AMD Catalyst 15.15 (Official Radeon 300 Launch Driver)

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon Drivers Section' started by d2kx, Jun 16, 2015.

  1. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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  2. fr33jack

    fr33jack Guest

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    :funny:
     
  3. Fox2232

    Fox2232 Guest

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    Not exactly cool, but it shows what 290x users can get soon. Yet another driver level boost. (did someone tried with GCN 1.0 - 7850/70 + 7950/70)

    I think AMD has so many driver branches at this time that they should start putting them back into trunk, or they may forget what part provided what value boost really soon.
     
  4. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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  5. N0bodyOfTheGoat

    N0bodyOfTheGoat Member Guru

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    My R7 265 (basically a re-badged 7850 IIRC?) in Windows 8.1 performs perhaps a fraction worse in pCARS using the modded 15.15s, compared to the modded 1040s.

    I finally got build 10130 of Windows 10 preview to install the other day, which comes with 1023.5s IIRC correctly. In pCARS, I struggled to notice any difference between using the 1023.5s with 1040 DLLs in the pCARS root folder and installing the 1040s properly.

    Might try comparing the 15.15 DLLs with 1023.5s and installing them properly during today...
     
  6. DmitryKo

    DmitryKo Master Guru

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    Stop yelling please, this does not make your arguments any more valid.

    I don't know what do you mean by "restrict the driver to a branch". Again, even if all hardware was exactly the same (which is probably not true), these three separate driver branches, each targeted at the development and testing of separate different features, and no branch is currently feature complete to support all existing cards and all new features. So the engineers have quite a feature support matrix to develop and test and release dates to make.


    If you grab the latest packages, unpack the files and analyse the difference:

    1. Catalyst 15.15 (15.150.1004 June 20) Win 7/8.1
    15.150.1004 "release" - only supports 300 series. Updated OpenCL compiler, VSR improvements. Reworked OEM strings a return to individual "Rx 3nn Series" model branding instead of more generic "Rx 300 Series".

    2. Catalyst 15.x (15.200.1040 June 8) Win 7/8.1/10
    15.200.1040 "beta" - WDDM 2.0 / Windows 10, HEVC decoding, JPEG decoding, quite a few new DLLs. Supports HD5000 to R9 200. Does NOT have updated OpenCL or new naming scheme from 15.150

    3. Catalyst 15.6 Beta (14.502.1014 June 22) Win7/Win 8.1
    14.502.1014 "beta" - modified 14.12 release, supports HD5000 to R9 200.

    4. Catalyst 14.12 Omega WHQL (14.501.1003.0 November 20) Win7/Win 8.1
    14.502.1003 "release" WHQL - supports HD5000 to R9 200.


    Please tell me again why AMD should waste resources on an updated 15.150 to add support for Rx 200 series, instead of placing all available resources into updated WDDM 2.0/Direct3D 12 driver for Windows 10, when the recent 15.6 beta is a newer package and performance is exactly the same as with 14.12 and modded 15.150, since they all come from a very similar branch?

    Maybe for Direct3D application programmers, but certainly not for the driver programmer.

    Discrediting are claims that AMD both 1) "does not support 200 series in their new drivers" and 2) "made their 200 series perform worse in their new drivers".
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2015
  7. DmitryKo

    DmitryKo Master Guru

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    Unfortunately this explanation does not stand the known facts.

    No, the cards are new since they support up to 8 GBytes of memory. The introductory price is the same as it was for the 200 series - the latter just got an official price cut this Spring.


    Enthusiasts make less than 5% of all users, so my 95% estimate is probably too optimistic. Out of ~40 computer users around me, no-one even knows how to use Windows Update to install drivers on their home PCs - save from getting to the manufacturer's site and finding an updated driver package there.

    :stewpid:
     
  8. PrMinisterGR

    PrMinisterGR Ancient Guru

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    You realize that this is confirming exactly what I was trying to say, right? If both have the same driver and the same frequency, they behave the same. The problem is that AMD is not giving that driver for the 200 series to be used in reviews, since it would more or less make their more expensive rebadges redundant.

