Drivers & Software

Anonymous · ‎01-18-2020

AMD why did you remove the 'Power Efficiency' feature from the new VII and XT range?

The core MHz is fluctuating from 150mhz to 1700mhz causing framerate issues, it simply cannot keep a stable 60FPS.

Its the exact same bloody issue with the FuryX back in 2015, here is my own thread describing the issue.

https://community.amd.com/thread/193069

A program was created called Clockblocker which half worked at the time, now a new program called MorePowerTools is available which hacks the driver, why are we again having to use hack programs for your bloody driver.

The thread describes the exact same issue, until AMD fixed this with a new feature called ''Power Efficiency'' which prevented the core from downclocking in 3D applications, it was brilliant from 2016-2019

We need that option back ASAP!

We spent nearly a year howling you to add this feature and you just remove it?

''Power Efficiency Toggle: A new feature introduced in the Radeon™ Settings Gaming tab for select AMD Radeon™ 300 series and AMD Radeon™ Fury X available under "Global Options". This allows the user to disable some power efficiency optimizations.''

This would 100% fix the VII and XT.

Here is a RAW video showcasing the issue, what a complete mess.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivo4iqjbjogge8j/Powerplay%20Issue.rar?dl=0

The FuryX was SOLID60FPS.

Anonymous · ‎01-19-2020

Update here.

Radeon VII spikes from 300mhz to 2662mhz even if I downclock the core mhz.

Just spikes every second the FPS is all over the place.

Are you trying to brick my GPU? I have warranty.

The same issue with the FuryX and you fixed the issue with the ''Power Efficiency'' feature.

Why did you remove this? Bloody nora.

kingfish · ‎01-19-2020

Does your card have a bios/power switch on the side?

Anonymous · ‎01-19-2020

Thanks for the reply.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Radeon VII doesn't have duel BIOS.

A power switch? What do you mean?

kingfish · ‎01-19-2020

By power switch I mean bios:

"Users are able to switch between two modes – quiet and performance. The first one has a lower clock rate and allows to optimize the fan curve settings so that the card’s noise is minimal. The latter prioritizes performance thanks to higher clock speeds that increase your in-game framerate, but may cause the card to be louder."

Anonymous · ‎01-19-2020

Thanks for the reply.

Radeon VII don't have duel BIOS, there is no switch.

kingfish · ‎01-19-2020

Well it was worth a shot...

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-19-2020

Some versions of my RX 480 have a switch on them as well, but not the card I have. Not that it matters to me. All I want is rock stability.

Sapphire is hardy in my studio. It seems to be able to tolerate a lot of nonsense and it does not die.

Anonymous · ‎01-20-2020

Cannot believe the old FuryX had duel BIOS, the fact that if you make some mistake on the VII, its very difficult to flash.

We are getting spikes of 2662mhz core its insane, we don't want this spike from 800mhz to 2662mhz its causing major stuttering/lag.

So why is the feature removed on the VII?

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-20-2020

I have not botherer to flash a video card, there is not likely any problem. Back with Kepler, I flashed 2 cards for UEFI but that was for Windows 8

Anonymous · ‎01-20-2020

We have major issues with the VII so that's why we flashed the GPU with the updated rom, still makes no difference.

Any idea on how we can bootleg this feature back for the VII? Its hidden in the driver so the theory is that it can be activated for the VII.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-20-2020

There has been a lot of reported problems with the Radeon VII card.

Over on TechPowerup there was a lot of comments over the card early on. Same here.

I wonder how well the card would work on my X470 vs my X570 which is known to be problematic with Radeon generally.

Anonymous · ‎01-20-2020

This would be easily fixed if the feature wasn't removed, the DPM0 state is way too low, the VII is 25mhz, it answers so many questions on idle crash's and black screens of death, AMD need to stop this madness.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-20-2020

john007 wrote:
This would be easily fixed if the feature wasn't removed, the DPM0 state is way too low, the VII is 25mhz, it answers so many questions on idle crash's and black screens of death, AMD need to stop this madness.

