Stable, lower temp, modded ATI drivers?

[Tallencor]

So don't get me wrong I love my Sapphire 7870 xt. What my issue is, The bloody drivers. There was a time where beta and rc drivers actually added something to the table performance or stability wise inc temps.
That seems to be all hogwash of late. Performance gains and crossfire profiles for the latest cards (R9) are fine for people that have them, but why update from the 13.??'s if all the 14's are so sketchy. The latest I have installed is 14.20.1004-140620a1-173243E and I have gained on average 8 degrees c higher temps. And every time I exit a game windows pops in with a "Hey there Mr. ATI looks like your having issues running Aero, wanna adjust to Nvidia?" lol.
Minus the rant, Are there any trustworthy teams out there modding ATI drivers and or fixing what is overlooked by Ati? They don't have to be the latest releases but bringing more stability and better behavior is what I am after.
Yes I could just roll back to an earlier release but that isn't per say what I am after. More of all the benefits with none of the oh yeah, oops!

 

[seanmac]

So don't get me wrong I love my Sapphire 7870 xt. What my issue is, The bloody drivers. There was a time where beta and rc drivers actually added something to the table performance or stability wise inc temps.
That seems to be all hogwash of late. Performance gains and crossfire profiles for the latest cards (R9) are fine for people that have them, but why update from the 13.??'s if all the 14's are so sketchy. The latest I have installed is 14.20.1004-140620a1-173243E and I have gained on average 8 degrees c higher temps. And every time I exit a game windows pops in with a "Hey there Mr. ATI looks like your having issues running Aero, wanna adjust to Nvidia?" lol.
Minus the rant, Are there any trustworthy teams out there modding ATI drivers and or fixing what is overlooked by Ati? They don't have to be the latest releases but bringing more stability and better behavior is what I am after.
Yes I could just roll back to an earlier release but that isn't per say what I am after. More of all the benefits with none of the oh yeah, oops!

Mate i hear you there regarding the temps. I'm running the latest 14.7 beta's and have gained around 5-7 degrees c since moving away from 14.4. I really noticed the difference as iv'e happily been using the Kracken G10 + H55 to cool my R9 290 and I was like "WTF is this ?"

 

[seanmac]

So don't get me wrong I love my Sapphire 7870 xt. What my issue is, The bloody drivers. There was a time where beta and rc drivers actually added something to the table performance or stability wise inc temps.
That seems to be all hogwash of late. Performance gains and crossfire profiles for the latest cards (R9) are fine for people that have them, but why update from the 13.??'s if all the 14's are so sketchy. The latest I have installed is 14.20.1004-140620a1-173243E and I have gained on average 8 degrees c higher temps. And every time I exit a game windows pops in with a "Hey there Mr. ATI looks like your having issues running Aero, wanna adjust to Nvidia?" lol.
Minus the rant, Are there any trustworthy teams out there modding ATI drivers and or fixing what is overlooked by Ati? They don't have to be the latest releases but bringing more stability and better behavior is what I am after.
Yes I could just roll back to an earlier release but that isn't per say what I am after. More of all the benefits with none of the oh yeah, oops!

I forgot to add something (thought i'd double post in case you didn't see the edit). The guys over at Tweak Force do modded AMD drivers. You can find them over here (modded 14.4) http://www.tweakforce.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=28

 

[FreedomEclipse]

2004 called, They want their Omega Drivers back...


Sadly afaik there are nobody out there who are modding GPU drivers anymore, At least not after Nvidia filed a lawsuit & attempted to go after the guy from Omega Drivers who was doing all the tweaks. ATi was very supportive and they allowed their drivers to be tweaked & modded by the community but after the whole lawsuit thing with Nvidia, there were no more modded drivers.

Its pretty much the whole Creative vs. Daniel K thing. Daniel K modded creative drivers to been less fail bait - This was back in the days when creative drivers were monumentally bad. Daniel K released some tweaked/modded drivers and Creative went after him even though he was doing what he was doing for free (not for profit) Creative went after him HARD & even announced it publicly like they were naming & shaming him.

