AMD Catalyst 12.6 BETA (8.97.100.3 July 3) AMD Legacy Driver

[vejn]

I still get black screen after cinematics in Witcher EE

[vejn]

Timeshift doesn't load shaders. With driver which came on CD game loads but there are artifacts. With 12.6 game stucks on screen when says LOADING SHADERS.
I have updated everything. Are there any shader libraries which should I test ?
There are new official drivers for old GPU

ISSUE FIXED
"A conflict between Microsoft DirectX® and the AMD Radeon™ HD AGP series graphics cards."

I will try it. This probably fixes loading shader libraries.

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...AGPHotfix.aspx

[AlleyViper]

Is anyone using these newer AGP hotfix drivers with cards that have specific AGP ids?
They seem to be the same package as the current 12.6 non-beta legacy driver that lacks them.

The *.inf is missing those unique AGP models, such as the HD3850 AGP (9515) I tried to update. Previous AGP hotfix drivers hadn't this issue.

[vejn]

Yes, it seems AMD didn't adress AGP and directx issues in this driver.
In Timeshift driver can't load shaders as in Witcher EE and in Hitman Blood money.
I installed driver through device manager because it can't be installed otherwise.
BTW, what kind of support is
"A conflict between Microsoft DirectX® and the AMD Radeon™ HD AGP series graphics cards."

Why the AMD can't solve this shader conflict once and for all.

[AlleyViper]

Weird, this year I've had no problems to finish Witcher EE (the first) with 12.1/2s agp hotfix and a Sapphire HD3850 AGP on nf3 250Gb.

For anyone with my card, just replace another id in the *.inf with the following on the respective sections:

"%AMD9515.1%" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9515

AMD9515.1 = "ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP"

[vejn]

Originally Posted by AlleyViper

Weird, this year I've had no problems to finish Witcher EE (the first) with 12.1/2s agp hotfix and a Sapphire HD3850 AGP on nf3 250Gb.

For anyone with my card, just replace another id in the *.inf with the following on the respective sections:

"%AMD9515.1%" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9515

AMD9515.1 = "ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP"

Maybe it is problem in my AGP to CPU connector driver. Don't know what else could it be.

[AlleyViper]

Originally Posted by vejn

Maybe it is problem in my AGP to CPU connector driver. Don't know what else could it be.

Have you tried to reduce agp speed to 4X (or even 2X to troubleshoot), disable fast-writes, and mess with AGP aperture (64,128,256)? Some chipsets really need the first two steps to support these cards properly, as AGP 8x might cause trouble.
Also make sure that pci/agp isn't a tad overclocked on auto and at default 33/66 (might need to set fsb manually), because it may cause problems with the Rialto bridge. The same for AGP voltage, which should be at default 1.50-1.55V.

[kn00tcn]

Originally Posted by kevsamiga1974

And still the existing 4870x2 3d clock on 2nd ASIC at idle desktop bootup bug since 12.3. Except it's now worse, clocks can't be reset to video card bios defaults with amd gpu clock tool -i=* -restore anymore from the command line.

The amdclocktool -i=* -restore trick used to reset all the adapters in the system to bios default values of 507/500 1.050V with Catalyst 12.3-12.4 now using 12.6 the same trick to fix the still borked clocks actually puts both clocks to 750/900/1.250V permanently eeek!.

I've had to code a tiny app myself that opens and closes a 3D screen instead in order to fix it since ATI can't be bothered. Available here :

http://www.mediafire.com/?mx7b6d7w3lq2984 35K

Drop in startup folder. All it does is wait 12 seconds after bootup and then opens and immediately closes a low res 3D screen fixing the second clock bug on 4870x2 at least. Only x64 fix.

so.. i should stay on 12.4? i dont mind the clock bug, have geometry wars in startup

can you change your app to use the user's desktop resolution? maybe put text on it 'oh hai i'm fixin' ur mhz'

maybe i will play with using some of its dlls instead of installing the whole set, there are a few quirks from 12.4 & a little older that i'm curious about (ogl issues, borderlands CF, etc)

[vejn]

Originally Posted by AlleyViper

Have you tried to reduce agp speed to 4X (or even 2X to troubleshoot), disable fast-writes, and mess with AGP aperture (64,128,256)? Some chipsets really need the first two steps to support these cards properly, as AGP 8x might cause trouble.
Also make sure that pci/agp isn't a tad overclocked on auto and at default 33/66 (might need to set fsb manually), because it may cause problems with the Rialto bridge. The same for AGP voltage, which should be at default 1.50-1.55V.

I will ty and post it back.
Btw, I only have option auto 8X,4X for speed.
I remember that AGP voltage is set on auto. Other options are low and high. Which should I set without making a mistake ?

