I now know of the pain you all felt... (rant)

[Mpegger]

I've been a nVidia user for a very long time, since way back when 3DFX was around. I did own a Voodoo 3D , but afterward went with nVidia based cards. I've stuck with nVidia mainly because it always seemed to be the best bang for the buck, as I for the longest always purchased a previous generation model to keep costs down without losing too much in performance (purchased second hand a couple of times from OC classified too). The 780Ti was the first card I purchased within a month of the initial release and it had been in use since then till a couple of months ago when I finally decided to upgrade. I again wanted something current gen to support a newer 1440p screen, and also wanted a 'sync monitor. Seeing as how current gen nVidia is way over priced (imo, even before the current mining craze), as well as Gsync monitors being overpriced (average $200 more then the same Freesync model), I decided to go AMD and Freesync. I got lucky with a user here selling their Vega 56, and soon after, a nice 1440p 144Hz IPS Freesync monitor to go along with it.

For the longest time, I've always seen the complaints on various forums (including here) on how bad AMD was with drivers, and now, I see exactly what you all have been complaining about. Coming from nVidia, I didn't expect to see such a horrible experience with drivers. I'm not talking just poor performance or compatibility with games, but constant reboots! The reboots!!! ARGH

I'm currently stuck with using 17.9.3 drivers, as anything newer just causes the PC to eventually lock up and reboot in practically every game I play. Hell, even my screen saver popping up will cause a lock up and reboot! I even re-installed Windows and had went with the newest 18.1.1 drivers, thinking that the problems would go away, but still had nothing but lock ups and reboot. It was so bad that today, I was just minutes away from ripping the Vega 56 out and putting the 780Ti back in. I never had issues like this with nVidia. Being able to leave my computer on for weeks (even months) at a time without a single reboot was the norm. Being able to play any and every game perfectly fine, with graphics performance being the only issue remedied by simply turning down some graphics options, was practically the only issue I've ever had under nVidia. I didn't think the issue with AMD drivers would be this bad, and in fact, I thought AMD owners were just making a big fuss out of the occasional issues that most people have here and there with their systems. But wow, was I ever wrong.

Has it always been like this with AMD and their drivers? Does it really take years before they finally figure out how to make things work right? I can see nVidia having a big part of the blame, what with working closely with developers to "optimize" the games for nVidia, and developers sticking with nVidias proprietary APIs instead of optimizing for free and open APIs. But man, I can see how it would make someone want to jump ship and go back to Team Green, even if it'll be a $300-$400+ admission fee for the same tech.

 

[Alaric]

I'm surprised. When the Team Green 10xx cards came out I saw a lot more driver complaints for the nvidia cards than AMD. (Just in time for my first nvidia card, no less) Most of my AMD driver issues, and I had some doozies, went away with an RX 480 but I almost went bald pulling hair over the R7 260x Black Screen issue. I haven't updated my drivers since I installed my HOF because they work. The monthly AMD driver mess cured me of updating graphics drivers. LOL

 

[mackerel]

It is interesting that the system reboots with Vega 56. Early on I had some stability problems with mine (crashes, lockups), which I never found the root cause of. It might seem stable in the short term, but would fall over when under load for long enough. In my case I hadn't noticed any relation to driver version, and the problems seem to have gone away. Then again, these days I just partially optimised it for mining and left it... it does seem like there is less headroom for tinkering, where on nvidia cards you can survive some silly settings without load, Vega seems more prone to fall over faster if it doesn't like something.

What I don't like is the driver interface. Nvidia's might be old fashioned by current standards, but you can generally find stuff without too much fuss. AMD's looks like it was made to look good more than be functional. Everything takes more clicks than it should, and Wattman just needs far too much monitor space for the info that's actually on it.

 

[Johan45]

I don't have a vega but did notice issues with the 18.1.1 drivers. Did you try their initial release Adrenalin drivers 17.12.1? I had good luck with those.
Are you Win10 or 7?

 

[rescuetoaster]

I literally have not had an AMD driver issues in about a decade. I assume you did a clean install/don't have nvidia stuff hanging around still?

 

[Mpegger]

I don't have a vega but did notice issues with the 18.1.1 drivers. Did you try their initial release Adrenalin drivers 17.12.1? I had good luck with those.
Are you Win10 or 7?

I literally have not had an AMD driver issues in about a decade. I assume you did a clean install/don't have nvidia stuff hanging around still?

