Unfortunately overdrive is still broken and no sign of video color options. Thanks AMD, I enjoy watching washed out videos and not overclocking my graphics card. Up until Crimson i've never had issue with their drivers. I guess the auto update was more important. I know what I am buying next that is for sure.
Overdrive seems to works fine on my 7970, but I have to admit I only slightly OC the card, maybe there's some options that I'm not using. As for the video colors, I see plenty of options so once again, I'm not so sure I understand what you mean.
You say : "Up until Crimson I've never had issue with their drivers"
And now you want to go nVidia because, according to you, for the first time in god knows(and you) how long, you have drivers problems?
Over reacting a little maybe? I own cards from both AMD and nVidia and they both have their share of drivers problems from time to time.
Do yourself a favor, save some money, rollback to the latest catalyst drivers and wait a little for the next release.
Sensors detect unconvincing troll. I don't see any of these problems either... running Crimson on my HP Notebook with FirePro graphics + Enduro and everything is absolutely fine.
I only mention the specific config because once upon a time that would have been an absolute nightmare to get working; as it is I haven't had a single hitch. It's even overclocked!
I disagree. I don't think switching to Nvidia for my next graphics card is an overreaction at all. The overdrive issue is once you OC, you cannot reduce it. The level you set it becomes the minimum.
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.
I have tried multiple times to contact support and get help about both of these with nothing but glorious silence. Why am I forced to accept defaults that do not work. Why are so many options removed? IMO they should be focusing on how it works instead of how it looks, but what do I know, I am just an unconvincing troll apparently.
So, when nvidia releases one driver with a fan control issue, forcing throttling, are you then going to switch to VIA? matrox? 3dfx?
How about just rolling back to the previous release, then waiting for a newer driver to come out? We nvidia users did it for months with the whole 350 driver fiasco, crashing chrome and all that.
If nVidia and AMD's graphics drivers have caused problems, you could always switch to using Intel's integrated graphics. I don't know what their drivers are like, but it should be fine for running Windows and undemanding games. The performance may be a little unsatisfactory for the likes of Fallout 4 with Ultra settings on a 4k display, mind.
Actually performance aside I don't think Intel drivers had too many issues. Since gaming wasn't a real option Intel had to put in less work into the drivers and the result was more than adequate stability wise. They cater mostly for business users and users with little demand for GPU power so the drivers are a lot less complex (imagine a 60MB driver pack for Intel vs. 300+MB for the others). Never heard of widespread issues with installing, upgrading the drivers or normal use.
Thank you. I've had cards from all the major vendors over the years (even had two PowerVR based cards) and they have all had their share of issues. Heck he might have something corrupted, might need to uninstall drivers, clean, reinstall, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@ 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?
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.
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.
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?
@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.
You know you can have the Catalyst Control Center and the new control panel installed at the same time right? You can just switch to that until they add whatever feature you're complaining about.
What experienced PC gamer overclocks their AMD/NV graphics from a built-in native driver panel? The first issue is easily fixable and frankly it's far better to use MSI Afterburner or Sapphire Trixx to overclock AMD graphics cards. These programs allow you to customize various settings, set up custom fan profiles, adjust voltages, etc. MSI AB is especially superior to AMD's overdrive and always has been.
For videos, try going into Video -> Custom. There you will see 2 options: Custom Sharpness and Custom Colour Vibrance.
Why don't you just modify your bios with the right clocks so you don't have to bother messing with Overdrive at all? And why are you getting washed out video and mine is fine?
Sounds like people who use equalizers for recordings made by someone else.
I've seen tips to increase saturation / vibrancy in CS:GO but really if your monitor is shit and can't provide the saturation of color you want then a digital adjustment to bring out more color isn't the best solution. I assume most of the users don't want to use such a setting anyhow.
I guess quality and details isn't an issue for people who want to see the most "macro details" / action in CS but what about getting a wide gamut monitor and spread the colors over that range possibly? I don't know if the OLED ones will be wide gamut but maybe that will improve things. Monitors has been doing well in the development area and becoming better for regular consumer monitors, maybe larger color space together with higher contrast is the next thing?
The bigger question, and the reason I'm still running on 15.7, is have they addressed some of their performance issues in games?
