Article AMD Radeon GPU Drivers Reportedly Still A Mess – Black Screens, Stuttering, Flickering, Inconsistent Clocks & More

[happy medium]

Wow I didnt know it was this bad.
I remember having problems with my 5750 years ago,it took months for them to fix it.

Despite All Efforts, AMD Radeon GPU Drivers Reportedly Still A Mess - Black Screens, Stuttering, Flickering, Inconsistent Clocks And More Issues

Even 7 months after launch, AMD Radeon RX GPU drivers for Navi are still a mess with users reporting black screens, stuttering & more issues.

wccftech.com

 

[Glo.]

Could be part of it. I remember at some point a couple of years+ back, Windows 10 had a feature update that completely busted a ton of older GPUs that had previously been working fine. They still worked, but only at 1024x768 unaccelerated or something like that.

The Navi issues seem too scattered to be 100% any single thing. It may be a handful of things that manifest in various ways, making the bug hunt particularly tricky. It's not like AMD is unaware that a certain segment of Navi owners have had loads of trouble for months now, but in doing research there doesn't seem to be any perfectly predictable rule of thumb. One person will be on v1909 and running Chrome+Fortnite+Twitch, and be fine. Another with the same build will have the black or wonky color screen out into problem world. Some people can use DDU and it fixes it, some not. Some people can disable certain HW Accel and fixes it, some not. Weird.

As a long time IT and super PC nerd these are my most hated types of problems, the ones that defy straightforward diagnosis.

This is the weirdest part.

There is no pattern here! Two people can have exactly the same configs, and one will experience those bugs, and instability, the other person will have perfectly stable experience.

And if it could not be more weird - It appears Linux drivers are perfectly stable, so it appears it only affects Windows users.

 

[Glo.]

That's correct. Polaris isn't affected by these by all accounts that I've seen. The return volume is what concerns me, as anyone from the DFW area can go to Micro Center and see a cluster of returned/clearance used 5700 and 5700XT cards in the cage at the front of the components section. I always check it, last time was maybe end of January, and I saw :

A friend of mine has RX 580 Sapphire Special edition(or something like that, blue Cooler version) and he experiences Black Screens while playing World of Tanks, or other games. In some games it happens, in some games not.

And then... after 3 seconds everything gets back to normal. He doesn't have to restart the PC, even.

Black screen happens only after updating the drivers, so he has to make clean install of the drivers, everytime after he get updates to the drivers, and he forgots about the problems.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

As a long time IT and super PC nerd these are my most hated types of problems, the ones that defy straightforward diagnosis.

I really don't know if this is in anyway related to peoples issues, but I -did- notice that using GPU scaling makes my Athlon 200GE-based HTPC hellishly unstable with newer drivers using the new control panel. It's been rock solid for about 1.5 years previously.

Might be worth a look into. Don't have either the hardware, nor the issues to look into it myself unfortunately.

 

[RetroZombie]

Well didn't noticed this thread about the WDDM.
To bad he didn't explain why he wants to downgrade.

 

[railven]

Some posts I've come across have stated they've had some of the issues, specifically the black screen issues, on their Polaris and Vega setups.

This is why I think it isn't specifically third party software, but more so implementations of their own software is causing issues possibly due to something within the whole GPU families.

Chromium has found that the AMD dynamic textures caused black screen issues. Their solution to the issue was to blacklist AMD hardware.

So if Chromium is having issues with black screens, imagine overlays based on Chromium such as the ones found in Discord, and most likely AMD's own overlay.

Without more details I interpret posters stating "clean install of Win10" as issues persistent on a clean install of Windows 10 before installing their own third party monitoring programs (such as MSI AB, AIDA64, etc), but would include likely include one of the following; Steam, Origin, and/or Epic Game store which all have a form of Chromium which could still cause issues thus I don't think it's third party software entirely (factor in Steam/Origin/etc are all technically third party software).

In the end this would be one of those "damn" moments when if the culprit turns out to be a syntax error in a 150,000+ lines of code oopsie.

