PC Drivers & Software

[deep333]

Will FidelityFX super resolution be available for R9 series cards in the future? I see that it is not on the supported list of cards currently. I have a R9 295X2, which was AMD's flagship just a few years ago and i paid the full MSRP (1500+ USD) when i bought it.  Why would AMD abandon loyal AMD customers, but, have this support available for Nvidia cards even?!?!?

AMD, please address this.

[hitbm47]

FSR is pretty impressive to be honest, but yes I am also shocked to have read in their FSR blog that they are discontinuing support for basically everything older than the RX 400 series if I understood correctly.

Furthermore, and this with the fact that they left (also introduced) performance issues which is till present on my RX 480 and will then not be resolved on previous gen cards, to think 60-75% of DirectX11 games do not scale properly on AMD Hardware.

I think they left your card with 21.5.2 as can be seen here: https://community.amd.com/t5/blogs/product-and-os-support-update-for-radeon-software-adrenalin-21-6/...

Actually makes one's stomach turn and not know who to support next, as the money paid from the beginning for an unfinished product. This means my card is next in line which is super worrisome as this thing cost me ZAR 4500 in 2016 and barely scales properly with 60% of the games out there.

Kind regards

[johnnyenglish]

I  wouldn't give up yet. I'm seeing some, although, unverified posting online, that once a game developer implements FSR, there's no need for updated drivers, its an in-game option. Maybe it will make its appearance for older GPU's even if they are unsupported... IDK.

I haven't tried FSR on mine because the actual supported games, I don't have any of them.

I saw somewhere that FSR is open source and the code will be made available, maybe modders will grab it for and do some good things on old games/GPU's.   Again.... IDK

One thing I know, thank you AMD for FSR, this could help a lot until 6800 is available at a better price.

PS: I was watching 295X2 on YouTube comparisons, its still a very respectable card today.

[LivingTheDream]

Can confirm that it does work on R9 series cards, just did a test with the Riftbreaker demo on my R9 fury

[hitbm47]

@LivingTheDreamthat's awesome news, maybe it is that AMD are just not specifically optimizing for older gen? I do think they said it works on like a 100 GPUs. But still a shame driver updates for R9 cards are ending.

[deep333]

@LivingTheDream , Thanks for clarifying.  I will try and test it with the 295x2 today...

[kewlzter]

Buying a new graphics card every decade or more, isn't loyal, nor valuable.

A loyal customer follows the upgrade paths that AMD has created. Just as you must stay in touch with a person less, in order to call them friend. You gotz to buy something new to be considered a customer. 

[hitbm47]

@kewlzter 

A company introducing driver bugs/issues that were not there is even less loyal than a customer not buying a new GPU every two years (where its' relevant performance lifetime used to be four-five years). If AMD wants loyal customers they would ensure consistent quality of driver performance in games/software that were released prior and in a few years close to the cards' release for graphics cards that are worth a months' salary.

Furthermore, they would not just try to stay relevant in performance statistics of present adverts.

[kewlzter]

You believe a company is obligated to do things a certain way? They must continue to pump money into old products, long after that product has lost relevancy. 

AMD has released newer cards that out perform the old top of the line, at a very low price. AMD has made no claims of an indefinite support period, only a warranty period.

When you bought the card, it worked, and you were happy with it. If not you could've returned it for a refund.  So what are you asking for? Not for them to fix something, but to give you more features that they never claimed you'd get. 

Times change, change with them. 

[hitbm47]

@kewlzter  you absolutely interpreted what I wrote wrong.

I did not state that they are obliged to provide new features for older cards anywhere in my last comment, I wrote that they should focus on quality assurance of ensuring they do not break performance/features (which they do quite frequently) for recent cards on which it was working correctly.

Furthermore, I said nothing about indefinite support, only about quality assurance.

"So what are you asking for? Not for them to fix something, but to give you more features that they never claimed you'd get." Putting words to my sentence that I did not state at all, in fact I was explaining that they should fix issues that they introduce shortly after releasing a product and not at all about including features that the card was not released with.

Comprehend what you read; in addition, it is absolutely expected good business if the software for a product keeps performing at least as good as when the original software for the hardware was released. I do not know how you think you will keep customers if your clients products decreased in performance with the release of newer drivers in select applications it used to do absolutely fine with.