I agree, but I am wondering with the new logic design in RDNA if things are going to change.

I have had far fewer BSOD problems with my X470 vs my X570 platform. Makes the X570 a rather expensive paperweight.

Anonymous · ‎01-21-2020

I thought the Radeon VII was for science? How is this GPU scientific when you have no control over the hardware values?

Also what's the DPM0/p0 state on the x470 compared to the x570?

Who authorized this feature to be removed? I've had a FuryX so we have had this feature for years now.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-21-2020

john007 wrote:
I thought the Radeon VII was for science? How is this GPU scientific when you have no control over the hardware values?

Also what's the DPM0/p0 state on the x470 compared to the x570?

Who authorized this feature to be removed? I've had a FuryX so we have had this feature for years now.

I am not sure AMD had much focus for the market other than here it is. I know the card is GCN Vega and that its got 16GB of memory.

Anonymous · ‎01-22-2020

Takes no more than 30mins to find these breaking issues.

Look at my thread from 2015, its the same bloody problem, and they fixed the issue with the Power Efficiency option.

https://community.amd.com/thread/193069

Seems I am more of an HBM expert than the AMD Team because we are back to bloody square one.

If I was in charge of HBM things would change drastically.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-22-2020

john007 wrote:
Takes no more than 30mins to find these breaking issues.

Look at my thread from 2015, its the same bloody problem, and they fixed the issue with the Power Efficiency option.

https://community.amd.com/thread/193069

Seems I am more of an HBM expert than the AMD Team because we are back to bloody square one.

If I was in charge of HBM things would change drastically.

Wonder of the card would do any better with stuffed with GDDR6 chips.

Guess I will open the bidding at 99 cents for the Radeon VII

Anonymous · ‎01-22-2020

GDDR6 is garbage, its all about HBM.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-22-2020

Not many cards out there with HBM, the latest crop of mid range cards are now offering GDDR6 and the improved performance, which incremental is still better than last years cards with GDDR5..

Anonymous · ‎01-22-2020

HBM is a beast, it just needs to be tamed, I need to contact AMD asap regarding the removal of the Power Efficiency and see what can be done here.

Without this feature the GPU is all over the place.

Just testing the 20.1.3 and I need more core MHz.

Now its downclocking to 250mhz?

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-22-2020

I use MSI motherboards so MSI Afterburner comes to mind easily for managing video cards.

I wonder if that tool can help your GPU?

Anonymous · ‎01-23-2020

Using Afterburner with the 20.x.x driver is very buggy, wattmann seems to reset the values regardless.

With the 19.x.x driver, afterburner seems to work correctly but the program cannot disable Powerplay.

We have contacted AMD support so hopefully may have an answer as to why the feature is missing.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-23-2020

john007 wrote:
Using Afterburner with the 20.x.x driver is very buggy, wattmann seems to reset the values regardless.

With the 19.x.x driver, afterburner seems to work correctly but the program cannot disable Powerplay.

We have contacted AMD support so hopefully may have an answer as to why the feature is missing.

it seems that there are a few identified bugs with 20.1.x drivers.

I have also seen values reset suggesting something in the driver is doing a full reset,

I have not yet got to the bottom of this problem

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-23-2020

I have played a few games and no problems with my RX 480 so far.

Anonymous · ‎01-24-2020

Can I ask what FPS you on? 60, 120, 144, 240?

1440, 4K 60hz is causing serious downclocking issues.

Update here..

Apparently from this thread the RX 480 has the power efficiency feature available so may I ask, can you check the Global Settings tab?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/56zjvw/rx_480_power_efficiency_on_or_off/

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-24-2020

according to the various sensors when playing demanding games my RX 480 is saturated at pulling a lot of power.

my PSU app suggests at times it is over 200W in the boost mode

my panel is a standard 60 Hhz model, my cards are not fast enough for anything more

Anonymous · ‎01-24-2020

That's fine but check the Global settings please.

Do you have the Power Efficiency feature?

