Finally Official 7970M Driver released - AMD Catalyst 12.6 WHQL and 12.7 Beta

Thing is, I have changed all of the EnableULPS variables to "0" per Slick's guide but when opening MSIA my clocks are 0/0 and locked.

I changed the "Unofficial Overclocking" variable in the MSIA CFG file to 1 which showed clocks of 850/1200 but locked, when the value is "0" it then shows the clocks at 0/0 and locked/unmovable. I have no idea what's up >.<

 

Well, then it should work. Probably just a driver bug. If you've already double-checked to make sure you did not miss any, then uninstall and reinstall the drivers. Manually install Standard VGA drivers through Device Manager, reboot, install Catalyst drivers, reboot, then check the registry again. AMD drivers are sometimes very stubborn to work with.

 

^^^ You are right Mr. Fox. I asked you also earlier (few days back) on how to enable MSI Afterburner overclock 'facility' and you guided me step by step on how to change the cfg file in the program files of MSI Afterburner and also the registry.

However that did not change anything. I reinstalled the driver and voila, that fixed the problem...

 

So are a lot of these instability issues on the m18x because of crossfire or do they happen a lot on the m17x too?

 

As I understand it, it is primarily a crossfire/driver issue.

For me, it's been resolved except for The Witcher 2, as I get dips from 60 FPS (VSYNC) to 40 FPS when looking around. Annoying because I can tell when it happens.

 

Ok. I'm somewhat of a noob at this stuff so I was kind of worried about all of these problems when I get my m17x. All reading this thread did was scare me lol. I'm just really hoping everything can go smoothly.

 

While it is frustrating there is no reason to be fearful, as it will get worked out. Dell/Alienware is a great company and they will take care of their customers when there's an issue. And, yes, I think it may be mostly CrossFire that is hosed. Problems with a single 7970M seem to be less frequent.

Had a new development today. Tried playing BF3, which had been working pretty good, and it kept freezing up and my screen turned white several times. It would unfreeze and the screen would turn to normal after a brief pause. I could alt+tab out and back in to get it to resume or wait. I could not get it to stop doing that and finally gave up on trying to play after numerous attempts of shutting down and relaunching the game. (This was single-player campaign and not online.)

Also, Heaven 3.0 is now super choppy looking and frame rate reduced from what it used to be.

Will try removing and reinstalling the drivers again. What is so bizarre is that the experience is inconsistent. What works great today might not tomorrow and what does not work good now will work fine the next time I try it.

 

yes Dell/alienware is a great company and tey offer a great product! but i feel your pain lol.. it seems as if the driver has a mind of its own or the card can swap its code when ever it wants.. while 1 setting may work right now 20 minutes later it may not..and im being literal.. my problem i get now is that every game i run will run for a bit then shut down on its own..(program closes its self) and thats after every thing goes slow motion on me lol..
artifacting is still strange.. i get blue dashes on screen.. then they go away..
I think the driver has a major conflict with some thing in the system.. maybe addressing the same irq as some thing else or address and thats causing the problems?

 

Hey guys there is official 12.6 drivers for 7XXXM on AMD website dated 6/28 http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx

looks like they are the same drivers for desktop too I may be wrong

 

12.6 official driver installed, all work well except the old problem, laptop can not wake up from sleep mode...

 

Hi Speedy. The official Mobility 12.6 WHQL is one of the drivers I have been using for about a week now. It does better than 12.5 beta but 12.7 beta is working even better that one, but far from being excellent. For those that have not already found them, here are the links: [ Download - Catalyst 12.6 Mobility] [Download - AMD Catalyst 12.7 Beta]

But, now I am thinking... maybe not better than 12.5 beta, LOL. Some of these strange issues were not present, but games do work better with 12.6 or 12.7 most of the time.

 

I can't get 12.6 WHQL mobility to install properly (Cat control panel just will not install whatever I try). So, the 12.7 BETAs for me - which work fairly well (sans OCing).

Also, Mr. Fox - I noticed the scan line issue after installing new drivers and rebooting, but upon going into MSI Afterburner and setting defaults (where it was in the first place) the problem goes away. I have MSI Afterburner set to start with Windows, and I bet that Afterburner is the primary cause of our OCing woes. Time will tell.