If you are glad to keep throwing money at new hardware every year then do it, it is a really expensive and unaffordable way to live, but if you are rolling in money then go with it. Furthermore, a product in fact stays relevant as long as driver updates are being released for it; which is thankfully my case and why I am complaining about driver issues whilst it can still be fixed, and no it is not the fact that they are still pumping major money into it, but rather allocating resources to fixing it which is quite often mostly backwards compatible with a big line of their hardware (this is the reason why there is also a modded driver available since it is still compatible with older hardware).

[kewlzter]

Are you aware that if current drivers are not to your liking, you can revert back to earlier drivers that did work? 

I see it like this:, if the card did what it was supposed to when I bought it, then AMD's obligation is fulfilled. Driver updates are to make the card work better for newer software that didn't exist at the time the card was released. That's a courtesy not an obligation. Updating software is optional, and can be downgraded at any time. 

[hitbm47]

@kewlzter 

Thank you for your response, although reverting to a previous driver was most of our logical deductions as well, this is frustratingly not the case. As you update to newer builds/service packs of Windows 10, previous drivers become noticeably more unstable and create artefacts in software like web browsers.

In addition, Windows 10 automatically removes the driver if it is older than the minimum included version of the current build. Therefore, it is much too tedious to keep older/different versions of the driver working; this is not Linux after all where Proton manages this better, this is Windows where it is required/expected to have one stable up-to-date driver.

I agree with the card functioning properly on release and no it is not a courtesy to expect previous applications to keep performing at least 95% on PAR with what they used to; although I agree future optimizations for new software is a courtesy and I did not state that future optimizations for future software is an obligation indefinitely, that is something you did not deduce from my comment but from your own interpretation.

What most logical deductions would deduce is for driver stability to stay 95% on PAR with what it was in the same applications on release.

Furthermore, pasting the older driver .DLL's into the affected application(s) folder is also mostly ineffective, since the WDDM versions of the DLL's have to be the same as the installed driver. Having to have customers take such steps to achieve original performance is ludicrous in any case and poor Quality management from a modern Giant.

[kewlzter]

At the time of release the card and drivers worked as intended.

You changed your OS, you could reinstall Windows 8, or 7. Those were the O/S's that were available back in 2013. If you roll back to the older OS, your card will work as intended at 100%

[hitbm47]

@kewlzter 

You are pulling information out of your thumb, my Card was released in 2016 and I have been on Windows 10 before I upgraded my graphics card.

Furthermore, you are basing your arguments on your own assumptions and coming to somewhat inaccurate and illogical conclusions. Windows 10 is required for DirectX12, even though Windows 7 supports select DirectX12 titles, some of them are only available on the Windows 10 store.

In addition, your assumptions that the cards work 100% as intended on previous OS's is mostly incorrect, I have actually tested this for the sake of accuracy and not just assumption. The loss of some specific driver optimizations have carried over the Windows 7 as well, and Windows 8 cannot be accounted for since AMD stopped supporting Windows 8 in 2017 even though their competitor(s) still support it.

[kewlzter]

Go back to an earlier version of Windows 10.  Go to the version that worked when you bought the card. 

[hitbm47]

Like stated before, version of Windows does not matter.

If you have read what I wrote, you would have noticed it. Stop making assumptions and conclusions on topics you do not actually know the solution for or have any idea what the issue is related to.

The optimization was present in 17.7.1 and any up-to-date build/service pack of Windows 10 automatically replaces the driver with a new one. The issue I am referring to is night and day AMD's fault which I have given video evidence to on my threads, I am not going to waste my time re-explaining it to you, because you are on a high horse with simply buying new AMD hardware when you desire and expect everyone else to do the same when it is actually unreasonable to do so and not the solution to fixing driver issues, since nice hardware does not automatically fix AMDs driver issues.

Good night

[Vynski]

Architectural differences associated with obsolete products are possible in this case.  Does AMD not offer you the latest drivers for your product.  I have 2 R7 cards in different machines, but I don't try to install the latest Adrenalin Edition package for my 5700X on them.  They have drivers for those cards, use them and be happy you have them.  Please, do your homework before criticizing a good company for a great product which the R9 was.  Face facts the R9 390X can't compare to a RX6900XT!

