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    AW ATI 8.761 BETA Driver - M17xR2/M17x/M15x (August 2010) - Discuss Here...

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by BatBoy, Aug 9, 2010.

  1. Grimfan

    Grimfan Personal Shrink

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    Thanks for the update on the situation, Brian. I wish i could help again, test along the next 2 weeks when the new drivers would be up. But i'm in vacation from tomorrow, so i hope when i get back, there is already a new stable driver available :) Have fun guys and see you soon...
     
  2. infernia

    infernia Notebook Evangelist

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    Okay after playing Bioshock 2 with fraps I am averaging 20-22fps. Hwmonitor32 is not reporting the second GPU other than its ID but no temp info. When asking about this in that particular thread, HWMonitor32, I was told this has to do with ATI ULPS. Where the second gpu is shut off when not in use.
    This can be changed in the registry but without knowing what effects that will have, I am a bit wary.
    Thinking I was somehow having trouble with the second card in general, I found the GPU TOOLS Demo on AMD for the 5800 series real time demo. I tried out the mecha and ladybug demos; the Crossfire icon showed in the corner and they ran beautifully. DX11 and obviously optimized for ATI.

    When I am in the crossfire tab in ccc I have crossfire enabled but if I go to diagnostics nothing shows up in the box and it never has. I am trying to naildown the massive drop in performance which no one else seems to be having. Am I the only one with a blank area in the crossfireX diagnostics?
    Oh and I too had trouble with latest Flash Player so I uninstalled/rebooted. No trouble with the Windows updates.
    I am going to go back to the old driver but before I do... I want to tinker.
     
  3. Ghost_AWP

    Ghost_AWP Notebook Evangelist

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    I have all of the exact same issues you do. Sometimes one of the cards doesn't report temps or monitoring at all. I reported that in the HWInfo thread as well and got the same answer.
    As far as XF goes, check to see if Powerplay is enabled. Mine was disabled and I had a serious drop in performance. Enabling Powerplay fixed that issue. XF Diagnostics is blank for me as well. It appears as though there is nothing you can run or do on that screen. But I did go back to the old Dell driver and still nothing in the Diagnostics screen. All I can do is identify GPU but I never did anything with this screen before so I'm not sure if this is normal.
     
  4. bzzje

    bzzje Notebook Guru

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    dont think it's flash either.
    its not only with youtube. it does so on local mp4, avi etc files as well. even without a flashplayer installed.
     
  5. Megatony73

    Megatony73 Notebook Consultant

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    Is it just me, or is crazy the way the problems are all over the map here? I mean I had the exact same issue bzzje had, I install an older flash player and it goes away.
    Now you are getting it all over the place...even with files that dont run in the flash player...but its the exact same symptoms.

    Heck I give up. Dell is replacing my system...hopefully the new doesnt have all the problems!!
     
  6. mb67

    mb67 Notebook Evangelist

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    No problems whatsoever- at least for now. :p
     
  7. steviejones133

    steviejones133 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Better to pull it off than have more people with more issues....good work, keep the support coming :notworthy:
     
  8. GMLP

    GMLP Notebook Consultant

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    No problems so far. At least the beta driver fixed the "invisible units" problem in Starcraft II on my machine. Thanks
     
  9. apollo999

    apollo999 Notebook Enthusiast

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    okay now I know I am reporting this in the wrong thread but I have been following this thread and some others related to driver issues.

    I got my M17xR2 two weeks ago and in my last post I had reported that I was seeing some flickering/wavy lines on the backdrops while playing BFBC2 when XF is enabled.

    Now I was following this thread and seeing the problems that everyone was getting decided not to install the beta drivers.

    Yesterday I noticed that my touch pad drivers and command center were of an earlier version. So I decided to install all Dell recommended drivers from their site. I also installed the 10.7 catalyst profiles.

    Today some sort of miracle has happened on my laptop.
    The flickering/wavy lines in BFBC2 with XF enabled have simply vanished.

