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The AMD How To Thread

87K views 438 replies 69 participants last post by  pehoko 
#1 ·
This will be for collecting all the How To's in one place. If you have something to add let me know and I will gladly add it.
Here's some stuff to start things off.

**Doing some updates to this thread since Afterburner has changed so much. I'll leave the old methods spoilered and in tact. It's still very good imo to know the fundamentals behind why we check the boxes that we check in the current Afterburner.

Resources:

Driver downloads

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/downloads.aspx

Driver uninstalls

At this point Display Driver Uninstaller has matured very well and I find myself using it more often than not. It's quick and easy. Also, after extracting it if you run the exe from windows, it will automatically take you to safemode on reboot. It sure beats manually getting the OS to boot to safemode on windoze 8 and higher!

http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/ddudownload.htm

**If you already have AB configured properly, say you went thru this guide already and are swapping to a new driver, remember to set AB to not start with windows. If the hardware does not change and it is just drivers that you are changing, AB will not change the gpu profiles. Simply unchecking start w/ windows will save your settings. After you install the new driver, start AB. Remember to redo the following things, check the boxes for disable ulps and extend official oc limits. This is covered in more detail at the end of the section on configuring AB.

Below is the manual method I used to use when the you know what hits the fan.
Run the driver setup.exe, choose uninstall, express. Once completed, do not reboot and go to control panel, run Programs and Features, click on AMD Catalyst Install Manager, click change, next, Express Uninstall All AMD Software, after a second pop up, choose Remove. If anything fails, not much you can do so move on to next step. If you have caps installed, uninstall them as well at this time but do not agree to reboot when it asks you to do so.

**If you installed a modded driver, choose custom and check everything before continuing on.

Now, go to device manger and uninstall the standard vga device or AMD Radeon XXX if you see it. If you choose to clean the registry, you must not skip this step. But don't worry, deleting the devices is safe. If prompted to reboot, choose yes. If you are asked or given the choice to delete the driver, choose to do so. *Something to keep an eye out for is while uninstalling the vga devices, if you are unlucky windows will black out, ie. the screen goes black. Do not freak out, this is just an annoying bug because we just uninstalled the drivers, and then deleted any leftover drivers in the windows driver subsystem. If you have vnc and another pc, you can use that to remote into your rig and continue the uninstall process. If not, just hit the power button once, only once to initiate soft shutdown. Reboot, then continue where you left off.

At this point, you have the option of blasting all the old radeon gpu keys if you want to or are OCD like me. I can't stand having more keys than I have cards and it's just so dirty looking.
Anyways, open regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

You can simply delete the whole folder 4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318, It will fail but conveniently for us it will wipe the subfolders for us. You can also delete the ControlSet002 folder ie. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet2\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} in the same manner but it's not a big deal.

* If for some reaason you only want to delete the active card or cards, you can open these folders. The active cards will have a sub folder DAL2_DATA_2_0. Inactive folders will not have this folder.

You don't have to mess with ControlSet1 as it is replicated with CurrentControlSet and vice versa. ControlSet002 will need to be manually cleaned however.

Now back to device manager.

**This portion deals with deleting the leftover driver files. I would recommend in most day to day situations to skip this portion as it's not needed. The dll's will get overwritten upon driver install anyways. However if you have a situation that you are trying to recover from (failed sweeper/installer) this will remove just the dll associated with the gpu driver. It is best for AMD CPU based users to skip this part as sometimes AMD cpu/mb drivers are tied to the gpu drivers, especially in cases of APU. If you do not use an AMD CPU continue on for the best OCD experience.

windows\system32
windows\system32\drivers
windows\syswow64

Delete everything that starts "ati" then xxxx, everything. For ex. it starts with the file atiadlxx.dll and goes to ativvsvl.dat. There's nothing there that starts ati that isn't driver related. If there are files locked, skip them and move on. Now you are ready to reboot, upon logon windows will install default vga device and ask to reboot.

**There may be some dll's that were not deleted previously due to them being loaded in memory during the file deletion. You can safely delete those after reboot, once Windows has re-installed the standard vga driver if you so choose, depending on your OCD level.

