[UFD tech] Polaris soon to be deprecated in AMD drivers?

[VirtualLarry]

Way too soon, considering how many RX 580 cards are floating around there.

 

[gdansk]

It would be a big mistake. RX 580/570 are AMD's two most popular dedicated GPUs on Steam HW Survey.
Nvidia is still supporting 900 series which released years earlier. They need to at least wait until that.

 

[Makaveli]

Polaris is like 7 years old at this point I think its time.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

As someone who keeps his cards for a long time (980ti from 2016 to 2022, and it's still trucking in the family gaming PC) what support exactly are people looking for from a 7+ year old card?

What does "supported" actually mean in that context?

I haven't seen release notes mention my 980ti for a looooong time and generally speaking I would go a year or more between driver updates (just cause it's good to update every once in a while) but never because I was having issues gaming.

Should AMD just ensure the legacy code stays in new drivers so people can feel good about updating drivers even if none of the updates actually affect them?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

This has been making the rounds for the last 6 weeks.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Fabio does a lot of content on the modded Amernime drivers. If they do stop supporting Polaris and Vega officially, use those as needed.

Lately Amernime has released drivers to get some of the new AMD features working on older cards. It is an inelegant solution, but it works. I think that's pretty damned cool.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Way too soon, considering how many RX 580 cards are floating around there.

Nothing of value will be lost bro.

As @GodisanAtheist pointed out, even if the driver officially supports your card, it doesn't mean that they didn't stop adding optimizations for it years ago. Hell, sometimes the new drivers are worse than the old ones.

Here is a good example - Guardians of the Galaxy on the GTX 980. Nerfed on newer drivers, much better on older ones. Video will start at correct time.

 

[MrPickins]

This is just the progression of things.

As a RX580 owner, I see this as a non-issue. Like @DAPUNISHER said, it's likely that Polaris-specific optimizations haven't been made in a while already, and I certainly wouldn't expect any more. Seven years is a long time.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

As @MrPickins pointed out, it's very unlikely older generations of cards are seeing any driver optimizations at this time, and it's entirely possible that newer drivers actually break fixes on older cards even if the card is officially supported.

 

[tcsenter]

If it is going into the inactive 'performance improvement' category then it's fine, there is very likely nothing more in performance to be wrung out of these cards. But bugs, display errors, or deleterious performance 'issues' should still be investigated and fixed for a couple more years.

 

[MrPickins]

If it is going into the inactive 'performance improvement' category then it's fine, there is very likely nothing more in performance to be wrung out of these cards. But bugs, display errors, or deleterious performance 'issues' should still be investigated and fixed for a couple more years.

I suppose I could get with this, but I really wonder how many bugs there are left after all this time. If they haven't been brought up and addressed by now, how common could they really be?

Fabio does a lot of content on the modded Amernime drivers. If they do stop supporting Polaris and Vega officially, use those as needed.

Lately Amernime has released drivers to get some of the new AMD features working on older cards. It is an inelegant solution, but it works. I think that's pretty damned cool.

I personally doubt they will stop offering the legacy driver for Polaris any time soon. I still have no problem finding a driver from AMD for a practically ancient HD6850.

 

[tcsenter]

I personally doubt they will stop offering the legacy driver for Polaris any time soon. I still have no problem finding a driver from AMD for a practically ancient HD6850.

Latest driver from AMD is 2015 up to W10?

 

[MrPickins]

Latest driver from AMD is 2015 up to W10?

Probably. I can't check now, but I can tell you it installed and worked just fine on my kid's Windows 10 pc just recently when I tried it. I see no reason it wouldn't work on Windows 11 as well, even if it's not listed (afaik, the driver model hasn't changed).

Just because the driver isn't being currently updated doesn't mean the card is no longer functional, even 10 or 12 years after launch.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Just because the driver isn't being currently updated doesn't mean the card is no longer functional, even 10 or 12 years after launch.

You're not wrong.

The modded drivers get a lot of positive feedback, and in the case I mentioned, added features they are otherwise locked out of. Sure you can just download the last ones that were available and they work. But the modded drivers can sometimes offer various fixes and improvements. I think it is great that the community continues to support old cards.

 

[MrPickins]

You're not wrong.