    I don't know how this happened so I decided to run some tests. Now firstly let me state that I am not into benchmarking, overclocking or have done this kind of testing before. So if am unable to state the facts properly..... please go easy on me, I am just trying to report the things the best I can.

    I don't have many game titles installed on my laptop.

    My Config:
    Processor: 720 @ 1.60 GHz
    Ram: 6 GB 1333 MHz
    Card: 2 5870's in XF
    Drive: 1TB @ 7200

    BFBC2:
    1) Native Res 1920x1200
    XF Enabled
    set everything to max

    No flickering no wavy lines FRAPS showed me an average 45 FPS.

    2) Native Res 1920x1200
    XF Enabled

    Changed AA - 2x, AF - 8X VSYNC - OFF and HBAO - OFF

    No flickering no wavy lines FRAPS showed me an average 65 FPS

    COD MODERN WARFARE:

    Native Res - 1920x1200
    XF Enabled
    set everything to max

    No flickering no wavy lines
    FRAPS - FPS never dipped below 65

    Call of Juarez Bound in Blood:
    ( I don't think this game counts :) but I have it.... so tested it)
    Native Res - 1920x1200
    XF Enabled
    set everything to max

    No flickering no wavy lines
    FRAPS - FPS never dipped below 105

    MAFIA 2 DEMO:

    1) Native Res - 1920x1200
    XF Enabled
    set everything to max
    AA - ON
    AF - 8x
    Physx - OFF

    Did the in game benchmark

    No flickering no wavy lines average FPS 33

    1) Native Res - 1920x1200
    XF Enabled
    set everything to max
    AA - OFF
    AF - 4x
    Physx - OFF

    Did the in game benchmark

    No flickering no wavy lines average FPS 51


    Played the demo...... did not see any flickering or wavy lines in the cut scenes. Till I started Driving I noticed there was some flickering for a short sec or two. But was never continuous for the entire ride from the safe house to the destination, it flickered twice in the bottom right corner of the screen. During the fight scenes there was no flickering or wavy lines. Once I was outside and driving again I noticed the short sec flickering twice till the demo ended.


    Not sure what has changed in my laptop since last week but I am not getting the issue with flickering/wavy lines on the above game titles which was present last week.
     
  10. Nathan Graves

    Nathan Graves Notebook Consultant

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    So you did use the new 10.7 game profiles but not the 10.7 drivers themselves. Maybe the profiles did solve some of the flickering issues (don't know how they can do this but everything is possible). Sounds to me like the best solution so far if your doing can be reproduced and is not just a coincidence.
     
  11. apollo999

    apollo999 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes I just used the 10.7 game profiles not the drivers. The Drivers are 8.692 ...... the ones that our recommended on the DELL site
     
  12. bzzje

    bzzje Notebook Guru

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    and how about the loadtimes in BFBC2?
     
  13. apollo999

    apollo999 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes the BFBC2 loadtimes were a tad longer then before but nothing that was very bothering given the in game performance was better.
    the load time was noticebale though I wud say at least 15 sec more then before but once loaded no issues.
     
  14. mirito

    mirito Notebook Consultant

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    Hey guys i been testing this out and i can say that it fixed the flicker problem when running xfire but it seems to drop my fps abit, also big problem now is that when my m17x goes to sleep it never wakes up just a black screen is all and im 100% sure that this happen after i install this beta driver also it use to happen to me with the old drivers but it would come back like after a min or two, and didnt have black screen, With the ati beta it never comes back just black screen.

    *Decrease performance even shows on rating it drop 1 point(fps drop in game unstable fps)
    *Sleep/Wake is gone to hell dont work at all anymore
    *Fixed Flicker problem
    *Fixed wavy lines in darker shades during gaming.
     
  15. steviejones133

    steviejones133 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I think that this is a known problem and the main reason that Brian has pulled it from the Dell downloads site.....scroll back a bit and you will see his (Erawneila) posts that confirms this.
    Think Brian and engineering are going to work on a better version of what was just Ati 10.7 with a Dell ID on them - lets wait and see....
     
