I returned a 6870 when it was first released after five hotfixes and still didn't fix the BFBC2 performance problems and they caused flickering in other games.
And you think Nvidia doesn't have their own recurring issues with games?
10.10/a/b/c/d/e all in 30 days each with it's own performance numbers, nothing consistent. Then in November more of the same 10.11/a/b/c/d/e. ATI is cheaper so people deal with it.
So if AMD released
fewer drivers you'd be happier? Personally, I like the fact that they're releasing fixes as soon as they complete them. It's better than waiting a month or more if there's a particular game or app you want to run (and can't) due to a driver issue.
Single card Eyefinity is the only benefit at this time.
Better scaling with Crossfire than SLI, higher price/performance ratios, lower power consumption at both idle and while under load.
Also the annoying 100% fan at Start Up is ridiculous.
You're kidding, right? That's an issue worth mentioning?
As for the OP post, 10.12a enables 6900 series compatibility but I wouldn't buy an ATI card anyway after what I went through. Customers don't need quick fixes if it's going to reduce performance in other games. Fix one thing to break another is bad business. ATI waits until a game is released or the community is upset about driver performance for a certain game to correct the problem. Release a single 10.12 driver and be done with it. Why confuse customers and release a second version of the same driver just to enable something that should be on the original version. I've owned two 5870s, two 5850s, two 5970s and a 6870 and there's always an issue going from one driver to another. So I'm not being a troll or a fanboy of Nvidia, just saying that ATI needs to get their act together.
I update my AMD cards only periodically and haven't had any problems whatsoever. Yes, the 6900 series is new and will probably have more issues and driver updates than older series of cards. But that's normal. Nvidia is going through their own teething stage as well with their GTX 500 series.
I've been running Nvidia driver 260.99 since Nov. 5th and I didn't have to reinstall or change a driver because of performance or compatibility issues.
And as I said above, I've been running the same AMD driver for months now as well. No issues to speak of.
Every PC is different and filled with various programs that my conflict with video card drivers. I may have a great experience with Nvidia but someone else could have a bad one. It's pretty clear that more people have too many basic problems with ATI that can be easily corrected if ATI had a better QC process.
Pretty clear to whom? From what I've seen, the ratio is pretty much 50-50 between dissatisfied Nvidia and AMD video card owners. Unfortunately, there are some people who keep believing the "ATi/AMD can't make good drivers" rhetoric from experiences people had years ago.
If AMD drivers were honestly that much worse than Nvidia's, don't you think it would have been pointed out during recent reviews?