AMD Halts Support for Windows 8.1 with Consumer Radeon drivers

micro$oft's as*hole lickers... All the owners of AMD cards should express their unanimous anger (but, alas!, who cares about anything nowadays)...

 

Same opinion here.
Loved how 8.1 was much more perfected than 7, but without all the BS that W10 has.

What I'll probably end up doing is installing WS2016 and re-adding the GUI and whatever else is needed to make it usable.

It'll probably be the sweet-spot (all the advances of W10 but without all the spyware, uncontrolled updates, adware, etc.)

 

Maybe for you, but the world doesn't revolve around what you want.

I've invested alot of time into every MS OS of the last 20 years and 10 is my favourite, and it's certainly not easier to use than previous versions of Windows, if anything i hear more complaints about it being harder.
I can't speak about OSX as Ive never used it, but it tends to be used by professionals so I'm not convinced it's for the clueless.

If AMD need to cut costs in the driver department, which OS shall they cut support for. Clearly the least popular one.

Try to be ruled by logic not emotions.

 

A much as I despise Windows, I think this is a very bad and lazy move by AMD.

 

Oh boo-hoo. Unless someone can prove that the Windows 7 or 10 drivers don't work, why does anybody care? I've used drivers for different versions of Windows all the time and I never had problems.

Just because AMD doesn't support 8.1 anymore, that doesn't mean the GPU will stop working. If it in fact has problems, then you have a valid reason to complain. But even then - who still uses 8.1? If you want DX12 and an OS with more support, go for 10. If you don't like 10, I don't know why you like 8.1 either because it isn't a whole lot different.

 

Win8.1 is great OS, I don't care what others are talking about it. It's been my main OS in past almost 3 years combined with Classic Shell, fast, stable, bloatware free, great for gaming (when my kids are saying that I believe em).

Although I like what AMD is doing with Ryzen and Threadripper I don't like their:
1). non-existent Win8.1 driver support for RX 5xx cards
2). non-existent Win8.1 driver support for AMD chipsets for Ryzen
3) and now this: no more driver support for AMD Radeon GPU's running Win8.1

More and more I'm thinking about NVidia when it comes to buying new graphics cards for gaming rigs of my kids still (happily) running Win8.1 Pro x64. I'm not happy about it but there is no choice for them atm and I don't want to move to Win10 atm just because of non-existent AMD GPU driver support for Win8.1. NVidia, here I come

 

They're still on the Vista kernel with 10? Interesting.

 

8.1 offers a lot more user control. I can block unwanted updates and disable telemetry just to name two main reasons.

Youre right that its not much different from 10, which is why 10 is such garbage. Its 8.1 with spyware added and a whole bunch of garbage you have to turn off.

DX12 helps potato laptops with integrated GPUs attempt to play games, and its memory compression helps those potatoes with 4GB of RAM run all those spying processes in the background.

Thats why i purchased 8.1 Pro for my 2016 build. Had ample opportunity to get 10 free. Its trash so no thanks.

Windows 10 is the last Windows according to M$ but 8.1 was the last GOOD Windows.

 

I really think that the 8.1 users should have used the free Win10 offer, but I still don't like these moves by AMD.

Compared to Nvidia, AMD drops support for both older hardware and software earlier, and that makes me wary to buy AMD.
Nvidia still supported Vista into 2016 whereas AMD stopped in 2013. 400/500 series is also still in the mainline drivers.

 

Actually, they're still on the NT kernel (so, same thing that Windows 2000 and XP used) but obviously it's more revised. I don't remember all the technical differences, but Vista had a different way of handling hardware, hence everyone complaining about driver issues. I would argue the Windows 10 kernel has more similarity to Vista than Vista does to XP. Obviously, the kernel gets updated between Windows releases, so the Windows 10 kernel isn't (to my knowledge) literally the same as Vista's.

All that being said, this is why I say "boo-hoo" to everyone whining - you should be able to use one of the other drivers. To my understanding, AMD's (and Nvidia's) drivers are mostly userland. Worst-case scenario, you use the last known working drivers but you still get the application profiles.

You can't do either of those in 10? Even if so, why is that so important? Sure, I don't necessarily want the telemetry service, but it isn't a deal-breaker to me.

*sigh* MS doesn't care about whatever weird shemale dungeon porn people watch. No offense, but you're not important to them, and neither am I. But if you insist on wearing a tin-foil hat, it's not that difficult to disable those features. And in case you weren't aware, 8.1 has a lot of that "spyware" too, it just doesn't advertise it.

EDIT:
Keep in mind, I don't dislike 8.1. I understand why people prefer 7 over 10. Even if you insist you don't like the additions W10 has that 8.1 doesn't, the LTSB version is even better than 8.1.

 

Saying it's "still on the Vista Kernel" is like saying a modern car is "still on the Model T engine" because they both have cylinders. It's dumb on multiple levels, same as saying that 10 is just a reskin of 8.1 or that it's a bloated OS.

It's the fastest OS in 3 generations, it uses the lowest out of the box ram in 3 generations, and has the smallest footprint in 3 generations:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...-make-windows-10-an-easy-upgrade-for-old-pcs/

If people want to take shots at Microsoft for privacy issues, I'm all for it - but the rest of the complaints I constantly read about 10 are completely unfounded and usually just straight up wrong.

 

Bad move from AMD. I actually downgrade from win10 to 8.1. having slow boot issue. was considering buying latest AMD card but now no driver support from AMD , no problem will continue using nvidia.

 

I'm guessing AMD weighed up losing sales to Nvidia by dropping support for W8, and probably considered it negligible compared to the cost of maintaining W8 drivers.

It is what it is, it's not AMD fault it's not a popular operating system.

 

AMDs driver team must be working all out preparing for RX Vega release that they simply have no time for anything else.

 

Im a 8.1 and this disappoints me considering Windows 8.1 still has windows support till the end of this year. I actually didn't like 7 or 10. Im 8.1 forever. FU AMD

 

Upgraded from 7 to 8.1 and it feels way smoother than 7 in games, even youtube feels a lot smoother, without tearing or stutter.

 

FYI i hear people complain about metro and no start menu LMAO http://www.iobit.com/en/iobitstartmenu8.php SOLVED works %100

 

Well they need to pull one out of there but Vega is looking worse than 1080 and even 1070 in some games. AMD has always been a hit or miss GPU:banana:

 

AMscumbagsD, they seem to miss whenever they hit...

 

That's the first thing i noticed when upgrading from 7 to 10, all games felt smoother. 7 seems to suffer from micro-micro stutters, regardless of clean install or upgrading my PC back in the day.