Dell ATI 8.763 (M15x/M17xR1/M17xR2) Driver/AMD 5870 VBIOS **READ POST 1 AND 2!!!!!**

Brian, was engineering able to replicate the dual display corruption issue?

-Ash

 

I had that same issue, I did a uninstall and a reinstall of the original Dell Driver and it seemed to fix it. Then a day of to later I got a black screen after a night on sleep, so I took the plug, and no problems now, so far.

 

Flynnaz, are you referring to this? YouTube - M17xr2 dual display problems

I have reformatted twice and it didnt resolve the issue.

-Ash

 

In reference to the user that flashed the wrong cards:

There has to be a way back if he's still not restarted. Maybe close GPU-Z then reopen and check numbers to see if the flash actually took or failed. In his case hopefully failed. If it took he might even be able to get someone with a prior vbios for his 5850's and flash with proper vbios.
I am extremely careful and fearful when doing these things. I check, recheck and recheck some more. Joker made the whole thing painless with the howto manual flash.

**EDIT** No refresh for a bit and I am way behind...

@BA0701 - Getting ready to work with some older OpenGL games ... to use workaround do you just install the .dll you listed or is the process more complicated?

 

No, not the same problem, sorry. My laptop saw a second monitor that did not exist. When I tried F6 I got a black screen, so I hooked up a second monitor and it was the extended part of the extended desktop. After a hour of missing with it, I reinstalled the drivers.

Nice Tokyo Police music

 

hey guys so many pages to sift through, i installed the dell 8.76 beta drivers that was listed on here then the app profiles for 10.8 but no VBIOS off page 33 i think but every thing is working smoothly, mainly play wow and bfbc2 and load times are far better! is it really worth flashin the vbios with the ones atainable? or just stick with the default vbios and just run with these new drivers?

 

Added info to main post at start of thread.

 

If your not having any issues, than wait until the Dell Driver is posted on the DEll Site. It mainly helps with sleep issues from what I have seen, including myself.

 

Thank you Brian for this small info, i think the m15x user are waiting carefully for it. Also we already verified that he didn't flash his 5850 with the 5870 bios. Confusion cleared.

@Flynnaz can you test sc2 without vsync on ingame and crossfire enabled, and see if you have tearing and flickering in mission?

And yes i have beta drivers and beta vbios currently installed.

@stevie i don't have metro 2033, so i can't test it

i have to further test any other games yet from sc2 and mafia2 so i can be sure its either normal to have vsync on to solve the tearing and flickering,

If not i might have a crossfire cable problem as brian mentioned or even a bad second card. Will disconnect and reconnect the CrossFire Cable later, when i get home and see if that helped.

 

Infernia: Just got to your ATI 10.3 or 10.4 directory, go to the following path \packages\drivers\display\W76A_INF, and copy the file atioglxx.dl_. Replace the file under the same path, and same name, in the 10.8 directory, with the one from the 10.3/4 directory, and just run the install normally from there.

Only thing is, you will get the prompt telling you these drivers are not certified, and asking if you wish to cnntinue to install them. Just tell it yes, as your changing that file changed the contents of the certified package, thus causing that message. After that you should be fine, and all of your OGL games should work, as mine do. Another thing you may want to do after the install has completed, is go into CCC\3D\All, scroll to the bottom asnd make sure that triple buffering is checked and enabled.

I hope this helps.

 

BA0701 - Thank you for the workaround. I am in Simulation & Game Design. Have to work with all kinds of games. You would think ATI would be on top of this since there are quite a few OpenGL games. Guess they save the real OpenGL support for the Pro series cards.

Grim - I wasn't much help yesterday as I barely had enough time to test out RadeonPro with what I already had installed. In BFBC 2, using Joker's recommendation for settings to get rid of tearing, it worked. That was the good news, the bad news is that I find a small white cluster of pixels moving around the screen much more annoying than the tearing. If I have time I'll try to take a screen shot but a video is most likely the only option as they are not huge. Also this is evident in gameplay not just cut scenes.
I promise to do my best to make some time and install Mafia 2 on the M17X tonight and confirm your tests. Was also considering Metro 2033 just to have a DX11 game to use as test.
On a final note, the only way I found to keep BFBC 2 from CTD was to force DX10 in my setting.ini file. So far it's been stable for 1.5 hours but I had to quit for lack of sleep and homework. I'm too old for homework. The CTD's in that game felt so much like load errors, always occuring when loading something; be it a new collectible weapon, new map, etc.
All this said the new driver + vbios combo has been the most stable and best performer thus far.
BIOS A07 + Dell 8.763 + beta vbios: M17X R2 in sig.

