HD 7xxx drivers for flicker/BSOD fix

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

  1. AntiBaby

    AntiBaby Guest

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    Here is a link to my post from much earlier in the thread where I speculated on texture str`eaming:

    http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=4409871&postcount=57

    Obviously, I was grasping at straws. I have no idea how one would even test this.

    When texture str`eaming is used, textures are progressively loaded into a scene/level and rendered as needed instead of all at once. So, a wall on the far side of the level can be rendered with a very low (say, 64x64) resolution texture. But if the camera started to move towards that wall, it would be rendered with a progressively higher resolution texture. This can really help with keeping VRAM usage at a reasonable level.

    Texture str`eaming is conceptually similar to LOD models, where objects that are either small, or far away from the camera are rendered as low poly models that can become progressively more complex (high poly) as they get larger, or closer to the camera.

    Battlefield 3, which is reportedly not affected by the momentary artifacts issue also makes heavy use of texture str`eaming (why is that word censored? It's ridiculous). So, I'm not at all convinced that it's the cause of momentary artifacts. Of course, one could argue that since BF3 is a very popular game, AMD has focused on making sure it runs flawlessly regardless of how the Frostbite 2 engine functions.
     
  2. Falkentyne

    Falkentyne Master Guru

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    Ok I just did some more testing, and it absolutely HAS to be the drivers, or maybe something in the drivers triggering a hardware fault (possibly something causing improper calculations?). Timings being forced too tight to compete with Nvidia?

    Just tested Aika online again in Windows XP (12.8 and 12.10 betas):
    12.8: Faster FPS (than 12.10, and faster FPS than all W7 driver versions), ZERO white flashes with any combination of AA on or off, looks just like it did on my 6970.

    12.10: slower FPS than 12.8 (15% slower, for no obvious reason) but still no white flashes; no need to force Supersampling (although SSAA definitely looks nice).

    So there are no white flashes on textures or the sky on XP, in this game, at all, even on the faster 12.8 drivers.

    In Windows 7:
    white texture flashes galore on 12.11 betas. Enabling Supersampling removes the flashes almost 100%. Adaptive doesn't)
    No white flashes (or very very very rare) on 12.5 betas, regardless of AA Settings (seems to act like 12.11's do with Supersampling); occasionally you may see one when moving into a new area from time to time. Slower FPS than 12.11's (sort of the opposite of XP) (just copy atiumdag.dll, atidxx32, atiumd4.dll and atidxx64.dll into the game folder, from the desired driver package, after expanding the files)..

    Aika Online is a rather old MMORPG, so there's nothing unique to windows 7 about it (heck you can install the game in XP, then boot to 7 and load the launcher from there and it still works fine).

    I really wonder what the 12.11's are doing to the game/GPU/Ram that's different...and Aika only uses about 125 mb Vram immediately right after load (though this grows...), and the pattern of the flashes is identical to the "dark" flashes in Black Ops....
     
  3. ClockClocker

    ClockClocker Master Guru

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    i only can explain it performance wise. If you're using SSAA you're card will work "slower" so it may take more time to render frames which reduce the flickering. Otherwise there is no sense. If it would be an AA-Issue why does it happen with AA-Disabled?

    Btw. May be related: There was/is a strange bug in TF2. When you start practicemode on the map gorge as fast as you can. Some textures will be BLACK. For example a tree or a rock will be just black. This didn'T happen on 12.8 as far as i can tell. But it did happen on 12.4 and a few later drivers now guess what? The issue is back in 12.11 (but now you have to try it more often to get the black textures). But here's the thing, if you enable VSYNC there wont be any black textures. So i come to the conclusion that the card is somehow too fast for itself. It doesn't make any sense! Even limiting the frames to 60fps WONT HELP. You'll need vsync to fix it (or the right drivers). And what does Vsync do? It swallows performance.

