Dell Official 7970M Driver Released

Lol yeah i figure you will get hit with some massive restocking plus the shipping costs so it might not be practical at all to return it.

 

download and installed and here is benmark link: AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,Alienware M18xR2 score: P29377 3DMarks

 

Which test was that one. Let me know and I can do a direct comparison (I have the same CPU/GPU) on the 12.7b drivers. I will have to do it in 1080p though.

 

That is 3dmark Vantage.

 

Thanks ill give it a crack now.

 

Who cannot download it:

ftp.dell.com - /FOLDER00619166M/2/

 

I cant either

 

I can repost for you archive on a file storage site if you want

 

That would be awesome. Ill give them a try too. How did they go for you ?

 

Still downloading, 40megabytes left (low dl speed 40kb/sec )

 

I'm thinking of doing this method. What do you think?

It sounds feasible, but I'm still not sure...
I'm on the 12.7b's with CAP 1 now which have been pretty good to me except for the freezes which may be avoidable if i switch to single GPU from browsing.

UPDATE: Just had my usual White & Black pinstripe freeze running with 1 gpu. Dammit. Cmon Dell, Cmon AMD, get it together guys!!

 

Ok, I made a comparison between 12.7 and the Dell drivers and I must say the 12.7 are way better and more stable than the official dell AMD drivers. Crysis 2, Diablo 3 and Skyrim runs more stable in 12.7.

Looks like we have to really fix the drivers.

 

I can only user basic (720P) - Kind of pointless no ?

 

I'm not having much luck with the new drivers. I was previously on the original drivers and so I've never gotten most of my games to work in crossfire enabled mode. However, at least my system is still stable...

When I try to run a game such as black ops, I usually just get a black screen. Or games such as Left 4 Dead 2 and Supreme Commander 2, I get a GREEN screen. Oh well. Back to Crossfire disabled...

UPDATE:
Metro 2033, Alien vs Predators, La Noire works with Crossfire enabled.
Black Ops, Supreme Commander, Left 4 Dead 2 do not work with Crossfire enabled.

 

For what do we need video transcoding in these drivers? I am having kdbsync.exe stopped bug with them (uninstalled them)

here's the driver:

http://webcoder.kz/sites/default/files/Gfx_AMD_A01_8.973_N3GM1_setup_ZPE.exe

 

Enduro is possible with this driver?
Is with the M18xR2 enduro possible?

 

Thankfully, there is no such thing as Enduro or Optimus with the M18x. Hybrid switchable graphics introduces a unique set of technical issues that we don't need to be concerned with having manual graphics switching. CrossFire and SLI are not compatible with hybrid switching.

 

I agree... No matter how many drivers I try in my M17x R4 the performance is much lower than I expect and lower FPS wise than reported in reviews such as Notebookcheck and other reviews (and users on here) - I genuinely believe I received a bad 7970M card. Alienware UK tech support constanly say it's probably "drivers" though. Had it since the 6th June and I've done less than 20 hours gaming on the thing....

So, yeah, potentially bad cards have been shipped.

 

For anyone having frequent freezing issues like I and TBoneSan have been experiencing, try using system restore to eliminate the recent Windows updates. I did that a few hours ago and I am no longer having lockup while web browsing. I chose a restore point from about a month ago.

It has not fixed the other functionality problems with my AMD GPUs, but at least basic web browsing is possible now. There were about 12 Windows update that were eliminated and I have not narrowed it down to the offending update(s) yet. I have Windows Update set to notify me, but let me choose whether or not to download and install updates.

 

Ok i clean installed these drivers after running ccleaner and Driver sweeper in safe mode. Bf3 runs fine with 60-80 fps on ultra in caspian map. Skyrim still shows artifacts when you pause the game and stutters during game a bit. Sometimes the ground has no terrain textures and takes a few secs before you see them appear. Never had a problem like that with the 12.7 beta.

 

Hi firestarter. Happy Saturday. Is your system and M18x R1 or M18x R2? I have the same issues with the M18x R1.

 

Hi Mr. Fox, I have the M18x R2 which I received about 3 days ago. The original drivers had absolutely no issues with Skyrim except I would notice this constant "stutter" while moving. But at least there was no artifacts with the game pause nor any in game glitch until I downloaded these new official Dell drivers posted by OP.

 

I will stick with the 12.7 beta for now. The installation of 12.7 has no issue and provides better gaming performance.

 

Thankyou for the upload. Much appreciated.

Looks like I'm going to stay on the 12.7b old ye faithfuls for now and just bend over and cop it sweet while *Dell and AMD are high 5-ing*.
Only hope to look forward to now are the official AMD's should they ever come.