[hitbm47]

@Vynski 

I do not have an unsupported R9 card, my argument is against @kewlzter 's comment of making the ridiculous statement that only Radeon users who buy a new graphics card each year should expect support:

"Buying a new graphics card every decade or more, isn't loyal, nor valuable.

A loyal customer follows the upgrade paths that AMD has created. Just as you must stay in touch with a person less, in order to call them friend. You gotz to buy something new to be considered a customer."

So go read through the comments with comprehension before insinuating that I did not do my homework, I have been studying AMD's flaws since I bought my RX 480 in 2016 and they have introduced major performance issues which I actually gave video evidence for here and not make silly accusations and assumptions like you and @kewlzter  without physical evidence and then tell me I do not do my homework:

https://community.amd.com/t5/drivers-software/directx9-unreal-engine-3-optimizations-loss-still-not-...

And I absolutely have the right to criticize AMD, because just a year and few months after releasing the RX 480 which I bought for 4600ZAR, AMD has introduced major performance issues and has not fixed it since.

[kewlzter]

I never said anything about upgrading annually. Expecting support for a decade old card (rounded figure), is unreasonable. Most modern tech is supported for 2-3 years, AMD has been generous if anything. Intel is now making GPU's, perhaps they will meet your grand expectations .

Realistically, any support, software or hardware, ends with the warranty period. You like many, have been spoiled by unified drivers, so now what was a bonus, becomes an expectation. 

[hitbm47]

@kewlzter 

Spoiled!! You wish! A decrease in driver performance only after 1.5years and you call me spoiled!? Some illogical reasoning you have my friend.

Furthermore, you are still misinterpreting my response to you, I do not have a R9 series card although I had one a few years ago, so I am not expecting a decade of support, like I have said more than once my card is still in support and I expect AMD's mistake to be fixed for all affected cards which seems to be everything pre-navi, since I have seen people on the recent Vega complain about the issue as well.

You are the one that is spoiled sir/miss with expecting only your freshly new card to get support. Furthermore, I have not become spoiled through graphics driver updates, this is how it has always been in that it receives updates for 2-4years since this is the expected time hardware manufacturers determine it will be relevant in gaming, heck even the PS4 and Xbox one is still receiving game releases, which is besides the point I was making about your silly statement about people here not being loyal supporters.

I transitioned from my own first Nvidia GPU to Radeon in 2014, then in 2016 I also bought an AMD FX bundled with an AMD Motherboard; a few months later I bought a RX 480 when it just released in SA; in 2019 I bought a Ryzen 5 1600 bundle just before the lockdown started. So I have been nothing but loyal, I even helped drivers to get fixed for ID Software OpenGL games where dynamic shadows were barely appearing by helping them pin-point the issue.

So you can call me spoiled, even though it is you that are spoiled, but I have actually been helping people on these forums fix their issues instead of bragging about how only "my" fancy new hardware should get support. That is an idea in your head in which you should only be playing with launch drivers, Windows get updates all the time and deletes older drivers, which is why AMD should ensure that when they release a last driver for a series of cards it should not be in the mess that the R9 drivers are with regular crashes on an up-to-date Windows 10 or things like VR still not working; this is related to quality assurance if you are not familiar with it; just like an unsupported AMD FX 8350 still functions on windows 10 with 2015 or older drivers, a recent unsupported Radeon card should still function without crashes like when it initially launched.

[LivingTheDream]

I disagree. In a world of constantly rebranded (to the next gen) GPUs, half upgrades (like the RX 590) and general diminishing returns on performance increases have made support schedules stretching out 8+ years the norm, and Nvidia (who is the market leader in GPUs, I should add) is at the forefront of this.

[hitbm47]

@LivingTheDream  your comment is very true, especially with AMD regularly rebranding GPUs. This is why I believe support for the R9 300 series was also dropped, although its' release was not that long ago, they were basically the same cards as the R9 200's.

At this same time it seemed like AMD was quiet on the RX400 series, but dropping support for RX 400 would be more of a hassle when still supporting the RX500 series since they likely use the same hardware- or vendor- ID's.

I remember having to tweak the .ini for Aliens Colonial Marines to not have my R9 280 (before my RX 480) be detected as a Radeon HD 7950, since it was the same GPU, but with higher clocks and the game was blocking higher settings due to this.

[Ray_AMD]

Since this thread has evolved from the original post, it is locked.