HD 7xxx drivers for flicker/BSOD fix

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon Drivers Section' started by vejn, Sep 10, 2012.

  1. WiFry

    WiFry Member Guru

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    I swear the AMD drivers on XP with DX9c are better than when running in DX9 in windows 7.
    Mainly in the case of Skyrim.
    I get jittery performance in Windows 7 with Skyrim and this is on two different cards from AMD.
    HD 4850 512mb and a HD 7870.
    Exact same behavior requiring me to use the windowless border for Skyrim and run in windowed mode to resolve the issue.
    The strange thing is when looking at the fps through fraps, Skyrim is locked at 60 fps on both.

    I do not know if this is related to what I experience in DX9 games.

    Looking at the new AMD BETA release notes, they appear to still be rather focused on the new titles which they are backing with advertisements.
    Performance updates for Far Cry 3?
    It hasn't even been released yet.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2012
  2. Offler2

    Offler2 Guest

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    Hey guys. Finally my registration passed.

    I did some tests with Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7

    Flickering observed
    World of tanks Versions 0.7.6 and earlier, or DX9.0 setting
    Skyrim
    Prey ver 1.0
    The Witcher 2
    Civilization IV

    Reported, but not observed
    Starcraft II

    Flickering not observed
    Prey ver. 1.4
    Oblivion
    Witcher 1 EE
    Assassins Creed 1
    DeusEX:HR
    World of Tanks 0.8.0 and later

    For now it still seems as a problem of DX9 or earlier games. Definitely not a hardware issue since I tried 3 different cards from HD 7000 series.

    I havent tried WinXP yet...

    My current tests with Beta8 shows better performance in games, but the flickers still persist.
     
  3. asciikode

    asciikode Guest

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    Offler,
    I have played Civ V extensively with multiple drivers and never see the flickering issue. Are you running it in Dx10/Dx11 mode?

    I have seen some mild texture flickering in grassy tiles. But these usually happened when I tabbed out of the game, and back in.

    I have never seen the flickering shapes that have been described as the Dx9 flickering issue.
     
  4. Offler2

    Offler2 Guest

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    Maybe because I am still playing Civilization 4 :), not 5...

    I believe that this game uses DX7 or 8, so the question is how cooperates with modern versions of DX...

    Generally all DX10 and later games should run fine in DX10/11 mode. Still I have not found any game which was running in this mode and was flickering. (with exception of Crysis 1 prerelase demo, which shows flicker, but completely different kind).

    What surprised me is fact that games written in 2003-2006 in DX9 including DX9C were running fine, while games written after 2007 supporting only DX9 had trouble...
     

  5. asciikode

    asciikode Guest

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    Ahh right. I read that wrong. That makes more sense now.
     
  6. Offler2

    Offler2 Guest

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    Also regarding Witcher 2 Enhanced edition:

    I can confirm that the game has no flickering when is used Catalyst 12.4. There is one different bug (instead of fire you can sometimes see checkquered background), but the annoying flicker is gone. However all performance enhancements are gone...

    If AMD slowly enables all performance enhancements they are most probably turning on new methods for shaders and anisotropy. In one case I was able to reproduce some flicker, and when i set in Catalyst to override game settings and set anisotropy to 16 part of the flickers never repeated again - however only part...

    Since most flickers show black color, then its white color i believe that the bug is hidden somewhere in actions related to anisotropy, shading, transparency or texture filtering.

    I give a wild guess to the transparency - even previously I was able to reproduce some bugs regarding Alpha channels and texture transparency - most visible in skyrim for example...
     
  7. ClockClocker

    ClockClocker Master Guru

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    imho i think that it's always there. it just may be more rare maybe only once every 20-30 hours bit it appears every now and then with every driver. That is at least my expierience.
     
  8. Offler2

    Offler2 Guest

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    That is true.

    I also linked two messages from the past

    1. Serious Sam 3 flickers in DX9 mode with antialiasing
    2. Rumor that Supersample antialiasing with 4x AA override may remove the flicker. Same setting was recommended for some other games even on AMD dev forums.

    Partially true. Depending on game of course. In Civ 4 I used "Enhance game settings" while i set in the game AA 4x. Flickering was then suppressed although not completely removed.

    Similar effect was seen in Witcher 2 with small difference. Flicker was further suppressed when I manually set Anisotropic filtering 16 in catalyst.

    Mostly I used Vsync - in this case the flickers remain visible enough to notice.

    For now it seems that most games with flicker react on this in some way, but the bug suppression is only random effect. Different sampling methods means different chance of bug but it only masks real problem.
     
  9. campcreekdude

    campcreekdude Guest

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    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Offler2 View Post
    Hey guys. Finally my registration passed.