 

Question, does the 5870 vbios you are flashing with add any new features to the Catalyst Control Center like MANUAL fan control? Some CCC have this feature and some don't. Manual fan control with some Sapphire 5 series cards as an example is made available via an updated vbios. Just wondering what tweaks this vbios is making. Does anyone have any notes on the vbios you are flashing with?

Also hearing talk about master and slave GPU on this forum, as far as I have read that is termanology that goes back to older ATI graphic cards around the year 2005. The new cards specifically the 5 series cards as far as I know do not have master and slave anymore. I have not taken my GPU out yet and are under the impression that they are aligned differently but as far as I know there is no master/slave.

 

Infernia, you should have no problem with Metro 2033, Catalyst 10.7 and above fixed many of the video problems with 2033. Add the Physx feature as it runs off your CPU if you have an ATI card.

 

I ran SC2 with Vsync off and CF enabled, now issues from what I can tell. I had the video settings on Ultra too

 

Falcon- thx for the advice on Metro. I have no info on the revisions to the vbios that is being used. I will go out on a limb here and say it most likely keeps the gpu from dropping clocks below the level at which it can't recover from idle. Those that tested the prior driver reported their gpu clocks and it seemed that at a certain point the gpu was unresponsive. That and add to it a possible revision (driver revision that is) to the ULPS in the registry, which was shutting the second gpu off when not in use. Again I am pulling this out of my ... err...well you know what I mean. A good bit of research and I could pop off an answer. Just out of time.
Oh and I'm not so sure about the master/slave issue. I was reading a topic yesterday about those that ordered second 5870 cards and were shipped out a batch that were masters not slaves and were now awaiting the arrival of new gpus to replace those that were sent. Now this could simply be a vbios issue but it was unclear to me at least whether there was some sort of hardware difference or it was only the ROM bios that was different. At this point I am not knowledgable just slightly informed enough to be dangerous to myself. Thx again for the advice.
**EDIT** - wish I liked the RTS style games enough to pay out big $ for SC2. i am taking suggestions (PM me to keep OT)for good games to test beta drivers/ official drivers with other than SC2.

 

Well, from the looks of things looks like you 17xR2 owners are happy campers. Glad to see this! Three Cheers for Brian and his folks.

I'd like to update the info I have on post#2 regarding AMD Reference Crossfire Application Profile Updater. Can a few provide feedback if this is ok to install with this driver? I recall brian posting this may hurt performance.

Thanks.

 

Batboy,
I have installed the ATI profile. So far, its not causing any problems, and most of games I've tried definitely show some level of performance increase, and the ones I couldn't tell did not appear to have any new issues or degredation.

 

Originally Posted by erawneila
The profiles are not included in this release. They can be loaded if desired, but our testers saw performance decreases in some cases as a result of loading the profiles. So, use as you wish, but be aware of this potential...


Why second guess Alienware yet again? If they found a performance decrease why not take that at face value? Placebo? The number of new threads on this subject is growing exponentially and it's getting rediculous trying to follow this topic especially when people are not willing to share where they are pulling vbios from. I read one post by Alienware rep that clearly indiciates not to flash vibos on 5870, no where can I find a Dell authorized vbios for this system. What happens a month from now when they release a new bios and a conflict arises with a vbios that wasn't authorized? If the engineers at Dell think we need a new vbios why aren't they posting that anywhere? 10.9 will be interesting.

 

thanks for the input. Will wait for a few others before updating.

 

I have the 3 last profiles installed and have seen no issues or proformance drops. I have not benchmarked anything, but have been gaming heavly

 

Falcon,

If you want to test the VBIOS get with Brian ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/member.php?u=314603). You will not find it posted on the dell site yet. Brian has covered this.

Thanks Flynn!

