***AMD Beta Driver Release***

I totally forgot about the brightness adjustment control.
I just tested it while currently running on AMDs 11.10 drivers. The image shows I am dimming and increasing brightness however no change in brightness up or down.

Just a quick 3d mark 11 run for reference. http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2197010?show_ads=true&page=/3dm11/2197010?key=y34kIduZ0Z4v8f98_jP6jA

Cheers.

 

Yeah, I know that brightness doesnt work on AMD 11.10 whql - for some reason, AMD forget to address this more or less on every release.

Nice score btw Reborn...from recollection, thats the kinda score thats normal for the spec.

 

Thanks Stevie,

Yeh that is more or less the stock standard score give or take 100 points or so with these specs.
I'll use it to compare as a baseline with the new Dell drivers.
I'll run some other tests too and save the results.
Games like BF3, FIFA12 and MW3 have been running pretty well. Max settings and they run great.

Cheers.

 

Good man, Chief, look forward to seeing your results.

 

I just decided I have to get that "reboot and relax" message out as often as possible to avoid irritating and needless calls to tech support. Those guys can't do anything to fix it at this point, and there's always the risk that some individual perhaps didn't read the email and sets customer expectations that parts will resolve. Then frustration escalates.

But I'm with you: driver updates.

Boom! You're on the list. (so's everyone on this thread if we manage to get it before it posts.)

All good. We're all friends here. *No balls were busted in the posting of this message.

Live long and prosper yourself!!1

 

And a special note just for Stevie:

*SMILEY WINK* See you on the call.

 

@Dell-Bill_B if you need a 6970m user to test some drivers i'm your man

 

Hmm, I wonder if the drivers would benefit me. I'd be down for some testing once they are available. Granted it may hose my system, but thats what image backups are for. Just interested to see how it works with an old 17x R2 with Clevo 6990s

 

*SMILEY WINK* INDEED!

 

11.11 CAP1 is out now.
Rage3D

11.11 driver should be around somewhere then.
and here they are............. http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx



Cheers.

 

Seems its already out Chief. Wether or not the MAD installer (oops, meant AMD ) recognises our cards is another matter. Top find though fella!

ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

If they dont work, you could try the drivers from this thread:

AMD Catalyst 11.11 WHQL (8.911.0 October 25) - Download & Discussion - Guru3D.com Forums

Direct .exe link to Win7 64bit here:

http://www2.ati.com/DriVeRs/mobile/11-11_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe

 

Thanks Stevie,

Unfortunately no time to test them out right now. Off to work.
Will do some testing maybe after work if I get time.

Cheers.

 

Yeah, no rush Chief - bedtime here in the UK so I am sure I will look at it later too....

 

This guy tweeted me this afternoon that he was getting BSODs from 11.11 on his M18x. FWIW

 

yeah, BSOD with 11.11 for me too... and also for the guys in this thread --> http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/624988-amd-catalyst-11-11-out-now-wait-soonish.html

I went back to catalysts 11.9 because the 11.10 broke the brightness control...

ps. I have two 6970m

 

Thanks for the heads up Bill, and thanks, Carillo Gallardo, for confirming. Looks like a not-so-stellar release from AMD....who'd have guessed....

For anyone who wants to follow AMD 11.11 here on NBR, discussion for them located here in the linked thread above, posted by Carillo.

From a quick read through, it isn't even worth bothering with 11.11 at the moment - too much hassle.

 

really disappointed with this. makes me wonder i should have gone green.

 

Hmmmmm i'm not feeling too good if it keeps BSODing for peeps.

When is the driver BSODing for you guys?
During installation or after? During a game or something?

Cheers.

 

Posted this in my 11.11 thread, maybe it will help someone here!

So this is interesting. I'm using 11.10 from AMD's site and 11.11 CAP1 and I have my brightness control back.

I uninstalled AMD through the uninstall AMD software.
Boot to safe mode
Control Panel > System > Device Manager > Display > Uninstall both cards and check the "Delete driver software
Driver Sweeper
CCleaner > Registry Check
Boot into Windows
Install 11.10 > Reboot
Install 11.11 CAP1 > Reboot

I now have my brightness controls working beautifully!

 

Will deffo give that a try - thanks Maynard....

+1 rep for you!

 

From what I understand, the BSOD on the Dell version happens on 2 configs of M17x, but installs fine on M18x.

 

You referring to the Dell driver that is to be released soon Bill? or is there another Dell one based on AMD 11.11?

 

Any luck?! I'm excited to see if this works.

 

I am on 11.10 DD and 11.11 CAP 1 and the brightness controls are not working. It was working with DD 11.10 before I tried out 11.11. The previous setup was 11.10 and CAP 4 for 11.9.

Everything cleaned out with driver sweeper from safemode between new installations. So thats not an issue.

There is something else going on here.

