost 1 or 2 fps to use 16X AF, now with this driver I loose 6 or more fps.
 
I will give you guys my experience. I just reloaded my OS, Windows 7 64-bit. I installed the 10.8 drivers, and used the 10.8a profile from hardocp. I then loaded BFBC2. It blew. Black screens, flashing crap, and of course a bunch of Crash to Desktops. I never experienced any of these before. I removed the 10.8a profiles, not much changed. These drivers took FOREVER to load the maps as well. I un-installed all of the ATI drivers. I then downloaded the 10.5 Drivers. The 10.5's are faster loading, faster frame rates while playing, and no graphical errors or CTD while playing BFBC2!

I have a Q6600, not over clocked
8GB of 1066 DDR2
64GB Kinston SSD
Creative X-Fi
2 XFX 5770 in CrossFire not over clocked
 
Good news though, we are now very aware of the issue that 4870X2 owners are complaining about, we have reproduced it, and we have a potential hotfix getting built early next week. I will get it posted as soon as possible.

Any update on this? Definitely looking forward to it.
 
Thanks, any chance you could look at the issues with BFBC2 which I posted a few pages back. I think all multi gpu users are in the same boat as me.?

"At the moment 10.5 + 10.5 profiles are still the best drivers for Battlefield BC2 due to a few issues with any driver above 10.5. I am currenlty running an HD 5970 + 5870 in tr-fire.

1. Performance in the 10.8 is a great improvement over 10.5, higher minimimum and maximum framerates but,

2. Slow loading is back with these.

3. Laggy spawn screen in hardcore servers. (framerate is 5-7 fps whereas the 10.5's are in the 70-80 range) which makes it difficult to select kit and squad)

4. CTD is very frequent with the 10.8's (never happens with 10.5) especially at the end of a round."



As I said, the performance is way up over the 10.5's but with some of these issues.

Many thanks.

I was using 10.8 drivers/10.8a profiles using trifire 5970+5870 with BC2 and can confirm frequent CTD...time ranged from almost immediate loading of a level to much later. It usually accompanied either the picking up of a new weapon (in single player, when the little animated gif of the weapon scrolls back and forth on the top of the screen). Loading times didn't seem extremely long but I didn't really have a reference point as I just got the game.

A question about 10.5....can I use 10.5 drivers and 10.8a profiles together without conflicts?
 
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