Post your Radeon Driver Experience Here!

Hi All,

I figured that we could share some of our experiences with the various Radeon driver releases on this thread (like 11.5b hotfix, 11.6, etc.). I think some useful information would be:

What model number HP you have:
How do you primarily use your PC (Designer, Gamer, etc):
What driver version are you using:
In what way has it boosted your performance (include FPS if pertinent):
In what way has it hurt your performance (include FPS if pertinent):
What is your preferred driver and setup:
Any other information you feel to be pertinent:

I will start....

What model number HP you have: dv6t-6100
How do you primarily use your PC (Designer, Gamer, etc): Gamer with office work
What driver version are you using: Stock
In what way has it boosted your performance : Performance has been better on stock than on 11.5b hotfix, so I'm hesitant to try 11.6
In what way has it hurt your performance: 11.5b hotfix drivers caused dx11 to stop working for me, prompting me to do a restore and keeping stock drivers
What is your preferred driver: minimal restore --> stock radeon drivers (8.830.6.1000) --> windows update --> then upgraded to most recent release on HP support site (8.830.6.2000)
Any other information you feel to be pertinent: With the most recent HP release drivers, I am still not getting the performance that other people are getting. For instance, on Crysis 2 highest resolution and settings, I am only pulling about 15-20 FPS, while other people have posted 30. Also, in 3DMark Vantage, my score is in 6000's, not anywhere above 6200 like others. This is even after doing a minimal restore. Even so, I have decided to stick with these drivers because my performance on the newer releases have been glitchy at best. I don't know if I should call HP for a replacement or not since I'm guessing they would just dismiss me since my PC is working in their eyes. What do you guys think?

 

did you try 11.7b?

 

No - have you? What has your experience been with it?

 

I haven't used it extensively but my only test was Crysis and it worked about as well as it should have. Can't say for sure because I only tested 1 thing...

I'd try it, you can always roll back the drivers.

 

jiggawhat - thanks for the advice.

Can you recommend the upgrade route for going from stock to 11.7b? Then I can do extensive testing on different games. For instance, do I need to go from 11.5 to 11.6 then to 11.7?

Also, how would you recommend rolling back? Just by going to device manager, right clicking on the Radeon card, and clicking roll back? Do I need to do it with the Intel card at all? I was also thinking about just creating a system restore point, but I realized that for some reason, system restore is wonky on my PC. My PC keeps deleting restore points for no apparent reason, even though I have plenty of HD space. Maybe I should create a separate thread about it.

 

Just uninstall the driver from the same place, then reinstall with HP system recovery or windows update

I'd first download the windows update drivers, then download 11.7b and install it

 

Can you link me to the 11.7b driver? I previously had 11.7 and all my games would have TERRIBLE FLICKERING, so i went back to 11.5b.

 

1st page of the FAQ in this forum

 

After upgrading to 11.7b drivers, my 3DMark Vantage scores shot up from 6000s (stock HP site drivers) to 6650. I have also tested Crysis 2, but have not seen major FPS improvement. I will test Witcher 2 tonight.

Jiggawhat, are your scores for 3dmark vantage comparable with 11.7b drivers?

 

Why is that when i upgrade to either 11.7 or 11.7b i get TERRIBLE FLickering in my games? What am i doing wrong?

 

stock drivers gave me 6060 or something like that and I haven't been able to test it since

 

Can you post your system info? Also, what games have this issue? What drivers are you currently on?

 

Sad to see nobody else wants to share their driver experiences =(

Anyway, I figured I would update you all on my 11.7b update. It went rather well, and my 3D Vantage scores shot up from 6000s - 6600s.
Unfortunately, I experienced horrible flickering/stuttering/video issues when playing Witcher 2. I tried two other games (Crysis 2 and Civ 5) and both did not have issue, but since I would like to finish Witcher 2, I have reverted back.

Has anyone had success with Witcher 2 on 11.7b drivers?

 

For better or worse, I'm one who is holding out for an "official fix" from AMD or HP (I'm not going to get into that here) and as a result, have been sitting with the April 2011 drivers installed via Windows Update.

Anyways, my Starcraft 2 and Portal 2 performance appears to be on par / acceptable, but my results from the in game benchmarks (ex - Half Life 2 - Lost Coast) just don't seem right. I guess the latter doesn't matter if the actual is game is running fine (which it seemingly is), but it's still annyoing.

I've also noticed that my 6.6 Windows Experience score for the video card is lower than the 6.9 I've seen others post. I know this is synthetic as well, but once again, is annoying and sometimes make me wonder if I've somehow been ripped off.

 

Can you guys tell me how to check the version of my drivers?

Also do you guys use the free version of 3dmark vantage? I want to make sure we're comparing the same numbers.

 

Abyss, you can go to Device Manager --> Display adapters --> Then right click on your card and properties. That should tell you your driver number.

As for 3dmark vantage, I use the free version.

I have switched to 11.6, and have had no issues so far with flickering. My 3dmark vantage score is also 6650

 

Hmm, my driver version is 8.830.6.2000

Which is dissimilar to any driver versions you guys are talking about (11.6, 11.7 etc).

 

I am not at my PC right now, but if you go to CCC, you should be able to tell what version you are on in regards to 11.x. I believe HP ships 11.4 or 11.5 stock.

This may not be true either, because I heard some people saying that couldn't see what version of amd catalyst they were on with stock HP.

Basically, 11.6 and 11.7 is the package version of the AMD releases. Our HP's shipped with 11.4 or 11.5. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

 

Its 11.4 (8.83) stock if the 61xx.

The 6xxx started with 11.2 (8.81).

 

how much better is the performance with the 11.7 drivers in game?

 

I haven't seen any significant performance gains with 11.7

 

I'm still on the 8.830.6.2000 (11.5b?) drivers and I'm not having any issues really. 6650ish on 3dmark vantage.

 

Going from stock drivers to 11.7b I went from 1692P in 3dMark 11 to 1771P. These scores are with a GPU core OC of 840mhz and memory OC of 940mhz.

 

I'm assuming that you have the 6000 version?...I saw a few people hitting in the 8000's for 3dmark vantage. Makes me want to punch a kitten...

P1561 3DMark11 and 8.830.6.2000 drivers for me

 

Yep, I do. Sorry, I should have clarified!

Ironically, MSI Afterburner stopped working correctly after my first reboot with the new drivers. I reverted to the old ones again and it's working fine. Bummer.

Edit: 11.7b Works again with MSI Afterburner 2.2.0 Beta 5. P1821 @ 860C/970M.