Since 15.11/15.11.1 released, there was the 20% fan speed issue. I think that was fixed with 15.11.1. But in addition I play SWTOR and MWO. Both have had multiple reports of graphics issues by users that upgraded to 15.11/15.11.1. With SWTOR, all of your special effects (lightsaber graphics/blaster fire graphics/etc) have disappeared unless you turned your AA down to medium or below. With MWO, the menu screens (non-mission) have been blinking and flickering. I haven't seen anything that says they have addressed these issues, so I'm sticking with 15.7 until it is confirmed that they are fixed.
The MWO issue was an issue with MWO and the fact that they changed things in the background. I was able to remedy it by changing to dx9 from dx11. New driver update and I tried to go back to dx11 and same issue but I just lived with it.. THEN Piranha Games releases an update and issue is fixed. It wasn't an AMD issue to start with.
So, you "think" the obscure fan speed issue was fixed in 15.11.1 (which it was, as reported here on anandtech and prominently in the release notes at AMD) and yet you are aware of "multiple reports" of issues that don't exist - and you're going to wait until AMD releases a confirmation that issues that don't exist have been result. That you "know". Jeez man, read. Screw "multiple reports".
Oddly enough, the new Crimson suite is shiny and all, but when I went to adjust overscan settings last night, it popped up the old CCC options window. It would be nice to make it all consistent.
Hmmm, tried to update it this morning and it says "Your software is up to date" even though it's running 15.11. Am I going to have to manually update it??
It's probably like Windows and Skype and a number of other things, updates roll out to users during a week or two. You should see the update available in Radeon settings in the coming week.
Guys i need help, i was using 15.1.1 beta driver, i had R6 graphics as APU and R5 M230 GPU (Detected as R7 M265DX in beta driver). APU idle at 225 mhz and GPU at 300 mhz, but when i update to 15.12 my GPU show 0 mhz idle in crimson overdrive and in GPU-Z. Need help, should i rollback driver to 15.1.1?
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
33 Comments
Back to Article
SinxarKnights - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Unfortunately overdrive is still broken and no sign of video color options. Thanks AMD, I enjoy watching washed out videos and not overclocking my graphics card. Up until Crimson i've never had issue with their drivers. I guess the auto update was more important. I know what I am buying next that is for sure.Le Québécois - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Overdrive seems to works fine on my 7970, but I have to admit I only slightly OC the card, maybe there's some options that I'm not using. As for the video colors, I see plenty of options so once again, I'm not so sure I understand what you mean.You say : "Up until Crimson I've never had issue with their drivers"
And now you want to go nVidia because, according to you, for the first time in god knows(and you) how long, you have drivers problems?
Over reacting a little maybe? I own cards from both AMD and nVidia and they both have their share of drivers problems from time to time.
Do yourself a favor, save some money, rollback to the latest catalyst drivers and wait a little for the next release.
Spunjji - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Sensors detect unconvincing troll. I don't see any of these problems either... running Crimson on my HP Notebook with FirePro graphics + Enduro and everything is absolutely fine.I only mention the specific config because once upon a time that would have been an absolute nightmare to get working; as it is I haven't had a single hitch. It's even overclocked!
SinxarKnights - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
I disagree. I don't think switching to Nvidia for my next graphics card is an overreaction at all. The overdrive issue is once you OC, you cannot reduce it. The level you set it becomes the minimum.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.
I have tried multiple times to contact support and get help about both of these with nothing but glorious silence. Why am I forced to accept defaults that do not work. Why are so many options removed? IMO they should be focusing on how it works instead of how it looks, but what do I know, I am just an unconvincing troll apparently.
TheinsanegamerN - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
So, when nvidia releases one driver with a fan control issue, forcing throttling, are you then going to switch to VIA? matrox? 3dfx?How about just rolling back to the previous release, then waiting for a newer driver to come out? We nvidia users did it for months with the whole 350 driver fiasco, crashing chrome and all that.
PrinceGaz - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
If nVidia and AMD's graphics drivers have caused problems, you could always switch to using Intel's integrated graphics. I don't know what their drivers are like, but it should be fine for running Windows and undemanding games. The performance may be a little unsatisfactory for the likes of Fallout 4 with Ultra settings on a 4k display, mind.Alexvrb - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
Performance aside, Intel's drivers traditionally have been even worse.close - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
Actually performance aside I don't think Intel drivers had too many issues. Since gaming wasn't a real option Intel had to put in less work into the drivers and the result was more than adequate stability wise. They cater mostly for business users and users with little demand for GPU power so the drivers are a lot less complex (imagine a 60MB driver pack for Intel vs. 300+MB for the others). Never heard of widespread issues with installing, upgrading the drivers or normal use.xdrol - Saturday, December 26, 2015 - link
Never played anything OpenGL on Intel graphics, I assume?Alexvrb - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
Thank you. I've had cards from all the major vendors over the years (even had two PowerVR based cards) and they have all had their share of issues. Heck he might have something corrupted, might need to uninstall drivers, clean, reinstall, etc.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
@ MicBuzzardI 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.
