PC Drivers & Software

[goosethesecond]

Dear AMD,

I am currently on 19.12.1 as it is STILL the ONLY stable driver that allows me to play my games without interruptions. Every new 2020 driver since the first release has been a complete disaster and doesn't allow me a smooth experience anywhere. I've always been an AMD lover my whole life, always recommending it to my friends. I am someone that helps people build PCs and in the past year alone, I've put together parts list for four close friends of mine ALL utilizing Ryzen processors and Radeon GPUs. I personally provide support to them whenever they need it and it's just becoming embarrassing at this point that you guys can't figure out your 2020 drivers. 

I built myself a brand-new system in December 2019 using what I thought was the latest and greatest: Ryzen 5 3600, Radeon RX5700, and a PCIe4.0 X570 motherboard. At this point... I'm only SO close to wishing I would have went with Intel/nVidia (my previous ASUS gaming laptop from 2012 is Intel/nVidia and in most cases still more stable when it comes to GPU work) yet I refuse to give in to that. This is your last chance or this system is definitely my first and last AMD build and the last time I put together an all-AMD parts list for future friend/client builds. 

Get it straight already!

[colesdav]

Did you update Windows 10 and do you have KB4556799 installed?
I have not installed
KB4556799 and I am stuck on Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 + Adrenalin 20.4.2 drivers.
Thanks.

[goosethesecond]

I just checked and yes I do have that update installed.

[colesdav]

Thank you.
Perhaps that update makes a difference or perhaps there is an issue with crossfire configuration. 
This PC seems to be working o.k. in general.
I am so glad this Hybrid Driver is still working.
I will run some gaming tests and see if the XFX RX Vega 64 Liquid or the PowerColor Red Dragon have any BlackScreen/BSOD/PC Freezing over next few days.
Thank you for your help.

[colesdav]

Finally managed to install a "Hybrid Driver" that seems to ~ work.
1. Disconnect from internet.

2. DDU in safe mode to remove all AMD Drivers. 

3. Boot into windows 10 in normal mode.

4. Turn off  Crossfire in radeon settings and immediately reboot.

5. Once in Windows 10 normal mode, make sure crossfire is off. Device Manager -> Update Driver for Primary GPU, Point to Adrenalin 2020 20.5.1 INF directory. Screen goes black. Waif for 30 minutes soft reset the PC.

6. Soft Reset the PC 3 times to get into Recovery Boot Options.

7. Boot into Windows Low Resolution mode.

8. Log in. Immediately connect to the internet. 
Run Windows Disk Checks as Soft Reset to get into Recovery Boot Options can corrupt disk.

Run:
Chkdsk /scan.

sfc /scannow

DISM /online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth.

9. Reboot into windows normal mode and login.

Point 7 - Boot into Windows Low Resolution mode.  was key to me installing Adrenalin 20.5.1
Without doing that I would log into windows in normal mode but windows login would freeze.

I now see this:

I am on Windows 10 1909 (OS Build 18363.720).
I have not installed Windows Update Patch KB4556799.
XFX RX Vega 64 Liquid connected as primary running HDMI output.
PowerColor RX Vega 56 Red Dragon Secondary. No outputs connected.

I then powered down and fitted an RX590.

On boot up I was again unable to log into Windows 10.
So again I did soft power reset ~ 3 times at boot and then boot into Windows Low Resolution mode.
I login o.k. run Windows Checks.

Seems like any change to display configuration or addition GPU or driver update from within Windows is causing Black Screen at Boot or Frozen Windows 10 login or both.

[colesdav]

Tested RX Vega 64 Liquid on BFV at 4K Ultra.
Usual story:

[goosethesecond]

After I installed 20.5.1 over the 19.12.1 GUI like I reported earlier last week, I noticed that the other "driver version" numbers disappeared in the GUI for things like Vulcan and the other categories. 

I then decided to run DDU in Safe Mode and actually try the full 20.5.1 again to see if things are at least better now. Upon installation I disabled anything to do with overlays, not using Enhanced Sync, disabled Surface Format Optimization and I'm not using any of the extra features from 2020 like streaming, recording, or anything. 

So far all my gaming on BFV, BF4, and Crysis have been very stable with no crashes. Thank God...for now haha.

[colesdav]

OK Thanks.
My copy of BFV has been recently updated by Origin.

I will test the RX Vega 64 Liquid again with the Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 GUI/UI  and Adrenalin 20.5.1 driver and see if BFV runs better with latest updates. 

