Certified AMD Catalyst 14.4 Windows and Linux Drivers Now Available

Nenu said:
Is anyone having problems with multiple displays not being detected?
If thats not messing up for anyone, I'll give these a try.
The last beta removed 2 of my displays and wouldnt give me them back, I had to revert to 13.12.
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I have found with 14.x on my 290X's that it doesn't like to do 3 screens when there's 2x DVI and 1x DP in the mix, however, using a passive DP->DVI adapter (thus, all 3 are DVI) seems to work just fine.
 
thats because there are 3 legacy dacs on 290/x.

There were only 2 on 7xxx forcing you to use an active dp adapter for the third screen.
 
The Mac said:
thats because there are 3 legacy dacs on 290/x.

There were only 2 on 7xxx forcing you to use an active dp adapter for the third screen.
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That is correct, however, you can use 2x DVI and 1x DP with the 13.12 (and prior) drivers on the 290X, but it became broken in 14.1 and later. This isn't a hardware/hardware changed issue, it is a driver bug issue.
 
The Mac said:
thats because there are 3 legacy dacs on 290/x.

There were only 2 on 7xxx forcing you to use an active dp adapter for the third screen.
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Digital out doesnt use a DAC.

David_Schroth said:
I have found with 14.x on my 290X's that it doesn't like to do 3 screens when there's 2x DVI and 1x DP in the mix, however, using a passive DP->DVI adapter (thus, all 3 are DVI) seems to work just fine.
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Thanks for the reply.
I have also experienced it with 14.x beta, my 3 screens were reduced to 1.
I'm wondering if its fixed in the certified driver, or more precisely, if anyone is having this issue with the certified driver.
 
The Mac said:
Its short for RAMDAC, and they absolutely do.
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To quote the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAMDAC
Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter (RAMDAC) is a combination of three fast DACs with a small SRAM used in computer graphics display adapters to store the color palette and to generate the analog signals (usually a voltage amplitude) to drive a color monitor. The logical color number from the display memory is fed into the address inputs of the SRAM to select a palette entry to appear on the data output of the SRAM. This entry is composed of three separate values corresponding to the three components (red, green, and blue) of the desired physical color. Each component value is fed to a separate DAC, whose analog output goes to the monitor, and ultimately to one of its three electron guns (or equivalent in non-CRT displays).
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It is only needed for analogue out.
Its function is to Convert Digital to Analogue, this is why it is called a DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter).
It has no function for digital out.
 
They are still used for legacy ports, weather they use analog or not.

Just part of the architecture.

Its basiclly just used as a clock source, which is still a requirement for legacy ports.

DP on the otherhand doesnt require a clock source, as its contained within the stream itself.

Is it REQUIRED? not strictly, no, but they are still used regardless.
 
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The Mac said:
They are still used for legacy ports, weather they use analog or not.

Just part of the architecture.

Its basiclly just used as a clock source, which is still a requirement for legacy ports.

DP on the otherhand doesnt require a clock source, as its buried within the stream itself.

Is it REQUIRED? not strictly, no, but they are still used regardless.
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A RAMDAC has no function for digital out, including signalling.

It might be possible to conclude that a particular RAMDAC blocks the individual use of all digital ports at the same time due to digital outputs being paired to a single RAMDAC.
But that doesnt explain why they couldnt have fed a digital only signal (with no analogue out connections) to one of the DVI ports.
So it doesnt look like the DACs are the reason behind the restriction.
 
they would each still need a clock source, THAT is the limitation.

A single DAC has 2 clock sources, so theoretically you could do one HDMI, and one DVI, or one Dual-Link DVI per DAC.

since they now have 3 clock sources for legacy ports on 290/X, i assume they added an additional DAC.
 
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The Mac said:
they would each still need a clock source, THAT is the limitation.

A single DAC has 2 clock sources, so theoretically you could do one HDMI, and one DVI, or one Dual-Link DVI per DAC.

since they now have 3 clock sources for legacy ports on 290/X, i assume they added a second DAC.
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HDMI cannot use a RAMDAC, it doesnt have an analogue component and doesnt need a RAMDAC to provide a clock.
HDMI is entirely independent of RAMDAC requirements.
It is only needed for DVIs analogue connections if implemented.
 
Im not going to argue about it anymore, as ive made my statement, and i stand by it:

ALL legacy ports require a clock. One for each individual port.

Weather they are required or not, they are still used for clock sources for ALL legacy ports. period.
 
The Mac said:
Im not going to argue about it anymore, as ive made my statement, and i stand by it:

ALL legacy ports require a clock. One for each individual port.

Weather they are required or not, they are still used for clock sources for ALL legacy ports. period.
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Legacy ports are analogue.
The person you replied to is not using analogue.

HDMI is not legacy.
DVI can include legacy VGA out but can also have zero legacy components.

Neither of them need a RAMDAC to provide a clock for digital output.
 
Both hdmi and all forms of dvi are considered legacy.

They absolutely both require a clock source.
 
The Mac said:
Both hdmi and all forms of dvi are considered legacy.

