AMD Will Fix Adrenalin Driver Game Incompatibility Issues After All

[Raevenlord]

Right in the last corner of 2017, as our collective minds were getting ready to move onto a new year at full warp speed, we covered this bit of news regarding AMD's Adrenalin Driver incompatibility with some older game titles under DX9 ("C&C3 Tiberium Wars," "C&C3 Kane's Wrath," "C&C Red Alert 3," "C&C Red Alert 3 Uprising," "C&C4 Tiberian Twilight," "Battle for Middle Earth 1-2," and "The Witcher Enhanced Edition.") At the time, AMD stated that they were "unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue." User backlash ensued, and with the new year comes a new AMD: one that has found the valuable engineering resources needed towards working on a fix for said issues.

Apparently, the problem stemmed from a driver-level incompatibility with SAGE engine games, and AMD's Terry Makedon took to Twitter to make things better for fans of those games, saying that "We will for sure fix this bug with SAGE engine games in an upcoming hotfix." All in all, a good guy move by AMD. For sure, the initial statement might not echo the full sentiment of the entire company on the issue, though it's a fact that it was an AMD employee that started the whole debate. That said, the user backlash certainly goes to show that PC gamers want their systems to always have backwards compatibility with older games - one of the more important differentiating factors between PCs and games consoles.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[INSTG8R]

Of course they will, total overreaction...

 

[Deleted member 50521]

Without media attention i am pretty sure they would simply sweep this issue under the rug and wait for people to forget. So kudos to TPU for keeping the pressure on.

And no, there is no such thing as overreacting. Companies need the pressure from tech media to keep up good work. For example without TPU that Intel ME situation may be long lost in time.

 

[GamerNerves]

Very nice. I played a lot of CNC3 and RA3 when they were new. Both are superb RTS-titles.

...

I so much want a Vega refresh card with one of those massive custom coolers. I wish those miners would let gamers order even some cards, but the real answer would be an higher production of chips. It is possible that there will be double release from AMD, since both updated Ryzen and refreshed Vega will be manufactured with 12 nm process and they have to expect a huge demand for both categories. It seems current Vega is slowly out of stores, so I'm pretty sure they just moved straight on to release the new models. Nvidia is also ready with Volta to release their cards at the same time or slightly before.

 

[Gasaraki]

Without media attention i am pretty sure they would simply sweep this issue under the rug and wait for people to forget. So kudos to TPU for keeping the pressure on.

And no, there is no such thing as overreacting. Companies need the pressure from tech media to keep up good work. For example without TPU that Intel ME situation may be long lost in time.

Giving TPU too much credit. It's all over the internet. It's stupid that it took public outcry to even get this fixed.

 

[Deleted member 50521]

Giving TPU too much credit. It's all over the internet. It's stupid that it took public outcry to even get this fixed.

Maybe. It should not be broken in the first place.

Think for a second. Without tech site reporting, that AMD support thread was end of the line. That “ray_m” guy from AMD locked the thread from any further discussion. Would they fix then? Probably not.

AMD need the whip on the ass to keep good driver support. Relying on “Good Will” to fix stuff is just naive.

 

[newtekie1]

I kind of figured this would be the case from the beginning. Everyone freaked out over a statement from a tech support person on a forum. But that's far from the official statement that everyone took it to be.

 

[Zubasa]

Maybe. It should not be broken in the first place.

Think for a second. Without tech site reporting, that AMD support thread was end of the line. That “ray_m” guy from AMD locked the thread from any further discussion. Would they fix then? Probably not.

AMD need the whip on the ass to keep good driver support. Relying on “Good Will” to fix stuff is just naive.

That guy in charge of PR needs a big wip on the ass as well while we are at it.

 

[Thefumigator]

Of course they will, total overreaction...

Agree.
Also AMD answer was too fast to be taken seriously. Also Lisa Su is still transitioning after Raja left.