    Hawaii supports 8GB of memory since launch, almost two years ago (the page from Club3D has an October 8 2013 date). There was never a special driver for them. They started to appear en masse a year ago. Here's a link to some reviews.
    Perfect. This is exactly what I am saying. You spend $100 more for a supposed difference in performance you see on reviews, while the older cards are forced to use the older driver that makes them look worse than what they are. Maybe if the differences in the reviews weren't so great, people would think more about that extra $100? I don't know anybody in here who wouldn't. They even made a fuss about an adapter needed while they give $650 for a GPU.

    If what you say is correct, it is even worse, since you admit that what you consider to be the "average" consumer can be even more easily mislead than the rest of us.
    Furthermore, this is an argument from personal experience, and not from any actual data as you well realize. Both GPU companies invest heavily in driver development that is costing them tens of millions of dollars per year. That is no joke, neither they do it for the fringe of users. NVIDIA is driving their profits from the margins of the discreet GPUs being sold, same is AMD. In the last Steam hardware survey 80% of the users have discreet NVIDIA or AMD cards, with expensive cards like the GTX 970 being in the top 4, surpassing even a lot of Intel Integrated chips. The world is neither me and the people around me, neither you and the people around you.
     
  9. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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    Quite wrong.

     
  10. PrMinisterGR

    PrMinisterGR Ancient Guru

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  11. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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    Basically there are no performance increases from 15.15 that they are holding back from us.
     
  12. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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    Last edited: Jun 26, 2015
  13. Dygaza

    Dygaza Guest

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    Correction, there's only performance gains in cpu bound situations.
     
  14. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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    That would mean 1040 should give a higher FPS than 15.5 but it doesn't here.
     
  15. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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    You're right. I take back all I said about it :D
     

  16. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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    I admit I was only looking at Far Cry 4 benchmarks as linked earlier in the thread. I checked out other games and I can see the differences. I stand corrected.
     
  17. DmitryKo

    DmitryKo Master Guru

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    This is a sale price, supply of 200 series will not last long since they are not in production anymore. AMD reportedly postponed 300 series from early Spring to Summer and lowered the MSRP to let the dealers clear their existing stock.

    The performance difference gained by a better driver is 2-3%. No-one in their sane mind will make an informed purchase decision based on this kind of difference - most people who are into upgrading their video cards are looking to at least double the performance. They won't trade their existing R9 290X for a R9 390X just because the latter has a higher number in the name.

    Enthusiasts who upgrade make less than 5%. I dare you to try and prove me otherwise if you doubt this nubmer.

    The remaining 95% of users just never upgrade anything during the lifetime of their PCs - they either keep the OEM video card installed by their vendor, or they use a notebook with integrated Intel graphics.

    This doesn't invalidate any single argument I was making. Most people purchase ready-built PCs and some of them spend additional extra on a good discrete graphics card, but then they very rarely upgrade individual components or upgrade the OS. They'd rather treat their PC like an appliance which gets replaced once in a while.

    There are multiple articles reporting the state of graphics driver development inside AMD and there are confessions by AMD management about the same. Whatever amount they spend is irrelevant, since they were unable to put their existing engineering resources to good use. Hope this would change soon.

    I stand corrected. However AMD still assumes that Grenada is a new chip revision with an improved power management block and a fine-tuned memory controller, not just a renamed Hawaii.
     
  18. Krelianz

    Krelianz Guest

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    the excuses and bullsh*t are strong with this one.
     
  19. DmitryKo

    DmitryKo Master Guru

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    :stewpid:
     
  20. Krelianz

    Krelianz Guest

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    go on make more excuses, "bu bu bu, they are selling the same cards rebranded for higher price because the r9 200 supply won't last!!!!"

    rofl.

    Also i dare you to prove your bull**** numbers are real. All your post contains made up numbers by a moron, so i am sorry but that is not evidence.
     

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