So how bad are AMD drivers?

After thinking long about it I have decided to upgrade to the 6850. It is about 75% faster than the GTS 250 which is quite an upgrade. In my country it is going for cheaper than any variant of the GTX 460 which makes this a very good deal.

I will be able to sell my current card at about 40% of the price of a new 6850 so I will only have to pay about 60% of it's price for the upgrade. It is also completely compatible with my PSU as it only needs one 6-pin. All this makes it a deal hard to pass on.

I wanted to buy a "high-end" card but after looking at it carefully, the GTX 570 is about 40% faster than 6850 and atleast in my country is about more than twice the price so I really couldnt justify that.

This is going to be my first AMD card and I have heard all sorts of bad things about it's software and driver package?

For people who have used both how much of a downgrade you think the CCC is to the nvidia control panel? Also does that software ATI tray tools works well? I will most certainly need it for maintaining game profiles automatically. This is probably more important than the drivers themselves, ATI tray tools is good right? I'll be screwed if it isnt because I REALLY need game profiles.....

And how good are the AMD drivers in "forcing" settings in games that dont have them built-in? Nvidia control panel hardly ever dissapoints with this.

I've personally never had a significant issue with AMD's drivers. The very few problems I had with CCC were easily remedied.

Concerning forcing settings, well it is just as effective as nvidia however you can't have different settings for different games with stock CCC.

I don't have a problem with AMD's drivers. They seem to work just fine, no crashing or display issues.

I have never used nvidia drivers so i cant compare. I have never had any major issues with ati drivers though.

I've used both. Been on the green team much longer though. I can say ATI has it's fair share of driver issues. I get random crashing "the display driver has stopped working" not often but it's happened more than once. Pretty shocking for a major company to still have an issue like that.... anyways CCC is not as good as nvidia control panel. HOWEVER with the new CCC beta they just released, its close... really close. But I still like nivida control panel more. The scalling isn't as good on CCC, if you want to maintain aspect ratio but fill the screen, the picture becomes a bit blurry for example. I haven't messed with profiles and doing things like forcing AA so I cant really say for that. Overall yes ATI has driver issues, yes nvidia's are better, BUT I wouldn't let it influence your GPU buying decision. Just buy the one with the best price-performance ratio, having nvidia drivers instead of ATI is not worth any extra money.

Only problem i have with it is the GPU scaling. It's ALWAYS greyed out for some reason. I do have a 3rd Party app that fixes it though, so it's not a big deal. Other than that, not a single problem.trastamad03

You've got to lower the resolution FIRST and then the option becomes available. It's a bit tricky, took me a while to figure it out but it works ;)

I don't have a problem with AMD's drivers. They seem to work just fine, no crashing or display issues.

middle-earth88

definitely go with the ATI card a lot of bang for the buck on that one. and ive never had an issue with AMD drivers either

I never really had problems with ATI drivers since the original Radeon. From my experiences with nVidia and ATI drivers (I've alternated between nVidia and ATI cards since 2000), I associate "more" with nVidia and "less" with ATI as in nVidia drivers are more capable and more problematic while ATI drivers are less capable and less problematic.

good choice dude, if you decide to get another 6850, they are god cards, destroy the 460 1gig in oc and sli, destroy the 570 and are compatible on 650 watt psu while using only 2 6 pin connectors and very little electricity.

good choice dude, if you decide to get another 6850, they are god cards, destroy the 460 1gig in oc and sli, destroy the 570 and are compatible on 650 watt psu while using only 2 6 pin connectors and very little electricity.

blaznwiipspman1

This is GTX 460 fanboy territory dude.

Watch yourself :P

[QUOTE="blaznwiipspman1"]

good choice dude, if you decide to get another 6850, they are god cards, destroy the 460 1gig in oc and sli, destroy the 570 and are compatible on 650 watt psu while using only 2 6 pin connectors and very little electricity.

Tezcatlipoca666

This is GTX 460 fanboy territory dude.

Watch yourself :P

I don't have a problem with AMD's drivers. They seem to work just fine, no crashing or display issues.

middle-earth88

My experience with ATI , and the 4850 experience had from them was/is superb, never had a problem with drivers, these are updated frequently,

so 6850 driver experience should be fine.

My issues are scaling /overscaling options and just the general CCC interface, ATI/AMD needs to do better. Not terrible, just can do better.

Ill tell you this. From my experience, I havent noticed any real difference between ATI or Nvidia drivers. Both seem to be pretty good. The only problem Ive ever had with ATI is flickering in Bad Company 2 which was fixed pretty quickly in the next driver release. Also, a 4850 corrupted my Viewsonics EDID so now I cant use modern ATI cards with it. Im not sure if it was Viewsonics fault or ATIs.

Also, Ill say that CCC is significantly inferior to Nvidias Control Panel. CCC is very basic. Control Panel has a bunch of neat features.

Dont let either of these things influence what you want to buy. It all comes down to the performance in the end.

My experience with ATI , and the 4850 experience had from them was/is superb, never had a problem with drivers, these are updated frequently,

so 6850 driver experience should be fine.

My issues are scaling /overscaling options and just the general CCC interface, ATI/AMD needs to do better. Not terrible, just can do better.

urbangamez

Funny thing is, I had a CCC with good scaling options once, think it was 10.7, but they seem to have disappeared, though as far as I read there should be a lot of cool stuff in 10.12, including scaling and game profiles, haven't tried it yet though.