Thanks again.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-24-2020

On the tuning tab, everything is on automatic which is the default for my rig.

The advisor suggests a Ryzen 3950X CPU and a Radeon VII video card. Sure like I have unlimited spending.

Anonymous · ‎01-24-2020

I think the option is missing on the new drivers.

Still waiting for a reply from AMD, see what they have to say.

For 3 weeks nothing but issues, the GPU is rendered useless right now.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-24-2020

guess I will open the bidding at 99 cents

AMD is usually faster than nVidia for driver updates

hopefully they can get the rest of the problems fixed

Anonymous · ‎01-24-2020

Well I have 120GBP worth of games for free, plus the 6bill refund, still not worth it.

My bootleg of a bootleg driver is more stable then any 20.x.x driver, I still have the HDMI issues and all games downclock to 140mhz so its useless but, no black screen and no BSOD.

So slight progress.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-24-2020

I use DisplayPort as HDMI is to bandwidth starved to be of any use.

Only time I use HDMI is if the video card being tested does not have DisplayPort

Anonymous · ‎01-25-2020

Yes I use Displayport, I'm talking about the 'HDMI Scaling', still 3weeks later I cant see the edges of my display.

AMD Team with all due respect when is this going to be fixed?

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-25-2020

john007 wrote:
Yes I use Displayport, I'm talking about the 'HDMI Scaling', still 3weeks later I cant see the edges of my display.

AMD Team with all due respect when is this going to be fixed?

AMD and NVIDIA work different than cable TV boxes with televisions.

Testing a cable box with an HDMI panel was able to show if the channel was 720p or 1080i easily.

My own panel also looks different with Radeon and GeForce cards.

Anonymous · ‎01-25-2020

What do you mean they look different? Are you talking about the colorgrades? Im not sure?

Back to the downclocking issue, the answer is in the registry, one of the drivers increased the DPM0 state from 25mhz to 50mhz on idle.

We need some answers.

Thanks again.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-25-2020

john007 wrote:
What do you mean they look different? Are you talking about the colorgrades? Im not sure?

Back to the downclocking issue, the answer is in the registry, one of the drivers increased the DPM0 state from 25mhz to 50mhz on idle.

We need some answers.

Thanks again.

I do not have the resources to dig that deep into the operations of a given GPU. I would need fortune in lab equipment and funding is an issue.

Power states are handled mostly at the miniport level in the driver stack

Anonymous · ‎01-25-2020

Cant believe they locked the driver down like this.

It was so much fun modding the BIOS on gen1 HBM, so awesome, now they remove duel BIOS on HBM2 and lock modded BIOS.

RTS games are the worse, the core is around 300mhz even in 4K its stupid.

Even wattman per game profile makes no difference, even downclocking to 1000mhz, still hovers around 300mhz.

Emulators are really bad 2D is 150mhz its a joke.

We need to figure this out.

hardcoregames_ · ‎01-25-2020

I have a couple of new remastered RTS games and I noticed they are 64-bit and the RX 480 is working hard to play them at 120 fps or so. My panel is 60 Hz so this means my RX 480 is double the performance needed.

PRAETORIANS – HD REMASTER – HARDCORE GAMES™

COMMANDOS 2 – HD REMASTER – HARDCORE GAMES™

I got both games from the publisher on release day and I have played both of them to make new screenshots at 4K for everyone to use. Somebody noticed a site copied my screenshot without attribution. Seems that nothing is sacred anymore.

I have a lot of RTS strategy games so if there is some specific game issue I probably have seen it. Most of them anyway.

I even have Ashes of the Singularity. And escalation too.

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2020

120FPS on a 60hz panel? I guess you render the games in windowed mode?

Do you have the original Dawn of War with all DLC? Try and play in 4K 60FPS vsync and monitor the core.

On the VII it downclocks to 300mhz and lags out constantly.

Great site by the way, you should review The Settlers 1 to 4, the best RTS games.

Drivers & Software

Where is the 'Power Efficiency' feature on the new VII and XT range?