AMD to Drop Support for Pre-HD 5000 GPUs with Catalyst 12.7

[Mistral]

So much drama...

So, you might not be getting monthly driver updates for pre-DX11 cards released over 3 years ago? Big deal. Also, pretty sure 4xxx and older will work just fine on Win8. Got a x800 mobile in an old laptop that I put Win7 for kicks on and it runs the games it's fast enough for just fine.

[ensabrenoir]

Wont knock em cause its the crown jewel in the amd brand......its simply time to progress. Legacy is cool and all but for amd to remain rellevant they must focus more so to current and future requirements

[chris89]

Was planning to upgrade to a HD7870 or similar later this year honestly.

Have to say the HD4870 (1GB ones) has been fantastic and owned two since release.

Chris

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by wiak

dont think they are fully dropping them, more like retired to lagacy driver, that gets updated every 3-6 months or so, they did that with pre x1900 series

There has yet to be a Pre-HD2000 driver released for Win7. They do quarterly releases for Vista and XP but not for Win7. Officially they don't support Win7. So far the Vista driver has worked, but who know. Frankly, the x1000 and x000 series cards should at least get a Win7 and Win8 release driver that officially supports the OSes. Even if they drop support shortly afterwards.

Originally Posted by Mistral

So much drama...

So, you might not be getting monthly driver updates for pre-DX11 cards released over 3 years ago? Big deal. Also, pretty sure 4xxx and older will work just fine on Win8. Got a x800 mobile in an old laptop that I put Win7 for kicks on and it runs the games it's fast enough for just fine.

Pretty sure and officially supported are different things. The x1000 series should be officially support in Win8, they will run Win8 just fine assuming the driver works. But now people with those cards have to use a Vista driver on Win8(if that is even possible) to get their cards to work. I don't care how old the cards are, they are still capable of running Win8, so the driver should be there to do it. The HD4000 series should definitely get an officially driver release.

I said this the last time and I'll say it again, AMD is only doing this as a money grab to get people to buy new cards that don't really need to. The average consumer is going to see that their card isn't officially support by the latest OS they want to use and they are going to buy a new one. If it was anything other than a money grab they would at least release an official driver for the cards that supports the latest version of Windows and they definitely wouldn't do it right before the next major release of Windows...twice... The timing is just too coincidental both times they have done it.

[Steevo]

Originally Posted by lyndonguitar

too bad for those who still have 4xxx and older

Hows that?


Either (A) They have been using the same driver packages and libraries for the older cards for awhile now as no improvements have been made, or (B) a company expects you to update graphics cards when you purchase a new system/new games.


Lastly if you are the sort of power user who needs the latest drivers that offer no improvements just so you have something to do, insert your hardware ID lines into the driver package and install them anyway and have fun tweaking your system.

[YogurtMaster]

This is another reason why I stopped buying AMD/ATI Products. Driver updates are a big deal and we know that AMD has terrible drivers and I would never want to use an unfinished product that is no longer supported. I remember when AMD/ATI stopped supporting drivers for my laptop for Windows 7. Never again.

[Andy77]

Originally Posted by TheMailMan78

You want quiet? A 580/570 DCII is insane. I had to take the side of my PC off to make sure the fans were running. Look at W1zz's review.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/GeFor...noise_load.gif

This is UNDER LOAD!

Was thinking more in line of PowerColor 7950 PCS+, it's 28dbA under load, at 70*C a "tad" faster and newer, with GCN, support might last longer.

[aayman_farzand]

I wish Nvidia did the same as well, and only updated older cards for professional usage fixes. 6xxx and 7xxx series of cards have run their course when it comes to gaming.

Driver support is expensive for both companies, why beat a dead horse when there won't be any difference.

[badsykes]

I want windows 2000 pro support for 6950 .... do i want too much ?

[xenocide]

Originally Posted by aayman_farzand

I wish Nvidia did the same as well, and only updated older cards for professional usage fixes. 6xxx and 7xxx series of cards have run their course when it comes to gaming.

Driver support is expensive for both companies, why beat a dead horse when there won't be any difference.

Nvidia isn't doing poorly financially, why does it matter? On top of it, the Nvidia drivers are a smaller file size, and work more effectively than AMD drivers in my own experience.

[Dent1]

Originally Posted by xenocide

Nvidia isn't doing poorly financially, why does it matter? On top of it, the Nvidia drivers are a smaller file size, and work more effectively than AMD drivers in my own experience.

Whether Nvidia is doing well or not, it doesn't take away from the fact that driver support is expensive to maintain.

Also ATI drivers are not that big, it's 2012, and most people in Western countries should have broadband. If you can afford Nvidia' or ATIs latest and greatest you can afford broadband. I literally download ATI drivers in less than 5mins.

Shish, the size of driver files are tiny in comparison to game patches. Downloaded a bloody 1.2GB? Battlefield 3 patch last week, so 161 MB Catalyst file is nothing.

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Originally Posted by Dent1

Whether Nvidia is doing well or not, it doesnt take away from the fact that driver support is expensive to maintain.

Also ATI drivers are not that big, it's 2012, most people in Western Countries should have broadband. If you can afford Nvidia' or ATIs latest and greatest you can afford broadband. I literally download ATI drivers in less than 5mins.

Great point there and also most people have huge drives these days and the size really doesn't matter that much.

[KieranD]

Maybe trying to get older users to upgrade. Still, to kill the HD4000 series off so quickly when they can still run the latest games and software is a bit of a dick move. I cant believe there is nothing left to be gained from a HD4000 series card. Then i thought the same as newtekie1, if someone wanted to throw in an old card just for display, why not support them in a windows 8 driver release?

[OneCool]

Originally Posted by badsykes

I want windows 2000 pro support for 6950 .... do i want too much ?