The modded drivers get a lot of positive feedback, and in the case I mentioned, added features they are otherwise locked out of. Sure you can just download the last ones that were available and they work. But the modded drivers can sometimes offer various fixes and improvements. I think it is great that the community continues to support old cards.

I definitely agree that it's a good thing that the community works on projects like this.

(Although I'm generally too paranoid to install drivers that don't come from the manufacturer. i don't like unsigned software having such low-level access to my system)

Unrelated, but I find it amazing how much better the integrated graphics are on the R7 5700g that replaced the HD6850. It was a nice boost.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Unrelated, but I find it amazing how much better the integrated graphics are on the R7 5700g that replaced the HD6850. It was a nice boost.

I love the APUs. Looking forward to getting a new desktop RDNA3/3+/4 variant at some point.

The 5700G is a champ for what it is. I have it set to boost clock to 4.85GHz. The Vega is overclocked to 2400MHz. Using 4133MT/s ram it can play much more of my game libraries at 1080 than not. FSR can help in some of the games it can't.

It would be a bonehead move if AMD stops supporting Vega when they still ship new laptops with it. Not because of functionality, but because of how it comes off for shoppers. Imagine looking for a laptop this holiday season so you are checking out reviews. The reviewer cites that the AMD model with the sweet price you are looking at, has graphics that are no longer supported. That's not going to inspire confidence in the product.

I still think this was all an erroneous rumor. It was based on closed betas a couple of month ago lacking Polaris and Vega support. One of the testers leaked it from what I understand. As we have seen since then, AMD separated the driver packages, and systems where they are mixed with newer RDNA products have a different install recommendation now.

 

[Leeea]

I find this difficult to believe.

To many rx580s installed and being used. Popular card. Lots of bad press with dropping support for it.

And no way they are dropping Vega. Vega is still shipping!

 

[Spjut]

Today I think some kind of Legacy support just for severe security holes should be provided for a long time

For gaming, there's the question of future games with "simple" graphics that might be unplayable due to driver bugs that never will get fixed.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

While AMD is not ending support entirely, Polaris and Vega are now on a much slower update track.

https://www.techpowerup.com/315547/...-polaris-gpus-on-a-slower-driver-update-track

 

[gdansk]

They're still selling Vega parts (now as the 7730U). Jeeze AMD

 

[GodisanAtheist]

While it "looks bad" I doubt this will really have any practical effect on the end user in most situations. Vega (and Polaris) are about as mature as an arch if going to get given they're basically bulked up GCN from way back when.

If there is an emergency scenario where Vega needs to be patched, they can always release an off cycle driver.

Out of curiosity, what major performance/fix patches has Vega gotten recently that people might be worried won't show up later?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If there is an emergency scenario where Vega needs to be patched, they can always release an off cycle driver.

That looks to be the plan.

The Anandtech story - https://www.anandtech.com/show/21126/amd-reduces-ongoing-driver-support-for-polaris-and-vega-gpus

The Amernime Zone will keep things going after all official support ends.

 

[Makaveli]

That looks to be the plan.

The Anandtech story - https://www.anandtech.com/show/21126/amd-reduces-ongoing-driver-support-for-polaris-and-vega-gpus

The Amernime Zone will keep things going after all official support ends.

This.

But the writing is on the wall those of you still using 7-8 year old gpu's its time to upgrade.

 

[Shmee]

For those on Radeon VII cards though, I could see those still being viable for a while longer. 16GB of memory and a powerful Vega GPU, it performs similar to a 1080Ti or 5700XT, but has more memory than either. Also this is HBM2, so it is darn fast.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

For those on Radeon VII cards though, I could see those still being viable for a while longer. 16GB of memory and a powerful Vega GPU, it performs similar to a 1080Ti or 5700XT, but has more memory than either. Also this is HBM2, so it is darn fast.

The reasons I would not buy a used Radeon VII for gaming.

1. Almost certainly slaved in the mines
2. Still much too expensive on the used market for the performance level
3. No mesh shaders
4. Official driver support is on its way out (this one is not a big deal AT ALL, but still have to ding it)
5. Performance is all over the place depending on the game. Alan Wake II is completely broken on Vega
6. Better off with a BNIB 6600XT or 6650XT for similar money.

Iceberg recently revisited it