Driver issues with AMD usually arise after shotty hotfix updates that did not install properly. General releases do really well but getting alot of those patch jobs are what usually cause me any random BSOD or GPU crash and recover messages on Windows 7. Don't know how they do on 6000 series but BSOD has happened to me or my consumers because of that on a 4850, 5830, and a 5770. When it BSOD its usually the Commond Driver greater or less then value un dump files if anyone is curious on that common error.. A good thing now is Windows 7 can hold off of crashing way better then XP on this type of problem.

had a ATI card and never had a problem with them.

my card is a 4770....no problems yet

I've used both. Been on the green team much longer though. I can say ATI has it's fair share of driver issues. I get random crashing "the display driver has stopped working" not often but it's happened more than once. Pretty shocking for a major company to still have an issue like that.... anyways CCC is not as good as nvidia control panel. HOWEVER with the new CCC beta they just released, its close... really close. But I still like nivida control panel more. The scalling isn't as good on CCC, if you want to maintain aspect ratio but fill the screen, the picture becomes a bit blurry for example. I haven't messed with profiles and doing things like forcing AA so I cant really say for that. Overall yes ATI has driver issues, yes nvidia's are better, BUT I wouldn't let it influence your GPU buying decision. Just buy the one with the best price-performance ratio, having nvidia drivers instead of ATI is not worth any extra money.

[QUOTE="trastamad03"]Only problem i have with it is the GPU scaling. It's ALWAYS greyed out for some reason. I do have a 3rd Party app that fixes it though, so it's not a big deal. Other than that, not a single problem.Rob_101

You've got to lower the resolution FIRST and then the option becomes available. It's a bit tricky, took me a while to figure it out but it works ;)

Just had to reinstall windows to get my ATI drivers to work properly and I still get multimonitor flickering when starting flash videos (pretty much only a 58x0/5970 issue, but I had hoped new drivers would fix it). When they work they're fine, just make sure to very thoroughly uninstall when upgrading drivers.

I've had a 5850 for about 7 months and I've never had any driver issues until 10.12. Don't know if it's because 10.12 is a preview of the new CCC or something else.

I've had a 5850 for about 7 months and I've never had any driver issues until 10.12. Don't know if it's because 10.12 is a preview of the new CCC or something else.

ShyGuy0504

I read somewhere that 5xx0 users should stick to 10.10e until 11.1 - 10.11 had issues and 10.12 is mainly for 6xx0 users. That's what I'm using on my 5870.

the drivers themselves for AMD are fine, but their control panel and its reliability are very low. after their .12 update, the control panel is a pile of trash, abrely useable, so i rolled back my drivers. Nvidia has a far better control panel system, even lets you configure graphics per game installed.

No problems here.

Nvidia has a far better control panel system, even lets you configure graphics per game installed.

wis3boi

I've got AMD CCC version 10.10e (Hotfix). Every time I play multiple videos through separate applications, simultaneously, the display driver fails. What happens is that the screen will temporarily go black and then when the display driver restarts, one of the videos appears as a green screen. Typically, this happens if I'm playing a YouTube or GameTrailers flash video while playing a video using WMP or PowerDVD. So, I'd have to say that they're pretty bad. This happens 100% of the time. In fact, it just happend a few minutes ago. Fail. Anyhow, I should mention that the drivers have never caused me any problems in-game.

to the point one 6850 will out perform two. at least for me. ive done everything i couldve possibly done, except take each card apart.yellosnolvr

That's sounds very unfortunate. What do you plan on doing? Will you stick with the Crossfire setup or sell one of the cards?

[QUOTE="wis3boi"]

Nvidia has a far better control panel system, even lets you configure graphics per game installed.

Gambler_3

Why don't you just configure your settings in game? It's not like you have to reconfigure every time you start a new game.

It's a useless marketing ploy

I've got AMD CCC version 10.10e (Hotfix). Every time I play multiple videos through separate applications, simultaneously, the display driver fails. What happens is that the screen will temporarily go black and then when the display driver restarts, one of the videos appears as a green screen. Typically, this happens if I'm playing a YouTube or GameTrailers flash video while playing a video using WMP or PowerDVD. So, I'd have to say that they're pretty bad. This happens 100% of the time. In fact, it just happend a few minutes ago. Fail. Anyhow, I should mention that the drivers have never caused me any problems in-game.

BluRayHiDef

Why are you using drivers that do not work for you properly?

[QUOTE="BluRayHiDef"]

I've got AMD CCC version 10.10e (Hotfix). Every time I play multiple videos through separate applications, simultaneously, the display driver fails. What happens is that the screen will temporarily go black and then when the display driver restarts, one of the videos appears as a green screen. Typically, this happens if I'm playing a YouTube or GameTrailers flash video while playing a video using WMP or PowerDVD. So, I'd have to say that they're pretty bad. This happens 100% of the time. In fact, it just happend a few minutes ago. Fail. Anyhow, I should mention that the drivers have never caused me any problems in-game.

GummiRaccoon

Why are you using drivers that do not work for you properly?

I tried the preview drivers, but they gave me problems as well, so I rolled back to 10.10e. I prefer to use it because it has MLAA.

[QUOTE="Gambler_3"]

[QUOTE="wis3boi"]

Nvidia has a far better control panel system, even lets you configure graphics per game installed.

GummiRaccoon

Why don't you just configure your settings in game? It's not like you have to reconfigure every time you start a new game.

It's a useless marketing ploy

Many old games dont have AA/AF settings. Secondly some games have problems with their in-game settings like BC2's vsync doesnt work for me so I just force it in the profile and there are no problems. Crysis doesnt even have AF settings and I like to put AF in crysis as atleast to me it makes a difference. It is a very useful feature and I use it regularly. Read any comparasion of CCC and NCP and it ultimately boils down to this feature making things go in nvidia's favour.