They absolutely both require a clock source.
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Thats a bit of a twist on the definition of legacy :p
You are also twisting what you mean in your use of the word legacy.

You stated that a RAMDAC is needed to provide a clock source for legacy ports but that is only true if legacy ports are analogue only.
The Mac said:
they are still used for clock sources for ALL legacy ports. period.
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This directly contradicts your last post.

A RAMDAC is only needed for analogue VGA out, it is not needed for digital output.
HDMI and DVI already have a clock source without a RAMDAC being present, they have no reliance on a RAMDAC being present, they will function perfectly without one when using digital output.
 
I didnt make the convention, thats just how everyone refers to them. If i had to guess, i would assume people lump them all together because they require a clock source, where DP does not.

I will stop calling them DACs, and call it "Clock Source" instead. It makes no difference to me.

Either way it changes nothing about my original post about 290/x having an additional clock source for a 3rd simultaneous legacy port.
 
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The Mac said:
I didnt make the convention, thats just how everyone refers to them. If i had to guess, i would assume people lump them all together because they require a clock source, where DP does not.

im not contradicting anything.

im done with this argument, its becoming pedantic.

I will stop calling them DACs, and call it "Clock Source" instead. It makes no difference to me.

Either way it changes nothing about my original post about 290/x having an additional clock source for a 3rd simultaneous legacy port.
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I've never heard anyone refer to HDMI as legacy, can you provide a source for this?
If "everyone" refers to it as legacy, there must be many you can provide.

DVI may be considered legacy when referring to use of its analogue component, but DVI ports exist without any analogue connections.

You've contradicted yourself a few times.
You stated that digital out does require a RAMDAC then you had to concede that it doesnt.
You lumped DVI and HDMI in as legacy ports and then stated that all legacy ports use a RAMDAC as a clock source.
Yet HDMI and DVI arent legacy and neither need a RAMDAC as a clock source.
 
i never once say they NEEDED it (you did) as a clock source, i said they were using it as one.

I only said they needed a CLOCK SOURCE.

whatever.

i give up. you win the internets.
 
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Tanquen said:
I don't get the black boxes anymore but now there are little lines that flash on the main screen from time to time. :(
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Did you get those with 13.12?
It may be worth investigating the cause, possibly too low voltage or too high heat.

As a test, try blowing a powerful fan at the card and see if it makes any difference.
If GPU temp is ok, use Afterburner to increase VGPU slightly.
Try raising and lowering the memory voltage (called Aux voltage).
 
Nenu said:
Did you get those with 13.12?
It may be worth investigating the cause, possibly too low voltage or too high heat.

As a test, try blowing a powerful fan at the card and see if it makes any difference.
If GPU temp is ok, use Afterburner to increase VGPU slightly.
Try raising and lowering the memory voltage (called Aux voltage).
Click to expand...

Its a driver issue. 13.12 did not do this. A few new things started with the 14.X drivers. 14.1 were a crash fest and I could not run a game without it crashing. 14.2 started with the little black boxes and 14.3 still had them. 14.4 don't have the little black boxes but I get the random flash of a line on the screen, always the main screen.

Little black boxes: http://youtu.be/yamLbXANuE4
 
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Drivers have to optimise performance with power draw and heat, not just for one gfx card, but all of them.
This is a hard balancing act when trying to get the best performance out of all cards.
As a consequence, some gfx cards will have issues, some may be easily resolvable.

Its up to you if you want to find out whether a simple tweak will get rid of your issues.
 
I installed the 14.4 this past weekend and fired up BF4. I thought something was wrong because everything was so smooth!
Typed in perfoverlay and was getting 60fps(locked to refresh) . Not sure what it was before but it was night and day difference! Was not expecting much improvement with that 6950!
 
Nenu said:
Drivers have to optimise performance with power draw and heat, not just for one gfx card, but all of them.
This is a hard balancing act when trying to get the best performance out of all cards.
As a consequence, some gfx cards will have issues, some may be easily resolvable.

Its up to you if you want to find out whether a simple tweak will get rid of your issues.
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This idea gets a lot of play but I’ve had lots of AMD cards and they have all had 2D desktop issues from time to time and driver to driver. There are always lots of folks that say they never have these issues but I do. I’ve had a few different power supplies and people love to blame them for lots of stuff. I’ve had many different motherboards and they get there share of blame. They are complicated devices but come on, performance, heat? Its the 2D desktop, they really should have that locked up. Most of the issus come from having two displays. Like the corrupted mouse cursor, mouse lag, browser issues and your driver has restarted errors. I remember a few years back they had this kind of stuff and it was blamed on the 2D clock speed being too low to run two displays. I guess I always get the unstable cards and in pairs. I try one card then another or reinstall the driver or windows or replace power supplies or motherboards or RAM and still have the same issues until a new driver comes out.
 
I'm no AMD fan despite owning a 290.
But there are certain truths and some people will benefit from knowing them.

