ATI Catalyst 9.4 Released

[Braveheart]

Originally Posted by Mussels

barevheart: i installed over the top, no problems.

yep, worked for me too. i am beginning to like ATI again

[ShadowFold]

I'm about to reinstall vista, 7 keeps saying the 9.4's are older than their shitty generic drivers and it's pissing me off.

[Altered]

Originally Posted by Mussels

oh laaaawl.

I'm a noob.

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by ShadowFold

I'm about to reinstall vista, 7 keeps saying the 9.4's are older than their shitty generic drivers and it's pissing me off.

What ya expect, Beta Software.

[Ketxxx]

Originally Posted by Ketxxx

Custom coolers aren't to blame, they help the cause greatly. If you want to point the finger in that direction it should be pointed squarely at the manufacturers, stock cooling is terrible 99% of the time. The irony is a lot of stock cooling could be pretty good with minor redesign and minimal cost increases.

Originally Posted by fullinfusion

Gee so your saying stock coolers suck? im using a 3870x2 and at 41% fan speed..... im running the highest temp of 52c while gaming..... so i wouldn't say stock coolers suck bro!

You didn't really think before making that post did you? If you did you wouldn't of bothered making it. Allow me to clearly highlight my points.

1. Stock coolers make a lot more noise compared to 3rd party coolers
2. 3rd party coolers cool the GPU better
3. Some stock cooling doesn't even have a HS on crucial areas like power VRMs.
4. 3rd party coolers offer proper memory cooling solutions, most stock coolers just throw some thick thermal pads on their coolers as a afterthought.
5. As I said, stock coolers could be much better with a minimum of additional thought. For example; proper standoffs for memory on the cooler not thick shitty thermal pads, use better fans such as those seen on the Akasa Vortexx, and on more "elite" graphics card models, add some heatpipes.

That is how stock coolers could be improved. 2/3 of the suggestions really would not cost much, and I for one would happily pay a few more quid knowing I was getting a pretty decent stock cooler rather than the rubbish most cards come with. Argue all you want, you know the main reason people get 3rd party coolers is for any additional cooling benefit and to reduce noise.

[oli_ramsay]

Originally Posted by ShadowFold

I'm about to reinstall vista, 7 keeps saying the 9.4's are older than their shitty generic drivers and it's pissing me off.

You have to install it manually in device manager, right click 4870 go to update driver then go to "C:\ATI\Support\9-4_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\Driver\Packages\D rivers\Display\LH6A_INF\CH_78303.inf".

then when it's finished, run the installer to get the new CCC to

[ShadowFold]

Originally Posted by oli_ramsay

You have to install it manually in device manager, right click 4870 go to update driver then go to "C:\ATI\Support\9-4_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\Driver\Packages\D rivers\Display\LH6A_INF\CH_78303.inf".

then when it's finished, run the installer to get the new CCC to

I know, I did that....

[oli_ramsay]

Did u click here?:



Then go to have disk.

[ShadowFold]

Ok that worked. I did not see that before. I had to install for the Generic Display driver and restart a few times to get it working.

woopie

[Gzero]

Originally Posted by Ketxxx

You didn't really think before making that post did you? If you did you wouldn't of bothered making it. Allow me to clearly highlight my points.

1. Stock coolers make a lot more noise compared to 3rd party coolers
2. 3rd party coolers cool the GPU better
3. Some stock cooling doesn't even have a HS on crucial areas like power VRMs.
4. 3rd party coolers offer proper memory cooling solutions, most stock coolers just throw some thick thermal pads on their coolers as a afterthought.
5. As I said, stock coolers could be much better with a minimum of additional thought. For example; proper standoffs for memory on the cooler not thick shitty thermal pads, use better fans such as those seen on the Akasa Vortexx, and on more "elite" graphics card models, add some heatpipes.

That is how stock coolers could be improved. 2/3 of the suggestions really would not cost much, and I for one would happily pay a few more quid knowing I was getting a pretty decent stock cooler rather than the rubbish most cards come with. Argue all you want, you know the main reason people get 3rd party coolers is for any additional cooling benefit and to reduce noise.

Just to clarify my original post: stock cooler = ati referrence cooler.

custom cooler = branded companies atempts at making cheaper coolers that look like they might do the job but they certainly do not.

[kiriakost]

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

What ya expect, Beta Software.

Do not know if its Beta , what i notice are, that its not "WHQL "

[pantherx12]

Thanks guys! Finally got latest drivers and catalyst control centre working in seven.

[crazy pyro]

These have got rid of my tearing issue in Empire: Total War, I had everything except resolution maxed to try and get rid of it with no success, I'll be finding out if it still gets lag when rocket troops are used tomorow but I have a feeling the answer will be no.

[Ketxxx]

Originally Posted by Gzero

Just to clarify my original post: stock cooler = ati referrence cooler.

custom cooler = branded companies atempts at making cheaper coolers that look like they might do the job but they certainly do not.

Custom coolers certainly are better. Clicky As I also said, stock coolers make much more noise than aftermarket coolers. The fan that came with the stock cooling on my XFX card @ 100% is a friggin leaf blower in my PC, strapped a Zalman VF900 on the card and its not only silent, but cools my card better to the tune of 7c @ load.

[Gzero]

Ketxxx I'm referring to my own terminology of what I called each cooling solution. Yes I prefer a Zalman or a Arctic Cooling solution, over the reference design. But only when it makes sense, and applied correctly.