 

I just tried 11.10 with 11.11 cap 1 and brightness control isnt working for me either. The brightness OSD thingy pops up but it does jack. Also BF3 performance has taken a serious dip. The fps lag is even worse now. One moment I am running at 60fps then down to 0 and me being dead.

 

Not tired it yet, completely forgot about it - will try and get to it later.

I'm currently on 11.10 whql and CAP4 11.9 - brightness doesnt work with tht arrangement.
You mention above that it WAS working with 11.10? - odd as most people I have seen say it went fubar again with thise drivers...

 

Brightness control was non-functional for me on 11.10 as well. Brightness control worked fine for me on 11.9 WHQL, but not 11.9 preview.

Dell's new AMD driver should be out soon. Looking forward to seeing/hearing how it works.

 

Was referencing the Dell driver Louis has. Not posted yet due to some issues cropping up in testing.

 

Ahhhh, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Just out of curosity how does the AMD card show up in device manager/GPUz

I'm only getting AMD Radeon HD 6900M series.

Is that normal?

 

i never seen AMD release any 11.9 WHQL drivers

 

Yep. That's completely normal. If your on AMD drivers, thats how they are displayed under gpu-z and device manager. Only when you are running Dell drivers will they show up as the actual card/s you have....nothing to worry about.

 

I'm using stock dell drivers and gpuz it's never showed up as anything but 6900m series

I've had problems with this machine since I got it, they just replaced motherboard today

Today was the first time I could even get the drivers to install

 

Look in Device Manager. See what it shows there for the video card names.

GPU-Z does not always recognize the cards correctly. You should see core clock speeds of 715 and memory clock speeds of 900 in GPU-Z and that will verify the cards are 6990M.

If you run a 3DMark11 benchmark, you will see a similar issue. Very common to show up as "6900M Series" or "AMD Radeon HD 6970M / 6990M" because the AMD drivers are incomplete and missing important information about the video cards.

 

Maybe you blinked one too many times to notice... Catalyst 11.9 Release Notes and Catalyst 11.9 Download

For a Catalyst release older than the most current, here is a list with links to download them: Previous AMD Catalyst Drivers

 

As long as they are 1120 shaders with 715 on the GPU and 900 on the Mem, all is fine and they really are 6990Ms

 

Yup that is normal.
To confirm if you have the 6970M or 6990M GPU you need to check the GPU Clock and MEM + the shader count.

6990M has 1120 Shaders and is clocked at 715mhz GPU Clock and 900mhz Mem clock.

Lower 960 shaders for the 6970M GPU - I can't remember the 6970M GPU clocks.

Cheers.

 

AMD Catalyst Application Profile - 11.11 CAP2 (Release Notes)
Rage3D

New profiles added with this release:

Saints Row 3: Resolves stuttering seen when playing in CrossFireX mode.
Also provides Single GPU and CrossFireX performance improvements when running in lower resolution configurations
Gothic 4 Arcania: Fall of Setarrif: Improves CrossFire performance

 

Any news on the drivers peeps?

I can smell them sizzling on the frying pan!
It shouldn't be too long now before they are cooked and ready to be served.

Cheers.

 

I'm being offered a mobo replacement but am hesitant as i don't think the fact that the 2nd GPU fan does not work is related to the mobo. Have you experienced any positive results from a new mobo ?

 

No news as yet bud. They gotta be better than AMD 11.11

 

As promised guys, I had some spare time to do some benches the other day whilst my system is AMD and on AMD Drivers.

I've done a few for comparative purposes so that when Bill & Team Dell do release the Dell Beta-Driver they have been working on, theres some grounds for comparison.

All the below are stock. My cpu is set at level 3 factory OC speeds. There is no overclock on the gpu's and the system is propped up on my U3 with fans on.

The AMD drivers I have been using to do these tests are AMD 11.10 WHQL and Catalyst Application Profiles 11.9 Cap4.

No repasting or anything else - no CCC tweaks to disable stuff - just loaded up and ran as per usual for accuracy & honesty lol

Also, I havent got round to re-installing my HyperX yet so these were done on Dell stock 4gb 1333mhz ram.

So, here goes!

FutureMark 3dMark 11:

Spoiler

FutureMark 3d Mark Vantage:

Spoiler

FutrureMark 3d Mark 06:

Spoiler

Metro 2033 "In-Game" Bench Tool & Adrenaline Bench Tool for Crysis 2:

Spoiler

Unigene Heaven DX11 Benchmark Tool:

Spoiler

Thats about all I tested....I guess I could have done more but thought that would be sufficient to provide a good enough comparison when Dell officially release their newest driver for us to test.

 

Excellent work, as usual, Mr. Jones. +1 Rep

Metro 2033 is a bit of a brutal benchmark. With Depth of Field (DoF) checked, it really clogs things up. See comparison of enabled vs disabled (attached). Metro 2033 is a game where the AMD 6990M CrossFire setup seems to spank the NVIDIA GTX 580M SLI setup.