Win10

I'm currently stuck with using 17.9.3 drivers, as anything newer just causes the PC to eventually lock up and reboot in practically every game I play. Hell, even my screen saver popping up will cause a lock up and reboot! I even re-installed Windows and had went with the newest 18.1.1 drivers...

17.9.3 is the only stable driver I can use. Of the games I play the most, Overwatch is the only one with issues on this version. Although the issue was fixed in the newer versions, anything newer then 17.9.3, and I do mean anything newer as I have tried them all, will cause issues with the majority of the games I frequent the most. I can install a driver, reboot, fire up a game, and within minutes I'll know if there are issues as that's all it sometimes takes before the lock-up/reboot occurs.

 

[deathman20]

Now I've had AMD/ATI card for years now. Just recently retired my old R9 290 and got a 1080TI. That being said driver issues... its been years since I've really had one. I rarely do a clean install, and rarely uninstall my driver before an update. Heck even switching to my new card, I had the old AMD drivers installed and went to work with Nvidia. Placed my R9 290 in another PC, worked flawlessly, swapped it for other cards (1060 and 1080ti) and back over the past few months zero issues with any drivers and I am running the latest for all of them. Though driver wise, Nvidia seems to be right out of the gate with very good drivers with new cards, and some marginal performance tweaks over the life of the card. AMD on the other side, sort of disappointing GPU performance out of the gate but driver after driver seems to have performance tweaks that make up for it in the end.

So driver issue seems really odd but people always have different experiences when it comes to drivers with their PC because there is just that 1 thing that is different on each system that seems to make a world of difference. Hopefully a new alpha/beta driver will fix the issue. Otherwise the only other things I can think of checking is make sure your BIOS on the motherboard is updated, and if using a new driver, does it happen to be using more power from the PSU, so maybe a PSU issue?

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

Last Nvidia card ive ever had was an 8800GTS, and the reason why i havent had Nvidia since is because like Intel they manipulated the market, paid off retailers and inflated video card prices back then and probably still are doing it. Intel and nvidia both got caught doing this and AMD has sued intel for it.

The only reason i have a 4790k is back when i got it 3 years ago AMD cpu's were just too **** poor to buy even though i dont like Intel for what they did so i had no other choice.

Now as for drivers, ive had ATI/AMD cards since the 9700pro came out, i started building PC's when i was 14-15 im 31 now, my first ever video card was a geforce 3 ti 200, then a geforce 4 ti4600, then a 9700pro then a 8800GTS and then a 4850/4890 and now my R9 290. Honestly, ATI drivers were bad back in the day maybe 15 years ago.. But ive never really had any issues with my 48xx and 290 graphics card.. TBH the bad AMD/ATI drivers thing started over a decade ago.. If youre having issues with drivers now, then its got to be something else on your computer causing a conflict i'll just flat out say that.

Did you ever consider that 2nd hand video card might be the issue and not the drivers themselves ?

 

[Mpegger]

Last Nvidia card ive ever had was an 8800GTS, and the reason why i havent had Nvidia since is because like Intel they manipulated the market, paid off retailers and inflated video card prices back then and probably still are doing it. Intel and nvidia both got caught doing this and AMD has sued intel for it.

The only reason i have a 4790k is back when i got it 3 years ago AMD cpu's were just too **** poor to buy even though i dont like Intel for what they did so i had no other choice.

Now as for drivers, ive had ATI/AMD cards since the 9700pro came out, i started building PC's when i was 14-15 im 31 now, my first ever video card was a geforce 3 ti 200, then a geforce 4 ti4600, then a 9700pro then a 8800GTS and then a 4850/4890 and now my R9 290. Honestly, ATI drivers were bad back in the day maybe 15 years ago.. But ive never really had any issues with my 48xx and 290 graphics card.. TBH the bad AMD/ATI drivers thing started over a decade ago.. If youre having issues with drivers now, then its got to be something else on your computer causing a conflict i'll just flat out say that.

Did you ever consider that 2nd hand video card might be the issue and not the drivers themselves ?

One of the other reasons I too went AMD this gen, was also because of nVidia and their business practices.

I have considered a possible bad card, but have thrown it out the window as the problem is consistent with the driver, and the issues I have are known issues. 17.9.3 has known issues with Overwatch, as do I, but the other games that I have do not have problems with that driver. The next stable release was 17.12.2, which supposedly fixed the issue with Overwatch (which appears so with my setup), but introduced a new known issue (Freesync going from max to minimum rates in full screen) that I also experience, but I also have the lockup/reboot issue in many games that were fine in 17.9.3. All drivers so far after 17.12.2 exhibit the same issue, regardless if I am overclocked or not. I go back to 17.9.3, all is fine except for Overwatch. It was the same before, and after I did a fresh install of Windows.

