PC Drivers & Software

[icarus]

Upon re-installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 1709, x299 chipset drivers, ME drivers, and installing 17.X/18.X Radeon Drivers I was having issues with BSOD (no error, black screen, power off) a few minutes after login or if I opened task manager.

I thought it was an issue with the PCI-E 16x slot, so I moved it up to the 16X slot nearest to the CPU - no fix. Refreshed mobo BIOS driver - no fix. 1000watt platinum psu - not a power delivery issue. Ran 3 different memory tests - RAM working fine.

Finally I decided to not install the Radeon Drivers on another fresh installation of Windows but install all the relevant mobo drivers. The issue was gone, and device manager saw the Pro Duo (FIJI) as a Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. I started to run benchmarks on CPU, RAM + GPU without any display drivers installed and everything worked fine.

Finally realising that It was a software incompatibility, I went through the previous versions of Radeon Drivers until I discovered the problem no longer occurred with Crimson 16.12.2, but any version newer than this will cause the problem again.

I have always had AMD GPU's in my rigs since I started my journey into high end computing over a decade ago. I still have my crossfire HD5870 rig as a keepsake and I have never had compatibility issues like this.

In 2016 when my office burnt down, I decided to go with this Pro Duo for my new rig, which I have had a love hate relationship with ever since. I take great pride in that I have a very rare and cutting edge card which has marked a massive evolution in GPU technology but I have been quite plagued by compatibility issues and support with this unique card, so having the latest drivers is essential to get the most of out of this card.

If anyone at AMD is reading this I would really appreciate it if you could please look into this issue.

TL;DR

Windows 10 1709/1511 and Radeon Pro Duo (Fiji) with i9 7900x/MSI X299 M7 ACK is not compatible with Adrenaline 18.X and Crimson 17.X drivers but has full compatibility with 16.X drivers. Long time AMD fan would love a fix to this as I spent $2200AUD on this card, and still really love the raw performance although there are some compatibility issues even when working flawlessly.

Thanks

[colesdav]

Thanks for this information.
I own R9 Nanos and I recently saw a Radeon Pro DUO (Fiji) card come up for sale at an attractive price.
I need as much compute power in as compact a form as possible, I thought I might try a Radeon Pro DUO instead of Vega 64.
Can I ask if Crossfire performance is good on this card, or are their any specific issues based on the way the card is implemented (I believe the R9 295x2 had crossfire problems). 
Sorry I cannot help but I will keep an eye on this post.

[elstaci]

Is this the software you said was incompatible that was causing the crashes upon login : Workstation , There are two types of drivers for your card, Enterprise and Adrenaline.

This is a copy from the Release notes for the drivers:

Release Notes​

Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 18.Q1 Highlights

Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Edition 18.Q1 is designed to protect your graphics investment while reducing your risk. The Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Edition aims to maximize uptime and throughput with leading quality and performance, while minimizing security threats and simplifying implementation for your business.

Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 18.Q1 provides enterprise level support for Microsoft Windows® 10 Fall Creators Update, including Mixed Reality functionality.

​Download Full Release Notes​

Radeon Pro Software Adrenalin Edition 17.12.2 Highlights

Radeon™ Pro Software Adrenalin Edition 17.12.2 supports Microsoft Windows® 10 Fall Creators Update, including Mixed Reality functionality. Additional features include:

• Radeon™ Pro ReLive features such as borderless region captures, enabling separate microphone tracks and Chroma key for background transparency for camera recordings.
• New Radeon™ Pro Overlay for Radeon Pro ReLive controls and settings
• Connect tab in Radeon™ Pro Settings for viewing recently captured Radeon Pro ReLive videos and additional resources.

This driver contains the “Driver Options” (only available on Microsoft Windows® 10 using the supported products – Radeon™ Pro WX series and Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition). This feature is not available with multi-GPU configurations nor with Radeon™ Pro Duo (“Polaris”).NOTE:

• Driver Options must be installed using the Custom Install option.
• It is advisable to always reboot the system after installing or switching to a new driver.

I not sure what the Driver Options is nor whether you have a Radeon Pro WX series card. But it seems like it is important to install.

[icarus]

I LOVE YOU!

THIS FIXED MY ISSUE!

Thankyou so much for taking the time to respond to this post with your knowledge. I really appreciate it

[plumboby]

cool good to see it worked. The 10 Creators update has played havoc with AMD drivers since the first of this years update waves & pushed micro code fixs. I had simular issue with a real budget card tho running stable on 17.12.1 drivers atm. Had a couple go down from the creators update bugs had to do a fresh instal on a stepsons & about to do a Videocard pluck. Junking a dirty old 650tiOC for a R7 360 I scored cheap & new to AMD enjoying these cards & getting the most out of a budget card. Just drivers need help for the guys running high end & low end cards all fields are happy. Tho wont be touching the new Adrenaline drivers till they give the rx 560s & older series of cards drivers a bit of help as I have had the dispay port bug with testing them, then yet the 17.12.1 drivers most stable so far hasnt gone down in 10 days now. Was playing Hunt Showdown Alpha last night with out the fps issues the guys running high end cards & processors were running into. Playing medium on a Sapphire Pulse RX560OC 4G with a i5 2400 8gig ram for the giggles of it was slow but game improved & card had more to go. Tho we need some nicer drivers to get the most from these cards I was pulling 40fps no issues with ReLive going on Euopean servers tho been nice for them to get a stable driver for the people in the in between series of cards.