 

Afterburner could be causing some issues, but I don't overclock my cards very often and I basically gave up trying to because it seems to be an exercise in futility for me. The amount of effort and repeated attempts that it takes to get a good benchmark run wastes more time than I can spare. I don't even let Afterburner launch with Windows any more and I configured HWiNFO64 to use OSD to display the information that I used to use Afterburner to display while gaming. I thought that might make a difference, but it does not seem to have. I have also tried turning off HWiNFO64 so it does not launch with Windows, but that also seems to have made no difference.

 

Unless using afterburner to overclock i have no longer needed to disable ulps as on 12.5 and 12.7 the xfire in the games that show no issues clock up and down properly and not fluctuatig or anything. 12.7 has proven to me to be all 12.5 is plus fps improvements. No major fixes at all like Witcher 2 freezes on me eventualy in xfire and when working runs like mentioned above fps drops down to 20 from 40. I was having prob before setting witcher 2 because of the issues to single card. It does not work right via CCC or radeon pro so i had to disable xfire and restart and it handles the game 100% stable like it did when i only had one physical card installed. No i havent tried myself but 12.7 includes a fix for Skyrim flickering yet people i know tried this driver says its still there. From what ive seen tgis 12.7 is a viable alternative to 12.5. No major fixes but there are definate. Fps improvements on a game or 2. On gamibg stable overclock i tested no fan control in a hot room 80+ and no overvolt ends up being stable for me just like MrFox so after so much tinkering and testing clocks i get are stock volts and 880core with 1210vram. A vvery smal overclock but has been finally stable. Max temp with fans as mentioned after hours in the hot room was max of 77c on Diablo 3 max graphics xfire no vsync and the new SSAA enabled. On Witcher i think it was 80c which i belive from ubersampling load and since witcher was in single card theres more stress on the primary gpu.

 

Hey guys I just got my new M18x R2 with the CrossfireX and I have to thank you guys a lot. I read through all these threads and problems while I was awaiting my delivery and I got to say it helped a lot. Knowing the problems before I encountered them, I used the 12.7 as suggested by Mr. Fox and I installed them first thing (after using CCleaner and Driver Sweeper as suggested), and I have had 0 issues. I'm loving this laptop!

I haven't done crazy gaming or benchmarking yet, but I did run Heaven and 3DMark11 and got the expected scores for a non-overclocked system. Also I've played some BF3 and I'm impressed, even off battery power with the low clocks I get seamless frame rates.

I'm staying away from Afterburner and things like that as currently I have no desire to overclock and I'm not too big into benchmarking and what not (I just wanted to make sure everything was functioning at the expected level). But the main reason I'm staying away is I've followed Mr. Fox's instructions to the T and currently I am having 0 issues, while I see he's started having some issues and I'm hoping they have to do with those programs. Otherwise I guess I'll start seeing problems in a few days like he has.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who has contributed to the crossfireX problems, I really appreciate how much you've helped me out!

 

Glad your system is working well, and happy I was able to provide useful assistance. Congratulations on your new M18x R2 and welcome to our Community. We're glad to have you here.

As a side note, I don't have Afterburner or HWiNFO64 constantly running. They are manually launched when I need them to run. My issues are unchanged whether they are launched or not. I still believe these are driver issues. I don't suspect there is anything going wrong at a hardware level.

 

Thanks! I'm glad to be here too.

Well that's unfortunate, I had (not so) secretly hoped all your problems were because of those programs. It seems I'll probably encounter the same problems too, soon. But as of right now, I'm just blown away with how well everything is working, not a single complaint yet.

As an aside, you do all your testings with ulps disabled? I've left mine enabled, but given its nature as a power management feature it seems like it could only CAUSE problems, not fix them. However I'd still be curious to see if you have the problems with ULPS enabled, since that seems to be the only difference in our setups - I don't suspect the differences in our processors to be significant enough to change graphic card stability.

 

Also I've played some BF3 and I'm impressed, even off battery power with the low clocks I get seamless frame rates.

this is interesting, because with my 580M with sli off or on. not way i can run any games on battery!!!

if you only play games, just stay away from bad softwares.

 

This is currently my policy now, I'm not gonna add any potential problem causers if I don't need them, though with Mr. Fox's reply it appears they're not the problem.