[goosethesecond]

I also updated my Windows 10 to the latest feature update version 2004. Literally any update that can be done is the latest on my machine across anything we can think of at the moment.

[colesdav]

I have to stay on 19.09 for the moment.
It will be interesting to see if the BFV Update and 20.5.1. stops the crashing at last.

[gabsvm]

Hi friends! This is still the case for all of you with current drivers? I dont suffer from black screens but i have some rare random stuttering in some games and maybe a suspicious high cpu usage. 

[noobgamer]

I will try this, I am also going crazy and have a headache every time a give time to troubleshoot my computer, i will try this very old driver, As I having a lots on trouble on gpu driver, 1 driver will fixed the other game, the other game will crash my system without any BSOD or error,

When i update to different driver IT will fix the current game that restart without warning BUT!!!!!

will cause trouble to others games .

Roblox

Apex Legend

Valorant

etc.... different drivers result on different game restart,

the newest driver 21.4.1 or something will crash heavens benchmark on direct x 11, but not in OPEN GL

, I revert back to very old driver 20.3.1

I run heaven benchmark on direct x and it did finished without restart.

no change on config , I will test this 20.3.1 driver if it will cause restart on Scavengers, Then revert AGAIN!! to 19.12.1 as OP stated And see if my system became stable,

I also suspect many parts of my system, mobo, cpu, motherboard, psu memory, ,

I really love AMD now! But, THEIR GPU is giving me A HEADACHE!!!!!!

I'm glad Im not the only one having this problem!

CPU: R5 3500x

MObo: b450 tomahawk max

GPU: rx570.

If I will have a budget, I will test cheap Nvidia graphics card and test it!

I hope amd WILL notice US!!

their crash guard is USELESS!

I love you AMD , but pay NVIDIA for advise regarding you SOFTWARE ISSUE!!!

"DRIVERS"

[colesdav]

Your other option is to download and install the following Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise Drivers 2020 20.Q1.

I have been asking AMD that older Radeon GPUs are supprted and that a fix would be implemented so the drivers worked on my RX Vega 64 GPUs.

AMD have kindly implemented the fixes and opend the drivers up to older Radeon Cards.

Information here:
https://community.amd.com/community/radeon-pro-graphics/blog/2020/02/10/announcing-amd-radeon-pro-so... 
Release Notes;
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-pro-win-20-q1-1 

Detailed information - starting at page 13 of this:

https://drivers.amd.com/relnotes/amd-radeon-pro-software-for-enterprise-20.Q1.1.pdf 

You can also see some testing of those drivers on these posts:
Please add support for Radeon R9 FuryX, Fury, Nano (Fiji based Radeon GPUs) in Radeon Pro Software f... 
Can AMD add support for R9 Fury, Nano, and Fury X Series desktop GPUs in Radeon Pro Software for En... 

https://community.amd.com/thread/238941 

[colesdav]

You may want to give feedback about teh Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI interface here:
Do you like the new interface of Adrenalin 2020 Edition? 
If you spot any more problems with it or things you like about it please add them to that thread.
I have stopped looking at the Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI for a while because it annoys me so much to see what a mess AMD made of it.
Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI is not for people who have multiGPU setups for sure and DX11 CrossFire users can forget it.

I wish they had kept and improved some aspects of  Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 style GUI/UI as the default GUI install option, added support for Radeon Boost, and concentrated on improving driver performance and stability.

I think the Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI should be an optional Beta Testing and user feedback install option or else it should be dropped completely.
Dropping FRTC independent from Radeon Chill, Always on Game Advisor, terrible badly ergonomic design user interface and integrated web browser = potential security issues.

[goosethesecond]

Wow colesdav, that is amazing. I will try these methods, thank you for all your work. 

I will report back here on my results. I am grateful for you.

[colesdav]

No problem.
If you get any problems please keep me posted.
Note if you do not like the idea of having to use an Adrenalin 2019 GUI + Adrenalin 2020 drivers mix you can use those those Radeon Pro for Enterprise 2020 20.Q1 for gaming. They run BF1 and BFV really well for me. 

Here is how you update the drivers in Windows 10 Pro 19.09:




Good luck.

[goosethesecond]

By the way, I've never used any of these AMD features such as Chill, Radeon Boost, or FRTC. Are there any advantages to this?

The only feature I use currently under 19.12.1 is Enhanced Sync. Every game I've played thus far (Crysis 1, BF4, BF5, and Fornite) is extremely stable and achieving 144+ FPS as my monitor is 144Hz.

