Any tips for switching from NVidia to Radeon?

[RussianSensation]

MSI afterburner for overclocking, the "Overdrive" functionality in AMD's drivers should never be touched, as it has horrible horrible bugs.

So it's now "work" to install the best overclocking utility? What about EVGA Precision or Asus GPU Tweak? Those apps are now "work" too?

In fact, anyone who doesn't use a custom utility for OCing is a noob. Custom fan profiles, all the data you need for overclocking. These apps are a MUST for overclockers.

Radeonpro for application profiles and forcing basic settings. The AMD drivers reset their own every single goddamn driver, so is worthless.

This is more or less irrelevant for single GPUs. What do you need application profiles for if you are not running CF? You can force basic settings inside CCC or inside the game and PC games remember your settings! Not your thing, AMD's Raptor utility is going to be similar to GeForce Experience making the process of gaming settings simple like console gaming.

Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) from 120hz.net for anything monitor related, as Nvidia has this built into their driver (and actually more granular settings) but AMD has literally nothing in theirs.

Again, why would he use custom resolution utility? If you run custom resolution on an LCD, the IQ is atrocious. If you want to use non-native resolution, you buy a CRT.

If overclocking, you have to force custom overclocking mode in MSI Afterburner or else you will be locked by AMD's completely arbitrary (and apparently constantly changing) overclock limits. This is made easier in the custom version of MSI Afterburner on Guru3D's site maintained by the owner of the site.

No different than going out of the way and getting custom 780/Titan bioses. But if MSI after-burner is not your thing, Sapphire Trixx allows full on overclocking with complete voltage control. The only reason voltage control doesn't work is if your card is locked. This app takes 2 minutes to download.

Driver Panel Scaling selection is broken in the driver, so you must edit the entry in the Windows Registry.
Have fun doing this every single time you install a driver.

This is your specific problem. I do not have these issues moving from a 17 inch to a 24 to a 37 inch monitors -- tested with 8800GTS, HD4890, GTX470s, HD6950, HD7970s. My 7970 works right away with a DVI-to-HDMI to a 37 inch LCD screen.

Also have fun reinitializing all the hacks you have to do to make the overclocking work properly again after every single driver.

Sapphire Trixx.

R9 280X is supposed to come 100% fully voltage unlocked. MSI Gaming R9 280X should be a rock solid card and come with MSI Afterburner utility that allows full overclocking with voltage control.

Not your thing? Asus Matrix Platinum will come fully voltage unlocked and the utility will come with the card.

Also, if you plan on keeping the card for more than 3 years as your primary driver of your computer, make sure you brace for the inevitable dropping of support of the card (both the official and unofficial). 4xxx and 5xxx owners know the pain.

100% false. HD5000 cards are fully supported and get regular driver updates HD4xxx cards don't even support DX11 and they are very slow for modern games. HD5870 came out in September 2009. That means there is support for modern cards for at least 4 years. Your 3 year support is completely made up and even more so considering GCN is here for years to come. You think AMD will discontinue support for GCN cards in 2 years? HD7970 came out December 2011 and R9 290X has to be supported for another 2-3, meaning HD7970/R9 280X will be supported for another 2-3 years at minimum.

What you didn't talk about is the OP could save $100-150 from not buying a $400-450 GTX770 and get similar performance from after-market R9 280X cards. Then he could use that $100-150 saved and buy a new GPU in 3-4 years, making your entire argument that GPU driver support should last decade kinda a moot point.

If you install the current beta drivers, make sure to disable the "frame pacing" option. It is just a dynamic frame rate limiter that updates every 3 seconds. It's basically worthless.
Also be sure to turn off "Surface Format Optimization" as it just cuts off textures to 12-bit, irrespective of what they actually are.

OK, and NV's performance texture options in the past didn't downgrade IQ on GTX200/Fermi cards you are saying?

This has been the case for AMD/ATI/NV for more than a decade. Both NV and AMD have sacrified IQ/AF/AA for performance gains and it comes stock in their drivers. The first thing anyone does it move all sliders to Highest IQ for both AMD/NV, period. This is no an AMD specific case, but GPU industry specific known fact.

You made a huge mountain out of a mole hill bud.

 

[24601]

*snip*

And people respect this astroturf more than the person trying to help the OP.

<3 this place.

