Rollo
11-21-08, 10:51 PM
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3463&p=6
Maintaining a monthly driver release schedule is detrimental to AMD's ability to release quality drivers. This is not the first or only issue we've seen that could have been solved (or at least noticed) by expanded testing that isn't possible with such tight release deadlines. Yes, consistent and frequent driver releases to improve compatibility and performance are a necessity, but doing anything to excess is a very bad idea. Moderation is key and AMD severely needs a better balance here.
We've been mentioning this as an issue in passing when it pops up and causes us problems, but this is starting to get ridiculous. It is one thing when previous fixes are broken or when older games fall off the grid and are neglected. But when a major title like Far Cry 2 is released to incredibly poor driver support, it is time to wake up and realize that something is wrong. This is not the first time we've seen issues with a newly released game, but the problems we've had with AMD drivers and Far Cry 2 are some of the worst we've ever experienced.
And this time it isn't just us. This isn't prerelease hardware or a beta software package. This isn't a quick fix "oops I forgot something" kind of bug. Though we tend to see problems a lot more frequently than end users, we do see a lot more issues with AMD drivers than NVIDIA. Even though not all those issues are things that we need to bother end users with, the probability of hitting a bug that will affect end users is much higher when you've got a higher number of bugs to worry about in general.
Now don't get me wrong, AMD drivers are still much better than they were before Catalyst. Back during the transition to Vista, ATI drivers were hands and feet above NVIDIA drivers for a long time (and they didn't hang XP out to dry either). AMD has maintained a unified driver model where NVIDIA had to break up their driver for different hardware generations for a while.
And now it is time for AMD to learn from their mistakes and change over to a more manageable and sensible driver release policy. Double the time between driver releases, do much much more testing across hardware platforms and games, and maybe even regularly release partly QA'd beta drivers in between WHQL drivers if there's something that needs a quick fix.
No Crossfire on this huge title, unplayable stuttering on every card but the 1GB 4870.....:(:(
Maintaining a monthly driver release schedule is detrimental to AMD's ability to release quality drivers. This is not the first or only issue we've seen that could have been solved (or at least noticed) by expanded testing that isn't possible with such tight release deadlines. Yes, consistent and frequent driver releases to improve compatibility and performance are a necessity, but doing anything to excess is a very bad idea. Moderation is key and AMD severely needs a better balance here.
We've been mentioning this as an issue in passing when it pops up and causes us problems, but this is starting to get ridiculous. It is one thing when previous fixes are broken or when older games fall off the grid and are neglected. But when a major title like Far Cry 2 is released to incredibly poor driver support, it is time to wake up and realize that something is wrong. This is not the first time we've seen issues with a newly released game, but the problems we've had with AMD drivers and Far Cry 2 are some of the worst we've ever experienced.
And this time it isn't just us. This isn't prerelease hardware or a beta software package. This isn't a quick fix "oops I forgot something" kind of bug. Though we tend to see problems a lot more frequently than end users, we do see a lot more issues with AMD drivers than NVIDIA. Even though not all those issues are things that we need to bother end users with, the probability of hitting a bug that will affect end users is much higher when you've got a higher number of bugs to worry about in general.
Now don't get me wrong, AMD drivers are still much better than they were before Catalyst. Back during the transition to Vista, ATI drivers were hands and feet above NVIDIA drivers for a long time (and they didn't hang XP out to dry either). AMD has maintained a unified driver model where NVIDIA had to break up their driver for different hardware generations for a while.
And now it is time for AMD to learn from their mistakes and change over to a more manageable and sensible driver release policy. Double the time between driver releases, do much much more testing across hardware platforms and games, and maybe even regularly release partly QA'd beta drivers in between WHQL drivers if there's something that needs a quick fix.
No Crossfire on this huge title, unplayable stuttering on every card but the 1GB 4870.....:(:(