 

[SomeOne99h]

Guys I don't think this has anything to do with AMD being bad or not wanna fix it. It is that technical support bad mouth and going with his own assumptions. I think he got scolded behind the scene. They need to hire better one really.

 

[Xzibit]

Guys I don't think this has anything to do with AMD being bad or not wanna fix it. It is that technical support bad mouth and going with his own assumptions. I think he got scolded behind the scene. They need to hire better one really.

I like to think that people were still drunk after New Years party and took to the forums to complain. Then I saw the names of some of those people and said, "Business as usual"

 

[RejZoR]

If they want anyone to buy their new graphic cards, they better...

 

[evernessince]

Of course they will, total overreaction...

Right, because not being able to play many DX9 games wasn't a serious issue. People couldn't even play brand new games, like Tales of berseria. I'm sorry if you think it's an overreaction that people were mad they couldn't play games on the thing they bought to play games.

 

[GenericAMDFan]

Of course they will, total overreaction...

I mean the AMD employee literally said they weren't gonna fix it so it wasn't really an overreaction. It's good though that they've realised what a big mistake this was I hope the guy gets fired.

 

[cdawall]

I mean the AMD employee literally said they weren't gonna fix it so it wasn't really an overreaction. It's good though that they've realised what a big mistake this was I hope the guy gets fired.

Why would they fire him? This just speaks volumes for AMD's internal mantra. He didn't just wake up last week and go yea we don't fix things. That is how he was trained. If anyone needs to be fired it is his boss.

 

[NC37]

And yet it took AMD over a year to fix the Overwatch crash bug. lol

Overwatch players complain and are forced to sit on old drivers for a year. Waiting with each release...AMD sits on it.
DX9 players bitch for a day and AMD engineers make a stupid comment...AMD suddenly goes to work.

Yeah this really may be the last time I use AMD GPUs. nVidia does stupid stuff on hardware and drivers too but AMD's support of their Radeon line has been worse than I've ever seen it lately.

 

[Deleted member 50521]

Overwatch still crashes from time to time for me.

 

[INSTG8R]

Right, because not being able to play many DX9 games wasn't a serious issue. People couldn't even play brand new games, like Tales of berseria. I'm sorry if you think it's an overreaction that people were mad they couldn't play games on the thing they bought to play games.

C'mon people were acting like they had completely abandoned DX9 entirely, when it was a handful of old games...It was absolutely an overreaction...

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's stupid that it took public outcry to even get this fixed.

It didn't, it took public outcry to make them aware of the problem.

It was absolutely an overreaction...

Exactly right.

 

[cdawall]

C'mon people were acting like they had completely abandoned DX9 entirely, when it was a handful of old games...It was absolutely an overreaction...

The reaction was more to AMD saying we will not fix games. It could have been one game that part does not matter. Ostracizing your customer base is deplorable.

 

[eidairaman1]

And yet it took AMD over a year to fix the Overwatch crash bug. lol

Overwatch players complain and are forced to sit on old drivers for a year. Waiting with each release...AMD sits on it.
DX9 players bitch for a day and AMD engineers make a stupid comment...AMD suddenly goes to work.

Yeah this really may be the last time I use AMD GPUs. nVidia does stupid stuff on hardware and drivers too but AMD's support of their Radeon line has been worse than I've ever seen it lately.

Have you even tried reporting it via bug report?. I had an issue and used bug reporter, they fixed it. Posting a gripe without bug reporting it gets you no where and makes you out to be a whiner.

 

[natr0n]

That AMD goon who started this whole thing should apologize.

https://community.amd.com/people/ray_m

 

[eidairaman1]

That AMD goon who started this whole thing should apologize.

Im pretty sure he has been relieved of his position at that spot where he wrote that statement, probably reprimanded. I think he went rogue.

Its ones like that I ignore completely.

 

[EarthDog]

Or maybe that was the company line until the outcry....

 

[natr0n]

Im pretty sure he has been relieved of his position at that spot where he wrote that statement, probably reprimanded. I think he went rogue.

Its ones like that I ignore completely.