AMD GPU gamers only - your opinion on AMD drivers?

[wheresmycar]

STRICTLY ADDRESSED TO "CURRENT" AMD GPU GAMERS AND THEIR "CURRENT" EXPERIENCES - not interested in already observed "old" reviews citing the negatives

I've been using Nvidia cards as long as I can remember. I have considered AMD in the past but the internet's full of negative reviews when it comes to driver support. I'm now looking to upgrade in the coming months to either Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD RDNA2 (depending on independent performance reviews and price).

As AMD GPU owners and gamers, what are your opinions on software/driver support? Are the negatives exaggerated or has AMD resolved previous issues. I play mostly multiplayer FPS titles (not the cartoony fortnite or overwatch type but AAA graphically demanding games) and was also wandering if such issues were prevalent in these types of games?

Assuming AMD RDNA2 will come with a revamped driver package... is it best to wait for a more in-depth review? Maybe a silly question but at what point would you consider a safe-point for a more informed decision? For example, any particular reviewer I should look to for an unbiased analysis?

 

[INSTG8R]

Pretty solid right now a few unresolved issues just check the latest release notes.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Not had any problems doing or playing what I want in ages , but any one person's experience and perspective has limits, I won't be using some software others have issues with and so on.

 

[gamefoo21]

In my experience, they've been solid. The people I know with 'black screen' issues were tied to hardware failures that weren't the card eg: PSU, RAM, mobo, etc.

My glitches have been rare, though I was bitten by the VII bugs breaking compute, breaking Edge... LoL

I'd say between my Radeons and Geforces, the driver bugs are about even, in all honesty.

 

[Aquinus]

If you don't buy a new GPU on release day, AMD is usually pretty decent. I've been fairly happy with most of my devices with AMD GPUs and I certainly don't have any complaints about the Radeon Pro 5600M in my laptop. The only GPU that had a litany of issues with was the 390, but as soon as I got a Vega 64, "everything just worked" ™. AMD doesn't produce the fastest GPUs, but they're pretty good for the money and a lot of the time, is good enough for most people. Even my experience with 6870s in CFX wasn't all that bad. All in all, I think AMD does a fine job. They could do better, but they're not doing badly in this respect.

 

[sneekypeet]

One and only warning to all. Post on topic without insults or drama, or receive instant thread bans.

Thread cleansed of bait and off topic banter that did not follow the request of the thread.

 

[Sithaer]

While I don't own a 5000 serie card but the RX 570 I have since late 2018 had almost no issues.

The only issue I had turned out to be a conflict with another software on my system 'Gigabyte's own software' which always reseted my custom undervolt/power target settings in the AMD driver.
Once I disabled that software all my issues vanished and its rock solid ever since.

I play all kind of games except for competitive games 'so my experience is probably useless to you ' but ye in my experience its fine and I would go AMD again if they have the better offer in my budget range.
To be honest I got used to their Adrenaline drivers so much by now that I kinda prefer it actually.

 

[birdie]

I sold my RX 5600 XT three months ago, so AMD might have fixed some of the issues since then (which doesn't sound plausible) but during the past week of owning it:

• I had black screens and BSODs (never had them prior or after owning this card and I reinstalled Windows from scratch to make sure it wasn't related to the OS)
• I couldn't play certain DX9 games for more than several hours (I either get a BSOD or the drivers crash in such a way you can't play any more games until you reboot)
• I had issues with certain DirectX 9 games (died after Alt-Tabbing)
• (might have been fixed from what I've heard) I often had a situation when drivers reduced GPU and VRAM clocks to a minimum which tanked performance (from 200fps to 20fps) for certain games.
• (Not fixed) There's no gamma control (which is an absolute must for me since it allows to make games brighter without burning your retina - brightness control makes everything brighter, uglier and whitish)
• (Not fixed) There's no per channel color control
• (Not fixed) Drivers settings restoration on reboot is a constant hit and miss
• (Not fixed) When you add a new monitor modeline/refresh rate, the drivers do not even ask you to verify the changes and enable it right away which means you can easily get a situation when your monitor turns black and ... invoking safe or VGA modes in W10 is a freaking puzzle.

And if people allow me to be nitpicky:

• AMD drivers take a lot more time to be upgraded (NVIDIA: run the installer and usually reboot is not even required; AMD: sometimes requires two reboots)
• Undervolting didn't work in any shape or form as even the slightest underclock led to a system instability
• (That's my opinion) AMD drivers are choke-full of options which are poorly organized

Lastly, here's an observation not related to drivers but GPUs themselves. OEMs sell AMD and NVIDIA GPUs with a zero fan feature however in my experience and from what I've seen, NVIDIA cards tend to idle at a much lower temperature than AMD. Can't vouch for RTX 3080/3090 cards as they have power hungry GDDR6X video memory.