Is Chill something to decrease the power of my video card if the framerate goes above the refresh rate of my monitor? Also, Boost is a 2020-only feature anyway correct? 

Basically, why do you like features like Chill and FRTC? How would those benefit me?

[colesdav]

RE: Is Chill something to decrease the power of my video card if the framerate goes above the refresh rate of my monitor?
No.
In adrenalin 2019
Chill can be used to save lots of power if you set Chill_Min to a low value. Lets say 30.
In that case if you have no keyboard or mouse input. FPS will drop to 30 FPS.
Chill_Max is a slider control which allows you to scale how much Keyboard Only Input FPS you get versus the Chill_Min value.
So for Chill_Min = 30, Chill_Max = 300, you will get ~ 55 FPS with Keyboard only input.
If you waggle your mouse rapidly then FPS will increase up towards Chill_Max FPS = 300. 
FRTC can be used to limit the peak frame rate with Rapid mouse movement.
So if you set FRTC to 143, then rapid mouse movement would be limited to 143.

If you want to get better keyboard only input FPS Performance you have to set a higher value of Chill_Min.
In that case you save much less power when you have no keyboard or mouse input.

You could uses Chill with Chill_Min = 144,  Chill_Max = 154 = FRTC = 154 and that might save you a bit of power.
But I think it will be negligible compared to Chill_Min = 30. 

Unfortunately Chill killing Keyboard only input performance is something AMD have never fixed despite lots of requests.

FRTC, Frame Rate Target Control is available in Adrenalin 2019 and previous versions of Adrenalin/Crimson Relive/Crimson and I think in late version of AMD Catalyst as an independent Frame Rate Limiter.

If you set it to ~1 FPS below the top end of your FreeSync Range it should guarantee absolutely no screen tearing at all with FreeSync on and in game engine VSync off, because it keeps the FPS within the FreeSync Range of the monitor.

Locking max FPS to 143 with VSync off then you save power.

In Adrenalin 2020 AMD have removed FRTC Slider so you can no longer set FRTC independent of Chill_Max.
This totally messes up Chill.
Because if you want to set Chill_Min = 30, Chill_Max = 300, you cannot limit peak FPS from rapid mouse movement unless you also turn on in game VSync.
If you turn on in game Vsync you will get no screen tearing if rapid mouse movement causes FPS ramp up because it is locked to monitor refresh rate.
However because you run with Chill_Min = 30 FPS to save lots of power and you get max keyboard input only FPS of ~ 55FPS it is a laggy experience if no FreeSync monitor or if below low end of FreeSync Range which can be as high as 48.
 
Turning on Enhanced Sync with Chill causes my GPU to crash.

[goosethesecond]

Oh wow that is very interesting. Thank you for the very clear explanation. Have you used something like a Kill-a-Watt to measure the difference in power/money savings when using Chill?

It sounds like I may definitely just be burning power haha, but am of course getting the most performance possible.

Also, even though I have a FreeSync monitor, I actually turned it off under my monitor's OSD menu. I found that games like BF4 produced a very subtle flicker on the screen with it enabled (more like a color filter that very quickly came on and off, not the edges of things/straight lines flickering) and usually only noticeable in the game's menu and not during gameplay. However, just KNOWING it was happening screws with my OCD. I also found it caused some weird framerate stability in BF5 versus having it off and just using Enhanced Sync, perhaps this was the previous 19.20.xxx driver so I am going to perhaps give FreeSync another go with the new 19.50.xxx driver now installed. I have an AOC C24G1 by the way.

I downloaded CoD: MW Warzone earlier and went through the training mission. It was about 15 minutes of gameplay and it was BUTTER smooth, no signs of stutter anywhere. Not to mention the game is ABSOLUTELY maxed out in the graphics settings and the framerate never dropped below 144. Obviously Infinity Ward are gods at optimization, I was very impressed.

The real test will be BF4 and BF5 which I'll try this week. In the recent past when I installed the entirety of the new 2020 drivers, BF5 was the game that would ALWAYS crash within 5 minutes or less. BF4 would also crash after about 10 minutes of gameplay. I'll report back on that soon. 

Again, thank you so much. I was curious to try the Pro drivers but if this continues to be smooth, I'll just keep going with this method. 