 

[railven]

While not conclusive, just another data point supporting my idea. r/AMD performed a survey and if you look at the two options with the most votes for the category:

What have you tried so far to solve the issues? (optional) Leave this empty if you are lucky or don't care about any of this stuff (but note that it would probably help you)

The two lead runners options with regards to users experience issues are:

"Playing around with Enhanced Sync/FreeSync, Antilag, and Chill"
and
"Disabling hardware (GPU) acceleration in Steam, Chrome and Discord"

Source:

Navi troubleshooting survey

A survey pointed to "shoot" all issues related to Navi 5000 graphics cards, especially "infamous" RX 5700 XT. You can see the results after finishing the survey, which represent statistics of Navi owners having issues. The survey itself can be answered in a couple of minutes. Join this survey...

docs.google.com

They point to it being the software packaging causing issues with the multitude of Chromium based third party software packages that can be practically 100% concluded all users have. As it's practically impossible nowadays to play any PC game without it's associated launcher.

 

[railven]

This kind of states that AMD is aware of this and accepts the solution.

d8b748f8298acee1d34f96901ce861d0b16056dd - chromium/src.git - Git at Google

Disable NV12 dynamic textures on AMD GPUs in general.

We disabled dynamic textures for a few integrated GPUs, but it
turns out for discrete GPUs we also need to disable them.
Otherwise videos fail to display when HW overlays are enabled.

This has been confirmed locally by xose@google and also AMD
that it is the right fix for the issue.

Probably explains why AMD suggested disabling hardware acceleration as a solution a few months back. It would also explain how non-Navi users may also be affected.

Be interesting to see what combination of overlays would trigger the black screen. Searching other topics on it, this user reports that the issue didn't exist before and assumed an updated in Edge browser triggered the issue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/f0yam6

Interesting to see what is the cause, of at least the black screens.

I could also fathom that the downclocking issue might also be related. If there is an issue with the overlays, running newer games might lead to a crash as most likely the card is being taxed. Older games might just result in lost of focus of the game window, such as when you alt-tab. Would it be possible that an overlay takes focus and thus the GPU downclocks as it believes it has nothing to render? And this appears specific only to Navi from my readings. Wonder what changed between GCN and RDNA regarding the NV12 Dynamic textures processing.

In fact trying to find where AMD stated in their driver updates disabling hardware acceleration is a possible solution, they list some interest known bugs. Such as this one:

Radeon™ Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.1.1

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-20-1-1 Article Number RN-RAD-WIN-20-1-1 Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.1.1 Highlights Support For Monster Hunter World™: Iceborne Fixed Issues The audible beeps at game startup from Radeon Chill, Radeon Boost, and Radeon...

forums.anandtech.com

The Radeon Software Overlay hotkey notification may sometimes be displayed during video playback in web browsers or launching some video player applications.

That would imply their overlay runs even when you are web browsing.

Then this one directly implies a black screen is caused directly by an AMD overlay and GTAV specifically:

Radeon™ Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.1.3

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-20-1-3 Article Number RN-RAD-WIN-20-1-3 Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.1.3 Highlights Support For Radeon RX 5600 XT Fixed Issues An intermittent black screen or loss of display may occur when performing parallel actions...

forums.anandtech.com

Grand Theft Auto™ 5 may experience a system hang or black screen at launch, when opening Radeon Overlay while in game, or after performing a task switch while in game.

'

And in that same update they list to disable hardware acceleration as a possible fix:

Some Radeon RX 5700 series graphics users may intermittently experience a black screen while gaming or on desktop. A potential temporary workaround is disabling hardware acceleration in applications running in the background such as web browsers or Discord.

Any thoughts or is it all just coincidental?


EDIT: Is it possible that the new AMD software is running one giant overlay over the screen at all times? This would explain some of the issues they've listed in previous driver updates such as scaling issues with the overlay.

If this is true, this could tie directly back to the black screens on videos playing on web browsers. If they is an overlay and it borks is it possibly just showing a giant black rectangle? Explains why some users report black screens but are able to alt+tab out or still hear the game sound?

And hard crashes could be tied to hooks from other third party softwares hanging possibly if the overlay fails?

Okay, I'm done tin-hatting for the evening

EDIT #2:

Okay, and here is now support for my downclocking theory. AMD documents there being a combination of options that may cause the game to lose focus.

Radeon™ Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 19.12.2...SZZZZ So Hot!

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-19-12-2 Article Number RN-RAD-WIN-19-12-2 Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 19.12.2 Highlights Support For Detroit: Become Human™ Performance Improvements An Average of 12% performance uplift in select titles with Radeon™...

forums.anandtech.com

Invoking Radeon Overlay may cause games to lose focus or become minimized when HDR is enabled within Windows®.

This would directly cause clock drops. This example is tied to HDR, but chances are the downlock issue might also be relayed. And it's tied to overlays again.

