Yet another WHQL certified driver update, so soon, and for a beta release? And that's WITH the daily profile and optimal settings updates plus the weekly Geforce Experience updates. This is getting a tad ridiculous, isn't it?
Since the good folks at AMD don't do much of beta testing anymore, the drivers are seemingly released to the public in a very alpha state, where paying customers find the bugs FOR AMD. A lot of AMD users prefer to look at this bug hunt as an ongoing free-to-play game that comes bundled with the drivers.
I kind of feel like most of you people don't actually own an AMD card. Find me one game that doesn't actually run under an r9 290 or a radeon 6970 or runs, but with graphical errors. You won't...because there aren't any.
I own two 290 run under 8.1 and Win10, so far so good as i own 290s for a year. The only major problem was when you encounter games that do not support CF.
Well... other than the 15.9 problem that was quickly solved, I find nVidia's WHQL a lot more problematic and unstable than most AMD Beta drivers. I don't know where people find that nVidia still has stable drivers compared to AMD a decade ago, but it sure hasn't been the case for years now.
I think they're just on the "release often" train. As soon a feature is ready, put it in the hands of the user. Plus, there are under the hood changes between major releases (like 350 using a different build process/driver structure, presumably to accommodate Wayland on Linux at some point, or 355 adding WDDM 2.0).
It does have the drawback of having to update often, but if you opt to not install every single release (there was a time I didn't skip a single beta), your life becomes much more simple.
"Yeah, and that gun they're putting to your head to update is a complete violation of your human rights!"
Exactly! lol
"Seriously I reckon you'd always moan that there were too many or too few updates;"
Oh yes, ALWAYS. I go into EVERY driver release article's comment section and complain about too many releases, and in every other article that is NOT about GPU drivers, I complain about there being too few. That's what I do! You must be very new here, otherwise you wouldn't have felt the urge to point it out to me.
I think he is annoyed that the promise of simple background profile updates seems to have not worked as intended.
You have to wonder why each game seems to need a new code path in the drivers. Are they disabling a bunch of functionality when the game is running to cut down on command parsing time or are they using some low level routines that replace what the game designers are sending via dx api.
Lets face it, Nvidia is on it. They are an lean and efficient GPU designer. Each release of a new major title and they have a certified driver out for it. I have no ill will for AMD and hope for their success as competition benefits us all.
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D. Lister - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Yet another WHQL certified driver update, so soon, and for a beta release? And that's WITH the daily profile and optimal settings updates plus the weekly Geforce Experience updates. This is getting a tad ridiculous, isn't it?HighTech4US - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Well you could go the AMD route where almost every driver they release is a BETA driverD. Lister - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
@HighTech4USSince the good folks at AMD don't do much of beta testing anymore, the drivers are seemingly released to the public in a very alpha state, where paying customers find the bugs FOR AMD. A lot of AMD users prefer to look at this bug hunt as an ongoing free-to-play game that comes bundled with the drivers.
eek2121 - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
I kind of feel like most of you people don't actually own an AMD card. Find me one game that doesn't actually run under an r9 290 or a radeon 6970 or runs, but with graphical errors. You won't...because there aren't any.Cryio - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
He doesn't own one. I'm running a 280X that I run under Windows 7, W8.1 and W10 and I've never had any kind of drivers issues.Michael Bay - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
Oh, your anecdotal evidence is so much more convincing than his.shing3232 - Friday, October 9, 2015 - link
I own two 290 run under 8.1 and Win10, so far so good as i own 290s for a year. The only major problem was when you encounter games that do not support CF.heffeque - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
Well... other than the 15.9 problem that was quickly solved, I find nVidia's WHQL a lot more problematic and unstable than most AMD Beta drivers. I don't know where people find that nVidia still has stable drivers compared to AMD a decade ago, but it sure hasn't been the case for years now.shing3232 - Friday, October 9, 2015 - link
970s do have terrible drivers these day and their WHQL are unstable because they release so quick one after one.Cryio - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
Stop spreading FUD. You never even owned an AMD card probably.MrSpadge - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Considering the other new features and fixes it's certainly not just for a beta game release.D. Lister - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
@MrSpadgeI suppose that's true, if one was on Win10 with SLI. Rest of the stuff, like the OGL ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/9506/opengl-siggraph... ) and the GWVR thing ( https://developer.nvidia.com/virtual-reality-devel... ) doesn't have any immediate application that may be holding the hardware back.
It just makes me wonder whether the frequency of updates has increased because technology requires it, or because marketing demands it.
bug77 - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
I think they're just on the "release often" train. As soon a feature is ready, put it in the hands of the user.Plus, there are under the hood changes between major releases (like 350 using a different build process/driver structure, presumably to accommodate Wayland on Linux at some point, or 355 adding WDDM 2.0).
It does have the drawback of having to update often, but if you opt to not install every single release (there was a time I didn't skip a single beta), your life becomes much more simple.
BugblatterIII - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Yeah, and that gun they're putting to your head to update is a complete violation of your human rights!Seriously I reckon you'd always moan that there were too many or too few updates; there's no pleasing some people.
D. Lister - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
@BugblatterIII"Yeah, and that gun they're putting to your head to update is a complete violation of your human rights!"
Exactly! lol
"Seriously I reckon you'd always moan that there were too many or too few updates;"
Oh yes, ALWAYS. I go into EVERY driver release article's comment section and complain about too many releases, and in every other article that is NOT about GPU drivers, I complain about there being too few. That's what I do! You must be very new here, otherwise you wouldn't have felt the urge to point it out to me.
"there's no pleasing some people."
Pffft, as if you had even tried.
toyotabedzrock - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
I think he is annoyed that the promise of simple background profile updates seems to have not worked as intended.You have to wonder why each game seems to need a new code path in the drivers. Are they disabling a bunch of functionality when the game is running to cut down on command parsing time or are they using some low level routines that replace what the game designers are sending via dx api.
Chaser - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
Lets face it, Nvidia is on it. They are an lean and efficient GPU designer. Each release of a new major title and they have a certified driver out for it.I have no ill will for AMD and hope for their success as competition benefits us all.
Mahigan - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
AMD had a Star Wars battlefront driver a week ago bud.Mahigan - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
You might also want to peruse the various forum threads and reddit posts. NVIDIA have had so many issues with their Windows 10 drivers as of late.NVIDIA used to have an edge over AMD in the driver dept, now it would seem that neither company has an edge over the other in that dept.
DAOWAce - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
Meanwhile the drivers don't actually include an SLI profile for the game; that comes from installing GeForce Experience.Asinine.