  16. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Since Brian has pulled this driver and he has mentioned another version is being worked up, I am removing this thread from sticky status. Once he announces the new driver and it is available I will create another thread with links and info where the new driver can be discussed and feedback can be left.

    To all those who tested and left feedback info for Brian - great job guys! I think one of the main reasons why we are seeing Brian and the other AW peeps posting here is they know NBR knows its stuff :) Nice work everyone!
     
  17. MaximPrime

    MaximPrime Newbie

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    So i was using the Beta drivers. everything was running fine (except from the sleep problems) i shut my computer down to go to bed.

    In the morning time when i went to boot up my computer the lights came on but no display.. and the Scroll and Caps lock light were flashing.. apparently this refers to GPX card issue.. Dell has said they will be replacing the GPX cards.. the computer is only 2 weeks old so this could be a normal fault or could be caused from the Beta Drivers.. i only installed them 2 days ago.

    Quite frustrating as i work in remote area's for 4 weeks at a time. then back home for a week. so going to be awhile before it gets fixed :(
     
  18. 5150Joker

    5150Joker Tech|Inferno

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    That's why you shouldn't install beta drivers if you need your system at 100%.
     
  19. MaximPrime

    MaximPrime Newbie

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    Well i have another laptop which i am using now.. my old XPS M1530.. So i dont need it.. just annoying that my 1.5 week old laptop is now not working. they are going to replace the GFX cards no problem apparently.

    i understood the problems with the beta.. but i was not aware it could screw up my computer that bad.. it was afterall approved by dell. i didn't try use ATI ones.
     
  20. 5150Joker

    5150Joker Tech|Inferno

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    The beta driver wouldn't cause your hardware to fail. It was just coincidence.
     
  21. calingasan

    calingasan Notebook Geek

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    whats up with this thread, how come you cant find it at Alienware M17x thread list?
     
  22. Lozz

    Lozz Top Overpriced Dell

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    vbullitin search funtion is hit or miss ususally, try google and searching within the domain instead.
     
  23. bzzje

    bzzje Notebook Guru

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    reason is, it is in the Alienware 'general' list, not in the M17x list ;)
     
  24. dma550

    dma550 Notebook Consultant

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    This thread was a beast to find. Why unsticky just because it's not the best driver to use? I needed to read up on where it stood.
     
  25. Rockwell B1

    Rockwell B1 Notebook Evangelist

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    This thread was removed as a sticky mainly because it was pulled from the Dell driver site. There for you really shouldn't even consider it anymore as they saw the issues as too severe to continue letting people download and try it.

    A new one has been said to be in the works, I'd just wait for that one since most who tried this one seem to have gone back to an older one.
     
  26. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Rockwell is on the money (thanks Rockwell). I posted the following 1 page back:

    In regards to this thread being in the main AW forum, the driver was for both the 17x and the 15x platforms.

    Same will be the case with the next driver Brian announces, provided of course it is compatible with both platforms.

    :)

    Thanks.
     
  27. pheonixrage

    pheonixrage Newbie

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    hi i recently bought a m17xr2 i donno why but my drivers r not installed properly once i tried to update them.... and i am not even ablt to play small games like borderlands and blur leave out metro and all on high settings i get very low FPS like 20 - 30 and wen i use GPU it shows as if the graphics card r not detected at all.... pls tell me wat to do i tried installing by removing all the drivers again using both normal method and the other manual installing but it still is the same and i cant play at all need some help pls
     

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  28. nodeffect

    nodeffect Notebook Evangelist

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    does this works on my M17 4850 ?
     
  29. Zswickliffe

    Zswickliffe Notebook Evangelist

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    The driver has been pulled due to the problems it was causing, so even if it did work on your 4850, why would you want it to? Just relax for a few more weeks and I'm sure they will have a new one that works better (hopefully).
     
  30. gintor

    gintor Notebook Evangelist

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    Wow, last post on the 25 August,,,,any news on the improved driver ?
     
  31. Rockwell B1

    Rockwell B1 Notebook Evangelist

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    Did you even bother to check the appropriate section...?

    HERE
     
  32. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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