PC Drivers & Software

[Anonymous]

No streaming options, no FPS monitoring, no social embedded tracking, no built-in browser, no stats.

Just a professional, elite level driver GUI.

It should have the 'Games' , 'Performance' and settings panels only.

The Radeon VII is for science, so allow us to control the DPM0 and px states so we can fix the black screen issues with powerplay.

This would be a brilliant 2020 driver.

[black_zion]

No, they need a control panel, like nVidia. No banner ads, no recommendations, no 1000 automatically created game profiles of setup programs, internet browsers, and 3DMark, no Wattman, just a plethora of options and configurables.

[Anonymous]

I like the new GUI, if it was cut down severely.

We need wattman, you want to know why? Some games anti-cheat software are now blocking MSI afterburner and removing the process which reverts your OC settings and can crash out.

Yes I still agree it should be optional. 

Even if you not OC on Wattman you can use that for monitoring.

Basically every panel/setting should be an optional extra in the download, a list would be good enough.

AMD Team sorry but you don't have the man power to stabilize all these features, I don't even believe NVidia could pull this stunt off.

Cut down your driver and stop messing around.

[crazyserb]

"Anti-cheat software" is not blocking Afterburner, it is only blocking API that is used in Afterburner/other tools because AMD's API is not complete. Explained by unwinder, Afterburner dev PUBG Automatically Closes MSI Afterburner | TechPowerUp Forums 

To prevent anti-cheat malware from closing Afterburner, go to settings and under compatibility in general tab there is option called "Enable low-level hardware access interface". Change it from user into kernel mode.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply.

Already tried that theory with Dayz, the Battlenet application removes the afterburner exe regardless of settings, don't believe me, go ahead and check it out.

[crazyserb]

From my experience, battlenet never closed afterburner for me (up to 3 months ago).Now, if some of the games have some third party anti-cheat software, these are probably the issue. I know that battleeye did not closed afterburner with kernel mode but that was 9 months ago. Cheats evolve, so I guess software for blocking has to evolve.

Good to know that kernel does not work always. Maybe it does not work at all these days...

I got rid of my last amd dgpu 3 months ago and testing with vega8 is not possible because Afterburner is using only amd api for it.

In the end, it is still fault of AMD for not having complete API for OC software. And people wonder why wattman is breaking them for years now...

[Anonymous]

Im sorry about this, I said Battlenet, my mistake, I'm referring to Battle-eye.

So with Battle-eye anticheat it removes OC programs like Afterburner.

Sorry again.

[wandrer]

The NVIDIA panel is optional, the AMD one isnt.

[Anonymous]

Exactly, NVidia don't even force the bloatware but AMD does.

AMD you cant afford to be forcing this unstable un-optimized bloatware crap on your users.

Your company is bottom of the barrel, I suggest you change your ways drastically.

[Anonymous]

AMD wont listen, they will still $&&* out this garbage.

Disgusting tactics.

[trillian59]

since they have hardbundled that relive thing in december, this "driver" is not usable anymore.

It even does not install anymore (wants me to drop my file server and revert to a local account, this is sooo sick! Learn programming, fast). And no, AMD, I won't do that!

Amd builds nice hardware, but they also should hire some real programmers. The current state is miserable and they are getting worse and worse with every release.

I reverted to the oct whql version, this was the last I know where you can avoid to ruin your system with all this gaming stuff you will never need in your life and just install the video driver (I dont want HDMI audio too, I have much better speakers attached to my onboard sound, but every "update" now does not give you a choice to leave it out anymore. Its even worse, after the update the sound automatically gets redirected to the hdmi attached monitor and you have some clicking orgys to get it back where it belongs).

AMD, read this: THIS IS A NO GO!!!

Seperate drivers from the BLoatware again, FAST!

[bobalazs]

You don't need any of that crap. Just run the installer if you haven't, and copy the C:\AMD folder the installer creates somewhere else. Remove the driver from add-remove programs and then point gpu in the device manager to that folder you copied previously.