 

[Thick8]

I went the other way and bought Nvidia after over a decade of ATI/AMD. I had some driver issues through the years. Nothing that caused crashing/rebooting/bsod. The only reason I switched was because I wanted a factory watercooled card that could run a Samsung Odyssey at 90 FPS. Found the one in my sig for sub-$800 with that Mordor game (which I never play). Still wouldn’t use an Intel CPU even if it was given to me though...

 

[Alaric]

Still wouldn’t use an Intel CPU even if it was given to me though...

That was me. Until I decided that performance was my #1 priority for my current build. I couldn't take advantage of the multi threading of AMD's chips, and my Skylake flat destroys Bulldozers.

And I'm only down 11% on multi thread from a Ryzen with 33% more cores.

As for single core performance, well, I'll take my 53% lead. LOL

 

[deathman20]

I went the other way and bought Nvidia after over a decade of ATI/AMD. I had some driver issues through the years. Nothing that caused crashing/rebooting/bsod. The only reason I switched was because I wanted a factory watercooled card that could run a Samsung Odyssey at 90 FPS. Found the one in my sig for sub-$800 with that Mordor game (which I never play). Still wouldn’t use an Intel CPU even if it was given to me though...

Suprised that you won't touch an Intel CPU given that the performance increases with the Intel vs AMD expecially when gaming in most cases and sometimes drastic. That would benefit from VR/AR applications.

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

Yea my 4790k is so fast i can downclock it lol. I actually decided for the first time in over a decade i didnt need to overclock anymore when i got my 4790k 3 years ago. I actually disabled turbo boost, kept it at 4400mhz and set it to 1.18v so i downvolted it and ive been at that for 3 years now. I just got my new 27 inch 2k or 1440p monitor and my games have suffered a big fps loss so i decided to finally overclock my system. I got to 4800mhz so far stable at 1.21v, only helped me by a few fps, i just need to get a better video card, but with the stupid prices out now meh.. I was in microcenter, the shelves were completetly empty, they did have a Vega 54 or 64 i think it was for 989$ though.. The next day i was getting some case fans and the Vega was gone..

Why anyone would spend $700-1000$ on a video card is beyond me.. I remember when top of the line cards like say a 9700pro were only $400... This mining is just plain retarded, causing prices to sky rocket like this. I really cant upgrade my video card because a $400 card today is no faster then what i have. Hell my r9 290 Tri-x OC from sapphire sells for $400 on ebay... and i paid like $350 for it brand new 3 years ago

 

[deathman20]

Why anyone would spend $700-1000$ on a video card is beyond me.. I remember when top of the line cards like say a 9700pro were only $400... This mining is just plain retarded, causing prices to sky rocket like this. I really cant upgrade my video card because a $400 card today is no faster then what i have. Hell my r9 290 Tri-x OC from sapphire sells for $400 on ebay... and i paid like $350 for it brand new 3 years ago

Got my 1080TI just last year for $710 i think. Yup top of the line and will last many years like my R9 290 that I had. Actually just sold it... those high end 290 prices you see are very lucky. Seeing more in the $200-270 range give or take. Got $250 for mine, paid $280 for it 4 years ago Least the guy I sold it to, just had his card take a crap so was going to a good cause for replacement.

 

[wagex]

from the 3870x2 to the 280x, i didnt have any issues until the 280x, next card was a gtx 1060. the 280x i had to flash like 3 different firmwares before it ran right and didnt crash all the time. what made me switch was i had bought a 750TI for my mini pc and i was amazed at how much smoother it felt even with lower fps had me convinced to switch to nvidia.

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

Yea i was thinking of just saving 3-400 like i usually do and if prices hold ill just sell my r9-290 for 300 or something and the price will "almost" be the same as a normal card.. But still you know what i mean lol.

My r9-290 was fine using my 1080p monitor but with this 27 inch at 2560x1440 it kinda crushed my fps... One thing im really irritated about is freesync seems to be junk.. when its enabled some of my games flicker badly.. quick goodle search and it apears to very wide spread for AMD... guess ill have to turn it off for some games and on for others.

As for the OP have you been able to fix your problem yet ?

 

[MaddMutt]

You HAD to bring video cards into this..... ATI\AMD no less

I currently don't have a "new" AMD card. My last several where the R9 280x and 290x series. I do have a Nvidia GTX 1080 that I still need to bench...another story

I have to ask though...are you running MSI AB 4.4.2????