 

Can any tell me if Call of Duty: Black Ops (steam powered version) works with Crossfire Enabled? If so, what version of the AMD driver (A00, A01, or generic12.6, etc)?

I just get a black screen when I start mine with Crossfire enabled.

 

Well im not sure about Black ops but i have palyed MW3 with 12.6 driver without any issue, crossfire was enabled.

 

I guess we really need to fix this drivers ASAP. It's actually worst than what we have. I reverted back to 12.7 for the time being.

Maybe the 680m gtx SLI offer is getting better as time goes on.

 

Thanks for the plus point Mr. Fox. I will definitely try that out...

 

Just cause 2 menu artifacting and something wrong with ingame shadows. Went to 12.5 Beta again

 

Played another half hour of Skyrim, other than the pause flickering artifact, game seems to be running fine. BF3 plays great by the way. I haven't had a chance to play Skyrim in the outdoor maps so I cant tell if there is any lag issue or if the fps is low for crossfire.

 

While outdoors especially, Skyrim is an absolute joke with this GPU, even with CrossFire disabled. I'm so sick of watching the people and animals hopping up and down... riding a horse is like being on a pogo stick. Basically it's unplayable with 7970M CrossFire. I never had a moment's trouble with Skyrim using SLI. Come to think of it, every game and benchmark program I own ran flawlessly with SLI. I don't remember having issues playing anything " the way it's meant to be played" LOL.

 

It's funny because I remember having my 6990M XFire setup. $3500 notebook. I was forced to disable crossfire to play the game (Skyrim) w/o negative scaling. Here it is, the 7970 and still not even support for their future card...

 

really wow? well thakns god I didn't buy it the other day.

 

Mr Fox you need to put your 580m's back in lol or upgrade to 680m's and be the first

 

Oh, I'm so glad you did not. That would have been a very tragic mistake.

The power of the 7970M GPU is phenomenal, but that quickly starts to fade and doesn't mean much when only about half of my games will run properly. It's weird... it does a spectacular job when it works right, but it very frequently does not.

Just to set the record straight, a few of the problems I was having were due to a Windows Update being incompatible with the GPU. Rolling back with System Restore before the last batch of Windows Updates seems to have corrected my severe freezing issues and BSOD while streaming YouTube videos. It was definitely something relating to the GPU or AMD driver because it would never happen when using the HD 3000 IGP. I also have not encountered the pinstriped screen problem since rolling back, so I am able to do simple things like web browsing without problems. It seems I am back to a place of being stable with rather erratic gaming performance results.

 

well my own problems vary.. xfire ha never really worked for me.. and thats my biggest problem.. but it seems like the driver deteriorate over time?
its the only way i can describe it.. its like if you do a fresh clean install.. of every thing then gpu drivers and run only thos on a few game and benchs marks and dont update any thing else the driver just fizzels out.. its wierd.. and thats on one card..forget xfire the problems are way more apparent with it on.. on single gpu it just takes longer for the issues to show but once they start to oh boy your in for a ride..

 

Yes, I agree with that. And, it doesn't make any sense to me. Drivers don't really deteriorate over time, but the performance of the GPU certainly seems to, and it's very puzzling.

 

Believe me Mr. Fox, the issue with those cards is only the DRIVERS. Those are phenomenal cards. It took me near 4 days to make it work, as it should work in my m17xR3. How many drivers I had to install and remove, play with the registry, delete entries from the older drivers, but never given up.

Finally the switch for the m17xR3 works (FN+F7), brightness works and today I left all days games running on it (most of the games at high settings and frames never gone below 35-40 fps). It was a long procedure because while you install the intel driver, it messes up the AMD driver and the other way around. Now from morning this system works nice.

I am getting my m18xR2 tomorrow morning and hoping they have done something with those new models which include the 7970m. IF they have updated the vbios, I will post it here for everyone. If in few days I still face the same issue I had with my previous one (which is back in the box and ready to return to dell), I will have to ship this back to dell as well and get a refund, wait for some 'stable' updates and enjoy the m17xR3 with my 'mods'.

 

The 12.7b hotfix drivers that are currently available seem to do a fair (but not great) job with OpenGL, DX9 (excluding Skyrim) and DX10 games. They still do poorly with DX11 games. Their performance is inexcusably inconsistent with CrossFire and they are so buggy that I don't know why they bothered including a CrossFire port on the cards. Maybe AMD has plans to make them work correctly at some point in the future, but they should have held off on releasing them to manufacturing until such time as they had all of the bugs worked out.