[Anonymous]

True but we still need some driver values editing so we need the GUI.

[bobalazs]

A low level gui would be best it would be welcomed by many for sure.

[Anonymous]

If I was a teenager I would probably like the GUI.

But Im not a bloody teenager, I am a scientist, I want science, not bloody facebook mobile crap. 

[williw]

I vote for you !

[drallim]

They need to tell the marketing department to get back in their lane. Marketing should not have a say in the design or feature set of driver software. It's basically malware at this point. Global hotkey poller/keylogger, ads, tracking, annoying little toasts and sounds, Fischer Price UI designed for looks over usability, horribly inefficient rendering. Can't properly disable any of it.

It reminds me of the crapware anti-virus that comes preinstalled on a laptop and wants to infest every corner of your PC, and nags you to give them money. Intrusive, bloated, unwanted, ugly. Disgusting.

I already bought the graphics card, any marketing at this point will only drive me away.

We just want an officially-supported RadeonMod with friendly names and clock/fan control.

[old_noobette]

Indeed. let them promote Adrenalin as a "Gamer" or "Tweaker" driver. And provide a alternative basic driver package.

Like the Way Catalyst used to give install options for different packages.

[guily6669]

Totally agree, I want a custom installer where I can chose not to install AMD LINK, AMD Performance Metrics (this one is making huge CPU stuttering on my old PC and not even a way to disable), AMD built-in browser, streaming stuff, gaming adviser (this one we can put OFF but it keeps advising so the ON\OFF doesn't even work)...

They can add as much stuff as they want but they should be kept all optional with a custom install where anyone would chose what they want to install or not, I just want the drivers with latest fixes and the gaming panel + OC, screen settings and not much else.

Also I don't know what happen with the AMD shader caching option as I can't see it anymore which we could enable\disable for each game profile, all I can see is reset shader cache somewhere on the software main settings, but nothing to enable\disable or chose AMD optimised, no nothing, that was actually a good GPU related feature while instead of just adding a huge amount of bloatware that I never asked for and which is making my CPU stuttering on Post Scriptum like TWICE WORSE forced by AMD...

All I can sadly do for now is if I want to play Post Scriptum with best performance is to shut down all AMD processes\services before opening the game and I gain already more FPS and much less CPU stuttering since the new Performance metrics is permanently ON and keep logging my game which causes more lag specially for old systems and anyway Post Scriptum already has a built-in FPS\frametime performance metrics from Unreal Engine that can be activated on main menu settings or by console command...

And anyway If I want to see some game performance metrics I'd use MSI Afterburner and only temporarily as it always loses a few FPS so after I get the idea of the performance of "X" game I just close MSI Afterburner and play the game without the performance metrics ruining more FPS...

[Anonymous]

I have threads here regarding all the issues with the drivers, I agree its a complete mess.

The fact that they force this bloatware is BS.

The average user has no chance.

Well the average AMD user now has to flash the GPU BIOS, rip up the driver, bootleg the application, reg edit values, its now standard, its a joke.

[guily6669]

Totally 100% agree, AMD was actually improving their software a lot on the 2019 interface and was simple and we still had the chance to not install a few stuff, now it has a huge amount of bloatware causing much more stuttering and even worse is that it's forced as we can't disable anything and anyway almost nothing is even working for me...