As for battery power, I too was impressed. My old asus g73jh could barely browse the web (granted many tabs open) on battery power. I was playing bf3 and it wasn't until I exited the game I realized I had been on battery power, imagine my happy surprise.

 

Hi Proviticus,

Like yourself I was also reading away through the forums here while anxiously waiting for my delivery.
I agree with you, everyone is very helpful here. I must say there some pretty good 'chi' in this forum

Just regarding the drivers, I've installed the 12.7b and CAP and they work great for almost all games I play. My only advise would be to try and set as many restore points before you start installing stuff. I've installed a few different apps now that cause a black and white pinstripe crash. If it happens after I install something ill restore to my previous state. Just now I had that crash 1 hour after installing BF1942 (yes, I love my old school too). If I get a few more with any sort of regularity ill restore yet again.

 

TBoneSan, I have the same drivers and CAP as you, good choice they're working great. What apps have you installed that caused the black and white pinstripe crash?

P.S. gotta love 1942, I've had the most fun with that one, I love the WWII vehicles, everything's too quick for me in BF3 now haha

 

I was setting up email through Windows Live Mail (the outlook replacement or whatever its called). It happened twice so I won't look at that prog again until some official drivers come our way. There was another prog that did it but I'm struggling to remember just now (ill update you if it comes to me).
Mr. Fox has also experienced that same crash but I'm not sure if he attributed it to any particular program/installation.

Yeh 1942, gotta love its simplicity and scale. I havent started the bf3 multiplayer yet. I'm a bit annoyed I can't train with bots first. I'm going to be such an easy frag.

 

thanks, i'll stay away from windows live mail for now! Don't want to start having problems. And you can always do the BF3 campaign to get your head around the system. I should probably do that as I am definitely an easy frag so far

 

Anyone try Skyrim yet. How many games still dont work stable in xfire. Only one i am certain of right now is Witcher 2 anyone else know of any. My question pertains to 12.7beta only. Thank you.

 

I got skyrim on steam, haven't downloaded it onto my new notebook yet, though. I'll test it out tonight if I get time, so hopefully I can get back to you tomorrow if it works for me. I'll also be testing metro 2033, crysis 1 and 2.

 

I am getting 60fps solid in Skyrim ultra with some mods installed. I WAS having micro-stuttering until I ran a registry cleaner. Leftovers from the 12.6 WHQLs that don't install properly for me.

Edit: on 12.7 beta desktop driver.

 

Great Arestavo and thanks Proviticus. Arestavo are you seeing any texture flickering? It can be a flicker or a flicker from normal texture to black and back and forth... are you witnessing any of that and what version f sSkyrim if its easy to find ie what revision number is it on ie latest update? Ill install Skyrim and a few others now to find out more.

 

Since installing 12.7 beta and CAP1 12.7 I was not having texture flickering with Skyrim to begin with, but for no reason I can explain it started having flickering issues again like it used to on 12.5 beta. Same thing happened with Batman Arkham Asylum and I cannot explain that.

TBoneSan, I had not seen that pinstripe thing for a number of days and thought it was a thing of the past. It happened three times to me yesterday and I was doing nothing but web surfing.

As best I can tell (which may be coincidence) there is a correlation to problems with DX11 and something with HTML or web related. I still have random BSOD issue with YouTube videos and the pinstripe thing happening when web browsing, but neither are consistent. It's very odd that I cannot make it happen on demand by replicating my activity.

 

Flickerin issue like best mate of AMD, i have installed 12.7 beta about a day back, started flickerin even while i was surfin , BF3 was totally unplayable with it. I had face some weird graphics issue with 12.7 beta while playin Crysis 2, as some graphic objects keep flashin with bright white light. I have never seen that kind of graphics error ever. So revert back to 12.6.

 

BF3 was working good for me, but it's hit or miss now. Playable sometimes and seems to work really good, but sometimes not, and I have the screen turning white and freezing when it's not in a good mood, LOL. There is no in between and it is strange that it is so unpredictable. I mean, 1+1=2 right now, but it might equal 1 or 4 tomorrow while doing exactly the same thing.

I may end up going back to 12.5 beta because, while it did have some issues, it seems like as many new things got broken as what got fixed with 12.6 WHQL and 12.7 beta.