 

Thanks for the serendipitous information. I think Batboy that 95% of your readers come looking for simple solutions. Personally I think any beta testing of vbios should have been done discretely and by PM. Someone who bought their computer yesterday won't have enough background information to understand half of what is being said.

This makes total sense now as all the new users are complaining about problems with Dells August 26 video drivers (same issues as with Catalyst) and 5% of the people on this forum (the ones with the new vbios) are finding things stable.

Is Brian on the same page as everyone else and will this make Catalyst generic updates work or is this a flash in the pan fix that will be short lived? Without understanding the methodology of the experiment one only wonders whether Alienware and customers are on the same page.

 

Heya, first of all comfort, if you can't keep up with the "Discussion Thread", it's not our problem, if you don't want to read it, don't, if you don't understand something, ask.

But i summarize the story just for you, and those that are intersted to not read 60 pages thru.

It was pointed out more than once that Brian (erawneila), working for Alienware Quality Department is giving out the Beta VBios to some people via email that are willing to test the new vbios along the new beta driver sets.

The VBIOS is needed if you have the Dell Beta Drivers 8.763 installed and you're getting sleep/wake/hibernate A/C and battery issues. That's how i got mine, and i installed them and the Drivers were finally working properly and i didn't had any lockup / BSOD in windows since flashing the VBIOS.

As i was excited about the new state the laptop was running, i posted my experience to this forum, i handed out the vbios to selected people first to let them test it with the instructions given by Brian and included also some additional info on how to do it gradually, in getting to know how other people experienced the changes.

Since i was more or less the first one to share the knowledge, i also felt commited in giving everyone proper support.

So please excuse me, if you see like every second post of myself and having other peopler enjoy their new drivers with the system working correctly now.

Cheers to everyone that is happy with the new vbios and their drivers. Thanks Brian for the continued support in your latest product. Thank you to the people that tested and verified many of my oppinions and questions myself had, and good job to the not so knowledgable mates that were able to get everything to work properly, in the end.

Also, thanks if you read that

Edit: About the questions in other threads, it shouldn't concern you as you didn't obviously test the drivers. Also if people can't read instructions, i don't know how much more i can help. If you think your abilities are not that high on a computer, you should not even think in updating anything complicated, and those things are normally noticed upon reading something and not understanding it. Fullstop!

Also there are more questions about people saying the new beta drivers or the other latest ATI drivers are not working correctly in windows (issues mentioned before), because they dont have the vbios installed which is essential for most M17x-R2 users that have HD5870. So that's what has to be more or less pointed out at the moment.

 

I've already mentioned this, but I guess you must have missed it...Due to the issues with the new VBIOS NOT working with the older A00 drivers (which is what the vast majority of the M17xR2 population is using), we haven't posted the VBIOS on support.dell.com.

The goal is to post the new VBIOS and the new video driver as an A0x package on support.dell.com, but I don't have an ETA for this yet. Additional coding is required to ensure that the video driver is updated before the VBIOS. This obviously will take time and testing.

The Dell driver and VBIOS *are* different than the reference drivers. The fact that the reference driver works well is great for those of you who want to use it, but this was not tested by our engineerings and it certainly wouldn't surprise us to see issues with the reference driver...

Going forward, the eventual goal is to get to a point where the reference drivers (for both NVIDIA and AMD) are tested (at least to some degree) and work properly on Alienware cards. This is a goal and there is no committment for this yet. Doing this requires significant resources at all companies involved and also would require system specific modifications to the reference drivers. So, no ETA for if this will happen or not, but engineering is aware that this is a desire of those on the NB Forums.

 

BTW, for anyone who is seeing the secondary card NOT flash on the initial run of the VBIOS update, please execute it again to flash the secondary card. Not sure why this is happening, but it appears to be limited to just a few systems from what I can tell.

For those of you who don't truly understand what you're doing with these upgrades, please read and read and then read some more before attempting to use the VBIOS update, the beta drivers or the reference drivers.

The readily available VBIOS updates is for the 5870 cards on the M17xR2 *ONLY*. Do not attempt to run this on an M15x or and M17xR1!!!!

We have a secondary VBIOS update available in very limited beta for the M15x 5850 card. Please do not get these confused...