Im not too sure if this happened at the end of it as my memory is going but there was huge backlash among the Creative Community which Daniel K's drivers helped out alot and Creative backed down a little and even offered Daniel K a job which he turned down (and rightly so i might add)

 

[Tallencor]

I forgot to add something (thought i'd double post in case you didn't see the edit). The guys over at Tweak Force do modded AMD drivers. You can find them over here (modded 14.4) http://www.tweakforce.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=28

2004 called, They want their Omega Drivers back...


Sadly afaik there are nobody out there who are modding GPU drivers anymore, At least not after Nvidia filed a lawsuit & attempted to go after the guy from Omega Drivers who was doing all the tweaks. ATi was very supportive and they allowed their drivers to be tweaked & modded by the community but after the whole lawsuit thing with Nvidia, there were no more modded drivers.

Its pretty much the whole Creative vs. Daniel K thing. Daniel K modded creative drivers to been less fail bait - This was back in the days when creative drivers were monumentally bad. Daniel K released some tweaked/modded drivers and Creative went after him even though he was doing what he was doing for free (not for profit) Creative went after him HARD & even announced it publicly like they were naming & shaming him.

Im not too sure if this happened at the end of it as my memory is going but there was huge backlash among the Creative Community which Daniel K's drivers helped out alot and Creative backed down a little and even offered Daniel K a job which he turned down (and rightly so i might add)

http://www.tweakforce.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=6551
So these modded 14.4's are not advisable?
Edit: To answer my own question, Nope. Wonkie as ole heck. 10 fps in Valley with these and display corruption. Trix will not work and neither will gpuz. Oh well headed back to 14.4 whql. Thanks guys.

 

[RejZoR]

I just wish they'd ever fix the damn HDMI Audio lagging my entire system and friggin 144Hz actually working properly after system wakes up from sleep instead of getting constantly stuck in fixed 85Hz mode. The rest is great but they just can't and can't fix this damn crap.

 

[Tallencor]

I just wish they'd ever fix the damn HDMI Audio lagging my entire system and friggin 144Hz actually working properly after system wakes up from sleep instead of getting constantly stuck in fixed 85Hz mode. The rest is great but they just can't and can't fix this damn crap.

Quite a few months ago now Vario told me he was switching to the green team and told me I should have followed suit. Word is he is quite impressed. Guess I may make the leap after all.

 

[Frick]

For one thing, you can't expect your card to gain performance from driver updates indefinitely. Your card is not old, sure, but still. The second thing, you don't HAVE to update your drivers. Use whatever is working best. If the latest drivers does not work well, roll back. It's a pain, but it has been like that since the dawn of time.

 

[RejZoR]

Quite a few months ago now Vario told me he was switching to the green team and told me I should have followed suit. Word is he is quite impressed. Guess I may make the leap after all.

If i'm honest, i'm thinking the same lately. The HDMI Audio problem is so bad i have to manually disable that device in Device Manager for it to work right. And now the idiotic refresh swithcing to 85Hz after every system wake. As far as i like the rest of AMD, these two problems are totally pissing me off and even though i've reported the HDMI Audio thingie like decades ago, they have solved exactly nothing. Have reported the 144Hz switching and i think it will never get fixed, because out of all users 20 of us have 144Hz monitors and out of these 20 i bet 15 don't even know it's not even running at 144Hz after sleep on DisplayPort. This is a rare moment where i'm willing to switch camps for something totally not related to anything 3D whatsoever. I just hope NVIDIA doesn't have same moronic problems...

 

[Frick]

@RejZoR Do many people have the same problems as you?

 

[bubbleawsome]

To be fair, I've had some issues with my green team drivers. I do a ton of OpenCL compute and anything after 327.xx really crapped on that. I've also had assorted problems with fan speeds and clocks, even corruption and black screen when I stream.

 

[RejZoR]

@RejZoR Do many people have the same problems as you?