For real, going to go play a game now

 

[happy medium]

Any time I see that smiley face ...

But yet it very informative and correct on many levels.
You welcome.

 

[ondma]

Maybe its coincidence, maybe its not, but the one thing that Raja really did right was make sure that AMD's drivers were on point during his tenure.

This whole fiasco is demonstrating how many fires you have to keep a lid on when executing on GPU development. Its a shame too, AMD/ATI was just starting to shake the whole "Good hardware crap software" rep from the old days...

Really? I thought they were just barely back to the point of having competitive hardware, except at the top end.

 

[Shmee]

Drivers for Vega, Polaris, Fiji, and Hawaii have been fine for some time. This hardware was competitive too.

 

[JPB]

Any time I see that smiley face ...

 

[happy medium]

You also welcome.

My last AMD cards were 2 6870, s in x fire before that I think I had a 5750 they would screw up the clocks when watching video's. And random problems with games..
I've been with Nvidia ever since.
Besides the 7950 ,I havent seen a AMD card that made me want to switch back.
Didnt they also have some bios problems with Polaris? Power problems with PCI-e slot? I cant remember.

 

[maddie]

You also welcome.

My last AMD cards were 2 6870, s in x fire before that I think I had a 5750 they would screw up the clocks when watching video's. And random problems with games..
I've been with Nvidia ever since.
Besides the 7950 ,I havent seen a AMD card that made me want to switch back.
Didnt they also have some bios problems with Polaris? Power problems with PCI-e slot? I cant remember.

You can't remember? Now that is funny.

 

[amrnuke]

But yet it very informative and correct on many levels.
You welcome.

More informative would be a comparison of how many people are reporting issues with their cards as a whole. 50% of AMD and 33% of Nvidia. Nvidia is on a more mature microarchitecture and has better drivers.

All of what I just said has been posted here and dozens of other places before. The wccftech article is just rehashing what's posted on the AMD subreddit. It's nothing new.

As for your post being informative and correct on many levels, you posted "Wow I didnt know it was this bad. I remember having problems with my 5750 years ago,it took months for them to fix it."

Wow. So informative.

 

[IEC]

Few more data points: No issues with the latest AMD drivers on my systems with Radeon 290, Radeon RX480, or Radeon VII cards. And a Radeon-based rig is my current daily driver since I'm away from home for extended periods of time. I run Discord and a bunch of different game launchers with no issues, no black screens, no stutters, etc.

As someone who had their RTX 2080 Ti go "Space Invaders" on me, I accept that faulty hardware and/or software is a possibility, but that's why I make sure to run my hardware hard in the early part of the "bathtub" curve of failure to make sure it's solid before the warranty is up.

 

[Guru]

Since 2012 a had GTX670/970/1070/1080Ti and never had any driver problem.I have now new 5700xt nitro + and had tons of bugs and black screens.Black screens are worst because it happen random and i need reset whole pc.Sometimes 2x per hour and sometimes i can play 2hours without problem.
i found more bugs:
Forcing AA in older games in drivers is bugged
using radeon anti-lag in some games causing stuttering
custom fan curve causing stuttering(depends on game in some games more and in others less.Only way around this is use morepowertools and adjust fan speed there)
custom profiles and settings for some games dont work(only global settings works)
Zero rpm mode is bugged when using custom fan curve
Simply one big mess.

I think after month of troubleshooting i fixed my black screen bug with this:
Under display/overrides i incresed voltage and disabled HDCP
Under general i disabled everything under preferences
I uninstaled bitdefender antivirus
i turned off hw acceleration in firefox and chrome
with morepowertools i decreased target hotspot temperature from 89°C to 85°C
i increased soc voltage in morepowertools from 1.050v to 1.1v(reference cards have 1.2v)
WIth this i didnt have black screen for 2 days so far and thats my record.But if amd dont fix this is next month i will never ever buy AMD card again.

Have you made a bug report on their forums? If not, then imagine if most other users who have this or similar issues are like you, if you've not reported it on their official website, it won't be fixed period. I suspect you and most others have not bothered to report the issue, therefore you keep having it.

The first thing I did when I had the green screens when watching video on my 1060 6gb was to google it, found out that it was widely reported in Nvidia's forums, made a post myself saying I have the same issue and waited basically 4-6 months for the issue to be fixed!

And don't say you expect perfect everything from start, that is unicorn land, there are going to be issues for some, not for others, its the way it is. I do expect my issues to be fixed if I've reported it though within a reasonable timeframe, obviously if I'm the only one with a certain specific issue, probably dozen of months, faster if its a commonly reported problem!