Thanks!

 

The 5870 cards are not identical from master to slave.

 

Falcon,
most of us on this site, and on this thread like to beta test hardware and drivers, that's why we post to help. Many company’s take our input seriously, and use it to help fix issues for customers of who you speak to I guess, who just want it to work with no tweaks. I am glad companies like Dell be interested in our input. I hope in the future you can have some positive input on this subject, have you even tried the new VBIOS or Dell Beta?

 

Thanks Brian for the latest news and the current state with the company working hard to satisfy our endless demanding hunger we have.

Since i bought, Battlefield Bad Company 2 today and i wanted to test it, and the game is also flickering and screen tearing, i will follow the service guide to open my laptop, and check if the crossfire cable is attached correctly. Do you have any tips on how i should proceed or test it (Example: Disconnect, Try with 1 card or something)?

Will also provide the serial of the two cards and their revision sticker when i'm done. Cheers.

By the way: Awesome Info if that would happen!

 

Sorry again, but no one asked about the problems you are experiencing with dell in a general view, please read the thread title, this topic is about discussing the drivers!

And since you didn't even participate, you shouldn't post unreleated information into this thread and confuse other happy alienware users, with your negative oppinions you are experiencing.

Please if you want to discuss about dell in general and their philosophy that doesn't seem right to you, create a seperate thread please, so we can talk about actual driver issues and feedback on the vbios. My my.

Edit: Please read carefully i can just repeat myself, you didn't even answer the questions you quoted from flynnaz.

 

Falcon,
You are missing the point, once again. Nothing usfull in what you said. 99% of the posts on this tread our people like Joker, Grim, and others who are interested in testing the Dell Beta Driver and VBIOS, your remarks are not useful in this regard. As for this "phenomenon" being new, it's not, I know for myself I have been testing and tweaking systems for24+ years, no need to talk down to us on this thread about testing our laptops. I do agree most problems on this site are self inflected, but that's not the point of this thread and where it's going. And according to you 1% of us are the ones testing so this should have a low impact on Dells bottom line if we need to call them in the first place. Being a long time member of this site, I would rely on fellow NBR member over Dell Tech support anytime, no offence Brian

No answer on if you are using the Driver and VBOIS?

 

Before we move OT, please move this discussion here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/506324-opinions-alienware.html

Posts in this thread need to be related to actual testing of 8.763 and feedback on testing results. Additional OT posts will be removed. PM me with any q's.

Thanks.

 

Grim: We have almost the same system but I am not seeing any problems with BF Bad Company2.. The only issue I have is when the map first goes active, I get a little "jump" in the display then all is fine.... I wonder what could be the difference.. I have the beta vbios and using the Dell 8.763 drivers....

 

Batboy you really should post this (memo below) to a more conspicuous place and move this thread to the M17x forum. I read yesterday some didn't get the memo in time and ruined their cards flashing the wrong vbios. The vast majority of this thread is about beta vbios so it really is off topic from the get go.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...17xr1-m17xr2-driver-discussion-thread-64.html

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/514459-important-dell-5870-vbios-info-17xr2.html

Please provide links to the posts you read where people ruined their cards. As for it being off topic, no. This (the VBIOS) was mentioned in Brian's initial details which are in post#2 of this thread. If you need to discuss this (posts OT, etc.), send me a PM.

Moving forward, if Dell releases a driver which covers multiple platforms (15x/17x) we will have discussion threads based on individual model.

Thanks.

 

Did you try it with V.Sync OFF ingame? What happens then, still the same?

That's a good idea batboy about creating 2 individual threads, so we can keep the confusion to a minimum. Also according to me as a HD5870 User, the VBIOS and these Beta Drivers go hand in hand. So this is the right place to discuss the Beta Drivers Issues WITHOUT the VBIOS and the VBIOS for HD5870. So for HD5870 users (And Falcon is one of them): VBIOS + Beta Drivers = Working system + latest game updates. I don't know what there is not to understand.

 

I just downloaded the new dell video drivers and seem to have much better performance with ME2 and BFBC2m. However, I'm still having the sleep/hibernate issue. Can someone link me to where you cam download the new vbios and the correct way to install them. I didn't see them on dell's site. Thanks everyone!