 

I can wait to see how the 680M will perform ,

 

Although I don't have CF 7990m's, after what I have read I will definitely be going green next upgrade.

 

Guys, though you may have reason to disagree, with this latest driver update I am now certain many of you (most of you?) are having hardware issues.

I am now using these drivers, with VERY few issues. The issues I still have are the stuttering (but not as much as 12.7b) in Skyrim and the menu flickering (probably, I haven't seen it yet, but I didn't test the menus, only gameplay).

Crysis 1 has crossfire issues in that I hang at 40 FPS with 30% GPU utilization both GPUs, but it's definitely playable. This has been true on every driver I have tested.

Though driver bugs are apparent (sometimes skype gives me a DX error, skryim issues, low GPU utlization some games), I do not have any major problems. I have tried the 12.5s, the 12.6s, the 12.7b, and the dell official and I have never had a single bluescreen, pin-stripes or any issue whatsoever. I have had my machine since july 3rd without any major problems.

I can play MW3, BF3, Crysis 1 & 2, Metro 2033, adobe flash games, youtube videos, and I can run Heaven and 3D mark 11 without problems (and my scores are what's expected - I can get the exact numbers next time I'm on my laptop).

Let me summarize: the only problems I have right now are low GPU utilization in some titles (Crysis) and stuttering in others (Skyrim, much lower rate, now, however), and a DX error that may occur after many (6-10) hours of skyping. My system has not crashed, nor ever forced me to do a hard-reboot.

I recommend to all of you to return your 7970s and hope you can get ones that work like mine, because I have 0 problems, and the ACTUAL driver issues, like stuttering and low-gpu-utilization (only noticable using afterburner, as I cannot notice a lower framerate - still smooth), will likely ACTUALLY be fixed in future drivers, where I doubt the other problems you guys are suffering will be, as I cannot replicate any of them with any drivers.

If you disagree with me, that's fine, but I see no other explanation for why my system works nearly perfect while you guys are suffering so many problems. I even follow Mr. Fox's step by step instructions for removing and installing drivers.

 

I agree, I think you guys most likely have a hardware issue. My cards are working fine - other than the awful Crossfire GPU usage in some games. The biggest issue I have is occasional random crashes in The Witcher 2, which I hear is an issue with CFX for everyone.

Hearing all you guys having crashes and freezes and the such...the only thing it could be is hardware, considering there are those (lucky) few of us running them without major issues. For those with R1s, maybe it's a hardware compatibility issue, but the issues with R2s are probably poor GPUs I'd say.

 

Thanks for the feedback on the latest driver. I have passed along the comments and details we have so far to the quality engineering team.

Need to address two points.

As far as systems not sold with these cards, we cannot guarantee or support functionality of our drivers in your systems. You would need to seek other avenues- perhaps directly from AMD support forums or elsewhere- to get the drivers working. **Edit Referring to 18XR1, 7970's have not been validated on this platform.

For those owners of systems sold with the cards, we are working as quickly as we can with our partners at AMD to get a working driver from them qualified and posted for our systems. When they give us something new we can work with, we'll post back updates here as they become available.

Will address questions as well as have one of my team on here to help out as well.

 

Hello Mark i have a question will the recently ordered m18x be equipped with these new drivers or would we need to install these drivers by ourselves?

 

Wow so if I buy upgraded cards for my laptop, pay dell's huge prices, you don't support the cards you sold me? So dell will take my money and say good luck with drivers... Every day I am hating dell more and more...

 

Drivers are loaded at factory. Depends on when it ships. Takes a few days for the transition to the new driver.

That point was regarding the 18XR1. The video cards have not been validated for that system. Installing the driver appears to be the issue at the moment. The cards have been validated on the 18XR2.

 

this is going to be The post that was heard around the world..

 

guess my point is what is the use of buying an alienware... ok you can buy the parts for your nice 3,000+ dollar laptop. you can upgrade it and spend a huge amount of money with us upgrading it, but we can't guarantee or support functionality of our drivers in your systems.

it isn't like it is supporting a system from say 3 or 4 years ago... we are talking about a system that came out a little over a year ago... I know when I got my system one of the main reasons was, it is upgradable... now with the post you made and the way I read it say basicly you need to buy a new system to get dell supported drivers...

And this me saying dell has dropped the ball on this completely like many other things... And if you are going to say it could come in the future, I am not sure I trust buying it from dell/alienware...

 

Wait a minute here so why DELL send 7970's to R1 owners to begin with this means all the R1 owners who received this upgrade should get a compensation at some point because DELL send them video cards that are not even supposed to go in the R1