AMD Catalyst 13.8 BETA “Frame Pacing Fix” Drivers Finally Released/REVIEW

[JaeDee884]

The titan remark was tongue in cheek, poorly implemented sarcasm.  I never said the 780 is double the performance.

 

 

The difference between two 7970's and two 680's is about a $100 (which is significant to me) and I was comparing them to a 7990 ($300 more).

I like to buy from a reputable retailer with a shop front and great aftersales service. So I tend to use only CPL.

 

I did the basic comparisons using the anandtech benchmark comparison tool. According to that two 680's will perform roughly on par with a 7990, Other than DIRT most of the results are within 3-10 frames.

 

I am not knocking AMD, I can't wait to see how these updates effect performance benchmarks long term. 

seeing as I live in the bush I don't have access to a storefront. I keep forgetting about others having that option. and the price and performance line is just referencing how there 780's price isn't justifiable. didn't mean to suggest you were claiming it was double performance, should of clarified that. 

and a 7990 is a waste of money I'm sure we all agree!

[Fetzie]

Oh ok, misread. Well that's good. But it still said in the article that there are problems / issues with certain games (that you don't see on SLI setups). 

 

Yeah, well it is the first beta release of 4-5 beta releases, I'm sure they're working to iron out those creases.

[TechFan@ic]

Oh ok, misread. Well that's good. But it still said in the article that there are problems / issues with certain games (that you don't see on SLI setups). 

The only drawback now is that you can't use this with eyefinity, yet.

And because some 4K monitors are tiled (act as two monitors so essentially use eyefinity technology) you can't use it there either.

But because all Nvidia cards outright do not support two monitor surround, you can't play on tiled 4K monitors with Nvidia cards at all.

[EmmaLong]

This whole frame-rating methadology with Ryan does not sit well with me, he delibrately tries to downplay AMD's efforts, he is absolutely biased.

The largest proof of this is the fact that he could not admit that the 7990 is in fact faster than the 690 without prefacing it with saying "Oh not in 4K though, because some 60hz 4K monitors are tiled and this frame-pacing doesn't work on tield monitors" even though NONE of the GeForce cards can even be used to play games on tiled 4K monitors because while the monitor works fine on the desktop, surround gaming is not supported on two monitors.

He even contradicted his own words just a few weeks back.

 

I attempted to document all of our problems here with AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards and while the AMD setup was by far the most simple, it still required knowledge about Eyefinity and needing to create a display group.

The NVIDIA issues were much worse though the company is working closely with ASUS and STMicro (the manufacturer of the SoC powering the PQ321Q) to get things ironed out.  Unfortunately for NVIDIA though, many of the initial headaches can only be fixed by either a graphics card BIOS change or a firmware update on the display itself.  Attempting to get each and every partner to issue a VBIOS update for GTX 700-series graphics cards would be a nightmare so NVIDIA is pushing STMicro and ASUS (and Sharp I assume) to get a firmware out the door to address the cold boot and POST screen problems.

 

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Displays/ASUS-PQ321Q-315-4K-Tiled-Monitor-Review/Closing-Thoughts-and-more-come

Here they talk about the fact that you cannot play at all with any Nvidia GeForce graphics card on tiled 4K displays, funny Ryan did not mention this at all in his article.
http://youtu.be/jLmzs_KLECA?t=11m13s

[CarlosRex]

Oh ok, misread. Well that's good. But it still said in the article that there are problems / issues with certain games (that you don't see on SLI setups). 

I think you're talking about the largely exaggerated 5ms latency in Sleeping Dogs, which is in fact intentional (heart beat pattern) and cannot be perceived even according to Tom Petersen from Nvidia.

[GPUXPert]

I really believe Ryan Shrout has it in for AMD, and I know for a fact (he admitted this in two articles) that he worked closely with the Nvidia driver team for over two years and was (possibly still is) under Nvidia's payroll.

[mgsstar]

Just going to stay with my current driver since I don't use crossfire. Probably will buy another card as an upgrade in the future as they have fixed the frame pacing issue.

[mr moose]

seeing as I live in the bush I don't have access to a storefront. I keep forgetting about others having that option. and the price and performance line is just referencing how there 780's price isn't justifiable. didn't mean to suggest you were claiming it was double performance, should of clarified that. 

and a 7990 is a waste of money I'm sure we all agree!

we do agree, although if the money was not an issue then I'd get whatever card looks the best :D

[ShiverMePenguins]

i'm experiencing MANY issues with the new beta drivers. it breaks all 7790 cards. and when testing with 7970's in xfire i'm getting artifacting with quite a few games. the worst is games where i can enable physx (hawken, etc.) and tressfx.

[EChondo]

I really believe Ryan Shrout has it in for AMD, and I know for a fact (he admitted this in two articles) that he worked closely with the Nvidia driver team for over two years and was (possibly still is) under Nvidia's payroll.

If you've actually watched his videos on YouTube about this, he says he's very impressed with AMD about this and that he can recommend multi-GPU setups with AMD, but he is still sad to see that this driver doesn't help with DX9 games and Eyefinity(and he also said that DX9 is being worked on as well).

 

I completely doubt he has it in for AMD. So what if he worked on the Nvidia driver team? Everything he has said about AMD GPU's has been spot on and CORRECT. Imagine if he knew this and never said anything, guess where most of us(AMD GPU customers) would be doing? Playing our games with terrible frame times with screen tearing problems still using RadeonPro to fix some of it.