No...miracles do happen....Santa will put that in your stocking

[SIGSEGV]

whenever amd news come up, it will surely receives much of attention..
well, keep forward amd! and please make a better competition, although you dropped to support (Linux) Driver for Pre-HD5000 GPUs, that's make me sad but well, it doesnt matter, it's propietary driver then..

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

this right here is a reason they do it. Focus on newer products.

Also they cut down on overhead. In All honesty this just means driver releases pretty much become quarterly instead of monthly. If you have any problems just send up a Catalyst report.

yeah, i hope their drivers will significantly increase the performances on their magnificent cards and bring the competition

[Steevo]

Originally Posted by YogurtMaster

This is another reason why I stopped buying AMD/ATI Products. Driver updates are a big deal and we know that AMD has terrible drivers and I would never want to use an unfinished product that is no longer supported. I remember when AMD/ATI stopped supporting drivers for my laptop for Windows 7. Never again.

So your 4870 and the lack of driver updates for newer games afflicts you.



tell us all about how bad this makes you feel.




What laptop GPU did they stop supporting?

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by ThE_MaD_ShOt

Just because there dropping support for the cards doesn't mean you can't use them any more. It's not like AMD/Ati are going to flip a switch and kill the cards. Just download the latest supporting driver and use it. Hell I ran my 9800xt for 6 yrs on the same driver without updating because the driver I was using worked great. We really don't need to upgrade to every driver released. Sometime it's best to not fix what isn't broken.

Ya they really say only update the bios or drivers for any hardware that is having troubles, thats any hardware company.


I looked at it this way for that situation, its up to laptop makers to supply drivers but if you want support use Mobility modder off of hardwareheaven

Originally Posted by Steevo

So your 4870 and the lack of driver updates for newer games afflicts you.



tell us all about how bad this makes you feel.




What laptop GPU did they stop supporting?

[Delta6326]

Originally Posted by Dent1

Also ATI drivers are not that big, it's 2012, and most people in Western countries should have broadband. If you can afford Nvidia' or ATIs latest and greatest you can afford broadband. I literally download ATI drivers in less than 5mins.

Shish, the size of driver files are tiny in comparison to game patches. Downloaded a bloody 1.2GB? Battlefield 3 patch last week, so 161 MB Catalyst file is nothing.

...I take it you live in a city and/or not in USA. As nationally USA has slow internet and still a large part has Dial Up. I live in the country about 20 min. out and the only thing is Dial Up, Satellite which the providers out here have caps of 350MB/day or Cell phone tower internet(I have this one).

If broadband sends a line to my home I will sign up that day

Other than slow internet I really don't care about the file size as I start most my downloads at night before bed.

[Dippyskoodlez]

Originally Posted by Kiska

. By the way Microsoft screwed Windows 8. Wondering why I am mad? Well first it screws up the MBR (Master Boot Record), second it makes the fan go to full speed and won't stop until my room is at a satisfying 15 degrees Celsius THREE I had to spend 4 hours on the phone to Microsoft to change or recode their boot screen as wouldn't boot-up and FOUR they told me to get F*ck off and told me to recode it myself. How disrespectful to a loyal customer who has been with them for 5 years and counting, thanks microsoft I am switching to Linux

I hear beta testing software when you have no idea what you're doing, and on a non development machine is what its intended for.

/facepalm

I don't see any issues with AMD dropping this support though, if the driver is mature enough, games shouldn't have any major issues.

[Absolution]

Time to sell off my 4870

[xBruce88x]

I only really update drives when I see a big difference. For example... when i first installed win7 with my 8800GT, i just grabbed the then current driver and didn't upgrade until the latest BETA, which added FXAA support to my card

Ever since AMD went all nuts over having to use .net for their drivers (well for their control panel), it seems their driver quality hasn't been so great. On my laptop I use 3rd party drivers (omegadrivers.net i think)

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by xBruce88x

I only really update drives when I see a big difference. For example... when i first installed win7 with my 8800GT, i just grabbed the then current driver and didn't upgrade until the latest BETA, which added FXAA support to my card

Ever since AMD went all nuts over having to use .net for their drivers (well for their control panel), it seems their driver quality hasn't been so great. On my laptop I use 3rd party drivers (omegadrivers.net i think)

never had any issues with them here, my bro infact updated ontop of his drivers without a hitch cuz the drivers said there was a driver update

[xenocide]

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

never had any issues with them here, my bro infact updated ontop of his drivers without a hitch cuz the drivers said there was a driver update

I have had the exact opposite experience. With Nvidia I could always just install over, but with AMD I usually have to do an uninstall and restart before installing the newer drivers. It's gotten worse since I got my HD5850, now I have to do driver sweeps inbetween restarts before installing, and even then it's only successful like 75% of the time.

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by xenocide

I have had the exact opposite experience. With Nvidia I could always just install over, but with AMD I usually have to do an uninstall and restart before installing the newer drivers. It's gotten worse since I got my HD5850, now I have to do driver sweeps inbetween restarts before installing, and even then it's only successful like 75% of the time.

he is running a 6770

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by xenocide

I have had the exact opposite experience. With Nvidia I could always just install over, but with AMD I usually have to do an uninstall and restart before installing the newer drivers. It's gotten worse since I got my HD5850, now I have to do driver sweeps inbetween restarts before installing, and even then it's only successful like 75% of the time.

i never have any issues with drivers updating over the top, unless i do one of two things.

1. install beta drivers, then retail drivers with older dates than the betas (must uninstall/reboot there)

2. driver sweeper. seriously, if i ever do use it, i end up stuck using it. it breaks more than it fixes most of the time, and should only be used as a last resort before a format.