Miserable drivers

[J. Clarke]

Tried installing Catalyst 7.11 and D3D died. Same for 7.10 and 7.9.
7.8 works.

Good to see that being taken over by AMD hasn't changed anything at
ATI.

Why don't they just shoot their software department and start over?

 

[Tim S.]

Tried installing Catalyst 7.11 and D3D died. Same for 7.10 and 7.9.
7.8 works.

Good to see that being taken over by AMD hasn't changed anything at
ATI.

Why don't they just shoot their software department and start over?

--

John,

Just out of curiosity what type of card are you using, AGP or PCI-e?

Tim

 

[J. Clarke]

John,

Just out of curiosity what type of card are you using, AGP or PCI-e?

1650 AGP.

 

[First of One]

For me, 7.11 required one extra reboot after driver installation before D3D
games could work.

The Good (not documented in the release notes):

- Fixed bug in Call of Duty 4 where Crossfire got lower framerates than a
single card.
- Hardware acceleration can be enabled Adobe PDF Reader without artifacting
while AA is enabled in the control panel.
- Multisample Adaptive AA now an option

The Bad:

The desktop wallpaper disappears after every boot. Something is not
refreshing properly.

 

[Dre]

For me, 7.11 required one extra reboot after driver installation before
D3D games could work.

The Good (not documented in the release notes):

- Fixed bug in Call of Duty 4 where Crossfire got lower framerates than a
single card.
- Hardware acceleration can be enabled Adobe PDF Reader without
artifacting while AA is enabled in the control panel.
- Multisample Adaptive AA now an option

The Bad:

The desktop wallpaper disappears after every boot. Something is not
refreshing properly.

<snip>

I dont have this problem (the desktop wallpapar dissappearing) with my setup
(1950pro agp) running 7.11, in fact it has been just as stable as all the
other versions for me...

D3D passes all tests no problems.

Cheers Dre

 

[First of One]

Evidently J. Clarke doesn't have problems with the wallpaper, either. It may
be related to Crossfire, since Crossfire is enabled through CCC after
Windows loads.

 

[First of One]

There's some corrobration here:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1096894&postcount=4
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1335244420&postcount=12

 

[Tweek]

Evidently J. Clarke doesn't have problems with the wallpaper, either.
It may be related to Crossfire, since Crossfire is enabled through CCC
after Windows loads.

I'm running Crossfire and I have had the disappearing wallpaper problem
too. Happens about every second boot, right after Crossfire initializes the
wallpaper disappears and leaves a blue background. Have seen it with 7.10
and 7.11. I currently have rolled back to 7.10 and applied the Crysis
hotfix, which is what ATI recommends for people playing Crysis (rather than
using 7.11).

 

[Paul in Toronto]

Tried installing Catalyst 7.11 and D3D died. Same for 7.10 and 7.9.
7.8 works.

You lie. Version 7.7 was the last one that worked. At least on my system.

Good to see that being taken over by AMD hasn't changed anything at
ATI.

I dunno... Their drivers at least worked properly before the AMD buy-out...

Why don't they just shoot their software department and start over?

Maybe they could out-source to India?

 

[First of One]

Well, looks like ATi Tray Tools 1.3.6 supports Crossfire now, which means I
can disable CCC from the Windows startup list. No more disappearing
wallpaper. Woohoo!

 

[Ryan Hatfield]

You lie. Version 7.7 was the last one that worked. At least on my system.


I dunno... Their drivers at least worked properly before the AMD
buy-out...


Maybe they could out-source to India?

There are currently 12 ATI jobs available in India. All 12 are
designated as "Hot Job!"

 

[Ryan Hatfield]

Tried installing Catalyst 7.11 and D3D died. Same for 7.10 and 7.9.
7.8 works.

Good to see that being taken over by AMD hasn't changed anything at
ATI.

Why don't they just shoot their software department and start over?

Or give away all their technical documentation and let the public at
large write their drivers for them.

 

[J. Clarke]

Or give away all their technical documentation and let the public at
large write their drivers for them.

I'm not sure how well open source drivers would work out for
Windows--seems to me that Microsoft would also have to give away some
stuff. And Apple for that matter--while the underlying OS is open
source, their GUI isn't and doesn't run on top of X11.

 

[First of One]

That's... not quite the whole truth. The current released documentation is
barely enough to get started on basic 2D display drivers.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3108

 

[Ryan Hatfield]

That's... not quite the whole truth. The current released documentation is
barely enough to get started on basic 2D display drivers.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3108

It's still a better idea than what the OP suggested.