 

[krumme]

My problems with drivers goes back to the days before amd/nv. I have only tried single cards though. But of perhaps 4 cards of each brand i have not had any trouble worth mentioning. Its nearly plug and play imho. Also for changing. Even nv optimus have performed excellent. I had a few problems with Intel though on sb and prior generation. Perhaps my experience is flawed of the crazy problems with the first 3d gfx making me less sensitive

 

[Granseth]

And people respect this astroturf more than the person trying to help the OP.

<3 this place.

Well, you do make things appear as though it's very hard to own a AMD GPU. Except for the need of Trixx (or similar) I've never been in need of any of the extra tools. And the need for Trixx arouse when I wanted to overvolt to get a bit more out of my 7970 (that I've had since release).

It's nice to have the tools when you need them, but for me (and I think for most users) it has never been any need and it just works.

 

[24601]

Well, you do make things appear as though it's very hard to own a AMD GPU. Except for the need of Trixx (or similar) I've never been in need of any of the extra tools. And the need for Trixx arouse when I wanted to overvolt to get a bit more out of my 7970 (that I've had since release).

It's nice to have the tools when you need them, but for me (and I think for most users) it has never been any need and it just works.

I never said it was hard for people who don't change driver settings. I only said it was hard to duplicate the features of the Nvidia driver.

Such things should be relevant to people switching to AMD/ATi from Nvidia, as it is directly applicable to them if they tinkered with the driver options before.

 

[Granseth]

I never said it was hard for people who don't change driver settings. I only said it was hard to duplicate the features of the Nvidia driver.

Such things should be relevant to people switching to AMD/ATi from Nvidia, as it is directly applicable to them if they tinkered with the driver options before.

Well, you do attack overdrive and says that is unusable. And for all I know you have had a lot of problems with it, but for most of us it works OK. So I didn't read you post as a helpful post, but one that had all the hassle you had to do to be able to use an AMD GPU.

 

[bononos]

.....
100% false. HD5000 cards are fully supported and get regular driver updates HD4xxx cards don't even support DX11 and they are very slow for modern games. HD5870 came out in September 2009. That means there is support for modern cards for at least 4 years. Your 3 year support is completely made up and even more so considering GCN is here for years to come. You think AMD will discontinue support for GCN cards in 2 years? HD7970 came out December 2011 and R9 290X has to be supported for another 2-3, meaning HD7970/R9 280X will be supported for another 2-3 years at minimum.
......

You're right and the bigger news is that 13.9 dropped support for Vista which is a little too soon imo. Maybe its something to do with win 8.1.

Am I understanding it correctly that if 5 series cards are not supported in future drivers, some game related bugs will still be fixed by CAP updates which will work with older drivers?

 

[Erenhardt]

I never said it was hard for people who don't change driver settings. I only said it was hard to duplicate the features of the Nvidia driver.

100% that. I can't make my AMD driver to brick my card like nvidia 320.18 WHQL driver did. Damn, I can't even do it with 3rd party software. AMD drivers - garbage!

Infraction issued for thread crapping.
-- stahlhart

 

[Tripperdude]

Most of what you write sounds like manager BS speak...see highlighted example. That means absolutely nothing. if you want a snappy system, buy an SSD, but graphics are irrelevant for that. What do you game? What do you actually use the computer for?

It is completely irrelevant to this discussion what I want to use my PC for, or whether I am engaging in "overkill". Maybe I like having those "overkill" abilities available to me, for it's own sake. And if I can afford them then what difference does it make? May I please own tools I may never need but at least have in the shed if I ever want it? Elitist.

If I wanted just power or performance I could have stuck with a GTX 280, they are darn cheap right now...

PS: My SSD is a 19nm MLC Toshiba and it is snappy enough, so by adding higher clocks, bandwidth, shaders, et al. with a better graphics card I improve overall PC performance even more, period.

And I'm sorry you don't like your boss!

 

[Tripperdude]

Yes OP, when you get your card install a half dozen aftermarket utilities, make all kinds of independent adjustments with these apps, because I'm sure the developers of these applications have fully tested all of these combinations for stability with their software, and when you have stability issues blame the card's drivers.

Touche!

Warning issued for thread crapping.
-- stahlhart

 

[Tripperdude]

Wow, you both gave me a lot to look at and test...and I see you both Crossfire 7970's. Have either of you ever registered to vote?