Upon reboot, you will be at a clean state, or that is 99% clean of AMD drivers.

Driver install

Thankfully this is the easiest part of AMD driver process. If you use an SSD boot device and have a secondary drive for your games/etc then change destination folder drive to that drive. For ex, I simply change the C: to D:. It will create an AMD folder on your D: drive. I also use this folder to store my downloaded drivers. I also keep the extracted folders for later, driver reinstalls. You can go back and run the setup.exe for each driver at will.

Now as the install progress, choose Install, then custom. Custom allows you to inspect the options. I run an eyefinity setup so I don't want to use the raptr stuff. I don't need it changing my game specific settings, etc. Let it finish and reboot.

Configuring Afterburner 4.0 and higher

There are basically two ways to overclock on AMD gpus, unofficial and official. Unofficial used to be the predominant way to overclock, but these days and with the improvement in AB, the official method has become quite reliable. Here I will detail how to setup AB using official method, and setting up profiles which are vitally important to a running well behaved gpu.

After installing Afterburner. Run it and AB will ask to check the gpus and reboot. Allow it to do it's thing. Upon reboot, run AB again and check all the boxes like I have in the pic below. Check them and do not mix modes. Afterburner will again ask to reboot. Allow it to do so.



After configuring like so, you then need to setup two presets under the profiles tab under settings (the settings button). One profile is default (ie. stock clocks untouched) and one is for your oc/daily settings/whatever use, etc. You can create more profiles at will. Now go to settings/profiles and pick your default preset for 2D profile and other preset for 3D profile. Exit AB, and restart it to save settings. Your card should now drop down to low power clocks while idle, and conversely maintain the clocks you chose for the 3D profile under load. Btw, be sure to max Power Limit on your 3D profile. This is important to prevent throttling. Also, do not forget to enable unified gpu monitoring.


^^Presets



*If you have a MSI Lighting, you can change the drop down box next to "unlock voltage control" to extended MSI.

**In the latest version, 4.1.1 correction formulas have been added to various processes for ex. under monitoring. Let's take vram usage which is a global output that displays total vram usage. But this can be confusing at a moments glance especially in game. By using the correction formula while you are setting up vram usage monitoring, we can tell AB to divide the vram usage by the number of gpu we have in crossfire. Thus for quads type in the correction formula box: x/y where x = vram usage and y = the number of gpus. Thus our equation to type into the box is x/4 for quads or x/3 for tri and x/2 for dual. You'll know whether its wrong or not because the text will turn red when the equation is incorrect syntax.

RTSS setup and profiles

Here is where you can setup the Onscreen Display (OSD). I generally don't want to see a bazillion stats while gaming, though I will add that the more sensors monitored, the more lag you will introduce. Something to keep in mind is that the stats that you want to see in the OSD are setup in Afterburner under settings/monitoring. But controlling what apps initiate 3D clocks is done from the RTSS app itself. And very important too is how do you know what app/apps are requesting 3D clock status? You can find that by clicking the "i" button at the top of the AB window next to the card/driver name. Below I will show how to control what apps are allowed 3D access using RTSS.



^^Here you can see waterfox is using hw acceleration even when its disabled. Nice job Mozilla!

We can use RTSS to add known offender apps like your browser, specifically Mozilla browsers to the profile list and set them to none for app detection level. This will prevent Firefox from using hw acceleration even though you've already unchecked the acceleration box inside Firefox. Mozilla often changes how they use HA between builds, so version 30 did not trigger HA, but version 31 does. And all the while you had no idea since you unchecked HW accel in settings anyways, but it is still using it lol. Mozilla browsers are a pain in the ass. This process is a great tool in your toolbox



Click on the big plus sign and add the *.exe of the app in question. You can either traverse to the file.exe or just type the filename.exe. RTSS will work with either method. Then change it's app detection level from low/whatever to None. That's it, you've now disabled that app's access to gpu acceleration.