Flunk - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
You know you can have the Catalyst Control Center and the new control panel installed at the same time right? You can just switch to that until they add whatever feature you're complaining about.RussianSensation - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
What experienced PC gamer overclocks their AMD/NV graphics from a built-in native driver panel? The first issue is easily fixable and frankly it's far better to use MSI Afterburner or Sapphire Trixx to overclock AMD graphics cards. These programs allow you to customize various settings, set up custom fan profiles, adjust voltages, etc. MSI AB is especially superior to AMD's overdrive and always has been.For videos, try going into Video -> Custom. There you will see 2 options: Custom Sharpness and Custom Colour Vibrance.
Makaveli - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Why don't you just modify your bios with the right clocks so you don't have to bother messing with Overdrive at all? And why are you getting washed out video and mine is fine?aliquis - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
Sounds like people who use equalizers for recordings made by someone else.I've seen tips to increase saturation / vibrancy in CS:GO but really if your monitor is shit and can't provide the saturation of color you want then a digital adjustment to bring out more color isn't the best solution. I assume most of the users don't want to use such a setting anyhow.
I guess quality and details isn't an issue for people who want to see the most "macro details" / action in CS but what about getting a wide gamut monitor and spread the colors over that range possibly? I don't know if the OLED ones will be wide gamut but maybe that will improve things. Monitors has been doing well in the development area and becoming better for regular consumer monitors, maybe larger color space together with higher contrast is the next thing?
Mozee - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
The bigger question, and the reason I'm still running on 15.7, is have they addressed some of their performance issues in games?Since 15.11/15.11.1 released, there was the 20% fan speed issue. I think that was fixed with 15.11.1. But in addition I play SWTOR and MWO. Both have had multiple reports of graphics issues by users that upgraded to 15.11/15.11.1. With SWTOR, all of your special effects (lightsaber graphics/blaster fire graphics/etc) have disappeared unless you turned your AA down to medium or below. With MWO, the menu screens (non-mission) have been blinking and flickering. I haven't seen anything that says they have addressed these issues, so I'm sticking with 15.7 until it is confirmed that they are fixed.
jragonsoul - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
The MWO issue was an issue with MWO and the fact that they changed things in the background. I was able to remedy it by changing to dx9 from dx11. New driver update and I tried to go back to dx11 and same issue but I just lived with it.. THEN Piranha Games releases an update and issue is fixed. It wasn't an AMD issue to start with.IEC - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
I can confirm. The issue was with MWO (PGI), as expected. The gameplay was fine it was just the loading screens where PGI messed up.So far so good with both 15.11 and 15.12 for me on Radeon 290s. The recent Crimson changes are a step in the right direction.
atlantico - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
So, you "think" the obscure fan speed issue was fixed in 15.11.1 (which it was, as reported here on anandtech and prominently in the release notes at AMD) and yet you are aware of "multiple reports" of issues that don't exist - and you're going to wait until AMD releases a confirmation that issues that don't exist have been result. That you "know". Jeez man, read. Screw "multiple reports".nathanddrews - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Oddly enough, the new Crimson suite is shiny and all, but when I went to adjust overscan settings last night, it popped up the old CCC options window. It would be nice to make it all consistent.looncraz - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
It takes a long time and a lot of work to replace a piece of software that has been evolving for over a decade. They'll get there.bodonnell - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Hmmm, tried to update it this morning and it says "Your software is up to date" even though it's running 15.11. Am I going to have to manually update it??atlantico - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
It's probably like Windows and Skype and a number of other things, updates roll out to users during a week or two. You should see the update available in Radeon settings in the coming week.ChristianWidjaya - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Guys i need help, i was using 15.1.1 beta driver, i had R6 graphics as APU and R5 M230 GPU (Detected as R7 M265DX in beta driver). APU idle at 225 mhz and GPU at 300 mhz, but when i update to 15.12 my GPU show 0 mhz idle in crimson overdrive and in GPU-Z. Need help, should i rollback driver to 15.1.1?