Seriously, sensational! Thank you both.

 

[chimaxi83]

MSI afterburner for overclocking, the "Overdrive" functionality in AMD's drivers should never be touched, as it has horrible horrible bugs.

Radeonpro for application profiles and forcing basic settings. The AMD drivers reset their own every single goddamn driver, so is worthless.

Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) from 120hz.net for anything monitor related, as Nvidia has this built into their driver (and actually more granular settings) but AMD has literally nothing in theirs.

If overclocking, you have to force custom overclocking mode in MSI Afterburner or else you will be locked by AMD's completely arbitrary (and apparently constantly changing) overclock limits.
This is made easier in the custom version of MSI Afterburner on Guru3D's site maintained by the owner of the site.

Driver Panel Scaling selection is broken in the driver, so you must edit the entry in the Windows Registry.
Have fun doing this every single time you install a driver.

Also have fun reinitializing all the hacks you have to do to make the overclocking work properly again after every single driver.

There's more, but they are more specialized than what would be used by the average user.


Also, if you plan on keeping the card for more than 3 years as your primary driver of your computer, make sure you brace for the inevitable dropping of support of the card (both the official and unofficial). 4xxx and 5xxx owners know the pain.

If you install the current beta drivers, make sure to disable the "frame pacing" option. It is just a dynamic frame rate limiter that updates every 3 seconds. It's basically worthless.
Also be sure to turn off "Surface Format Optimization" as it just cuts off textures to 12-bit, irrespective of what they actually are.

I like how your own personal experience is now a generality for all AMD users.

OP, I use Afterburner and RadeonPro, as I'm a Crossfire user. I use Overdrive on my kids machine, it has a single card. No issues here.

 

[Chumster]

And people respect this astroturf more than the person trying to help the OP.

<3 this place.

When you have nothing in rebuttal, attack the person not the message eh? How about offering some counter points.

I've been using nVidia hardware since the late 90s and I'm considering AMD for a build later this month due to the price/performance factor. I'm not sure why I should be phased by having to use a utility (MSI Afterburner, Trixx) to OC a piece of hardware. After all this is an enthusiast forum and I'm betting most here can handle a download.

 

[96Firebird]

Wow, a poster gives advice based on personal experience in a thread where the OP asks for advice, and you guys jump down his throat.

This forum is seriously a joke.

 

[3DVagabond]

Wow, a poster gives advice based on personal experience in a thread where the OP asks for advice, and you guys jump down his throat.

This forum is seriously a joke.

Not all advice is good advice.

 

[Puffnstuff]

In a nutshell this is what you do. Uninstall the drivers and any specialized software, power down and unplug the NVidia card and plug in the ati card. Power up and install the drivers for it plus any software and bam there it is.

 

[bystander36]

What Communism wrote, who appears to be a Crossfire user, is not really unlike the typical AMD experience. However, most people ignore the small details and it doesn't bother them.

AMD drivers as a whole work pretty well, with little to be bothered with, however, AMD drivers have little annoying problems all the time. Those small issues which he mentioned would not bother most people, so you don't really see a large flood of people complaining, but these problems do exist.

Then you have the microstutter issue. While it may not bother you, blind testing done at Tom's Hardware did show people notice a difference when presented with side by side machines. I used to be one who lived with microstutter from crossfire too. I just assumed the stuttering was normal and was more about the game developers or Microsoft's code. As it turns out, I was wrong. It was AMD mostly, with some assistance from dev's and Microsoft.

My experiences are similar to Communism. I've bought ATI and AMD many times over the years (who doesn't want to support the underdog). I was always happy at first, and slowly got annoyed by their little driver bugs all over the place. It is easy to ignore them at first, but they eventually drive me for a change on my next purchase.

I'm probably pickier than most. It may not bother you as much.

 

[Tripperdude]

Touche!

Warning issued for thread crapping.
-- stahlhart

I think you misunderstand me. I was only trying to compliment the poster's response, which seemed to me valid. I think I made clear during the course of the thread I found both points of view valid, and thanked each for their responses, which I greatly appreciate.

If my comment were designed to incite a flame war wouldn't it by nature be just a bit more malicious and delivered with more vitriol? You can't ask any question regarding comparison between nVidia and Radeon without risk of escalation, but I think my question speaks for itself: a Radeon "noob" wants advice on how to get the most out of the card. My post is as simple as that.