Reinstalling drivers with no HW changes w/o reinstalling Afterburner


After following the steps above and if there are no hw changes to your gpus before running DDU, open AB and uncheck start with windows. The profiles created by AB will not change but running AB in the middle of a driver update can cause headaches. After DDU and installing the new driver, you can start AB again and re-check the box to start with windows. Be sure to re-check disable ULPS and extend official overclock limits.

**Old methods with more detail


AMD clock control files **Only need with uinofficial method.

RC11 extracted files

RC11 dlls.zip 338k .zip file


**Extract to system32 and syswow64 directories, C:\windows\system32 etc and drop the files into your Afterburner directory as well.
Afterburner install - unofficial overclock method

*Fyi, beta 6 and higher have had the profile management functionality removed. Please be aware if you are using the beta while trying the methods below.
**Assumes you have no instance of AB, aka afterburner installed previously. If you do have AB installed previously, uninstall it or delete the folder. Also, it is generally a good idea to uninstall AB before any new driver install when you are crossfired. AB will automatically run, even when run at windows start is disabled, and when it does and it tries to fool with clocks you will BSOD with a 07E code.

Run afterburner install. At this point, if you choose default install directory, there will incur security issues later on, just keep that in mind. I would recommend you install it in another folder/drive.

After install completes, do not check the option to start afterburner. If you are crossfired follow A- below to disable ULPS if you are using Unofficial Overclock Method (UOM) or , you can skip this portion if you are using Official Overclock Method (-xcl), however be warned that Afterburner will not be able to see your sleeping cards if you have ULPS enabled. Thus it's probably a good idea to disable ULPS anyways.

A- Disabling ULPS
Open regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

This key 4D36E968, under CurrentControlSet is the only folder you need to access. You can ignore the others, so don't search for it just traverse directly to said folder. It's time to disable ULPS, or ultra low power savings. Inside the folder you will find more folders, 0000/0001/0002/etc so on and on.

Open each folder and double click on EnableULPS and change to 0. You do not need to change any other key, or any keys that look similar, just change EnableULPS. Close regedit. End of A-

At this point if you installed into default directory, you will have a security issue. Open file manager, go to where you installed afterburner and right click on MSIAfterburner.cfg and go to security, click edit, add yourself and give yourself full control, click ok.

Now go back and open MSIAfterburner.cfg in notepad.

Scroll to bottom and change this:

[ATIADLHAL]
UnofficialOverclockingEULA =
UnofficialOverclockingMode= 0

to this:

[ATIADLHAL]
UnofficialOverclockingEULA = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode= 1

**Note on the mode setting. Some new games are causing clock conflicts with Powerplay creating flickering on the desktop. You can avoid this by choosing 2, instead of 1. I am running with Powerplay off. Look Mom, no flickering. Refer to the bottom of Post 2 for more info on this.
biggrin.gif


Close and save MSIAfterburner.cfg. At this point download the file from the link above for AMD Clock Control files and run it. Do not reboot.

Now you can run afterburner for the first time. Afterburner will analyze the gpu asic and ask to reboot when ready. Choose yes to reboot. After reboot, you will have afterburner installed, you can then unlock voltage control and monitoring, etc. Happy overclocking.

Afterburner install - unofficial method - Profile Setup
Quote:
Originally Posted by tsm106 View Post

Open AB, click reset then save that to preset 1. Now create an overclocked setting and save that to preset 2. Once complete, click on settings and scroll right to the Profiles tab. Then using the drop down boxes choose the appropriate profiles.

2D profile: choose the default clock preset 1

3D profile: whatever you want here


Afterburner install - official overclock method aka -xcl Part 1 for single cards
Install driver of choice. Tri and quadfire people, I'd recommend you stick with RC11 and refer to Part 2 for getting the rest of your cards enabled.

Install AB, I recommend in a different directory from default. In general you will need to install the above linked clock control files. RC11 does not need these files.

On your desktop is the shortcut of AB, make a copy of it to edit. Add -xcl to the end of the target box after right clicking it/properties. Click ok to close the window. Make sure to close AB before running this newly edited shortcut.