[AlleyViper]

On the manual, page 27, try AGP Mode in 4X, AGP aperture size at 128MB (or 256, 64MB in case of trouble) and AGP Fast Write Disabled.
AGP Voltage Auto should be OK, but if you suffer black screens due to the Rialto bridge overheating, you might try it in "Low".
If you are on XP or Vista, try the last hyperion pro pack 5.24A link for the chipset's AGP Driver. I guess W7 already comes with them, because it's only listed for older Oses.
And then, you can also try older ati AGP hotfix drivers. There's a good archive at the Sapphire's Support pages for your card, and you just shouldn't be afraid of losing any performance by reverting to something older from the 9.x,10.x,11.x series that actually solves your current problems. Good luck!

[edigee]

I can confirm that that driver doesn't work on ATI HD 3650 or HD 3450 AGP.
The problem seems to be the lack of the proper id inf. for those cards.

[kevsamiga1974]

Originally Posted by kn00tcn

can you change your app to use the user's desktop resolution? maybe put text on it 'oh hai i'm fixin' ur mhz'

maybe i will play with using some of its dlls instead of installing the whole set, there are a few quirks from 12.4 & a little older that i'm curious about (ogl issues, borderlands CF, etc)

New app uploaded with changes for open in native res and activity message saying it's alive, now included x86 and x64 versions. Let me know if there are any problems since it was just a quick fix for changing in it for what u asked. Just as i suspected the 4870x2 clock fault lies in in the atimpag.sys or atimdag.sys from 12.3 onwards for sure 100% definate from my testing. As does the 2D accelerated rendering fault in all the 12.x drivers for 48xx shown below. And since these are kernal drivers, not so easy to replace on x64 with kernal patch protection. How do I know for sure? I injected 11.12 atimpag.sys and atimdag.sys into the 12.6 driver folder, Disabled the x64 driver integrity checks rebooted with F8 to bypass signature enforcement and as if by magic, both 2D rendering slowdowns and 3D mode boot clock bugs are gone on 2nd gpu so it's not the 3D driver components per se but the kernal ones...Although a more permanent fix would be nice than having to press F8 every time.

http://www.mediafire.com/?539i2u49f1atrud

Source:

; Quick hack to fix Catalyst 12.3+ second GPU 4870x2 clock on boot.

Delay(12000)
InitSprite()
InitKeyboard()
ExamineDesktops()

OpenScreen(DesktopWidth(0),DesktopHeight(0),Deskto pDepth(0),"")
StartDrawing(ScreenOutput(0))
DrawText(DesktopWidth(0)/2,DesktopHeight(0)/2,"4870x2 Clocks Reset",RGB(255,0,0))
StopDrawing()
FlipBuffers()
Delay(10000)
CloseScreen()
End


The polynomial game, at least here as i'm sure many other old opengl issues got fixed along with that for me by extracting and injecting the following Catalyst 12.6 legacy opengl files listed below and replacing them over any driver going back to 10.12 if you don't want the foibles of using 12.6 itself. OpenGL on 12.4 didn't work on the polynomial btw. Neither did it after 10.4 as you probably know already too well Kn00tcn.

With 12.6 legacy games like polynomial work. But for me the 12.6 driver is utterly pants to use on 4870x2 on a daily basis for the games I play, so i'm using a much older driver albeit with 12.6 legacy opengl files injected from 12.6 taking the good bits from it. I simply refuse to use the 12.1-12.6 whql drivers on 4870x2 due to this bug with GPU accelerated rendering on IE9 here :-

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Pe...g/Default.html

Enjoy the slideshow...11.12 WHQL and below work fine on this test with 4870x2. 12.1-12.6 not. Also mediashow espresso and GPU accelerated transcoding in general has been busted here way back since 11.10+. ;-)

I've been poking around for weeks figuring it all out what works and what doesn't across many driver versions on 4870x2 and stumbled upon things such as games like this using 12.6 dll's became working again quite by accident. Keeping my own notes of all the *many* bugs I come across.

Had to do the same switcheroo replacement with some drivers with the atiumdva.dll and atiumd6a.dll in the past crashing IE flash video to fix them as the WHQL release was broken for me. Think it was 10.10 I replaced with the 10.9 dll's. 10.10 was a half decent driver for 4870x2 apart from the IE flash freezes and BSOD's I had using it.

atig6pxx.dl_
atig6txx.dl_
atigktxx.dl_
atiglpxx.dl_
atio6axx.dl_
atioglxx.dl_

Copy these out of 12.6 package into any unpacked driver you want replacing the same files in the x64 driver folder over the top of any drivers all the way back to 10.12 and then install your unpacked driver using setup. Or alternatively unpack them with the expand command from CMD prompt and copy them into SYSWOW64 after you installed any driver you want. You may get a warning about unsigned driver on x64 but it's ok to continue as it's not a kernal driver replacement like atimpag.sys or atimdag.sys (2D Driver) would be.

Heaven 3.0 is still a slideshow using the opengl mode and crashes after 10.4 still, at least on 4870x2 here, but quake 1, 2 and the polynomial game (maybe more old opengl games) are all working here with 12.6 opengl dll injection into 10.12<>12.4b drivers.

