New Radeon user driver questions.

to 6800 ? 6700 ? what die is this ?

 

The 6700XT. It's the same die as the 6700XT, but with lower base clocks. So yeah, it's a desktop part in a laptop.

 

Amd claims up to 14% increase in performance with smartshift and in HU review 6800m was 17% slower than 6700xt so thats pretty close. idk what laptop they've used tho.

 

I would seriously play around with the features in AMD control panel.

Some of them are insanely good.

Radeon Super Resolution is great but uses FSR1 to upscale resolution when you select a lower resolution (should give you 4 options which you select in game) but this can look really bad at lower resolution screens and is best used at 1440p or above.

Radeon Anti-Lag is great for multiplayer games or fast paced single player ones.

Radeon Chill is a game changer for much lower power consumption or you can just use it to cap your fps on a per game basis. Just set min and max to the same value.

Radeon Boost is a little hit and miss and only really works in supported games. But still a good feature.

Radeon Image Sharpening is sooooo damn good. My personal fav setting is around 65-75% which can make games pop a little more. But play with values as some games can look over sharpened.

Radeon Enhanced Sync is basically AMD's version of fast sync. Allows games to render as fast as possible but won't tear as all frames above refresh rate will be dropped and not displayed to monitor.

All other settings below these you can just leave alone other than texture optimsations which can be switched to performance for a little fps boost.

Also take some time and try to undervolt your card.

 

Keep it simple. ..
Full install, everything off/disabled except Frame limiter (2 frames above monitor hz) & Vsync on.
Disable MPO & disable ULPS.

Then undervolt & custom fan profile - done.

And reset shader cache if you install newer set of drivers.

 

2 frames below monitors refresh rate.

Only if you have issues like black screens, flickering etc.

 

Nope 2 ABOVE. Frame variations usually 1 frame either side of set refresh rate.
I hate frame hiccups or stuttering. I'll take gameplay smoothness over latency.

 

That makes no sense. You're just trolling, this is basic stuff and I don't even want to continue this discussion. Have a nice day.

 

Alright, after some time playing with minimal vs full installs and all the settings, I got more questions! I am favoring full install to use the undervolting and possibly recording and screenshots, however:

1. Per game settings (game profiles?) reset to default after every reboot and must be redone each time. Is this normal, bug, or am I missing something? I'm not seeing any import/export/save settings options.

2. Hot keys to use the features only work at random. Sometimes toggling the metrics display on works, sometimes not. Sometimes changing to borderless window then back to full screen makes it start working, sometimes not. If I toggle it on before starting games, it works, but not if I toggle it in game. Sometimes the video recording works but the metrics doesn't. Sometimes vice versa, to the point everything just seems to randomly work or not for no obvious reason. Normal behavior? IE: Bugged as f###?

3. The metrics FPS never works. Just shows FPS: N/A. Kind of pointless having all these other tweaks and not even being able to see the effect they have, or not. If I have to run ReShade, Afterburner (don't care for it), and OBS Studio to have things actually work, then WTF is the point of doing a full install? The features are damned nice...if they worked.

4. If I alt tab out of a game and launch AMD Software (to turn on metrics because the hotkey doesn't work), it only comes up with a tiny, empty window with "- x" but will not respond to any input, won't close, minimize, just gets stuck there.

Is this just the usual state of "things AMD" or what?

 

I dont use hotkeys or metrics from there but profiles reset for you? Interesting, they stay the same for me after reboot... but sometimes when i am reinstalling/updating/modding/etc games they reset.

 

You can import/Export Radeon settings, which will include game profiles.

FPS counter will show a value if game is in fullscreen mode, either borderless or exclusive. And be the current focus.

 

Yeah, but I would still have to import them after every reboot. They "wipe" when I reboot. All of them. Every time.

FPS counter shows "N/A" always. On desktop, fullscreen exclusive (w/wo fullscreen optimizations disabled), windowed, or borderless windowed. Directx 9, 11, and 12. It just has not worked yet for me in any scenario.

