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So this is my first non-NVIDIA card in a very very long time, In fact I haven't purchased anything else since the Riva TNT. (I also had a 3dfx Banshee during that time )

So I got my new HAWTNESS card on friday the Gigiabyte R9 280x Rev2. I know to usually forgo the CD for the drivers because chances are they are outdated. So I proceed to AMD's driver page. I guess AMD doesnt have WHQL drivers, because all I see are Beta's. In fact going back a year there isnt a single WHQL driver for video cards. WTH? And whats up with the bloatware that installed? Who actually uses this crapware Raptr???? Anyways short rant but if there are any AMD owners out there that want to give me some tips and tricks or tell what I should and shouldn't do I am all ears.

Try this link here. It will lead to a selection driver that match that latest drivers to your GPU in question. The latest WHQL drivers from AMD for 7/8 are 13.9 on HD 5xxx or newer. For legacy platforms it is at version 13.1, they should be another release soon on this cycle.

For advanced driver and profile settings, try RadeonPro.

tanker27 wrote:

So this is my first non-NVIDIA card in a very very long time, In fact I haven't purchased anything else since the Riva TNT. (I also had a 3dfx Banshee during that time )

So I got my new HAWTNESS card on friday the Gigiabyte R9 280x Rev2. I know to usually forgo the CD for the drivers because chances are they are outdated. So I proceed to AMD's driver page. I guess AMD doesnt have WHQL drivers, because all I see are Beta's. In fact going back a year there isnt a single WHQL driver for video cards. WTH? And whats up with the bloatware that installed? Who actually uses this crapware Raptr???? Anyways short rant but if there are any AMD owners out there that want to give me some tips and tricks or tell what I should and shouldn't do I am all ears.

I recently acquired a AMD card after 3 years with NVIDIA. Beta drivers don't bother me so much, as I used them with NVIDIA too. The Raptr is supposed to be something similar to Geforce Experience, I disabled it until it leaves beta phase. Maybe I'll give it a shot then. Anyways, the beta drivers look decent for now, no problems yet. Can't see much of a difference between NVIDIA or AMD, NVIDIA drivers gave loads of problems in the last year too so...

The first driver to support the R9 cards hasn't been certified by Microsoft yet. What does this mean? Not a thing. Microsoft just hasn't got off their arse and slapped a WHQL logo on it. As for the "bloatware" Raptr, it is optional. Why did you not download the driver only, or uncheck it when you installed Catalyst Control Center?

For those who don't know, Raptr is AMD's "GeForce Experiance" It offers game setting optimizations, and streaming of live game feeds. The bad part is that it tries to be a few other little things on top of that, and does so badly. Fortunatly those things can be easily disabled.

Philldoe wrote:

Why did you not download the driver only, or uncheck it when you installed Catalyst Control Center?

TBH, I didnt know what I would need. I guess from now on its just driver and Catalyst Control Center.

Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to use the betas. At least on the Linux side, the beta drivers are often *more* stable than the official releases; wouldn't surprise me if the same is true on Windows. (And yes, I know that is "damning with faint praise"... the quality of the official releases can be a low bar sometimes. But it is what it is.)

Betas were all that was available for quite a while when my 6870 was new too, can't speak for the 7xxx line. It feels a bit goofy, but if they work I wouldn't get all bothered about it.

If you want to use official WHQL drivers then force 7/8 run with the Radeon 7950/7970 drivers. It is the same silicon (albeit a different stepping).

I have had more bad luck with windows updates screwing stuff up then I have had with drivers. Recently my bros PC, win8 with hd4850 perfect, the automatic updates put in .1 update and everything took a crap............sigh.

anotherengineer wrote:

I have had more bad luck with windows updates screwing stuff up then I have had with drivers. Recently my bros PC, win8 with hd4850 perfect, the automatic updates put in .1 update and everything took a crap............sigh.

If it makes you feel any better, I have a similar issue on Linux. Any Ubuntu update that includes kernel patches (which typically occurs once or twice a month) borks the ATI drivers. Every. Single. Damn. Time.

At least once you know to expect it, it isn't too bad. Just one more step you gotta take after installing kernel updates. (There's also a way to automate it, but I haven't bothered to figure it out...)

tanker27 wrote:

Philldoe wrote:

Why did you not download the driver only, or uncheck it when you installed Catalyst Control Center?

TBH, I didnt know what I would need. I guess from now on its just driver and Catalyst Control Center.

I tend to do the same thing, though for the longest time I only installed the driver. Programs like Raptr and GeForce Experience are made for people who don't really know what their doing with game settings. People like us don't need it.

And don't be afraid of beta drivers from AMD, you're actually better off with them IMO.