This also works in opposite to some extent, eg. injecting 10.4 versions of the above opengl .dll's into later driver unpacks so old games work, but not entirely...

The games themselves work fine but the opengl version is tied in with OpenCL to some degree, so by doing the 10.4 dll injection into later drivers may lose you one Stream RV770 as well as an OpenCL RV770 device if you want working opengl games at least on 4870x2. Depends if OpenCL is important to you, for me it's not. Having working games however old is...although quite how they took from 10.6 to 11.6 to get around to fixing the BC2 crossfire flickering again is beyond me I digress.

Trouble with fixing games like Borderlands post 11.7 by replacing aticfx32.dll/aticfx64.dll/atidxx32.dll/atidxx64.dll (DX10/11) or atiumdag.dll/atiumd64.dll (DX9) is mostly cutting off a nose to spite your face, one thing is fixed, another is then broken.

It's simlar to me experimenting in the past that you could either have Bad Company 2 or Starcraft 2 working by changing out the .dll's files. Could never get them both working at the same time 100%. Fix one thing by replacing, and then you break another, and therein lies the rub to roll your own hybrid drivers.

It's a pity we even have to resort to these kind of switcheroo tricks and .dll directory dumping in the first place to work around bugs AMD can't or won't acknowledge. Yet it's now believed and the position officially is....that the drivers are optimsed from a performance and feature standpoint for "legacy" cards, hmmmm.....I wonder why the 10.x series performs better for me on MW3 or Sniper Elite V2 in that case. No caps to improve or fix any crossfire performance issues necessary and no stuttering.

Infact using latest caps with much older drivers breaks Unigene tropics and gives me crossfire flickering light rays in Sniper Elite V2. I think something drastically changed in the drivers for older cards around 11.4-11.6 from what I can tell.

[joshuaissac]

Originally Posted by Espionage724

Try installing it, and then check your WDDM level. If it's 1.2, then there is Win8 support...

I uninstalled all Catalyst Software and installed this. DXDIAG says 1.1, so I guess it doesn't work on Windows 8, at least for me.

[kn00tcn]

Originally Posted by kevsamiga1974

stuff

new app is nice, 64bit is not necessary though since almost every single game is 32bit (& running one fixes the clock)

polynomial is working fine for me on 12.4, borderlands CF you just need atiumdag.dll, so just stick it into the game folder

pretty much everything i do is putting things into the game folder instead of messing with my whole package in system32

btw there are a few things that have always been broken since 10.4, try cities in motion

for IE, i'm still on 8 (does 9 have a compatibility view of 7?), & it's not my primary browser or even secondary

heaven2 last time i tried (few months ago?) it ran ok for opengl, like 75-90% as fast as dx9, CF was scaling, etc

[kevsamiga1974]

I have just tried cities in motion v 1.0.0.9, with the opengl dll's above injected into the 10.12 driver package and it works fine. Note the opengl version is from 12.6.

Maybe game needs all the opengl files present and not just atigktxx.dll and atioglxx.dll replaced. What's the deal with borderlands post 11.7 does it slow down or simply not work correct ?!? ( don't have it to test )

Oh well that's another bug along with polynomial squashed and out of the way...

[kn00tcn]

CF doesnt scale properly, minor issue with a minor fix (around that time, killingfloor & RO had some high gpu usage+low performance issue that got fixed the month after, no other UE2 or 3 game that i know of had such slowdowns)

CiM works on 12.6's files? strange... that or the game was patched since i last checked

[kevsamiga1974]

It's definately the complete set of 12.6 opengl dll's that make both these games work again for me.

I reverted to the 12.4 WHQL opengl dll's (6.14.10.11631) just to see what would happen and neither polynomial or cities in motion then worked anymore again for me, they just crash and stop responding,
as they do so all the way back to Catalyst 10.5.

They may work with 12.4a or 12.4b, but I haven't tested.

Another thing I should probably add is that i'm also copying over atipblag.dat and and the atiogl xml ogl profile file from out of 12.4 into old drivers too,
but I don't think this matters any to whether the games working or not since the bug was in the drivers themselves.

IE9 as I presume IE10/windows 8 has 2D canvas issues post 11.12 on 4xxx, since gpu accelerated browsers are all the rage at the moment offloading the work to the video card maybe I should test it on firefox too just to be sure.

Heaven 3.0 opengl seems broken with opengl on 4xxx since 10.4, 1-2fps and then crashes with white screen, haven't tried version 2.0.

I managed to do a repack of all the 12.6 driver based around the 11.12 kernal files making my little app not necessary anymore in the process since I can't really use the full 12.6 package without other issues.

It has all the clock bugs and the 2D slowdowns solved, but it's not ready for prime time just yet as it needs more testing to see what else is broken. I know I get consistenly lower WEI scores using 12.6 here which puts me off using it.

In any case there is little difference between this 12.6 official driver and the 8.97 April 18th beta, nothing really new...

All the important files are the same versions.