[colesdav]

Hi.

The 18.2.2 Drivers seem the most stable of the Adrenalin Drivers yet for me running with R9 Nanos and R9 280x and HD7970 OC 6GB card on Windows 10 64bit Fall Edition patched and tested today. I think they are the best Adrenalin Driver so far. In addition some features I reported as not working / enabled for R9 Nanos are now there, such as reporting VRAM Utilization.
There is still an issue that if the VRAM gets filled, the VRAM Utilization report disappears from the overlay... I will report it.  

Bye.

[icarus]

Hi guys,

Update on the driver situation.

Tried the Pro drivers, which worked initially, but after I realised that this software hadn't automatically enabled crossfire, I enabled it and the problem resurfaced.

The card crashes pc to power off when crossfire is enabled via software in all drivers mentioned in this thread.

This must be a problem unique to my card.

[colesdav]

Hi,

Thank you for replying.
Your 1000W PSU should be more than enough to run a pair of R9 Nanos.

Further to my previous post.
I decide to give Radeon Pro Duo a miss.
I got some information from the Ebay seller who was selling their Radeon Pro Duo card.
They stated they bought the card for Professional and Home use, but had so many driver compatibility issues they had to sell it and replace with a single GPU.

Both GPUs were working fine. Crossfire was an issue. They said they loved the card from an engineering perspective, and where it worked, it worked great.

I think there may be some special hardware used for Crossfire on these Dual GPU cards like R9 295x2 / Radeon Pro Duo which may cause some problems.
I was interested in the R9 295x2 previously and I seem to remember many posts on this forum about Crossfire issues, lack of Crossfire support, and Crossfire problems specific to the R9 295x2. Two R9 Nanos are ~ 30% faster than an R9 295x2, and use less power. I was hoping the Radeon Pro Duo might be a better version of the R9 295x2 from Crossfire perspective.

It might be difficult to get your card replaced under warranty, I think they are pretty rare.
Maybe you would be better see if it can be swapped for a Radeon Pro WX9100 or maybe a Vega FE Liquid Edition card if you want to stay with AMD card?
You might loose some TFlops versus Dual R9 Nano, but single GPU solution likely better supported.
I would check out about the Vega FE though. It does not seem to be on AMD Product page anymore I do not know if it is already EOL.

Cheers.

[icarus]

Hi Colesdav,

Responding to your crossfire question. It works well when it actually works. It seems the rendering work I do ono Rhinoceros 3D, Revit (most gpu intensive) and 3ds Max doesnt really rely on the GPU too much, more the cpu. But for gaming it works excellently. I run all titles at 4k 60fps ultra no problems, except for ARK:Survival Evolved of course (as its plagued with bugs and unoptimised code).

Ive just downgraded to 16.2.2 again and Crossfire isnt having any issues with turning off the PC initially. While running the Time Spy stress test the card has no issues and runs at full speed, in crossfire. However, If I decide to run the benchmark in fullscreen without task manager open, I run into these crashes again. Truly a strange issue. I think I will have to pull out my old AMD rig and try to troubleshoot.

However, I am still able to game quite reliably with crossfire on as the card isnt being maxed out too hard on both gpu's. Typically with crossfire games I will see 100% utilisation on GPU 0 and 10-30% on GPU 1.

Hmm, probably a good idea. New HBM tech, and crossfire on a single cards has severe compatibility problems. I hope AMD will help as its still within the 2 year warranty period.

[colesdav]

Thanks for letting me know that Crossfire (DX11) is working well for you with the Radeon Pro Duo.
Maybe the card for sale on Ebay was broken ...
I had seen examples of it running well on Youtube before.

Timespy is a DX12 MultiGPU test only available on Windows 10.
You have to turn on the "Crossfire Switch" in the AMD Driver to turn on DX12 MultiGPU for that test.
In Ashes of the Singularity Benchmark you have to turn off Crossfire and turn on MultiGPU in Game.
The Crossfire DX11 / versus MultiGPU DX12 enabling method is somewhat random and depends on the application.

I will look at the behavior running Timespy  with two of my R9 Nanos and compare Fullscreen versus Borderless Fullscreen versus Windowed today.
Timespy usually runs fine for me, I run it fullscreen.
I was going to look at the effect of using the compute versus graphics switch anyhow.

I have no third party overclocking tools installed.