I have no idea as not many people actually own a 144Hz monitors. Most are stuck on 60Hz with cheap monitors or using 60Hz IPS's, and i bet many of those that have 144Hz don't even notice they are actually running in 85Hz and not 144Hz. I clearly notice the difference because this is how i spotted this bug.

Woke up the system, started a game and after playing it a bit it always felt weird. Checked monitor info in OSD and it was 85Hz. Went to Windows and there was 85Hz as maximum. Had to unplug DisplayPort cable, reconnect it and boink, 144Hz is all of the sudden available on the list. And this is 100% reproducible.

 

[Steevo]

Have you submitted a bug report?


I have an issue with my 5870 (but I know its old and don't complain) where HDMI wake up doesn't work when my TV powers up, I have to unplug the HDMI cable for 7 seconds or so and then plug it back in or shut off the TV then restart it to get it to pickup the signal, but I also did a firmware update on my TV so perhaps it may be the cause. I have also not tried the other HDMI ports.

**Edit** For a lower temp you can write a new BIOS with better clock, power and fan control for your card and temps. Or force the fan to a static speed and use the profile launcher to return the fan speed to auto or a higher manual speed.

 

[Tallencor]

I have no idea as not many people actually own a 144Hz monitors. Most are stuck on 60Hz with cheap monitors or using 60Hz IPS's, and i bet many of those that have 144Hz don't even notice they are actually running in 85Hz and not 144Hz. I clearly notice the difference because this is how i spotted this bug.

Woke up the system, started a game and after playing it a bit it always felt weird. Checked monitor info in OSD and it was 85Hz. Went to Windows and there was 85Hz as maximum. Had to unplug DisplayPort cable, reconnect it and boink, 144Hz is all of the sudden available on the list. And this is 100% reproducible.

Have you submitted a bug report?


I have an issue with my 5870 (but I know its old and don't complain) where HDMI wake up doesn't work when my TV powers up, I have to unplug the HDMI cable for 7 seconds or so and then plug it back in or shut off the TV then restart it to get it to pickup the signal, but I also did a firmware update on my TV so perhaps it may be the cause. I have also not tried the other HDMI ports.

**Edit** For a lower temp you can write a new BIOS with better clock, power and fan control for your card and temps. Or force the fan to a static speed and use the profile launcher to return the fan speed to auto or a higher manual speed.

Oddly enough, When I plug in my hdmi from my tv I have to restart the pc with it plugged in for the hdmi audio to work. Dos'nt matter if I have restarted the pc or not. If I unplug it at any point I have to restart every time. It is minor and dos'nt bother me but....................

 

[Steevo]

That was an issue but they fixed it in a later driver, it is caused by windows trying to remap the audio when the default device disappears or gets unhooked, the ATI driver has to reclaim it, MS had the best setup in XP where you could map audio, Vista broke it and you had to switch, then switch back, my ex would watch netflix with HDMI audio and I would use my USB mic/audio for gaming at the same time and I would have to switch it if she closed netflix/WMC. 7 continued this, and 8 I am guessing.

Go into windows and reassign the HDMI as the default device and see if it fixes your issue.

 

[RejZoR]

So it seems AMD actrually has tons of problems with their outputs...

 

[Tallencor]

That was an issue but they fixed it in a later driver, it is caused by windows trying to remap the audio when the default device disappears or gets unhooked, the ATI driver has to reclaim it, MS had the best setup in XP where you could map audio, Vista broke it and you had to switch, then switch back, my ex would watch netflix with HDMI audio and I would use my USB mic/audio for gaming at the same time and I would have to switch it if she closed netflix/WMC. 7 continued this, and 8 I am guessing.

Go into windows and reassign the HDMI as the default device and see if it fixes your issue.

I have tried this. The windows volume slider crashes to the bottom and stays there. Restart with hdmi plugged in and it fixes the issue. I could leave it plugged in at all times I guess and just switch between displays as needed really.