I'm annoyed at the black screen issues, crappy drivers that lose my displays and AMDs money grab that stop non AMD, DVI to HDMI cables from passing audio.
So a large drop in the perceived joy here, but at least be realistic about things that can be of use to some people.
 
Anyone else noticing brief (momentary really) slight FPS dips with 14.4 WHQL and Skyrim? It almost feels like microstutter. Nothing game-breaking or terrible, just less...smooth. I was getting a constant 60FPS with my 280X with 14.2 betas, and now I get random momentary dips down into the 53-58 range just running around in dungeons and whatnot.

Very odd. All my other games are running fine with 14.4 though.
 
mesyn191 said:
Sounds like fairly normal in game performance to me.
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Maybe if you're modding heavily. Otherwise it isn't, especially not since the performance improvements Beth did in the 1.6 - 1.8 patches. I've always had constant 60FPS outside of known trouble spots like Markarth. 14.4 WHQL is the first time I've seen random dips like that during normal gameplay.
 
Yep, is true.
Skyrim is incredibly smooth now, even with my card clocked as slow as it will go on both GPU and memory it still hugs 60fps tightly.
 
Nenu said:
Yep, is true.
Skyrim is incredibly smooth now, even with my card clocked as slow as it will go on both GPU and memory it still hugs 60fps tightly.
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I get little pauses every few seconds while running around.

Update: iFPSClamp=60 seems to have fixed it but why do they not have this set automatically?
 
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I decided to try these again after I did a fresh install of Win 7 x64. So far so good. Everything seems to be cool now.

Skyrim is fine for me with my 7970 and these drivers now. I'm only using this texture pack though, no ENBs etc.
 
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David_Schroth said:
I have found with 14.x on my 290X's that it doesn't like to do 3 screens when there's 2x DVI and 1x DP in the mix, however, using a passive DP->DVI adapter (thus, all 3 are DVI) seems to work just fine.
Click to expand...

I'm running 2xdvi and 1xdp for my eyefinity set up on 14.4 beta drivers and haven't had any issues.

For anyone having black screen issues, have you guys tried using the 290x bios on the card? I basically installed my cards to make sure they worked and flashed them immediately to a 290x bios and have not had a single instance of this socalled black screen crash since I bought them. I'm guessing the 290 non x bios just doesn't have proper voltage.
 
veedubfreak said:
I'm running 2xdvi and 1xdp for my eyefinity set up on 14.4 beta drivers and haven't had any issues.

For anyone having black screen issues, have you guys tried using the 290x bios on the card? I basically installed my cards to make sure they worked and flashed them immediately to a 290x bios and have not had a single instance of this socalled black screen crash since I bought them. I'm guessing the 290 non x bios just doesn't have proper voltage.
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There is some other fundamental issue.
I'm running a 290 with a 290x BIOS and I get black screens in very specific circumstances.
For example, if I run Unigine Heaven full screen, the moment it launches I get an instant black screen.
No matter which BIOS or settings.
If I run it in a Window, it runs perfectly under all circumstances.

I recently re-installed Windows and the Unigine black screen went away for a short while.
Then after updating the driver, it started again.
Since then it hasnt gone away.
 
veedubfreak said:
I'm running 2xdvi and 1xdp for my eyefinity set up on 14.4 beta drivers and haven't had any issues.

For anyone having black screen issues, have you guys tried using the 290x bios on the card? I basically installed my cards to make sure they worked and flashed them immediately to a 290x bios and have not had a single instance of this socalled black screen crash since I bought them. I'm guessing the 290 non x bios just doesn't have proper voltage.
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Veedub, what 290X bios are you using exactly? I tried to use the Asus PT1 bios on my reference Sapphire 290, but got a bios size mismatch error with ATIFlash (the 290 bios is smaller then every 290X bios posted on TechPowerUP it seems)..I did a flash with the -F flag, everything was successful, so I rebooted only to have no POST screen or Windows screen..I could hear Windows 7 log on through my phones..

I rebooted and flashed the Sapphire 290 Tri X bios I have been using. I am curious if the 290X bios will allow greater O/C'ing headroom. So far I am stuck @ 1275/1375 (I have Elpida memory) even with +200mV offset. I know I am far from temperature limits, my System runs 24/7 Folding (when I am not gaming) and the highest temperatures I have seen on a warm day are 45C core, and 42/38C for VRMs 1/2.
 
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I'm using the XFX 290x bios on my xfx cards and I think the Asus bios on the Powercolor. I'd have to look, I bought it from someone who had already unlocked it but decided to only keep 1. Mind you all 3 of my cards are reference 290s that were bought within the first week of launch.
 
I've an old Crosshair V. I'm using a Logitech illuminated keyboard and a G9x mouse with it; both are USB. I discovered
Skyrim will occasionally hitch badly if I do not install the USB filter driver that is in the 14.4 chipset/SB driver package.

I usually install the mentioned AMD driver however when I was experimenting with my system, I tried it without it to see
what impact it might have.

For me, Skyrim runs well with no issues using the 14.4 driver if the USB filter driver is installed.
 
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