In the meantime Nvidia still probably keeps the same old trusted panel with only the right needed stuff and all their extras and nice user interface is optional and separated, I'd rather get something with as much less bloatware as possible on drivers and that just simply works to having a All-in-one driver with lots of forced stuff, over exaggerated interface and forced stuff that kills performance specially on old PC's (performance metrics keeping grabbing data causing more CPU stuttering).

ps: Like I said on other thread some day buying a AMD GPU and just wanting a driver with all the needed GPU-only related tweaks we will probably be forced to install GB's of forced software with all the stuff people like me don't care a single bit, hell even some day AMD drivers aren't drivers anymore but a full new gaming OS booting up from BIOS and getting rid of Windows lol, some day it even brings gaming anti-virus, gaming firewall, gaming supercharged media player, gaming super turbo sound settings with 100 bars equalizer adjuster + gazillion effects, gaming "X", gaming "Y"....... and the games that would run at 60FPS now running at 50 and with huge spikes of lag\stuttering all over the place, nice gaming features indeed...

[Anonymous]

Yes indeed 2019 drivers were brilliant, well on the FuryX with all the settings intact.

Look at this video, it cant keep stable 60FPS because of the stupid powerplay crap.

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

[guily6669]

I have a old I7 2600K OC at 4.9ghz and sure on triple A arcadish games even with high visuals most run fine at ultra 1080P or near ultra, but PC only titles specially FPS simulators which is mostly what I play like Post Scriptum, I always had stuttering but wasn't massive and now I have double the CPU stuttering since the day I went from 2019 AMD drivers to 2020 AMD drivers new interface and it's mostly because of the forced performance metrics that we can't decide to uninstall or not install and not even disable it, just like when using MSI Afterburner we always lose a few FPS and cause more CPU stuttering to keep logging gaming data, specially on old CPU's like mine and I want all it's power for gaming and even have a lot of windows processes disabled and no software at all other than drivers...

If I shutdown all AMD processes\services boom my game runs back to like it was before this new interface (so for me this is a very bad practise by AMD to cripple old CPU's furthermore so that we go run and buy the latest Ryzen...).

Then almost nothing on this new drivers are working for me:

- Game tab keeps having stupid things like anti-cheat protection (from "X" game), game engine from opening some games (like unreal engine after opening Post Scriptum which is using Unreal Engine) and even explorer.exe from windows gets into gaming tab sometimes, this never happened before on the 2019 drivers or ever since I got the Strix RX480 on any older drivers;

- Game tab isn't even working for me, I apply a manual OC, but no matter the game keeps using stock settings from the GPU bios, it doesn't apply Vram OC, GPU clocks or fan speeds for any game profile for me;

- Game adviser gratefully can still be turned OFF but the OFF button on AMD means always ON, it does nothing, while on 2019 turning OFF game adviser really turned it OFF, on this new drivers I set right away to OFF after a full clean DDU and new AMD driver installation and the game adviser even turned off keeps getting the data from the crap performance metrics and still keep advising blahblahblah;

- Also don't know what happened to shader cache option which is missing and I don't think it's working anymore because I don't know if its related or not but on Post Scriptum there's a option to preload all textures to Vram and always worked and now it seems to not be working and might be related to the shader cache option or not... For everyone on Post Scriptum after activating that option the game would always freeze for a bit on both AMD or Nvidia GPU's so that it sends the most important game data to the faster Vram memory so that the game loaded much faster and with textures always loaded and now I activate it and deactivate it and does nothing and the game does seem to take much longer to fully load everything and textures keep loading in-game like most unreal engine games and that option was exactly to have the game fully loaded with all textures loaded right away and used to work...

- the rest of the features I don't know if they work or not as I never used anything and always delete all the hotkeys manually and disable the in-game overlay so I don't know what much more is broken but I bet everything since everything I tried was broken LOL...

[wandrer]

Can you make a list of the processes and services one has to disable?

In my case i always need to disable the AMD external events utility. No one could tell me to this day what exactly it does. The only thing i see that it does, is randomly crash the gfx driver.

