AMD forums:

[Serpentine]

Well AMD get it right in a lot of ways, the absolute largest problem at the moment is that they are relying on software profiles to enforce hardware policies. For example if you're playing a movie it sets the voltage and clocks to a certain profile. If you happen to be playing a game at the same time, it however will still downclock to that movie profile. The same happens if you have more than one monitor, it starts to get confused and doesn't offer you a way to disable these built-in profiles. I have a problem that for some reason it cant accurately monitor what's going on, so it'll change profiles a few times a second and eventually crash (realistically this is outside of what the hardware should be capable of), a lot of people have a similar problem with flickering caused by the memory clocks flipping during some games.

 

Their software support in driver features and development is completely unmatched and they are really doing an excellent job of coming from the underdog, taking over the uncompetitive nvidia and now leading development in a very good and technical manner (i.e not gimmicks, nvidia). They listen to feedback and fix stuff up every release as well as reporting the larger known issues. Just look at how quickly and sleekly their OpenCL and OpenGL support is progressing, and their open documentation for driver development on the *nix side of things is leading to a very friendly atmosphere from the East where similar practices are common for other types of hardware.

 

At the end of the day they sell a lot of these cards to OEM's on their solid hardware lifespans, low hardware fault rates and really low power use, however they are completely screwing themselves in the enthusiast market by not letting people control how the hardware profiles work.

[7upMan]

Hm, but on the other hand, every enthusiast should be able to use the ATI Tray Tools, which offer way better controls over the CCC. It's not the ideal way, but you can work your way around many of the most annoying bugs this way. Still, I very much prefer that the standard vanilla CCC w/ standard vanilla drivers just WORKS.

[Serpentine]

Even with ATT you cant control the PowerPlay profiles or disable them completely (you can lock the clocks but then you cant use traditional profiles correctly either). There is no driver functionality or option exposed in registry to do this. While there are registry settings which ~should~ do it, they seem to be ignored on Windows (most likely only used from xorg.conf by the proprietary linux driver)

 

Enthusiast these days doesnt really mean 'uber geek', anyone with >1 monitor or people that run games windowed etc run into these issues - this is becoming more and more common and they're ultimately going to have to figure out that a system which makes best guesses isnt going to be sustainable and problem free.

 

It's just a situation where being 'smart' in software is often more annoying than anything else - something I'm sure everyone has encountered before(hey it looks like you're writing a letter!).

[Bikerdude]

Some AMD's VIPs have a blogs (for example, Nigel Dessau), so you guys can easily inform him about the situation on the AMD Game forums.

 

Ah sweet as the UK office isnt answering the phones (phukers)

[7upMan]

I agree with you, it's annoying that the driver still has these bugs. But I think you can enforce certain clocks with the ATT profiles. OTOH, I didn't use it for quite some time, because my system finally works (as opposed to the 4870 days where I frequently had various issues and was more than tempted to switch to an Nvidia card). Also, switching between the profiles was manual work (until I discovered the automatic 3D detection mode), so it was a bit tedious.

[7upMan]

Ah sweet as the UK office isnt answering the phones (phukers)

 

At what time did you call them, if I may ask? Hope not during breakfast-break? Or dinner-break. Or coffee-break...

[Bikerdude]

LOL, no I tried at various time from 9-5... will try again tomoz, I'm not letting that Spyre of the hook.

[Serpentine]

Also, switching between the profiles was manual work (until I discovered the automatic 3D detection mode), so it was a bit tedious.

 

Nah, I cant even use that, PowerPlay will try to do it's thing even if ATT changes the clocks, if I'm not using the highest voltage then PowerPlay attempts to do its own thing. So I have to sit there running the card at 1.1V, so I just leave it at 95% clocks all the time and it the temps/power hardly change, I can drop the clocks but it doesnt change the total draw by more than a few % since the voltage is already high.

 

I could always just flash the card with a static table of clocks, but I'd like to RMA this one soon as the 6xxx version is out, since I feel like a free upgrade for my troubles, eventho it wont fix anything

[7upMan]

Nah, I cant even use that, PowerPlay will try to do it's thing even if ATT changes the clocks, if I'm not using the highest voltage then PowerPlay attempts to do its own thing.

 

What gfx card do you use? I've never had or heard of this behaviour before, and I had everything from X1600Pro, X1950Pro, HD3870, HD4870 and now the HD5770.

 

 

[Serpentine]

Its a 5670, The problem is that its not ~supposed~ to keep trying to use PowerPlay if you've manually set clocks. But that is exactly the problem, it's also not meant to continually change PowerPlay profile when in fullscreen 3D. It doesn't seem know what state its in or what exactly is running. People suffering the same problem also have the same result in that you cant lock it by just overlocking core/mem, you have to bump the VDDC too.

[Bikerdude]

Just a minor update, just spoke to Leslie @ AMD UK and she is passing on my complaint to the head of UK customer services. so we will see how this works out.

[Bikerdude]

Good News, see first post!

[New Horizon]

Good News, see first post!

 

Any indication if Spyre will be let go?

[Bikerdude]

Good news, just got an email from Andy @ AMD,

 

"He is leaving and the two mods who replace him are friends of mine."

 

Awesomenes!

Edited February 3, 2011 by Bikerdude