AMD 12.7 Beta drivers, Let's turn this into an experience thread!

Originally Posted by Samurai707 

Can anyone who is using 12.7 already post your experiences, good, bad, ugly, including benches or game experience?
As to what reading I have been doing, looks like a good amount of info is stored in the 7970/50 thread and some other question threads.
Much appreciated guys, just to ease everyone's research efforts and help everyone trying to check up on the new software

Originally Posted by fashric 

I tried them and wasn't that impressed because of issues in Skyrim (what a suprise!) like the interface being all screwed up and some very weird shadow issues. I wish I had taken some screenshots before I went back to 12.6 Beta. They did seem ok in BF3 though had no issues but didn't notice much of a performance increase either. Thats my very limited experience with them. I may try them again when they are officially released.

Originally Posted by Imprezzion 

Quick review:
Hardware / software used:
i7 2600K @ 4.81.
8GB of RAM @ 2133Mhz 9-11-11-24-1T
3 SSD's
Sapphire HD7970 3GB Reference @ 1250 / 1675Mhz.
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 w/ SP1.
MSI AB 2.2.2
Installing:
Is quite a hell when coming from older drivers. Even with a full CIM uninstall and safe-mode driver sweep the CCC will NOT install properly the first time. You have to run the full install first, then reboot, uninstall CCC through CIM, reboot, install ONLY CCC again, reboot, and they work fine except for software tools still saying it's CCC 12.3.
Features:
All features are working within CCC once you get it installed. There's no extra software in this package like the AMD software for transcoding dragging screens or the USB filters. Not that they are needed...
Performance:
Game performance with my 7970 is superb. GPU usage dropped a solid 8% on average running MW3 all maxed with 2xEQ Adaptive AA through CCC.This drop means it has to work less to maintain the 91FPS cap. It used to do about 58% average GPU usage. That's down to 50% now.
BF3 also runs at noticably higher FPS with all ultra and the same CCC forced 2xEQ Adaptive AA. The card used to do about 70-75 FPS on average in Metro. That's all the way up to 80-85FPS now. These values are averaged between the highest and lowest framerate I saw while playing with FRAPS and are NOT representative of real world performance cause IDC what my FPS counter sais, as long as the game feels smooth. And oh yeah it does... Even on Gulf of Oman, a FPS eater, i have no FPS lag at all even though FPS can drop as low as 45 on some situations.
Overclocking:
This is a disaster. it's do-able but ONLY with MSI AB and with a LOT of trial and error.
U have to DISABLE unofficial OC within MSI AB and add the commandline option -xcl as in "C://Program Files/MSI Afterburner/MSIAfterburner.exe" -xcl in the target path of the shortcut.
Start MSI AB after doing this and a message pops up with Clock limits have been extended. Please reboot.
So, reboot.
Now, the clock limits have been extended in MSI AB and in CCC to double stock. So well over 2200Mhz for the core for example.
Now, key in your overclocks including voltages in MSI AB and apply them.
Key in THE SAME overclocks in CCC as it also has extended limits and apply those.
For a custom fan profile, apply MSI AB's clocks again now. For fixed fanspeed or stock fan profile, let CCC do the rest.
NOW it will hold your clocks. If u dont do the clocks in CCC it will randomly ''forget'' clocks and revert to stock. It will still randomly forget the clocks now, but it reverts to the same clocks in CCC so u don't notice it.
Voltages and fanspeeds do stay remembered and this is a one-time action. After a reboot or w/e settings remain remembered.
Bugs:
Yeah, one pretty bad one. Flash video on a website can completely make the card flip out in a haze of wierd colored moving lines.
PC will NOT crash, so a simple ALT-F4 or Backspace might be enough, but sometimes it won't recover from the flipping out and u needa reset or hard reboot with the power button.
Disabling HW Acceleration for Flash doesn't seem to help as I, and others as well, still randomly get these crashes. Most of the times however flash runs ok.
That's it, if u have any questions, ask em,
If u aint afraid of some tinkering to get a OC to work and a bug here and there with Flash this driver is a must-have for all 7*** owners as it's easily the best performing driver only followed closely by the 12.6 June beta's.