Third-party audit reveals AMD drivers are the most stable for gamers

Also worth mentioning is that all of the test samples GPUs were supplied and chosen by AMD.

 

This must be some very twisted bad joke. AMD's GPU drivers are still as pathetically bad as they always were, since ATI's days. They still haven't been able to solve this issue that's been happening to me and lots of others for months - their own control panel (Radeon Settings) won't open, with a window popping saying that "radeon settings and driver versions do not match". Now if you uninstall Radeon Settings and install the one from v18.2.2, IT WORKS, even though now the versions are actually not the same. Luckily the community found a workaround - clearing the driver version info in the corresponding registry key.

https://community.amd.com/thread/228068

The only reason I'm using an RX 570 right now is for cryptomining - that's all they are good for. If you play games, USE AN NVIDIA CARD.

 

Went back to amd a few weeks ago and was surprised how good their drivers are.

Then went back to nvidia, and had to make a lot of nonsense workarounds to get everything worked.

Examples?

Yes, a lot.

MK X was having severe artifacting on lower part of the screen. Re installing drivers on top OF THE SAME ONE changes things. Incredible but true. Everytime I had a new driver install I have this problem. Even using DDU.

Metro games have the same problem. They have weird graphics on intro screen and once you press start you will see some more weird graphics and will never get in game. Until you reinstall the same driver. Lame.

Windows remote desktop. Some apps takes a lot of time to open if you are connected through remote desktop. Examples, chrome can take 3 minutes to open and is completely unresponsive. Most modern ui apps, the same.

The fix? Again, reinstalling the same driver on top of the same one.

Using two video outputs, one with default audio. When playing any audio and switching off one output (the one with default sound output), app that is playing audio crash.

Fix? None know (on amd doesnt happen and the app playing audio, just redirect the sound to the other output)

And the cherry at the top, Netflix was having severe stuttering when using two video outputs (set to clone/mirror). I think this was fixed some drivers ago.

 

Seems AMD also requested QA to do these tests for them in 2005 and 2010. What about the other years? Is it just random 5 year then 8 year spread? Or do they do these tests every year but only publish the results selectively?

 

This is clearly a PR stunt; a poor one at that.

 

this flies in the face of so much i've heard including a friend who bought a MSI RX480 cause the value for money was so amazing who rma'd the thing twice and then sold it to get a GTX 1070 cause and i quote "amd's software is just garbage"referring to both the software they provide to manage your card (as they over volt the crap out of them he was using it to undervolt it to a sensible card level) and the drivers as he had been experiencing issue's with games (it's no secret amd's drivers take up more cpu time then nvidia drivers under DX11 and stuff like BF1 will max his/my cpu ez ((we have the same cpu, he did better in the silicone lottery though)) so an improvement in framerate can be had just by hopping gpu vendors).
as for personal experience...wait i can comment and my comment is bullshit

my first experience was a ati radeon 9250 which got replaced by the dreaded and hated Nvidia FX series, a FX5600 to be exact.
thing is the 9250 was butchering rendering need for speed underground in both framerate and the road was floating above the road cars were weird and broken etc, where the as i later learned horrible FX5600 was doing great by comparison. appart from being a weak card never had issue's with it, never had issue's with the 6800GT afterward appart from sounding like a airplane or the passive 7950GT appart from obviously being way to powerfull to be passively cooled and overheating within minutes or the GTX260/470 my latest 980 TI though....not sure if game's being buggier or drivers being shittier cause the forza franchise on pc has been a crashy memory leaky nightmare (affecting amd users but seeming to affect more nvidia users but maybe larger marketshare idk).

then there's rainbow six seige which my friends tell me is really kewl but in 2 free weekends i have not been able to get it to start at all so i never bought it, not the only one with that issue so again not sure if drivers bad or game developers bad.
but have had occasional definetly nvidia driver issue's that usually get sorted by a hotfix within days so all in all nothing to bad.

but my latest ati experience was a ati HD 4670 in my moms pc as it was more power efficient and powerfull then the nvidia alternative and IGP's at the time were....useless
bluescreens atleast once a week, pc would freeze now and then ofc the display driver bummed out atleast once or twice a day. i fed that thing driver updates for 4 years it had minor ups but always remained a flaming heap of lets not be harsh. she's currently rocking a intel 7100T with IGP which is crushing the old 4670 in speed and driver stability like you would not believe.

now perhaps in the last 2 years, they've really started getting there act together, but considering 10 years i experienced before the last 2 years i'm not fully convinced.

 

I must say that I did have a issue with Nvidia drivers when I had my GTX 570 sli setup a few years back. I had a issue where I can activate Sli in the drivers after a new driver install, but after a restart the options will be missing. After a format of Windows and multiple driver versions and multiple emails to the support, I gave up and sold my Sli setup.

 

We'll be hearing about this all year, especially when the new Nvidia cards release.

 

Especially by triggered people

 

My last Radeon card (s) were the 6970 crossfire granted long time ago but back then they were a mess,I am glad they got their stuff together cause I switched to team green ever since Gtx 660ti and never considered going back. Good job team Red,Nvidia has Great drivers what are they talking about lol?

 

Having used both, NV at home and AMD at work, with multiple graphics cards for the past 5 years the fact is that no problems with NV and occasionally problems with AMD. Especially after bigger windows updates AMD is a pain in the ass.

 

You either like AMD Or Nvidia.

Some people go for best bang for buck.
Some go for Best performance at whatever price.

I've had crashes with Both Hardware. Also probably game dependant.

I'm currently using a RX470 and it's an excellent card imo. 1080p is what I got it for because of Monitor.

Suits me fine. As long as YOUR happy with the product. who cares.

 

they both suck sometimes but mostly ok
they should do real tests on how fast we get fixes.

our amd dollar hard at work again

 

AMD drivers are far superior that's a given.
But you will never find a Nvidia users agreeing with that fact no chance.
The earth will stop spinning before that ever happens.

 

Like I said before, with how I use my rig and hardware, I can't complain. I have no idead about high performance gaming on AMD's GPUs though, as I don't use them.

And I think, people that don't have both and use both regularly, shouldn't even consider giving any statement to the other GPU manufacturer's drivers. And most of the time it's the devs anyway that have to do the work these days... and hardly do.

 

Spoken like a true fanboy .

 

I'm not sure what your point is. The test was supposed to test for stability, not functionality. Are any of the other tests relevant for this purpose?

I use a couple of AMD cards (RX 580) for computing and mining, and have never encountered this issue. Are you sure you didn't mod the card or do any special adjustments to it?

 

I bet Microsoft own Standard VGA drivers will be most stable for casual browser games gamers .

 

I have had my Vega 56 scent Nov 2017 and been rock solid so far in gaming