 

Try running CCleaner - clean the registry until there aren't any more errors/extras listed.

I am not having any flickering problems in Skyrim, or ANY other game, or at the desktop. That is, unless I overclock too high, then I get flickering. With 12.7 Beta, I was getting micro-stuttering in Skyrim until I cleaned the registry.

If that issue persists, it may be the hardware itself, which you could verify by reinstalling windows and all the drivers and seeing if it is still there. Probably easiest to use a spare hard drive, and take out your current OS drive to make the test, and life, easier.

EDIT: It may be of some import that I didn't disable ULPS with 12.7 Betas.

 

I do that religiously already, but it's a really good suggestion for anyone that has not tried that. CCleaner is an indispensable utility for cleaning up the crud. I'll do a clean 12.7 driver installation and leave ULPS alone just to see what happens. At this point anything is worth trying. If it still behaves the same, then I may go back to 12.5 beta and hope it works better.

 

Goodluck Mr Fox yes i can confirm ulps is fine left on by default. I have seen less issues with it default. Prob is i get strange load probs random and not easily recreated with ULPS off. Btw dont disable power play anytime i did my first gpu gets locked at 2d clocks.. all the settings default and i am not having probs again. Mr.Fox two suggestions... ive seen issues on occasion on vbios probs. I flashed a basic vbios file and had flickering random on stock clocks. I re flashed using a fresh stock vbios file and the prob disappeared yoy could try that MrFox. Second thing is i have seen issue with CCC or radeon pro loading profiles correctly sometimes... ie go to one game and then anorher it may be using the profile from the first game and not load the new profile based on the second game you loaded hypothetically. You can set CCC to a good default for all games aand try to apply that and then load the games like Skyrim and BF3. Maybe flickering is coming from a specific setting. After installing Cap1 you can load each game on the specific cap profile but i found it works best leaving Cap setting in CCC to Default. Try setting AA, AF and Tesselatikn to Application specified. Either way attempt to load settings in CC right before launching the game and perhaps that will give you the same performance each time you launch the game. Ill have to load BF3 to see and I will reload Skyrim to report back what ive been seeing too. Its nice to see so many reporting their experience with the drivers... this input is important for everyone on this hardware. Stability is the number one prioroty for most of us here i am pretty sure o can say for everyone.

 

I am running the unmodified vBIOS that came with the GPUs. I have tried flashing the vBIOS more than once with the stock ROM. I haven't turned off PowerPlay. I have not attempted to apply different profiles, nor have I tried doing anything with RadeonPro. Those are good ideas of new things to try. Since doing a clean Windows install last weekend, I have been leaving everything as "default" as possible. Clearly, that's not working out very well... indeed, in some ways it seems worse overall with installation defaults.

 

Thats what i mean MrFox and good to know you tried all stock too. Im thinking perhaps making sure each time you launch a game atleast while we are ib driver bullcrap limbo. That it does have a specific entry made and use as current profile under the list of custom profiles you make in CCC. I am having better luck with that... i think sometimes we are loading games and the proper stuff is not being applied and thats why i think manually doing so could be more consistent from session to session. Goodluck mr fox i hope something ends up helping. So your not getting flicker now but games like BF3 you can play works great and for example you launch it again at another time and your getting lower performance. Thats what i was seeing too. Its not so bad now but randomly i do see the gpu load drop from norm of 99% to much lower sometimes and can be in various games off top of my head Diabl 3 does it but most time xfire is doing its job and 12.5-12.7 showed me moee performance on same clocks in 3ddmark11 and in games even if only an fps here and there. Example Dirt3 gained a few fps on ultra with SSAA enabled at 8x. Definately seen good improvement on 12.7 but i couldnt tell until i went from 12.7 back to 12.5 and afyer that back to 12.7 and noticed good improvements. Mr fox i hope we get somewhere soon its starting to seem 7970m is a money put that gets you no where... well in xfire that is.

 

So, it looks like I am not the only one with this issue?! And I thought it has something to do with the ram / memory (black screen with gray lines)...