    I did some tests with Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7

    Flickering observed
    World of tanks Versions 0.7.6 and earlier, or DX9.0 setting
    Skyrim
    Prey ver 1.0
    The Witcher 2
    Civilization IV

    Reported, but not observed
    Starcraft II

    Flickering not observed
    Prey ver. 1.4
    Oblivion
    Witcher 1 EE
    Assassins Creed 1
    DeusEX:HR
    World of Tanks 0.8.0 and later

    For now it still seems as a problem of DX9 or earlier games. Definitely not a hardware issue since I tried 3 different cards from HD 7000 series.

    I havent tried WinXP yet...

    My current tests with Beta8 shows better performance in games, but the flickers still persist.

    _______________________________________________


    Played FarCry 1 64-bit in Windows 7 no issues
    Played Assassins Creed Brotherhood Win 7 no issues
    (that was my extent of DX 9 testing in Win 7)


    I played Civilizations IV in Windows XP didnt see any irregularities or flickering.


    Windows XP only has 12.8 drivers... they seemed to stop updating recently for the Radeon 7970 in win xp..

    Im using 12.10 drivers in Win 7.
     
  10. Offler2

    Offler2 Guest

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    to Campcreekdude:
    Thanks.

    DeusEX: Human revolution is made for DX11 and has switch to turn it off. In XP is this setting not accesible. In both modes the game runs fine without any flicker.

    Assassins creed Brotherhood has similar switch, so I believe that it also does not have this trouble. Re-check how was the switch set when you tested it in Win7 please.

    In 12.10 and later the driver has major version 9... So I think this is caused by full transition to Win7. If they dropped support for native Direct3d 9 they made a terrible mistake until Direct3d 9EX is fully fixed...

    Also I have tested Morrowind - DirectX 8.1 - Everything fine.
    And its also true that Farcry is DX 9.0b

    Ill re-check the Oblivion, but as I remember correctly, bloom lightning was available for cards with DX 9.0b, while HDR required 9.0c, but did not allowed antialiasing at all. Thats maybe reason why Oblivion passed the test...
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2012

  11. ArgonV

    ArgonV Master Guru

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    New AMD 7970 Ghz Edition owner here... I too am seeing flickering in DX9c games. Portal 2 especially. I've seen this type of flickering before a long time ago when Half-Life 1 came out, and my Sound Blaster card wasn't compatible with the latest version of DirectX at the time. Only drivers I've tried thus far are 12.11b7 and b8.

    I've tried underclocking my card
    Updating system BIOS
    Turning my CPU overclock off
    Using Driver Sweeper to kill off old leftover AMD drivers
    Setting PowerTune to + 20 in CCC even tho I'm not overclocking

    I just reinstalled DX 9c last night, going to test further today...
     
  12. Offler2

    Offler2 Guest

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    Its a driver issue. Not a hardware or OS problem.
     
  13. ClockClocker

    ClockClocker Master Guru

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    Nice to hear that because i saw it in Portal 2 too. Could you provide more info where it was? Here it was in a map with much "metal". It appeared the first time when i was half through the game and it looked like a black shadow.
     
  14. WiFry

    WiFry Member Guru

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    Try running the 12.8 drivers which may reduce the problem.
    I have Portal 2 but I have not played it since owning an HD7870.
     
  15. ArgonV

    ArgonV Master Guru

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    Yes, maps with lots of metal. I was playing a co-op game last night when it started to happen... And they used metal heavily.
     

  16. ArgonV

    ArgonV Master Guru

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  17. Espionage724

    Espionage724 Guest

  18. ClockClocker

    ClockClocker Master Guru

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    then it was the same. I also played coop. Nice to hear that. Hope it is gooing to be fixed anytime soon.
     
  19. ArgonV

    ArgonV Master Guru

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    Me too, it's really annoying! At first I thought the graphics card was broke... And I just bought the thing! It has been real stressful and time-consuming for me testing settings, software and apps. :(

    Have people reported this to AMD?
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2012
  20. WiFry

    WiFry Member Guru

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    I personally have reported the issue through the AMD driver response page.

    This is indeed very stressful for the average consumer who just sets the drivers to auto update and be done with it.
    Most thinking that their graphics card is broken, RMAing over and over only to get the same result.
    Who also do not believe a manufacturer would keep pretty quiet about the issue.

    There is still know official post on the AMD forums admitting there is a problem with the 7xxx series and DX9 with the current drivers which I think is bad of them to leave people in the dark.

    There is just one unaffiliated forum which has a rep who has admitted on the AMD dev team's behalf that there is a problem with the drivers.

    I think what's worse is AMD boasting about the performance increase with the 7870s.
    Sure the frame rate may have gone up but at the expensive of flickers and corruption.
     

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