    So you'Re saying that SSAA reducing flicker, while Vsync eliminates that black texture bug.
    Both SSAA and Vsync swallow "a lot" performance. So it may be related?
    I don't know how exactly GPUs work but maybe this options make the gpu check it's frames better so that the issues are gone.
    I still doubt it is a hardware fault, i start to think that it is a fundamental driver error which isn't easy to fix without starting to reprogramm the whole thing. I think i read somehwere that it's hardly possible to get OC-Related graphic glitches on the new 28nm gpus because if you OC too far the card will just be slower because it will rerender the frame till it is error-free. So maybe with this options ON it will rerender the frames which removes the errors.

    Speculation, of course.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2012
  4. fasor

    fasor Guest

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    Just want to add my data about that problem.

    I've tested 3 video cards (5770, 7870, 7950) on 2 different systems and that "flickering" (looks like random geometrical figures that lasts for just one frame) is the same on 7870 and 7950 in the same list of games, and there is no any flickering on 5770. So i think it's really a driver problem, and it's very bad, that we have driver problems with cards, that were release almost a year ago.

    Games that definitely has flickering problems in my case are: Flatout 2, Trine, Skyrim, GTA 4 (this game have it's own graphics corruptions, but HD7000 adds "flickering" to native problems). And i also confirm, that there are no such problems with Battlefield 3
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2012

  5. Falkentyne

    Falkentyne Master Guru

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    Clockclocker:
    When you enable SSAA in aika online, the framerate is barely affected (the engine is so old and doesn't use any modern DX features), so that clearly isn't the problem.


    Also, if it were a performance problem, then the flickers should go away if you downclock the cards to 250/500! Right? But try it....downclock the cards as far as possible, even to 2D clocks, and the exact same flickers are still there, even though the FPS plummeted down to less than half (maybe 30-50 fps or even lower).

    It most definitely is NOT related to performance.

    You can test that yourself; just downclock the card to 2D clocks and see.

    I originally thought it may be an issue with the Ghz bios or ghz cards, so I switched to the original bios on my 7970, reinstalled the drivers clean (after using atiman), ran COD Black Ops on 12.7's (at the time that was the latest out), and sure enough, black flicker city. Installed 12.5's (At the time I didn't know about the shortcut of just copying atuimdag/d64/atidxx32/64 into the game folder), and sure enough, most flickers completely gone.

    Other things I've tried:
    Increasing Memory voltage from 1.602v to 1.65v. Made no difference (did this in afterburner; gpu-z verified that the memory voltage was changed).

    The only thing left to try is disabling powerplay (with the profile edit) and testing again, but I think I already did that, too.

    I'm almost willing to bet that the drivers are using tweaks to get more performance out of games, like changing timings on the card, which is causing the card to run out of specification.

    -------
    Does anyone still have the original 'release' beta version of the 7900 drivers (that were based on 11.12?) The ones BEFORE the drivers added supersampling override for DX10/11 applications? Anyone brave enough to roll back to them and give them a try in GTA4/Skyrim/Witcher 2, etc?

    Because I don't remember ANY stories about flickers right when the card came out...
     
  6. ElvenElder

    ElvenElder Guest

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  7. Kaleid

    Kaleid Ancient Guru

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    Tried disabling texture optimization and Skyrim is still not working well.

    I think I still suspect the cores themselves, calculation errors.
     
  8. berukburuk

    berukburuk Guest

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    Hi guys Im a newbie here...

    Same problem with my Gigabyte HD 7850 OC.
    Ive tried:
    1. Change my PSU from Acbel i510 to Schyte Chouriki 2 Plugin 650W
    2. Still crash/freeze/flicker then when I check event viewer, it say "Winlogon failed sending activation"
    3. Clean Install my Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit then run memory diagnostic tool after install all drivers and nothing error.
    4. Run all my games and still got error/freeze/flicker/crash.
    5. Open again event viewer and got error on Kernel-Power
    6. Run benchs software furmark and 3dmark. No overheat <65°C Max and no crash/freeze/error or something like that. All benchs test running well even I overcloking my procie from 3.2 Ghz to 4.1GHz.
    When playing games again still got that errors.
    Other forums hv same problems. Someone use 12.3 and almost stable. I havent tried yet. Anyone here tried 12.3?
    Sorry my bad English Im from Indonesia. :)
     
  9. acereborn

    acereborn Guest

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    I have a 7970 and I'm forcing super sampling in CCC for ME3. I got no in game flicker in ME3, but still some flicker in the character skills menu.
     