 

[R-T-B]

I sold my RX 5700 XT not long ago as well. Honestly? Driver issues were fixed by the end of it in the sense that it did not crash, but:

1.) Their DX11 and OpenGL driver CPU overhead is still absurdly bad. So much so sometimes using Dxvk on WINDOWS helps them, and

2.) 90% of games written use these apis.

Yeah, I know you said "current owners," but I was less than 2 weeks ago. I neither regret it, nor miss it.

any particular reviewer I should look to for an unbiased analysis?

W1zzard.

 

[Lindatje]

Not one single problem with my RX 5700XT, it is super stable.

Look for HardwareUnboxed or Gamers Nexus.

 

[FinneousPJ]

I'm happy with the drivers. Note I'm a dual user Linux/Windows.

 

[R-T-B]

I'm happy with the drivers. Note I'm a dual user Linux/Windows.

The linux drivers are ironically, a whole different ballpark better than the windows ones in the cpu overhead thing I was complaining about. They have like, none.

 

[Steevo]

I miss the video controls, and the advanced graphics options. They went to dumbed down with the new control panel..

 

[Devon68]

Did not have any problems on my HD 7850, nor the R9 280x nor on the HD 7770 I have now TBH.

 

[Fouquin]

Zero issues with the Pro 5600M so far. Still on 20.8.3 though. I only recently got a Navi equipped machine so I missed out on a lot of the reported issues be the looks of things.

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Well I really want to believe that "dark times" are our past but you never know with the AMD....we will see soon how the BIG Navi launch is going to handle this "issue"let's hope so way better then 5000 series....Personally I didn't have much trouble in past also recently with RX 470&RX 480 and now atm with the R9 Fury....everything just works....

 

[erocker]

Drivers seem fine other than when multiple monitors are involved and I've just stopped bothering installing Adrenaline at this point. Far, far behind their competition on this front unfortunately.

I'd hold off judgement on drivers for RDNA2 until it's released though. AMD could be using a fixed/better driver branch for that card for all we know.

 

[Space Lynx]

I had a single monitor setup and a 5600 XT gpu briefly, and I had 0 issues with it, unless I tried to OC it, even just 5 mhz more or adjusting the power sliders, then I would get crashes sometimes, but as long as I messed with no third party apps like afterburner / overclocking it was rock solid stable and I had 0 crashes or issues at stock.

 

[R-T-B]

I miss the video controls, and the advanced graphics options. They went to dumbed down with the new control panel..

In linux they literally don't have a control panel, just a config file...

 

[FinneousPJ]

In linux they literally don't have a control panel, just a config file...

I mean drivers and control panels should come separately in all OSs... driver is just a software interface to a specific hardware. A control panel is a user interface. They literally have nothing to do with each other.

 

[Gungar]

I don't want to buy Nvidia anymore, but if AMD can't get their shit together, the options are slim...

 

[ratirt]

Never had a problem with the driver. Either on my RX 5600XT nor Vega 64 earlier.

 

[damric]

In 15 years I never had a driver issue for single card Radeon configurations. Crossfire would sometimes be painful but I always figured it out eventually, sometimes having to edit registry. The drivers in more recent years look so much better than the old Catalyst Control Center, and expose much more fine tuning. I've not had much problem with Nvidia drivers either. I find that dirty power is the #1 problem that people have graphics card problems.

 

[Kapone33]

True story. I had a Vega 64 and thought that was the bee's knee's. I had a Customer build that fell through but I had bought a 5700. I posted a thread on TPU as to why in Division 2, Titanfall 2 and some other Games run at a consistent 144+ FPS using this card. If you want to Game at 1440P high refresh rate the 5700 will make you smile. In every way the 5700 is a great card. I have not had 1 issue with driver updates, shutdowns or anything. In this lock down environment that GPU has been on for a week straight without a hiccup. The only thing I don't like about modern GPUs is the zero fan policy which exist for both vendors.

 

[INSTG8R]

True story. I had a Vega 64 and thought that was the bee's knee's. I had a Customer build that fell through but I had bought a 5700. I posted a thread on TPU as to why in Division 2, Titanfall 2 and some other Games run at a consistent 144+ FPS using this card. If you want to Game at 1440P high refresh rate the 5700 will make you smile. In every way the 5700 is a great card. I have not had 1 issue with driver updates, shutdowns or anything. In this lock down environment that GPU has been on for a week straight without a hiccup. The only thing I don't like about modern GPUs is the zero fan policy which exist for both vendors.

Almost my path exactly. . I’m just waiting for the 6700XT as my next upgrade