AMD ends driver support for R9 Fury and Radeon 200, 300 series???

[Zubasa]

This is the thing that people do not understand. Do you really think AMD was actively working on bug fixes for these cards until this day for the past 8 years ?

No way, AMD probably stopped working on these in any meaningful way years ago, this is just a formality. Think about Kepler cards, technically they are supported to this day but they've been performing horrendously bad in new titles for years now, it's pretty clear that nothing is done for those products. Just because a company claims they are supporting a product it does not mean they are actively doing so.

Kepler support will end in a few months anyway.

 

[GrevenX]

WTF Is Intel.....err AMD Thinking....sad sad day. Of course i just purchsed an R9 290X for our Churchs computer for light graphical tasks....

 

[Ahhzz]

WTF Is Intel.....err AMD Thinking....sad sad day. Of course i just purchsed an R9 290X for our Churchs computer for light graphical tasks....

And an R9 290x will work great for "light graphical tasks" for a while to come. Nothing about that changes because they stop creating new drivers. Sure, some of the newer abilities aren't available, but most of those wouldn't be available on that card anyway, new driver or not. The only thing this really hurts is if Windows or one of the major "graphical task" companies does an update that breaks compatibility with the card, but as much noise as we in the tech world see about that, it really doesn't happen the vast majority of the time. You'll be fine.

 

[windwhirl]

No way, AMD probably stopped working on these in any meaningful way years ago, this is just a formality.

For the record, the last reference I found for anything pre-Polaris was back in December 2019, fixing an out of video memory error on Radeon 200/300 series cards. Every other bug fix mentioned after? Who knows to which card they apply.

 

[QuietBob]

...cries in 2x HD7970...

But then again, I don't really play new titles. So the retired driver support doesn't bother me that much

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Shit is 10 years + old. I dont know why this surprises anyone. IMO, it's about time.

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Shit is 10 years + old. I dont know why this surprises anyone. IMO, it's about time.

Maybe because R9 Fury&R9 290/390 Series of cards are 5+ years old.....

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

There is nothing new AMD can do with those cards, to keep them "in the loop" means more work and larger downloads. There should be a final EOL download for these older cards.

 

[Valantar]

WTF Is Intel.....err AMD Thinking....sad sad day. Of course i just purchsed an R9 290X for our Churchs computer for light graphical tasks....

Do you think those tasks will require future driver updates? 'Cause if they work today, nothing is going to change. Unless the software vendor breaks it, in which case fixing it is their responsibility.

 

[delshay]

Kepler support will end in a few months anyway.

Yeah, but they were warned well in advance. Being a R9 Nano user's this move sucks. You don't see Microsoft doing this.. It's like they made a decision overnight & stuck it on they website the next day.

These cards will not work with upcoming windows 11 either.

 

[Deleted member 202104]

Yeah, but they were warned well in advance. Being a R9 Nano user's this move sucks. You don't see Microsoft doing this.. It's like they made a decision overnight & stuck it on they website.

These cards will not work with upcoming windows 11 either.

What's wrong with using 10 until 2025? At least you can still do that. AMD left me high and dry with a 290x on Windows 8.1 back in 2017.

I don't see the the need to be on the bleeding edge OS version on six year old hardware.

 

[delshay]

What's wrong with using 10 until 2025? At least you can still do that. AMD left me high and dry with a 290x on Windows 8.1 back in 2017.

I don't see the the need to be on the bleeding edge OS version on six year old hardware.

From my understanding, there will be no more windows 10 support either if the card has moved to legacy. From my understanding it's tied to the hardware itself. ..Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[windwhirl]

From my understanding, there will be no more windows 10 support either if the card has moved to legacy. From my understanding it's tied to the hardware itself. ..Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Depends on whether Microsoft introduces more changes to the Windows Display Driver Model and related APIs.

A few months ago I had to upgrade from the November WHQL driver to a Beta one because it was throwing display driver errors a few times a day on a R7 260X. When I did some digging, it was because of a security update that touched the graphics subsystems.