Ex.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI Afterburner\MSIAfterburner.exe" -xcl

After AB's prompt, reboot and save this shortcut and rename it so you have it for safe keeping. You will need to re-run if it you change drivers again.

For some background on the xcl process. The -xcl switch is just to tell AB to create new modified Powerplay Tables in the registry. All it does is unlock the overclock limits of Overdrive. Note you won't be using Overdrive at all. You'll instead be using AB but using AB just as default with only the check marks for unlocking voltage. Don't do anything in AB's config file, that method is for "unofficial method" whereas you'll be using "official method."
When you add -xcl to the AB shortcut, it doesn't run, it merely imports the Powerplay Tables as mentioned above. Once that's done, you have to then remove the -xcl you added, and reboot. Upon reboot, you can open up AB and overclock like normal.
**There are a couple caveats with the -xcl method. The most annoying is that AB cannot edit the Powerplay Tables of more than 1 card. And that 1 card is only the active card so if you have crossfire you will have to jump thru some hurdles. There's a trick to add all the Powerplay Tables for ppl in crossfire in that link.
**The other annoyance is that you will have to redo the -xcl method after each driver install.
**Also, you will need the clock control files.
It's also a good idea if you are crossfired, to do this on a cleaned registry so you know which Radeon folder to edit.Thus the bottom line is we use AB to overclock without enabling UOM and without disabling ULPS. When you set your overclock in AB, this gets passed to Overdrive and you stay inside AMD's Powersaving tech. For voltage control, we use AB as we normally would.

Afterburner install - official overclock method aka -xcl Part 2 for crossfire users - addon
AB xcl method above will only unlock the Overdrive limits for the active card. If you have other cards in a crossfire, technically you will have to disable crossfire and plug a monitor into each card and run the xcl unlock process to unlock each card. This can be quite the hassle. Luckily there's an easier way.

Anyways, I extracted the powerplay tables allowing one to edit and not do the song and dance.

*Open notepad, copy paste this in there save it as a *.reg file or rename .reg then merge that into your reg. Edit the "0000" for each card you have. Simply paste/create the key below and label each corresponding key 0000/0001/002/etc for as many entries or cards as you have in the registry. Also with this key, you don't have to create the shortcut sd with Part 1.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]

"PP_PhmSoftPowerPlayTable"=hex:f3,01,06,01,00,00,00,10,18,58,00,6b,00,dd,00,e8,\
03,e8,03,58,00,00,80,03,00,10,00,00,02,07,3b,00,00,6d,00,df,00,00,3f,01,0a,\
00,3f,01,4f,01,4e,02,00,00,27,10,00,00,5b,01,75,01,8f,01,00,00,c2,01,00,00,\
04,01,00,00,af,00,00,00,60,ea,00,00,a9,01,52,03,00,00,14,00,40,00,04,01,00,\
00,03,01,04,05,00,03,02,05,05,00,03,03,06,06,06,07,10,54,69,01,1c,19,02,01,\
ff,6b,03,02,00,00,00,00,00,50,c3,00,80,38,01,20,03,5c,03,01,00,00,00,00,00,\
30,75,00,80,38,01,20,03,5c,03,01,00,00,00,00,00,40,9c,00,80,38,01,20,03,5c,\
03,02,00,00,00,00,00,30,75,00,98,3a,00,52,03,6b,03,00,00,00,00,00,00,b4,c3,\
00,1c,19,02,b6,03,6b,03,01,00,00,00,00,00,30,75,00,98,3a,00,20,03,6b,03,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,04,18,08,00,00,00,78,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,05,00,00,00,78,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,04,00,00,7a,00,00,00,00,00,00,40,19,01,00,c0,da,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,78,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,02,06,7c,15,8c,23,48,26,d0,07,7c,15,58,1b,48,26,0c,00,20,bf,02,00,\
f4,e9,03,00,cb,01,05,30,75,00,20,03,50,c3,00,52,03,60,ea,00,84,03,70,11,01,\
b6,03,54,69,01,01,ff,05,98,3a,00,5c,03,30,75,00,61,03,80,38,01,66,03,1c,19,\
02,6b,03,80,19,02,6c,03,05,98,3a,00,20,03,30,75,00,52,03,80,38,01,84,03,1c,\
19,02,b6,03,80,19,02,01,ff,04,20,03,00,00,00,00,52,03,00,00,00,00,b6,03,00,\
00,00,00,92,04,00,00,00,00,01,e8,03,98,3a,00,a8,61,00,00,03,d8,d6,00,d8,d6,\
00,70,11,01,70,11,01,30,75,00,30,75,00,02,b6,03,00,1a,04,01,06,01,01,00,01,\
02,02,00,01,02,03,00,03