 

Ha, yes, Brother Julian. That is exactly the striped thing that a lot of us are seeing. In a sadistic sort of way I am glad to see these problems are universal to M18x R1 and M18x R2, and desktop CrossFire systems. These problems are not platform dependent. It puts to rest the notion of incompatibilities and rightfully draws attention to the malfunctioning product versus the platform.

Brother RV, you have always been really great at tracking things. I appreciate your approach. Whether is leads to a solution or not, you always can document what does not work. One of my favorite quotes in times like this is:

"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." - Thomas Edison

 

Hi Juliant, what were you doing at the time ? Had you installed anything prior ?
Iv had a bunch of them at various time too.

 

Actually it happened once while trying to install Max Payne 3 and second time while reading on this forum. Those lines and black screen make your system freeze completely and you have to do a hard boot. I have a feeling it could be something to do with the hardware and software malfunction since this issue is caused by all the cards (mobile & desktops), that's what Mr. Fox realized! I hope someone from the technical department focuses on this issue, knowing is worst than any other (flickering, low frames drops) and may end up with lots of hardware failure shortly for most of the systems out there...

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one... I have seen these problems before in the paste with AMD cards... seems to be their trademark... thinking if I should call for an rma??.... I'm thinking its more of a driver related issue though....

 

Just for the record i have never had a single issue like above or BSOD etc etc running a single card on my M18xR1 and it seems every issue i have seen or hear about everyday from Speedy are all related to Crossfire.

I have tried every single driver under the sun as well and still nothing .

 

With single 7970M you won't have any problems i guess all is because of crossfire.

 

Your point is well taken Brother Quad, but it doesn't offer any consolation. Having an M18x with an empty PCIe slot or CrossFire turned off does not interest me. Until AMD releases a driver that allows 7970M to function correctly in CrossFire, I will consider the 7970M GPU to be a failure. Hopefully, the wait won't be much longer.

 

Hold on please... I have disabled the corssfirex for a while now, because I am not satisfied with the performance of it. Unfortunately those pics are with a single cards / crossfirex disabled...

And in the evening, removed the 12.6 driver went back to the 12.7 beta, crossfire enabled and so far everything good... Lets see!

 

I was offering a possible temporary solution to maybe some frustrated people waiting for those magical unicorn AMD drivers that will come along and fix all the hardware and software issues

I know its an absolutely horrible solution as well and Speedy has been saying it all along like i have to disable a card to enjoy my machine ? yeah that is not why you guys paid for 2 cards.

Myself on the other hand have always disliked/hated crossfire with a passion but a single card i knew would be just fine for my needs .

I started hating dual video card setups when i had to go into a control panel and start disabling a card to properly play a game with out having negative side effects actually making games run worse, all that is just to much hassle for me to switch back and forth depending on what i feel like playing .

Also Juliant your issue could be even though you have a card disabled the card populating the second slot could still be causing issues even though its sitting there doing nothing as its really not turned off in the traditional sense and it still using resources.

Or you have a bad card/hardware/both etc.

They replaced Speedys cards already once and bunch of other stuff but yeah its still the same old same old.

Hope they come up with a solution for you Crossfire guys soon or replace the hardware entirely and i dont mean with the same stuff .

 

Got that 2 days ago but mine was orange with white grayish lines, happened out of nowhere I think I was just browsing the net. Currently on 12.6

 

i have all the same problems.. nothing new is being listed yet..

 

The one thing that makes me hopeful that drivers are to blame is how remarkable the changes in behavior are from one driver to the next. None of them work correctly, but it seems that each driver version brings a new issue of some kind. Unless there is an engineering defect at the hardware level, the prevalence of the same problems on so many systems that have CrossFire, but not a single GPU, may also offer a shimmer of hope that drivers are the root cause of the problems. Maybe AMD should just remove the CrossFire port from the PCB so it cannot be used in a multi-GPU system. Then they can avoid being accountable for producing a product that works in CrossFire.

 

Someone experiencing random lockups/freezes during normal work with 12.7 beta or 12.6 WHQL? (they all are bugged i think) with 12.5 beta i didn't had such issues.

 

Yes, frequently with both of those drivers. With 12.5 the most prevalent issue I have is the screen going black when the cards ramped up to 3D clock speeds. Try going to YouTube and opening 2 or 3 Google Chrome browser tabs with streaming video and see what happens.