The 8.93 were the first to offer it in the CCC and for it to be usable and the ones that every site mention too so its not just me, like this one:
http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-...preview-driver

The regular 11.12 drivers aka 8.92 don't have the feature. The 7xxx drivers have been updated a few times so I guess they added it to those after all.

I've got 8GB.

I don't have the time. I did it about 6 months ago anyways (because of other upgrades requiring). In the past the experience has always been a lot of time wasted usually in not resolving the issue. I'm a software developer. I don't believe in nuke/pave. There is almost always a way to fix stuff without the need. If my system was solely mine alone in that I was the only one who interacted with it, it would be simple and I'd do it. But my system is the backbone of my home network and serves many roles for many different machines on the network and it's a huge process to go through setting it back up again.

so do it on a old spare hard drive if you have one
then you can switch back and forth when you need your old setup and you can see if a new install helps

Having a slightly annoying issues on the 8.95. After exiting certain games the desktop hardlocks completely requiring a reset. They are leaked drivers though.

System RAM/Video RAM issues
 

(notice that it's info about a patch for Vista included in SP1, so this thing or a better one is likely included in any Vista or Windows 7 system you happen to have and you don't way need this patch, but the link has worth info)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105/en-us

Does this have to do with the said "BF3 memory leak" and/or some issues reported in this thread?

In summary (and if I've caught it right), all DX9 and some DX10 and DX11 games allocate, for their own use, as much application virtual RAM (that is generally limited to 2GB in 32bit OS's and in 32bit apps running in 64bit OS's) as video RAM, not clear if gfx card's inconditionally (3GB in case you have a 7970 with 3GB VRAM) or only the chunk that gets actually used by the game. In DX10 and 11 there's a similar allocation done by the OS in the OS virtual RAM space (generally limited to 2GB in 32bit; application and OS virtual RAM together amount 4GB in such systems), so that modern games don't need to maintain a copy of the VRAM in the application virtual RAM space, although some still do.

What the patch improves is that these costly and potentially impossible allocations don't consume actual virtual space, unless the reserved/allocated memory (not sure about nomenclature and concepts here) gets actually used, or something like that :bleh: .

Notice that these memory reservations/allocations/uses are independent from the use of physical RAM (that's up to the "virtual memory engine" distributed among processor's hw and OS code: the "defined" virtual RAM will be either in available physical RAM pages or paged out to disk) and the physical management of VRAM, that in 32 bit systems is done through a reserved "window" of upper physical memory addresses (upper = close to the 4GB boundary but below it) whose corresponding physical memory turns not usable (as ordinary physical memory at least). I believe that in 64bit systems it's done the same way although with the said window in way higher addresses (notice that you'd need over 4 billion times 4GB to fill a 64bit map!). Such "stolen" memory window is smaller than high VRAM sizes (even smaller than 1GB let alone 3GB) and I dare guess that independent from VRAM size? 512 or 768 MB no matter if 1024, 2048 or 3072MB VRAM? (at least my own 32bit OS's report 3318 MB usable so it's 778MB of physical RAM not usable here, with a 1GB card installed).

Crossfire: doesn't a CF/SLI config have only as much "application and OS usable" VRAM as one of the cards? Of course you'd still have to load all with textures etc, but wouldn't that affect to the window of physical memory addresses stolen from the physical map, and not to the application/OS virtual RAM?

I've been having random crashes on my Win7 64 system in Skyrim (screen goes white, I can get to desktop, etc. but can only see the screen while I hold down the Windows key) and from the desktop during normal non-video intensive work (system hangs briefly, driver resets and Windows notification comes up that it has recovered). Like Ristogod, I don't overclock my videocard yet the Catalyst overdrive settings were enabled. I've just unchecked the box and have my fingers crossed for stability.

Doesn't seem to be the page file thing. This is how I have it set I guess after checking.

Spoke too soon. Instead of letting windows manage my page file, I manually set it to 8192 and after that BF3 then worked for me.

Back in business I guess. I just hope the next driver installs smoothly.

Ok not like anyone cares, but I stopped the BSOD in CS Source in XP32 by copying the ati2cqag.dll from the whql 11.12 drivers into the system32 folder to overwrite the CD version. Fullscreen command prompt is still a no-go, though, instant hard lock and loss of monitor power signal instantly if switched out of windowed mode. Copying ati2dvag.dll (ATI windows display driver) from 11.12 doesn't help this one. Guess I'll have to wait for a proper XP driver for that to be fixed, as the CD XP drivers seem to be hacked together. I wonder what driver file handles fullscreen command prompt...tried each file from 11.12 (except obviously not the direct3d or external event modules) without success...oh well back to W7 unless I want to play AVA or Sacred 2...

New problem. I can no longer manage any of my audio devices. I frequently switch between my speakers and my G930 headset. That's no longer a possibility.

For instance, if I go into Control Panel\Hardware and Sound, there is a link for "Manage audio devices" Click on that does nothing. I suspect issues with the video card's HDMI audio stuff interfering.

In fact the only way I've been able to figure out how to work with my audio devices is by using CCC and going into the Audio subcategory.