 

[Tripperdude]

AMD drivers as a whole work pretty well, with little to be bothered with, however, AMD drivers have little annoying problems all the time. Those small issues which he mentioned would not bother most people, so you don't really see a large flood of people complaining, but these problems do exist.

Then you have the microstutter issue. While it may not bother you, blind testing done at Tom's Hardware did show people notice a difference when presented with side by side machines.

I think I've seen the microstutter already, and I'm only running a single card. I think I will live with it, but I ask myself if it is a driver or hardware issue. I'm more inclined to believe a driver because the architecture has changed so much over the years.

BTW: I uninstalled CCC and added Radeon Pro with Afterburner together. I am pleased with the overall performance and quality, despite seeing what I think is microstutter. Colors are great but focus not quite as sharp as I think it could be.

 

[bystander36]

I think I've seen the microstutter already, and I'm only running a single card. I think I will live with it, but I ask myself if it is a driver or hardware issue. I'm more inclined to believe a driver because the architecture has changed so much over the years.

BTW: I uninstalled CCC and added Radeon Pro with Afterburner together. I am pleased with the overall performance and quality, despite seeing what I think is microstutter. Colors are great but focus not quite as sharp as I think it could be.

With a single card, microstutter is normally a result of the game engine or Windows. Microstutter is normally associated with Crossfire.

No system is free from any microstutter. There will always be a few stutters on occasion, but Crossfire has had some issues with bad microstutter, but you don't have to worry about it with a single card and it is in the works to be fixed. It already has improved a lot in DX10 and DX11 in single monitor resolutions below 1600p.

 

[Tripperdude]

With a single card, microstutter is normally a result of the game engine or Windows. Microstutter is normally associated with Crossfire.

No system is free from any microstutter. There will always be a few stutters on occasion, but Crossfire has had some issues with bad microstutter, but you don't have to worry about it with a single card and it is in the works to be fixed. It already has improved a lot in DX10 and DX11 in single monitor resolutions below 1600p.

This is one of the reasons I want the 7850, I believe it supports higher display resolutions than the nVidia cards I would normally consider...but are out of my price range. I got a very good deal on this 7850, it has a much better p/p ratio than any nVid card that I can, or cannot afford today (again, my budget is sub-$150).

Thanks for your reply, I do greatly appreciate it.

 

[Tripperdude]

I use Afterburner and RadeonPro, as I'm a Crossfire user. I use Overdrive on my kids machine, it has a single card. No issues here.

Thank you very much. I installed both after uninstalling CCC and MOM and don't think I'm missing anything at all. In fact, after having spent the weekend pretty much glued to Process Explorer, I'd have to say that both CCC and MOM appear to be bloatware.

Again, great advice and thank you.

 

[SimianR]

As someone who recently switched from AMD to NVIDIA (Radeon 5870 to Geforce 760) and has switched between the two brands many times over the years, I can tell you it won't be nearly as different as some people would have you believe. The official AMD drivers and control panel are pretty decent, you should grab RadeonPro/SweetFX if you want to mess/force more AA options but otherwise with the default control panel you should be set. I don't know, I don't really find that NVIDIA drivers offer me anything special? I still have to use a 3rd party app like NVIDIA inspector for half my games to get AA working properly.

My understanding is that the 7xxx series GPU's will also have mantle support, so you probably lucked out there as well.

 

[Tripperdude]

Of course nV has its own 200+Mb downloads for their drivers, so it's six of one and half of another in the case of perhaps unnecessary code within each.

I used to use RivaTuner everything and thought it worked great. When support for it died I got used to the few settings offered in the nV Control Panel. I'd set it for personalized High Quality and it looked great (but I wish they'd bring RivaTuner back).

Radeon Pro and Afterburner appear to be the next best thing to RivaTuner for AMD, and the Global Profile is always what I tinker with.

What I'd really like to know is can the speed (voltage) steppings in the GPU be hacked or not. If software exists to let you tweak a CPU, why not a GPU also? I don't mind the downvolting at all to conserve power and reduce heat, but does it have to be so low with no option at all to step it up a little.

 

[NIGELG]

If you can do a clean install of windows after backing up your stuff,do it...

Or you can use Driver Sweeper to remove all traces of the old drivers.

Congratulations on switching...good move.