I have stayed away from the 17.x Drivers and have been running the 16.11.5 or earlier depending on what ATI\AMD card I'm benching. I noticed another Apprentice benching some of the same AMD cards that I have\will bench. He was using the newer 18.x version and was getting a better GPU score in GPUPI. I immediately updated to the new driver with my Sapphire R9 290x in the system. The computer would crash or BSOD w\amd.xxx but it just made life BAD

I researched what might be the problem as uninstalling and reinstalling an older 15.x or 16.x Driver had no problem. There is info on the NET about compatibility problems between MSI's AB 4.4.x and AMD's GPU Driver. I don't understand all the coding talk but here is what I have found to work with MSI AB 4.4.2 and AMD's 18.2.1 Drivers :

1) From a safe boot, completely remove MSI AB and the AMD Driver. You may have to reboot several times to remove everything.
2) Let Windows load and install it's default video driver. Install AMDs 18.2.1 Drivers and reboot.
3) Install MSI AB after Windows is back up and running. Reboot.
4) Run MSI AB. Open settings and DO NOT CHECK :
a) Unlock Voltage Monitoring (AMDs Driver also does this, causing problems)
b) Force Constant Voltage (AMDs Driver wants to control this, causing problems)
c) Unofficial Overclocking Mode = DISABLED (AMDs Driver does not like this, causing problems)

I hope this might help

I'm still a AMD FAN but another thing that might keep you with Nvidia instead of AMD. I know that Nvidia's current driver will work with a 8800 GT +1

 

[Alaric]

c) Unofficial Overclocking Mode = DISABLED (AMDs Driver does not like this, causing problems)

No more editing AB's .config file with Notepad? LOL

 

[Mpegger]

You HAD to bring video cards into this..... ATI\AMD no less

I currently don't have a "new" AMD card. My last several where the R9 280x and 290x series. I do have a Nvidia GTX 1080 that I still need to bench...another story

I have to ask though...are you running MSI AB 4.4.2????

I have stayed away from the 17.x Drivers and have been running the 16.11.5 or earlier depending on what ATI\AMD card I'm benching. I noticed another Apprentice benching some of the same AMD cards that I have\will bench. He was using the newer 18.x version and was getting a better GPU score in GPUPI. I immediately updated to the new driver with my Sapphire R9 290x in the system. The computer would crash or BSOD w\amd.xxx but it just made life BAD

I researched what might be the problem as uninstalling and reinstalling an older 15.x or 16.x Driver had no problem. There is info on the NET about compatibility problems between MSI's AB 4.4.x and AMD's GPU Driver. I don't understand all the coding talk but here is what I have found to work with MSI AB 4.4.2 and AMD's 18.2.1 Drivers :

1) From a safe boot, completely remove MSI AB and the AMD Driver. You may have to reboot several times to remove everything.
2) Let Windows load and install it's default video driver. Install AMDs 18.2.1 Drivers and reboot.
3) Install MSI AB after Windows is back up and running. Reboot.
4) Run MSI AB. Open settings and DO NOT CHECK :
a) Unlock Voltage Monitoring (AMDs Driver also does this, causing problems)
b) Force Constant Voltage (AMDs Driver wants to control this, causing problems)
c) Unofficial Overclocking Mode = DISABLED (AMDs Driver does not like this, causing problems)

I hope this might help

I'm still a AMD FAN but another thing that might keep you with Nvidia instead of AMD. I know that Nvidia's current driver will work with a 8800 GT +1

I do run with MSI AB, mainly just to monitor the video card, cpu, and control the video card fan speed (I use a aftermarket cooler with aftermarket fans). I can use OverdriveNTool to control the fans, so I will try a clean driver install without MSI AB installed and see how it goes.

[edit] Checking my current setup, all those settings are exactly the same. I also do recall after re-installing Windows, that I did the exact same install order you outlined, which still resulted in the reboots. I will still give it a go without MSI AB and see how it fares. [/edit]

 

[petteyg359]

That was me. Until I decided that performance was my #1 priority for my current build. I couldn't take advantage of the multi threading of AMD's chips, and my Skylake flat destroys Bulldozers.

And I'm only down 11% on multi thread from a Ryzen with 33% more cores. View attachment 196957

As for single core performance, well, I'll take my 53% lead. LOL

View attachment 196959

You wanna maybe redo that against a 1600x, so the clocks are a bit more comparable? The 15-20% difference in clock is inflating those numbers just a bit... Even the 1600x will have a 5-9% handicap.