  10. ClockClocker

    ClockClocker Master Guru

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    Wow, that's really not acceptable anymore. It is so many games. And the driver is definitely guilty.

    It's so often that games work "well" but the menu is flickering somewhere or is bugged somehow.
    It seems like AMD is okay with that as long as the game(ingame) runs kinda "okay".
    Nobody can tell me that this bugged menues and stuff have smth to do with broken hardware. It's just the stupid drivers. I don't remember AMD beeing that bad at the 5000/6000 Series it must be the new technology which throws their drivers back to the stoneage where they made horrible, awfufl bugged drivers.
    The prejudice that amd drivers are bugged doesn't come from nowhere and it seems like AMD is gooing back to the roots with this series and makes this prejudice come true again..

    Im really pissed about that, because the hardware itself is a fine piece.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2012

  11. Kaleid

    Kaleid Ancient Guru

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    The reason I believe it is the hardware is because no other cards from the beginning to 6xxx has had similar problems.
     
  12. captain

    captain Guest

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    I am getting same artifacts with 12.11b
     
  13. homefry

    homefry Guest

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    I also have this problem in Black Ops.

    I don't think this is a driver problem. I think the hardware is faulty. Everyone is not reporting these artifacts. If it was a driver problem, everyone would have the problem.

    I think there's a large percentage of chips that are faulty.
     
  14. Kaleid

    Kaleid Ancient Guru

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    I agree. And this could become very costly for AMD so I don't expect much attention to this. Maybe not the GPUs themselves though, but perhaps some other parts.
     
  15. asciikode

    asciikode Guest

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    Then why does reverting to older or different driver versions reduce or eliminate the problem?

    Why don't all games experience the same issue?

    I think that some people aren't as attentive to the issue as others. Some people can overlook an issue like this. Others are not playing games that are affected, and still others probably haven't updated their drivers for the last 2 years.

    I myself have tested on three different 7950s, all the same SKU, but one of them was the revised board on the newer 7970 PCB.
    So that's 3/3 boards that all have the same hardware issue? Across all manufacturers? Unlikely.

    I am a software engineer by trade, and I can generally tell a software issue when I see one.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2012

  16. Falkentyne

    Falkentyne Master Guru

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    I agree.
    Unless someone can post here and prove with an explanation as to why Battlefield 3 is not affected in any driver version. And BF3 is the poster child for this gen's hardware, so if it were bad hardware, you would definitely see it in BF3.

    Why isn't Aika Online affected in 12.5b, but *is* affected in 12.11 (if the pattern holds, probably in 12.8.9.10 too).

    Why is Black Ops heavily affected but COD4 is not?
    Why isn't CS:Go affected?

    And you can't say that it's DX10 hardware on the card that is affected, because Black Ops is a dx9 game. And obviously, Aika Online is also DX9.

    Why isn't Aika Online affected in windows XP (on 12.10) but IS affected on windows 7? (you can even use the same folder to launch the game if you have a dual boot; game doesn't use anything specific to W7).

    As to why not everyone hasnt seen the problem, well remember that the problem was not as widespread in older drivers (I only saw Serious Sam 3 and Witcher 2 affected), while Black Ops was fine.

    And don't tell me its about framerate (otherwise downclocking the cards would fix it), and I HIGHLY doubt there were specific optimizations for Aika Online...

    And how come 3dmark vantage/3dmark 11/furmark/Heaven don't show any problems?