/shrug

Edit 1: And here's a new one. Playing Darksiders 2 with fullscreen optimizations disabled and had the metric display up before starting the game. In game it was gone and hotkeys would not turn it back on. Left the game and tried on desktop, nothing. Opened AMD Software and it had been toggled off. Tried to toggle it back on by clicking it directly in the software, not hotkey (that didn't work either) and it refused, just sort of flickered and reset to off. With fullscreen optimizations off, it remains on screen if on before launching, but will not toggle off or on with hotkey.

Edit 2: It seems like if I manage to get the metrics display working, then video and screenshots stop working, and vice versa. Bizarre and confusing!

This is what I am talking about with AMD drivers. It just does so many "random" things you never know what works and what doesn't or why or for how long. So many weird things going on I don't know where to start troubleshooting. These drivers are just...pchizophrenic.

 

This is the first time that I hear about game profiles that reset after restart...and it never happened to me. Also never had problems with overlay metrics...Did you mess with any AMD services that are required at start-up ? Like the AMD external events utility that detects fullscreen mode ?

Game profiles should be located in \AppData\Local\AMD\CN\gmdb.blb
Check if that file is NOT set to read-only or the root folder is not read only....
Also you may have some malware or there is something wrong with your windows installation. Try to do a malware scan with malwarebytes or some other antimalware app and also to do some basic checks. Open a command prompt windows with admin rights and type :
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
after that finishes type:
sfc /scannow

 

My Windows install is brand new and very clean, but I am guilty of tinkering with AMD external events utility, though I figured that may be it, turned the service back on and rebooted, and it did not help. Thanks for the info on game profile location though! I'll check that out. After more looking at it, the game profiles...they lose the settings on the left Anisotropic = 8x, Sharpening = 10, but not the right side where color saturation was turned up to 120. Odd! Random.

After all this I decided to do the minimal install and just use Afterburner. Turns out no matter what settings I make (low level io on/off, user or kernel mode, etc), it reports very inaccurate stats, mostly about half the actual values. Temps that are ~55-62 show as ~32. GPU clock showed ~800-1100 when it's really ~2200. Power showed ~35 watts when it is really ~70-90. So F that too. Really getting sick of messing with it.

OK, turned AMD Crash Defender and AMD External Events Utility services back on and my game profiles survived a reboot...we'll see.

 

I can not take you seriously....... AMD setting suxs and slow on SSD. That is so hilarious. Opens 100x faster then NCP does when on a NVME while using a Sata II SSD with AMD drivers. And especially applying settings, AMD settings is so much faster and more responsive. I cringe when I have open NCP on my retro rig with a SATA SSD.

 

Yeah, with all the little issues I am having, snappiness of the control panel and applying the settings is not one of them. Nvidia's was clunky and slow, but worked well. I don't even know how I would "dont let games use all 8gigs", they use what they use.

I am just trying to learn which parts of the driver actually need to be running or are just bloat in my case. Like "External Events Utility" I always disabled back in the day, but maybe can't now with the newer features. Then there are several scheduled tasks I am pretty sure I don't need. AMDLinkUpdate, ModifyLinkUpdate, and the InstallAUEP thing, but not 100% sure on any of that yet.

 

I tested SAM in Horizon Zero Dawn (most demanding game I have):
SAM/Resize Bar = on gave ~92 FPS in the benchmark
SAM/Resize Bar = off gave ~99 FPS in the benchmark

Maybe due to me running on PCIe 3 x8 and not PCIe 4 x8, but it was noticeably worse none the less.

 

Are you using a 1660Super, like it says on your profile?

 

I never had it enabled on my 144hz VRR monitor but on a 60hz fixed rate ive found Frame Rate Target Control to be better than Chill.
I have it set to 59 but its a constant 58fps in game.

 

Resizable BAR gave me slightly higher performance with HZD with a 6600 XT at PCI-E 3.0 @ 8x

On: https://i.imgur.com/ltY9KkO.png
Off: https://i.imgur.com/R03ecVK.png