 

[happy medium]

More informative would be a comparison of how many people are reporting issues with their cards as a whole. 50% of AMD and 33% of Nvidia. Nvidia is on a more mature microarchitecture and has better drivers.

All of what I just said has been posted here and dozens of other places before. The wccftech article is just rehashing what's posted on the AMD subreddit. It's nothing new.

As for your post being informative and correct on many levels, you posted "Wow I didnt know it was this bad. I remember having problems with my 5750 years ago,it took months for them to fix it."

Wow. So informative.

I dont make the information ,just reporting it for our fellow members.
If you have a personal problem take it to PM, dont derail the thread..
Thanks.

 

[Stuka87]

One person will be on v1909 and running Chrome+Fortnite+Twitch, and be fine. Another with the same build will have the black or wonky color screen out into problem world. Some people can use DDU and it fixes it, some not. Some people can disable certain HW Accel and fixes it, some not. Weird.

And some of us running 100% fine, even if we try to replicate the issue that others have reported. I work in Software QA, and these types of issues are a nightmare to localize, and almost always requires some end users who are willing to work with you to figure out the issue.

 

[amrnuke]

I dont make the information ,just reporting it for our fellow members.
If you have a personal problem take it to PM, dont derail the thread..
Thanks.

No, you aren't reporting anything. You're posting a link with a drive-by commentary, and then talking about your experience with a years-old card.

Driver issues and stability have already been discussed ad nauseum in other appropriate threads. This post is a duplicate, in line with your incessant series of posts that add little to the discussion, with what seems to me to be clear intent to smear AMD, rather than actually bring any "new" information to the table.

 

[mopardude87]

I almost posted something bigger then this explaining how i have had issues with drivers from both camps. Then felt it added nothing constructive to the thread. Feels like deva vu like i may have already more or less responded to a thread like this. Prob have,it's a catchy thread that certainly hooks ya in.

 

[Kenmitch]

I cant remember.

....The last time I said something positive about AMD.

Finished the sentence for ya as you clearly have forgotten.

Maybe if you weren't so outright biased others would play nicely with you.

 

[Feld]

As a Radeon VII user, there is one significant bug I have to deal with - assuming it is indeed a bug. For all official drivers since 19.5.2 the ability to overclock this GPU is disabled. Since I went to the trouble of water cooling it on a custom loop (with great success), there's little point in not overclocking. So I'm stuck on a driver that's now more than 9 months old.

 

[gk1951]

I hear you Feld. I had a Bykski Wb on my Rad VII when it first came out but had a problem and fortunately got another Rad VII.

Recently EK had a drastic reduction in the cost of the Rad VII wb price and I had upgraded my CPU/MB to 3900x and MSI X570 Unify. I decided to custom wc it and used the Optimus wb - an EXCELLENT custom wb. The price reduction of the EK gpu block for the RAD VII allowed me to custom wc the gpu also. Even had enough to use EK's custom Rad VII backplate. Now my Rad VII runs real cool. I'm satisfied to run it stock but would be nice if the driver issue was cleaned up so I could OC this a bit.

 

[Feld]

I hear you Feld. I had a Bykski Wb on my Rad VII when it first came out but had a problem and fortunately got another Rad VII.

Recently EK had a drastic reduction in the cost of the Rad VII wb price and I had upgraded my CPU/MB to 3900x and MSI X570 Unify. I decided to custom wc it and used the Optimus wb - an EXCELLENT custom wb. The price reduction of the EK gpu block for the RAD VII allowed me to custom wc the gpu also. Even had enough to use EK's custom Rad VII backplate. Now my Rad VII runs real cool. I'm satisfied to run it stock but would be nice if the driver issue was cleaned up so I could OC this a bit.

Yep, the EK block works great. Even with it overclocked, there's about a 30C reduction in temp and hot spot versus the stock cooler with stock clocks. It sure would be nice to have some of the game optimizations from the last 9 months of drivers though.

 

[Shamrock]

I too, am having a problem with ALL of the 2020 drivers. Whenever I watch a video, in youtube, twitch, facebook, etc. After about 3 minutes, the audio begins to de-sync from the video. Audio gets too fast for the video to catch up, and people talking looks like an old Ancient Chinese Theater on USA channel. But works great in games!

Video card is Sapphire Vega 56. I have had to roll back to 19.12.1