I ran DDU before installing the Adrenalin Drivers for some testing I ran yesterday.

I am running Adrenalin 18.2.2 on Windows 10 17.09 Fall Edition Patched today.
So the results I see might be of some use to you, although I have Dual Fiji on separate cards.

If you can get a Vega based card instead of the Radeon Pro Duo I think the Memory Capacity on the Vega cards could be a big advantage to you.

I think a key advantage for compute/rendering is likely to be HBM2 of 8GB on RX Vega or 16GB on Vega FE /  Workstation cards.
That is much better capacity than 4GB per GPU. In Crossfire DX11 in gaming with R9 Nano you only have 4GB HBM memory per GPU in comparison.
There was some talk of DX12 MultiGPU ability to treat the separate memory on each GPU as a single large block i.e in your case 8GB.
I have not seen that working yet.

I recently read a review about High Bandwidth Cache Controller on RX Vega / Vega FE and it does seem to be enabled and working now in newer drivers.

That will not help in most games available today very much (maybe 1-2 FPS improvement) unless you were running at  4K with AA maxed out and possibly special hi res texture packs. It could help lots in some Rendering and Compute tasks if your workload requires more than the already generous 16GB.

I will try to let you know what happens in Timespy on my system sometime later today.
Forgot to mention I will be running the test with i7-4790K, 32GB DDR3 Ram, Asus Z97 Deluxe Motherboard. 1TB SSD as main drive.

Bye.

[icarus]

Thanks colesdav, I appreciate the effort you have spent answering and contributing to my initial post. Its nice to see this information collated and summarised in one place.

Have you ever had issues with crossfire on your nanos? Do they run at 100% power when gaming in crossfire?

I have never overclocked these cards as many professional reviews on the net say its pointless, and plus I dont want to break my $2200 card.

[colesdav]

RE: Have you ever had issues with crossfire on your nanos?
No for properly implemented and supported Crossfire DX11 or MultiGPU DX12 Titles.
Yes in some particular cases such as:
Mass Effect Andromeda. Bad flicker in cutscenes and some in game textures.  FPS drop on menu exit. Some work was done to fix it. Then the profile was removed. No Crossfire any more. DX12 not implemented.
Skyforge. Terrible flicker.
Early release of Tom Clancy's the Division, terrible flicker and poor FPS scaling in DX11 (works well now, although scaling not great DX11. DX12 performance good).

RE: Do they run at 100% power when gaming in crossfire?

Yes, in some areas of some games, not all.

RE: I have never overclocked these cards as many professional reviews on the net say its pointless, and plus I dont want to break my $2200 card.
Very unlikely you would break your card, especially a watercooled card, with a reasonable (~5%) GCLK or MCLK overclock.
If you use another method to override / extend overclocking range enable overvolting then you might damage your card. 
I run R9 Nanos on aircoolers with +5% OC for artificial benchmarks and some games if I 'need' the extra 2-3 FPS
Can run R9 Nanos on waterblocks at higher overclock than that.
I need to be able to move my cards around from one machine to another so waterblock a pain and even AIO involves extra work.
I used to be able over/underclock HBM using MSI Afterburner but that has been disabled since early 2017 version of Crimson ReLive.

HBM/HBM2 Memory frequency increase provides most performance improvement and also increases the benefit of increased GCLK on Fiji and Vega.

RE: Small world, I actually think that was my card that you were looking at on ebay, Rhodesie19?

No it was not you. It was another seller. There have been a number of Radeon Pro Duos come up for sale recently.
I keep an eye out for R9 Nano/FuryX, Radeon Pro Duo.

Back to your Problem with Timespy.
I tested it on i7-4790K, ASUS Z97 Deluxe, Dual R9 Nanos (I disconnected 3 other GPU's from this machine specifically for this test). 32GB DDR3, 1TB SSHD.  It runs great in default fullscreen, windowed, and borderless fullscreen.
Here is a default Timsespy run I recorded for you. You may be able to use this to compare to the problem you see with your Radeon Pro Duo.

TimeSpy DX12 Demo on Dual R9 Nano to help Radeon Pro Duo User on AMD Forum. - YouTube

Note the video includes a little bit of glitching in some area where I was doing ALT R to bring up the Radeon Overlay to start the Performance Overlay and show you the GPU Utilization. The benchmark runs pretty smooth with no glitching on screen, just in the video. Since Relive was running and recording and I was also changing settings to show GPU1 then GPU2 during the benchmark I do not think the performance number is best I could achieve with these cards. Note the CPU was running with a +15% overclock. The R9 Nano's were not overclocked.

Hope this helps.

Note if you have not already done so it might be a good idea to remove all 3rd party OC tools. Uninstall your Drivers. Download and run DDU in safe mode and remove any remaining traces of Nvidia or AMD Drivers from your system, reinstall your drivers, rerun the TimeSpy Tests again.

Got to go.

Bye.