    Just a little experiment for laughs...
    Can someone try renaming the executable for The Witcher 2 or Black Ops, Me3 or another affected game, to Bf3.exe, IW3MP.exe (COD4 multiplayer), exe name for Heaven benchmark, vantage, or vice versa, to see if the issue goes away? Heck, try renaming the 3dmark '11 exe or Vantage to BlackOpsMP.exe
    to see what happens. While I'm grasping at straws, I would honestly NOT be surprised to see if renaming exes suddenly causes the issue in games that were formerly clean (which would instantly PROVE it's a driver problem), and AMD is "Cheating" to get extra performance out of the card. (note, renaming the exe for black ops MP to IW3mp.exe may not work).

    (Remember 7850s are affected too so it's not like a 7970 is running "too fast"...changing memory timings or something on the GPU to boost performance could easily cause sideeffects....

    As I did mention before, in the drivers where COD BO is not affected (very sporadically in 12.5b, usually never if you're standing in 1 spot, unlike 12.11), the maps load much slower than in the affected drivers.

    If it's not bad hardware, then it's clearly the same thing that makes the maps load much faster...probably some tweaks to the card, causing it to run out of specification (timings?)

    I really want to know why the game loads faster (COD:BO) in 12.8-12.11 than in 12.5b, though. I checked both the Vram and system ram usage, right after a map loaded (assuming you spawn in the same spot; practice custom match btw), and even though there IS a difference, it is extremely slight (like 510 to 515k), which would never account for a 3x faster precached map load. Sorry for grasping at straws, though. Guess we'll see what happens down the road...
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2012
  17. Falkentyne

    Falkentyne Master Guru

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    Just wondering:
    If this were the case, wouldn't you only see black flickers if you were actually moving? Yet the flickers happen if you are remaining stationary and there is nothing clearly visible moving on the map (though there may be objects moving offscreen, or animations like ropes swaying in the wind, etc).

    Black Ops has a "shader warming" option, which if turned on, causes a pause while loading and seems to load everything at once (stops stuttering)....how is this different?

    Do you know why Supersampling fixes the problem? Even if the framerate is capped and doesn't drop, it still seems to remedy the problem in most games. It just seems bizarre that Supersampling fixes the problem, adaptive antialiasing does *NOT* fix the problem, and downclocking the cards to 150/300 doesn't, either. You would think, quite clearly, that a huge downclocking would fix the issue.

    Is supersampling doing something different on a hardware level?
     
  18. homefry

    homefry Guest

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    It doesn't happen in all games for the same reason when you overclock beyond the limit, the artifacts/crashes happen in only some games.

    Graphics cards are very complex. More complex than cpus. It could be that some of the games are stressing the parts of the card/gpu that is the problem.

    Back in the day, you could grab your most demanding game or ati tool, and determine if the card was stable by looking for artifacts. Today, I can be bf3, crysis, and furmark stable, but still have artifacts in some random game.

    IMO, we have something similar to a coil whine problem. It's not a driver related problem, but a hardware problem. Not all cards are affected and not everyone can spot the problem.
     
  19. homefry

    homefry Guest

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    Try this out.

    I never created a Black Ops profile in CCC. I went to create a supersampling AA profile and CCC told me I already had a profile for Black Ops. There should'nt be one. I never installed CAPS.

    So I overwrote that one and the artifacts may have gone down a bit. It might be a placebo effect. But you all should try it out too.
     
  20. ClockClocker

    ClockClocker Master Guru

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    To be honest i overclocked a lot in the past and if a OC wasn't stable it wasn't stable in any game. Of course some games may crash more often or show artifacts more often. But one day even your "stable" game will crash. And the gpu intense games always showed issues more early. Now BF3 and Sleeping Dogs don't show any issues at all while poopy old UT3 Engine Games show issues pretty often.
    I also tried OC my card and the issue doesn't get touched by that. I think a faulty chip (even if it is not related to OC) should show more issues when overclocked.
    And as i said i tested 4 different cards - all with the same issue. I dont know ANYBODY who fixed the issue by RMA his card and get the same card again. After 4 cards i just doubt that this is a hardware issue.

    I think it could be related to the mainboard uefi. But i even got a Beta Bios from Asrock Support (Support! AMD ARE YOU LISTENING?) which didn't help.
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2012

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