 

Thanks Fox...I think the scores are pretty much on par for a spec like mine with stock clocks - granted, my extreme cpu helps out with some of those results so not everyone looking at them will get the same.

If anyone else wants to post up benches for their system, that would be great as then we will have a wider specification base to correlate with.

 

Heaven Benchmark v2.5 Basic
FPS: 59.7
Scores: 1505
Min FPS: 9.6
Max FPS: 135.0
Hardware
Binary: Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1600 Release Mar 1 2011
Operating system: Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1) 64bit
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
CPU flags: 2192MHz MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE41 SSE42 HTT
GPU model: AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series 8.902.0.0 CrossFireX 2048Mb
Settings
Render: direct3d11
Mode: 1920x1080 fullscreen
Shaders: high
Textures: high
Filter: trilinear
Anisotropy: 4x
Occlusion: enabled
Refraction: enabled
Volumetric: enabled
Tessellation: normal

now everything turned up, sorry for the long post

Heaven Benchmark v2.5 Basic
FPS: 31.5
Scores: 794
Min FPS: 10.3
Max FPS: 78.6
Hardware
Binary: Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1600 Release Mar 1 2011
Operating system: Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1) 64bit
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
CPU flags: 2192MHz MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE41 SSE42 HTT
GPU model: AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series 8.902.0.0 CrossFireX 2048Mb
Settings
Render: direct3d11
Mode: 1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Shaders: high
Textures: high
Filter: trilinear
Anisotropy: 16x
Occlusion: enabled
Refraction: enabled
Volumetric: enabled
Tessellation: extreme

__________________
Alienware M18x Space Black Anodized Aluminum| Intel Core i7 2670QM 2.2GHz (3.1GHz w/Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)| 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (4DIMMS)| Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6990M AMD CrossFireX| 1.5TB RAID 0, 2x 750GB, 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s

 

I ran a couple of benches on my m18x, usual 3D Mark and a couple of different ones as well for a change

M18x as in sig, running Cat 11.9. Sat on the desk beside my desktop PC, no extra cooling fans just extra heat! Everything at stock speeds.

3D mark Vantage: 22329, AMD Radeon HD 6970M / 6990M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P22329 3DMarks
3D Mark11: 6367 - exactly 100 behind steviejones!, AMD Radeon HD 6970M / 6990M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P6367 3DMarks

Dirt 3 using settings below, Av: 60.32; Min: 49.92 fps
Resolution: 1920x1080
Refresh Rate: 60 (120 on PC)
Multisampling: 4 x MSAA
Vsync: Off
Aspect Ratio: Auto
Night Lighting: High
Shadows: High
Particles: High
Mirrors: High
Characters: High
Ground Cover: High
Distant Vehicles: High
Objects: High
Trees: High
Vehicle Reflections: High
Water: High
Post Process: On
Skidmarks: High
Cloth: High

F1 2011 using the settings below, Av: 33; Min 24 fps
Resolution: 1920x1080
Refresh Rate: 60
Multisampling: 4 x MSAA
Vsync: Off
Aspect Ratio: Auto
Direct X Version: 11
Shadows: High
Particles: High
Crowd: High
Drivers: High
Distant Vehicles: High
Objects: High
Trees: High
Vehicle Reflections: High
Post Process: On
Skidmarks: High
Cloth: High

Super SF IV Arcade Edition using settings below, Score: 5934; Av: 197.714 fps
Resolution: 1920x1080
Vsync: On
Framerate: Fixed
Antialiasing:8x
Filtering: 16x
Model Quality: High
Stage Quality: High
Soft Shadow: Extreme
Self Shadow: High
Motion Blur: High
Particles: High
Extra Effect: Off

 

@stu.artd & @chillbill - good job on the benching, bros. Thanks for posting the results for comparison to the new Dell driver. Let's hope we see it soon.
+1 Rep to both of you...

Happy Thanksgiving to all (even to those not in the USA... we've plenty of things to be thankful for)

 

Just a heads up for you guys: 8.93 driver works and so do the brightness controls. Been using it since last night and its working good.

 

Im unfortunately faced with a dillema. Im in the last week of my 21 day return period. I do have the overheat issues many of us face. I need to make the hard choice of returning the system or keeping it, hopefully with dell comming out with a solid fix for the fan issue. Although the HWINFO64 workaround/ reboot is not a huge issue, it is however not what I paid over 3000 USD for. Decisions Decisions

 

chillbill - for what it's worth, I would suggest returning it for a refund and reordering another M18x with GTX 580M SLI since you are still within the 21-day window. If I were in your shoes, that's the choice I would make.

I am very confident that Dell is going to come up with a solution to this problem. When they do, it will correct the problems with the fans and overheating, but it will not address the ongoing problem of AMD not doing a good job of producing quality drivers for their customers. The 6970M and 6990M video cards have awesome performance potential and they are very good pieces of hardware with lackluster driver support. This has been a bad year for AMD. Every video driver released in the past few months has seemed to have some sort of a problem.