 

[Flyordie]

I can see dropping the 200 and 300 series as they are based on an older version of GCN. However, the Fury and Fury X cards, those should be supported until they end support for Vega 56/64 imho.

 

[Deleted member 202104]

From my understanding, there will be no more windows 10 support either if the card has moved to legacy. From my understanding it's tied to the hardware itself. ..Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Depends on whether Microsoft introduces more changes to the Windows Display Driver Model and related APIs.

A few months ago I had to upgrade from the November WHQL driver to a Beta one because it was throwing display driver errors a few times a day on a R7 260X. When I did some digging, it was because of a security update that touched the graphics subsystems.

Well if that's the case, it truly sucks. I would have assumed that the last valid driver should work with the hardware, but I guess it is Microsoft we're talking about. There were 'hacks' in the past that allowed the newer drivers to be installed, but with Win10 it's probably anybody's guess at this point.

 

[AsRock]

Knew some thing like this was going to happen, going on about support with FSR for the 1060, but nothing was said about the 290\390.

And an R9 290x will work great for "light graphical tasks" for a while to come. Nothing about that changes because they stop creating new drivers. Sure, some of the newer abilities aren't available, but most of those wouldn't be available on that card anyway, new driver or not. The only thing this really hurts is if Windows or one of the major "graphical task" companies does an update that breaks compatibility with the card, but as much noise as we in the tech world see about that, it really doesn't happen the vast majority of the time. You'll be fine.

4GB cards might have a harder time but the 8GB ones should be running games pretty dam well for 1080P at least.

 

[GerKNG]

P.S.What happened with Fine Wine AMD?

Fine Wine?
you mean from a barely function pre alpha product to something that works as intended after years of patching and fixing?

 

[xkm1948]

One last F U to those who supported them during Fury days. Let it die, i parted with my FuryX as soon as I could. AMD makes some decent CPUs. But I wont be giving their GPU another cent for a long while

 

[windwhirl]

I can see dropping the 200 and 300 series as they are based on an older version of GCN. However, the Fury and Fury X cards, those should be supported until they end support for Vega 56/64 imho.

Vega is two generations ahead. Asking a bit much there. Plus the Fury's usability is set to be severely reduced due to having just 4 GB of VRAM.

 

[delshay]

Vega is two generations ahead. Asking a bit much there. Plus the Fury's usability is set to be severely reduced due to having just 4 GB of VRAM.

Some of the supported cards also have 4GB VRAM, so it's not that. Someone pointed out it has something to do with shaders.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Some of the supported cards also have 4GB VRAM, so it's not that. Someone pointed out it has something to do with shaders.

The shaders are identical to the ones used in Tonga and Polaris, being of GFX8 generation. The Fiji cards have an older display engine (it's not capable of HDMI 2.0), and an earlier generation geometry processor compared to what's in Polaris. They also cannot encode HEVC. Otherwise, the cards are pretty much binary compatible as far as compute stuff goes. This review of the RX 590 on AnandTech explains it all in far more detail than I could ever reasonably put in a forum post, and I highly recommend everyone read it.

The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)

www.anandtech.com

One last F U to those who supported them during Fury days. Let it die, i parted with my FuryX as soon as I could. AMD makes some decent CPUs. But I wont be giving their GPU another cent for a long while

Long before I joined, I followed your struggles with the R9 Fury lurking the TPU forums. Man, I know your pain. AMD hasn't been exactly kind to flagship buyers until the current generation, all of them having their bizarre share of issues... R9 Fury guys probably just didn't have it as bad as the Vega Frontier Edition buyers. I had them all.

From my understanding, there will be no more windows 10 support either if the card has moved to legacy. From my understanding it's tied to the hardware itself. ..Please correct me if I'm wrong.