[colesdav]

RE: Have you used something like a Kill-a-Watt to measure the difference in power/money savings when using Chill?
Yes. I have APC UPS with a built in Wattmeter and Power Moinitoring Software like this:

But my main reason for using Chill with Chill_Min = 30, Chill_Max = 300, FRTC = 59, FreeSync on is it allows me to run games at 4K 60FPS Ultra on an RX Vega 64 Liquid on BFV. Most 4K monitors are limited to 60Hz anyhow. Mine has a FreeSync Range of 40-60 at 4K. It is one of these: https://www.benq.com/en-us/monitor/entertainment/ew3270u.html 

First I overclock the GPU so I can hit 60FPS when stationary with a "cold" GPU at the start of the game.

Allowing Chill to tank the FPS to 30 FPS in situations in BFV where hiding like sniping or in a trench cools the GPU temps down. Leaving the high performance (well up to 55 FPS with keyboard only input and limited to 59 if I waggle the mouse to much) when I need to move / run. I set up Alt+W chill hotkey so I can quickly turn Chill on or off. Really AMD should allow user to tweak Chill parameters so user can change Keyboard only input FPS and move it from 55 -> 60. 

I will point you to a video about using Chill this way later.

My FreeSync experience or GSync Compatible experience (I run RTX 2080 OC as well) on the EW3270U Entertainment Monitor with Eye-care Technology | BenQ  is great. That monitor is one of the best I have owned.

Enhanced Sync with Chill is guaranteed to cause a game freeze and crash on BF1/BFV though.

RE: Again, thank you so much. 

No problem, thanks to you I investigated the situation with missing Boost option on mixe Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 GUI/UI + Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2 drivers.
It is good to work with people like you on this Forum who try things out and give feedback like you did. 

FYI Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2. GUI/UI  does show the correct Boost Control Options GPUs without me having to disable the R9 390X. I installed it again just to double check I was not mistaken. So mixing the Adrenalin 2019 GUI/UI with Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2 drivers does have a few drawbacks.

Bye for now.

[goosethesecond]

Gotcha, thank you for the extra information and links on those monitors. You seem to have an awesome setup! By the way I've finally done a few more hours of gaming on CoD: Warzone and BF4 and everything was VERY smooth, no crashes. Still doing the 19.12.1 GUI/UI mixed with the 20.2.2 driver (dirty install) since I didn't use DDU and just went straight to manually installing the 2020 driver. 

Warzone did have a DirectX crash the other night, I don't know why. But then I played it again using the OC Mode for my Ryzen 5 3600 on Ryzen Master and played it for a longer time frame and it didn't crash again so maybe it was just random. Other than that, still smooth gameplay with no hiccups. 

I still need to try BFV on this new driver setup.

I noticed last night too that a new 20.3.1 Optional driver was released but it still has things like "Enhanced Sync may cause a black screen to occur when enabled on some games and system configurations. Any users who may be experiencing issues with Enhanced Sync enabled should disable it as a temporary workaround" under "Known Issues" so obviously I'm not even bothering with it. 

It was released mainly to add more support for Doom Eternal and increase its performance as well as added four new Vulkan extensions. I'm not going to bother with it. Wondering what your thoughts about it are.

[colesdav]

Hi,

Did you run DDU in safe mode and disconnected from the internet to remove the previous installs brgptr you installed teh Adrenalin 19.12.1 GUI?
As far as I know, Boost was introduced in Adrenalin 2020.
So the Boost option should not be there in the Adrenalin 2019 GUI before you attempted to update drivers to Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2.
Alternatively I do have a range of AMD GPUs installed...


I do not see a slider to control Radeon Image Sharpening either - not that it seems to do much in Adrenalin 2020:

[goosethesecond]

I did not do DDU/safemode. I just downloaded the 20.2.2 drivers and manually installed it. I did this on purpose to see how it goes. I've still only played the MW Warzone training that I mentioned went VERY smoothly without a single hiccup and the game is maxed out to oblivion. 

This weekend I will try BF4 and BF5 which ALWAYS crashed on every full install of 2020 drivers thus far which always had me reverting back to 19.12.1.

IF the games do crash this weekend, I will then DDU/safemode back into 19.12.1 and then install the 20.2.2 driver manually to try again. IF that still doesn't work after a DDU wipe, I will try the Pro drivers.

[colesdav]

OK It looks like Radeon Boost is only supported for Polaris or newer GPUs.
I will disable or remove the R9 390X and Radeon Pro Duo, update the drivers, and see if I get the Boost Button back.

Thanks.