If I do that I can at least change them. But I can't do much beyond that.

Also, since installing these drivers and having them mess up my audio controls, the majority of BF3 sounds are no longer present. I don't hear half of the stuff I'm supposed to anymore.

Something royally is wrong with these drivers and their audio.

I uninstalled all of the ATI software again and my audio is all working correctly again. Once again, crap drivers. I'll try reinstalling CCC again. Hopefully they'll bother to install without issue one of these times.

It looks like profiles do work, but not with Assassin's Creed Revelations, the game ignores when I tell to disable Crossfire. I created a profile for TrackMania Canyon and it correctly disables Crossfire. And guess what... it works MUCH better with Crossfire disabled.

To fix the problem with the audio software interfering, I disabled the audio controllers on both the video cards in the device manager. After installing CCC one last time everything seems well. Skyrim plays without crashing. BF3 Eyefinity now works with a fixed page file size.

I haven't tried any other games. I think I'll try Serious Sam 3 next.

One thing to note about BF3. FRAPS is saying I'm pulling around 60FPS @ 6048x1080 on Ultra settings, with one custom setting of 2xMSAA. Despite that, everything still feels kind of choppy like it's running at half that FPS. I have V-Sync turned off currently and I don't have time to test tonight again. I just figured with it on it would be worse and possibly feel laggy.

BTW, is the driver listed here for download the same that shipped on the cards CDROM or is it more current? I've only tried the downloaded, so I'm just curious.

Aaaand another BSOD in atikmdag.sys, this time while viewing a bunch of JPEG files with Fast Picture Viewer 64 bit edition. Completely random, tried to view the same images again, no BSOD. I will try cleaning up these drivers and install the CD ones.

The driver listed here is newer than the driver that ships with the cards

I can confirm the choppy gameplay in BF3 and Skyrim with HD7970 CF, alltough the framerates are high, it's not smooth, esp. in Skyrim there are a lot of hitches.

It will probably take a few drivers to tune things out.

Could be the deferred msaa, im running same settings and 6048x1200 also and get the occasional hitch. Going fxaa only improved it a bit. Another thing i noticed too is that at 6048x1200 with 4xmsaa is the game is using about 2500mb of vram! (well 5161mb/2) and borderline playable too to boot aside from the slight hitch.

AFAIK It's the driver that the press got for testing.

I hear ya. Best of luck Risto.

I think Vsync ON can improve smoothness in those situations when frame rates are high but gameplay is choppy. At least it does here with COD4-Modern Warfare (and somewhat ancient hw).

There is really still a lot of driverwork to, GTAIV for example is a disaster with HD7970CF, as if the textures are not really loaded into the vidmem, a lot of HD trashing etc.

These things are really fast but it will take a while before we will see it in full potention.

In Lord of the Rings Online I also had to disable CrossFireX to get a decent framerate instead of a choppy lagfest. For now, CrossFireX only shines in Aliens vs Predator and Lost Planet 2. In every other game I have tried I need to disable one card to get the best performance, although I haven't tried so many games (my stupid motherboard dying didn't allow for it). I will try Battlefield 3 this weekend. I tried it for 5 minutes on the motherboard that died and, as far as I remember, it was working fine.

Anyway this is truly disappointing after spending 1000 euro in those cards, and I'm really sorry for the people that bought 3 or even 4 cards. At those prices, I think they should behave much, much better out of the box.

I'm frustrated, but not surprised. When I bought the 6970 one year ago it worked perfectly, but it was a refined version of a mature architecture. I understand the 7970s are completely new beasts, and CrossFireX is only making things worse. BSODs on a newly installed OS just after disabling/enabling/re-enabling CrossFireX leave a very bad taste.

I only hope we get good drivers as soon as possible. The drivers we have right now barely make the cards work.

GTA IV has not liked any graphics cards with over 2GB of video RAM with both Nvidia or AMD as you have to tell it the correct amount of video RAM for it to work.

Try the game on a 6990 and 6970 in Trifire for example and it throws a wobbly as it thinks there is too much RAM as it detects 6GB instead of 2GB and it only works at 800 x 600 unless you mess around.

It ran fine with 2x 3 GB GTX 580's, but that's an intresting note you have there. I will search about this. I know this engine is not the most efficient one :D

I hope they will fixe the The Wicther2 issue, because this GPU have the power to run it the way I want, but also on this engine, ubersampling isn't quite as "efficient" compared to normal SSAA.

So far out of all the games i tested i havent had to disable cfx to get any working properly lordjuan. I even ran a single card for a few hrs before popping in the 2nd and noticed huge gains at 6048. Theres a few oddball ones too i tested. So far the list includes bf3,crysis2,witcher2,world of tanks,two worlds 2, drakensang,dragon age 2, divinity 2,crysis1(scaling seemed poor on that one 50% each gpu), metro, stalker,mafia 2

Add mafia2 to the list, and saints row3

Glad to hear it Higgy, hope I can try a lot of games this weekend

A new mobo and fresh windows install might do wonders for you. I dont have lotr or ac:revelations to test so cant help u there unfortunately