No future updates means that the card's WDDM model and shader model will no longer be updated, and they will cease to receive new API features, even if compatible with the hardware. This gap will only grow larger and larger as 21.5.2 ages against more current releases. However, Windows 10/11 is fully backwards compatible with all WDDM models back to Vista's 1.0 - the card will continue to function for the foreseeable future, until Microsoft deems that earlier display driver model revisions are either unsafe or unsuitable to the operating system's demands.

For example, on the NVIDIA side, the final Windows 10 release of the Tesla generation GPUs (GTX 8000 through 200 series, 342.01) are actually Windows 8.1 model 1.3 drivers, this is for both GeForce and Quadro. They will still work, and I sometimes use such an old graphics card for some retro gaming on my CRTs.

 

[delshay]

The shaders are identical to the ones used in Tonga and Polaris, being of GFX8 generation. The Fiji cards have an older display engine (it's not capable of HDMI 2.0), and an earlier generation geometry processor compared to what's in Polaris. They also cannot encode HEVC. Otherwise, the cards are pretty much binary compatible as far as compute stuff goes. This review of the RX 590 on AnandTech explains it all in far more detail than I could ever reasonably put in a forum post, and I highly recommend everyone read it.

The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)

www.anandtech.com

Long before I joined, I followed your struggles with the R9 Fury lurking the TPU forums. Man, I know your pain. AMD hasn't been exactly kind to flagship buyers until the current generation, all of them having their bizarre share of issues... R9 Fury guys probably just didn't have it as bad as the Vega Frontier Edition buyers. I had them all.



No future updates means that the card's WDDM model and shader model will no longer be updated, and they will cease to receive new API features, even if compatible with the hardware. This gap will only grow larger and larger as 21.5.2 ages against more current releases. However, Windows 10/11 is fully backwards compatible with all WDDM models back to Vista's 1.0 - the card will continue to function for the foreseeable future, until Microsoft deems that earlier display driver model revisions are either unsafe or unsuitable to the operating system's demands.

For example, on the NVIDIA side, the final Windows 10 release of the Tesla generation GPUs (GTX 8000 through 200 series, 342.01) are actually Windows 8.1 model 1.3 drivers, this is for both GeForce and Quadro. They will still work, and I sometimes use such an old graphics card for some retro gaming on my CRTs.

This is a question I was asking on Reddit. Can you not manually update Vulkan? ie download latest files, put them in the correct AMD folder(s) then install.

 

[Dr. Dro]

This is a question I was asking on Reddit. Can you not manually update Vulkan? ie download latest files, put them in the correct AMD folder(s) then install.

I'm not sure, I don't know if the graphics driver would know what to do with the updated runtime's newer extensions, even if you updated it manually. All in all, in my opinion, the best thing for these cards now is to be put on a Linux box, where they'll get a decent treatment for a few more years.

 

[delshay]

I'm not sure, I don't know if the graphics driver would know what to do with the updated runtime's newer extensions, even if you updated it manually. All in all, in my opinion, the best thing for these cards now is to be put on a Linux box, where they'll get a decent treatment for a few more years.

I got upvoted on Reddit when I ask this question & there was a developer in the thread as it was he who was complaining he wrote new vulkan extension only for AMD to stop support. ..So a wild guess, I would say "yes", it looks like you can keep up-to-date on the Vulkan side of things..

 

[Dr. Dro]

I got upvoted on Reddit when I ask this question & there was a developer in the thread as it was he who was complaining he wrote new vulkan extension only for AMD to stop support. ..So a wild guess, I would "yes", it looks like you can keep up-to-date on the Vulkan side of things..

I think I saw that post. Honestly, though... I understand the desire to keep on trucking with these cards, especially given the context and the ongoing situation, but it is what it is. Not much that we can do at this point, even if it's serviceable, it's just a matter of time until it isn't anymore. To most average joe users, this won't be an issue at least until 2023... but it is something we more advanced users tend to feel.

There's always a flip side, though. You might find some R9 Fury-class cards being sold for cheap. I wouldn't mind those $99 Nano cards being back...