AMD Releases Crimson 15.12 WHQL Drivers

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• MicBuzzard - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  What SinxarKnights is saying about the issue of the driver setting permanently yours OC values as default is absolutely true. This occur only with Crimson driver since the first release.
  The consequence of this is that I'll have my graphic card running with temps between 50-70 Cº in idle state (depending on my room temp). Is this acceptable? I don't thing so and AMD knows this since the begging.
  I think he was expecting, like me, that this would be one of AMD priorities and get this issue corrected.

• looncraz - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  You can set the default clocks by using the "Global Settings" overdrive. You then set the clocks per game. Also, no matter what I set for the global overdrive settings, my clocks still idle like normal, so I don't know what y'all are experiencing.
  
  They really need a list of overdrive profiles you can select for games, or even a specific 2d clock option. I run my default clocks at -45%, power limit -40%, and RAM at 550MHz max.
  
  At idle, my R9 290 sits at 300MHz with 150Mhz memory while running two monitors (144Hz 1080p primary, 60hz 1080p secondary - but I always only run 60hz on the desktop).
  
  For most of my games, these settings are still just fine as it will max the clocks to about 600/550, which is about the performance of a 7870 (while drawing less power, believe it or not). For the games I have that need more power, I modified the overdrive for those games.

• MicBuzzard - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  I'll try to describe the issue. I own a Radeon HD 7950, running by default at 950Mhz (GPU Clock) and 1250Mhz (Memory Clock).
  Like you said, at idle the frequencies should sit at 150MHz/300Mhz.
  If I create a profile for a game (doesn't matter which one), then when I exit the game Crimson driver should set the frequencies back to 150Mhz/300Mhz. But what's happening to me is that the driver set permanently to 500Mhz/1250Mhz. So, from that moment my default frequencies at idle will be always 500Mhz/1250Mhz and there is no way to get it at 150Mhz/300Mhz.
  Many people are experiencing this issue and I don't know if it's related only with some specific model cards.
  In the first day of Crimson release I address this problem to AMD but until now I didn't have any feedback.

• piroroadkill - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  Do you have multiple monitors? If you have more than 1 monitor connected, 500MHz is the default lowest clock for the 7950 GPU, and the memory NEVER underclocks with more than 1 monitor connected. This has nothing to do with Crimson, or Overdrive.

• milli - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  @ MicBuzzard
  I have the same problem and we're not the only ones. But it seems that only HD 7950 users are affected (from what I've read till now). A restart fixes the idle clock issue.
  But to say like SinxarKnights that he wants to nVidia is just stupid. Both camps have driver issues from time to time. Like TheinsanegamerN says, it's a duopoly and both have issues.
  Also, nobody is forcing you to use the latest Crimson drivers. 15.11.1 Catalyst is still there to download, so what's your problem. Compulsive much?

• RussianSensation - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  Download MSI Afterburner and simply use overclocking when you need it and turn if off when you don't. This has been the go to tool for PC overclockers for close to a decade. The native AMD/NV overclocking tools from their drivers have always been terrible. Complaining about overclocking functionality when NV cards do not even have this option to start.

• looncraz - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  AMD drivers have never defaulted to the limited color range like nVidia drivers do. They have always used the full range for videos, 2d processing, and outputs.
  
  In addition, if you are interested in that for games, it is called Surface Format Optimization, which uses a different intermediate colorspace which still encompasses the full capabilities of pretty much every monitor ever made. nVidia also does that by default, however they have an inferior intermediate color space due to their narrow hardware.

• Faultline1 - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  Uninstall, restart, resinstall brah. You've fixes those "unfixable driver issues"

• Teizo - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link

  You using an HDMI cable? It is probably detecting your monitor as a TV and defaulting to limited color which is standard on TVs. Also, for overclocking Afterburner is the better option. Is it not compatible with Crimson drivers?

• BurntMyBacon - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link

  @SinxarKnights: "There is no option for setting the dynamic color range in Crimson either. It is a default of limited (16-235) instead of full (0-255) resulting in washed out video."
  
  Wouldn't know about the crimson option, I only have one ATi card in my rigs at the moment and I don't use it for video (may change when I get my HTPC back up and running). That said, using 16-235 instead of the full 0-255 doesn't generally result in washed out colors. It results in a compressed color range which is often times not visible on cheaper monitors. On better monitors, you'll notice an artificially limited contrast range. Washed out colors means you need to lower the brightness, lower the contrast, adjust the gamma, or otherwise calibrate your monitor. Do as much as you can in the monitor itself before using video control panel options. Lagom.nl works for a quick spot, but using a colorimeter/spectrometer is better. Note: all of the above is still relevant to TVs.