[guily6669]

I didn't disable any AMD process, what I did to get better performance on my Post Scriptum play was just shutdown every processes\services from AMD but it will just simply shutdown everything from AMD, you will have no more AMD panel, settings or anything at all until you restart your PC or manually going into services and turning them ON from there and maybe clicking the AMD shortcut it could turn the panel back on, but I never tried it, If I want the driver software back I just restart the PC, it's a sad workaround that I have to do to have less CPU stuttering on Post Scriptum while for most other games I don't do this as they don't require the same hardware as Post Scriptum FPS simulator where everything is heavily calculated on CPU side, like real shrapnel, real bullet velocities, real sound speed feedback from distance and it's a high player count game which is counting everyone's explosions\bullets so the FPS can go from 80 to 40 or less in less than a second when everyone is crazy shooting and using explosives and AMD performance metrics is sadly causing much more stuttering than before they introduced it...

Oh also another problem I have is even after a clean AMD driver install, every time I exit Post Scriptum and many other games the AMD driver panel doesnt open anymore and opens a gray window so I have to restart the PC to have it back again which never happened to me on the older 2019 interface (I don't even know what is actually working on those 2020 drivers jeez, everything is broken and we hear nothing from AMD, neither a custom installer with options to chose what to install or not )...

[pokester]

I absolutely agree that you should be able to install just the driver. I also think you should be able to install Radeon Settings sans the relive and game advisor, profiles etc....

Now the real caveat to this is that regardless who is to blame, IMHO it is the AMD drivers not the 3rd party apps, Wattman does conflict with such apps. Depending on what settings, what card and what version of driver the stability issues vary. 

Before Wattman came on the scene I had run just the AMD driver and Trixx for years with zero issues. Since Wattman came out it is now a necessity because with out it you can't tweak the driver to work right for your card. The simple truth from my experience the past few years now is the AMD card DO NOT WORK AT DEFAULT  SETTINGS. So if you didn't have Wattman or a 3rd party utility that works properly with the base driver you can't even get your card to work right. 

To me this is the abysmal part of the situation and what I find intolerable. A card should work at defaults period. You would expect you might run into issues if you overclock or change voltages. But defaults should work and they don't.

The AMD driver situation to me is mind boggling that they still don't have this sorted. Personally if I had the say so I would revert to Catalyst drivers pre Wattman and add current game optimizations in and support for new hardware and scrap most of this FLUFF that not many asked for or really needs. 

[Anonymous]

https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2020/01/31/continuing-our-focus-on-delivering-the-be...

Its a circus, they don't care.

[guily6669]

Yep, they broke a lot of stuff and before even fixing anything they just add even more broken stuff...

Anyway I think the extras they added are surely welcome but only as optional with a custom install like the old one where anyone could decide to install AMD LINK or not for example... If they did that way which is the right way everyone would be happy as I would skip Game adviser, performance metrics, web browser and AMD LINK, but anyone else who like "X" feature maybe would like to install...

They were just dumb into making all the new bloatware a force install 4 everyone even who don't wants it or even for people like me with a old CPU has now WAY MORE cpu stuttering on the games I previously had stuttering because of the crap performance metrics that I never wanted and is 100% of all time getting dat from my system CPU\GPU\Ram...

Also the profile OC and almost everything is not working and it's not because it's conflicting with anything in my case because even though I have MSI Afterburner and Asus GPU Tweak II, i have both not to launch with windows and the Asus new added service to windows I set to manual launch so the OC from Asus tool only gets applied when I open the app and it will then auto-launch the asuscom service (If I disable completely the tool never works good). And I would never use wattman to manually OC, I'd rather use MSI afterburner or Asus GPU Tweak II than AMD wattman, but game profile OC I would definitely want to use as the games I can run fine I would leave at default and apply OC only on the harder to run games but it's not working for me so screw it, I just manually OC with Asus tool when I need...

[Anonymous]

Yes because Wattman actively corrupts the driver if OC programs are found when you accept the terms and conditions to Wattman,

I see the mhz bugging out and locking the core/mem at 300mhz its stupid.

They don't want you using any other OC program, the problem with this, I would use Wattman if it actually worked, its a joke, its still beta.