Hmm in the ep 39 of techreport (might have been an earlier episode), one of the reviewer's had said he received a passively cooled gpu that failed because he ran a heavy benchmark on it and the cooler just didn't keep it cool, and the company's solution? Don't run that program then. LOL

[Banzai GG]

Hey Ya'll !!! My first post to this site/forum....

I have been monitoring this thread to see/feel hows folks are experiencing with the new release of 9.4 before I myself attempting the upgrade from 8.12.

So after a bit of waiting.... I have decided to attempt the upgrade. UPGRADE = SUCCESSFUL.

There was a surprise though.... kinda scared me a little bit.. After the upgrade and the system did that last reset/re-boot.... as it was coming up... I heard the Window start sound... You may say that is normal and what so surprise about it.... Well, my sound system (logitech Z-680) was not on.... the sound eminated from my monitor's internal speaker... yeah.... I was getting sound out of my monitor's speakers.. heheheh... In otherwords... the sound was traveling through my HD4870's DVI port, DVI to HDMI converter, and then into my monitor's HDMI inport port...

So this is the first time I have heard sound via HDMI.. heheheh... music, HDTV, wave file, etc... anything with sound went via my HDMI... Only sucky part about it is that the speakers in my monitor sounds like a portable radio. hehehe.. but expected. I guess if I have a sound system with HDMI input that I can have better sound if I wanted to use the HDMI path... but for now... I just switched it back via my X-Fi to my Logitech Z-680.


Uninstall went fine... All i did was uninstall via Add/Remove. Delete ATI folder. Use CCcleaner. Double check msconfig for any remaining ATI entries...

Then finally install the new 9.4 cat. All went well and all functions seems to be working fine.

Checked out my games to see if they all still work... AND yes, they all work just fine (BF2, HALO, Call of Duty 4, and GRID).

So .... as of right now... im a happy camper... (just glad that nothing went wrong and all is working).

[Gzero]

They added HDMI audio by default back in 9.3, where were you? :P

Why did you reboot by the way? Ati added an upgrade path in their drivers, you can just install over the top of older 9 drivers and not have to reboot (at least I think so, correct me if I'm wrong).

[crazy pyro]

I updated straight from something before 8.12 and from 8.12, no problems for me.

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by human_error

Well i only have the 4870x2 in my system, i've boxed up my 3870x2 to sell so i'm not going to test that in my system.

I've tried everything i can with the 9.4s other than a reinstall of the OS but just like with the 9.3s, 9.2s, 9.1s and 8.12s i'm getting an error message about an incompatible vga driver has been detected and disabled and shock horror one of my gpu's is error 43 in device manager and not showing up in the catalyst control centre, game performance is that of 1 gpu as well

Note: the 8.11s and any drivers before them work fine with my system and graphics card, this issue is a known uncommon issue with x2 type cards, i was hoping they'd have a fix in the 9.4 main release but their support told me to expect a hotfix very soon.

I ahd the same problem with my 4870+4850 crossfire, and also this 4870X2+4870 crossifre. Clean install was the only thing that fixed it. It was not a hardware issue at all.

[Banzai GG]

Originally Posted by Gzero

They added HDMI audio by default back in 9.3, where were you? :P

Why did you reboot by the way? Ati added an upgrade path in their drivers, you can just install over the top of older 9 drivers and not have to reboot (at least I think so, correct me if I'm wrong).

Gzero

Reboot is from the old ways.....

My current system was built only since Dec '08. When I built her... I used 8.12... Since then she has been working fine. As for versions 9.1 ~ 9.3 ... I didnt bother to go upgrade.. been reading that 9.1 was iffy, 9.2 was good, and 9.3 was bad. I was going to go with 9.2 but waited to hear about 9.4 since i'm already into April... Since there seems to be some good results with 9.4 or at least equal to 9.2 when it comes to performance, I decided to with 9.4version.

As for doing the upgrade. I just did it the old fashion way... Uninstall old drivers, verify, reboot (forced reboot), install new drivers, verify, and then reboot just for good measure.

Yes, I have read back in a few threads that some of you had upgraded from 9.x to 9.4 without the need to uninstall the old drivers.... Would this have worked ontop of 8.X versions????

I'm just glad that my stuff is working with 9.4

[Mussels]

from what i've heard upgrading worked fine so long as you didnt have 9.1, as thats the one that screwed things up.

[Gzero]

Hehe, guess I was lucky with the 9.1's, it didn't retard my system fortunately.

[crazy pyro]

As I said it's easy as pie to upgrade from the 8.12s Wile E

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by crazy pyro

As I said it's easy as pie to upgrade from the 8.12s Wile E

Yeah, if 8.12 installed, so will anything after, but countless people couldn't install anything past 8.11. Installing anything beyond 8.11 resulted in a Code 43 "Incompatible display device has been disabled" error, resulting in only one GPU being able to work. It's a well known and documented bug, and has absolutely nothing to do with user error or hardware malfunction. Some got it working again by uninstalling and reinstalling Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1, but many, myself included, had to do an entirely clean install of Vista to get it working. No amount of cleaning the registry, drivers or supportive packages would fix it.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Wile E

Yeah, if 8.12 installed, so will anything after, but countless people couldn't install anything past 8.11. Installing anything beyond 8.11 resulted in a Code 43 "Incompatible display device has been disabled" error, resulting in only one GPU being able to work. It's a well known and documented bug, and has absolutely nothing to do with user error or hardware malfunction. Some got it working again by uninstalling and reinstalling Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1, but many, myself included, had to do an entirely clean install of Vista to get it working. No amount of cleaning the registry, drivers or supportive packages would fix it.

thats the one, C++. I mistakenly thought it was dotnet.