[goosethesecond]

Ok, so I am going with the first method; keeping 19.12.1 GUI/UI and only installed the new 20.2.2 driver under Device Manager. Interestingly, the Radeon Boost feature you mentioned IS an option here but I do not plan to use that nor do I plan to use Chill. I set the 'Wait for Vertical Refresh' option to Enhanced Sync like I had before. I also did not do this under Safe Mode nor did I do a fresh install. Will report back on stability.

At first the Device Manager manual driver window said it didn't install correctly but after a restart, it booted fine and it correctly shows the new driver package under 'System > Software' in Radeon Settings (below).

[colesdav]

Hi,

RE: Interestingly, the Radeon Boost feature you mentioned IS an option here 

Yes interesting.

I cannot explain that one.

My incremental driver update worked fine though.

I am working on something else right now.

Let me power the PC down, reboot, and I will get back to you.

[colesdav]

I removed the R9 380X from the system and turned the second RX Vega 64 Liquid and the Sapphire Radeon Pro Duo off.

I now see this in the Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 GUI with the Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2. drivers installed:

Checking a game I know is "supported by Radeon Boost I see this:


That is really wierd because I see the Boost Option if I install Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2 even if I have the R9 390X and the Radeon Pro Duo and the RX Vega Liquid installed.

Thanks.

[colesdav]

I forgot to mention - I didn't update the already installed Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2. drivers. Just disconnecting the R9 390X gets the button back.
I will now see what happens when I power down. Turn on the Power Supply for the Radeon Pro DUO (It is connected via an M.2 ADT-Link PCIe adapter), and boot he PC Up. Since teh Radeon Pro Duo is a watercooled dual Fiji Based GPU (aka R9 FuryX, Fury, Nano older than Polaris). I would expect boost for that card at least to be disabled.  

[colesdav]

With Radeon Pro Duo (Fiji) powered on (2 R9 Nano on one watercooled PCB)

I see this:

And this:

OK ...

Interesting.

Lets see what happens if I now power down,  power up the secondary RX Vega 64 liquid and reboot...

[colesdav]

All GPUs now connected apart from the R9 390X:

And:

So it must be that R9 390X.

Powering down and connecting it back onto the PC and rebooting...

[colesdav]

When I reconnect the R9 390X I loose the Radeon Boost buttons on the Gloal and Profile menus.
I see nothing about Radeon Boost support for Radeon Pro Duo (Fiji) in Release notes since Adrenalin 2020 19.12.2.

[colesdav]

If I simply disable the R9 390X in Device manager and reboot the PC I see the following:

Thanks for giving your feedback about Radeon Boost I will take a look and see if the Boost Hotkey works and if it actually works on the games I have noted above.

Point to note is some games that AMD claims support Boost do not show Boost Controls (Destiny 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, GTAV, for example, whereas other games I have not seen mentioned like Apex Legends do

[colesdav]

I tried Radeon Boost on Rise of the Tome Raider with the above setup - definitely working.
I tried Fortnite - which has the slider for Radeon Bosst as seen above - Alt+K does nothing - I hear no activation beeps for Radeon Boost.

[goosethesecond]

Just read through all your posts about Radeon Boost. That really is interesting and am glad that you were able to learn something new through all of this.

By the way, why the intense CrossFire setup you got there?

[colesdav]

Blender MultiGPU rendering.

[goosethesecond]

Gotcha that's dope! Do you make your own games or is 3D modeling your career?

[kuwabara]

Ok this looks like helped. i Have the Msi 5700 Xt 50th aniversary card , playing final fantasy xiv , and had occasional black screen every few days.I had the issue only when gaming, i could watch streams, videos , movies 24/7 without a black screen or any issues . Any benchmark was running without issues, for several hours, temps were ok and stable, Aida64 stability test running for 24h no issues , same for Prime . I thought i was going crazy, people reported its your psu, its your overclocking , its (insert anything from your house power cables to your water boiler and toilet)... Disabled any oveclocking, disabled all features in the AMD sw ,any notification in any software, hw acceleration in anything running, replaced psu, used 2 cables for graca, os reinstall, different drivers, you name it.With Nvidia 1070, 1060 and r9 380 aok no issues whatsoever. I got so sick of the immersion breaker amd black screen, i tried this hybrid driver and looky look , since than no more issue (knocking on wood) . Looks like the game or my system didnt somehow like the new GUI. Thanks very much.  And the best thing is that iam running with firefox, discord, chrome with hw acceleration enabled in background, and all is running perfectly, i can also alt tab as much as i wont and nada ...stable af.