 

See page 33 of this thread....Grim and Joker have posted Mirrors to where you can download this (along with instruction)....but PLEASE....make sure you are comfortable and more importantly, they are designated for your system as we had a scare before with someone who maybe flashed their 5850's with the vbios.....i suggest a good FULL read of the entire thread. I see you have 5870's so go for your life.....and note: the vbios is the ONLY way to cure sleep/hibernate/resume issues....doing the drivers on thier own will not cure this.

The vbios IS NOT available via Dell support as it has not been thoroughly tested for public consumption as yet....the people here (along with Dell engineers) are the only people that would have tried them as Brian (erawneila) only handed out vbios downloads to thhose that asked him for it.....

 

Hi,
when will this new Vbios and the new ATI/Dell drivers go officially online on the dell support site??
Thx

 

PM Brian with questions on the VBIOS. I dont recall seeing a post on not providing it any longer so he may still be sending it out. As for instructions,

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6655298-post631.html

and,

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6635166-post10.html

+++++++++++++++++++++++

See Brian's post here:

 

no 1 flash his 5850 with the beta vbios 5870
it was my mistake posting wrong pic in page 35 instead for the post in the page 33.. sorry 4 my mistake , my error, and so sorry for all the confusion i made.....

the vbios work fine.. i'm very happy with my m17xR2 function like it was intended. without any problem.. and the vbios flash process is very simple.

 

Thanks everyone! I got the vbios flashed and everything seems to be working wonderfully. My last question regarding this is now that I have the new vbios installed, will I have to keeping flashing to the new vbios everytime dell or ati release new drivers for our card or will the new drivers include the vbios?

 

I think you will only have to flash your cards the once (no reflashing with the same vbios as once they are flashed, they are flashed and thats it)....im assuming here that any future driver releases that Dell make will be compatable with the latest vbios....unless there are future revisions to the beta vbios which presumably would be released via Dell support...on a "as and when basis" - the beta/fully tested revision hasnt even been released on Dell support yet so i think your safe from reflashing for quite some time.......

 

No need for apologies , i just think myself and Grim thought you flashed the wrong cards...thats all....i think we were hoping you hadnt and obviously you havent so its all good....glad you are pleased with the result as most people seem to be so far....

Enjoy your much improved M17x......

 

Quote from Grim;
"Did you try it with V.Sync OFF ingame? What happens then, still the same?."

Yes, I turned V.Sync off in the SC2 menu and ran a quick me vs AI the first map, graphics still on ultra. It seemed to work without any issues, no tearing, or flickering. Most important, I have no more problems with missing units in game like I did with the original stock Video Drivers that came with my laptop

 

I'm not able to do reproduce that... Might be a hardware issue i think, checked crossfire cable and it seems to have a little hick in it on one of the blue strings (Wonder if that's the issue it's causing on me). Wrote Brian a PM, hope he can give me some advice.

 

Grim,
I will "test" meaning game tonight and look for issues, but really I have not seen any. I wouls Speculate that it maybe hardware related...???

 

I'm thinking that aswell, since most people are fine with everything. And i already tested all the software releated settings

 

Ahhhh, back to the real point of this thread....

This could be pure speculation but im thinking that majority of people who have adopted the beta vbios/dell driver have not had any problems...infact, the oposite.

Grim, interesting to hear that you may have a hardware issue resulting in some anomolies on your part (hope that if thats the case, you get dell to remedy those)....maybe a new crossfire cable would eliminate this?? - (i'd be seeking an expedited delivery of a new one to enable you to carry on doing good work for Dell LOL)

Do we have any hard evidence as to which driver performs better with the vbios yet....im asking people who have tried both and wehter or not CAP has any help or hinderance to Dell drivers?

EDIT: I wish i could contribute more to the testing of this but i havent got the games library to do so.....although i am looking forward to trying it out in the near future.

 

I used the 10.8a cap profiles with dell drivers last night.

My SC2 minimum FPS improved with vsync on (most settings on ultra, rest on high) to the point where it hardly ever dropped below 60fps. In fact, I think it was only once in a 2x2 battle with about 400 zerglings on screen.

-Ash