[Kuzma]

Come on guys ._. kinda off topic

[Nicktrance]

Whether he did work with nVidia or not, he definitely doesn't sound biased:

 

 

Didn't know Eyefinity and DX9 and earlier games aren't affected by this yet.

[onionring]

what it doesn t work with eyefinity?

it s kinda the point of getting multiple gpus.

[GPUXPert]

If you've actually watched his videos on YouTube about this, he says he's very impressed with AMD about this and that he can recommend multi-GPU setups with AMD, but he is still sad to see that this driver doesn't help with DX9 games and Eyefinity(and he also said that DX9 is being worked on as well).

 

I completely doubt he has it in for AMD. So what if he worked on the Nvidia driver team? Everything he has said about AMD GPU's has been spot on and CORRECT. Imagine if he knew this and never said anything, guess where most of us(AMD GPU customers) would be doing? Playing our games with terrible frame times with screen tearing problems still using RadeonPro to fix some of it.

If you read his article he says that he can't recommend the 7990 for 4K 60hz monitors because they are tiled & thus use eyefinity which doesn't support heart beat, well that sounds very reasonable until you find out that what he's basically saying is get an nvidia card to play on tiled 4K monitors, even though they outright do NOT work and I mean don't work at all, the system fails to post, throws errors and when you finally get the drivers to behave you can't play still, because guess what, NONE of the GeForce cards support gaming in dual monitor surround (the Asus 4K monitor acts as a dual monitor thus the name "tiled") so he's basically recommending something that isn't just worse but does not work !

[Exotath]

Anyone use these with windows 8.1? Do they support 8.1?

[leipero]

Just going to stay with my current driver since I don't use crossfire. Probably will buy another card as an upgrade in the future as they have fixed the frame pacing issue.

You should deff. try this new drivers, especially if you are on 13.4. I was using 13.2 beta 6 till few hours ago, and i think this driver is maybe even better than that one (at least for me), and that means it is far better than 13.4.

 

 

Give it a try, nothing to lose anyway... In my opinion, well done AMD.

[leipero]

If you've actually watched his videos on YouTube about this, he says he's very impressed with AMD about this and that he can recommend multi-GPU setups with AMD, but he is still sad to see that this driver doesn't help with DX9 games and Eyefinity(and he also said that DX9 is being worked on as well).

 

I completely doubt he has it in for AMD. So what if he worked on the Nvidia driver team? Everything he has said about AMD GPU's has been spot on and CORRECT. Imagine if he knew this and never said anything, guess where most of us(AMD GPU customers) would be doing? Playing our games with terrible frame times with screen tearing problems still using RadeonPro to fix some of it.

Ir was not my intention to be a smarta**, but just for the sake of avoiding confusion to others who read this, screen tearing have nothing to do with frame times, don't mix those two things.

[ExDreamer]

Anyone use these with windows 8.1? Do they support 8.1?

Yes use this method.

Installation instructions for Windows 8.1 users:

- Download the latest AMD Catalyst Win 8.1 Release Preview Drivers.

- Extract it.

- Replace the "Drivers" folder inside "Packages" with the one that comes with 13.8

- Run the setup.

[ExDreamer]

Added few new info in.

[Exotath]

Yes use this method.

Installation instructions for Windows 8.1 users:

- Download the latest AMD Catalyst Win 8.1 Release Preview Drivers.

- Extract it.

- Replace the "Drivers" folder inside "Packages" with the one that comes with 13.8

- Run the setup.

 

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

[southwind]

I'm having problem with intel lan not working coming from cold boot issue. I have to enable-disable when coming from cold boot. Im using windows 8 64bit. Also static sound according to my brother using razer comms. Reverting to 13.4 resolves the problem. I think it's windows 8 issue only. Other than that I noticed improved gaming smoothness overall. I reported it already through here http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3F00  . I suggest everyone who have the same issue to report it so they prioritize fix asap. Thanks!

[TechFan@ic]

I'm having problem with intel lan not working coming from cold boot issue. I have to enable-disable when coming from cold boot. Im using windows 8 64bit. Also static sound according to my brother using razer comms. Reverting to 13.4 resolves the problem. I think it's windows 8 issue only. Other than that I noticed improved gaming smoothness overall. I reported it already through here http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3F00  . I suggest everyone who have the same issue to report it so they prioritize fix asap. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing the link, was looking for it!

[algoat]

For any litecoin miners here, my LTC hash rate for one of my 7950s went down by 50kh with 13.8. Guess I'll be reverting back to 13.4 for now.

[ExDreamer]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

Does it works for you?

[eshbop]

If you read his article he says that he can't recommend the 7990 for 4K 60hz monitors because they are tiled & thus use eyefinity which doesn't support heart beat, well that sounds very reasonable until you find out that what he's basically saying is get an nvidia card to play on tiled 4K monitors, even though they outright do NOT work and I mean don't work at all, the system fails to post, throws errors and when you finally get the drivers to behave you can't play still, because guess what, NONE of the GeForce cards support gaming in dual monitor surround (the Asus 4K monitor acts as a dual monitor thus the name "tiled") so he's basically recommending something that isn't just worse but does not work !

New Beta Nvidia drivers support "2 display" Surround on 4K displays only.

 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/win8-win7-winvista-64bit-326.41-beta-driver.html