**If for some reason it's not working for you, you can simply open up your registry, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968. Easy way is Local, System, CurrentControlSet, Control, Class, then scroll down to "4D36E9" set then hit the "68" at the end. Inside you find "0000" files, and each folder represents a physical card per slot. So if you moved card 1 that was in slot 1, into slot 4, that will create a new folder. Try not to move cards around too much because it will create a lot of folders, making it confusing. Also, if you followed my manual uninstall method, your registry should be cleaned up nicely.

Ok, now scroll down to the 4D36E968 folder and extract that folder to some place. Open up some place, and edit the reg file. Basically you just delete everything except the table and header from above. And then simply create more entries as instructed above.

Make Afterburner show real voltage

Show real voltage in Afterburner for 7970s.
With Afterburner closed, open your Afterburner install directory, traverse to profiles. There will be a config file for each card or cards inside. If you have more files than cards, then you can just delete all the files, ie. VEN_1002&DEV....cfg. This will effectively reset Afterburner. Now run Afterburner again and it will configure your cards and create new config files. Now you can edit the newly created config files. Close AB and...

Add this under the Settings for each card you have.

[Settings]
VDDC_CHL8228_VIDReadback = 0
MVDDC_CHL8228_VIDReadback = 0

Unlocking and editing voltage on Caymans using RBE -
Original thread for 6950 to 6970 Mod

Radeon Bios Editor

*Before you start, put RBE, atiwinflash, and you extracted bios file into a folder on the c drive, named unlock.

Start by confirming your card/s are on switch #1. Open gpuz, underneath the AMD icon, next to bios version, click on the green arrowed bios chip button, choose save to file. Save as unlock.rom.

Start Radeon Bios Editor, RBE for short. Click Load Bios, choose your unlock.rom file. Go to the 4th tab, Additional features and under unlock 6950 ->6970, choose to unlock. That was easy!

Now go to the 2nd tab, Clock settings and click o GPU registers (bottom left). View/Change voltage registers window will open and with four boxes. The two on the right are what we are after. Depending on what your asic % is, you will have either both boxes show 1100, or 1100 and 1065. Some cards work with the 3rd box and some with the 4th box. It doesn't really matter so we will change both to whatever voltage you've decided upon.

**Caution Label here. Over 1.3v or 1300mv is only safe with water. 1.4v is the dead zone, do not push your luck. Whatever you choose to put in is your choice.

Once you've edited your volts, click ok, then Save the bios.

Now you are ready for flashing. I prefer to use a dosprompt, I can just copy paste and push the up key to repeat commands for crossfire configs. I can flash four cards in less than 5 minutes this way.

Thus open a admin dos prompt. Text taken from wizzard from TPU.

- Black command prompt windows opens
- Type "cd\"
- Type "cd unlock"
- Type "atiwinflash -unlockrom 0" <-- the 0 means first adapter, if you have multiple cards *change the 0 to the next card in line, etc etc*
- Type "atiwinflash -f -p 0 unlock.bin"
- It should complete the flashing process with a message saying something with "verified".

If you have multiple cards, repeat the process until all cards are flashed. Once completed you are ready for reboot. There should be no driver changes, but confirm you have new shader count in gpuz. Now onto overclocking Caymans.

Overclocking on Cayman using Overdrive
Racerx mod

The beauty of using RBE is that we get to use AMD's full suite of powersaving tech w/o breaking anything. And what goes hand in hand with RBE is the Racerx mod.

In Post #2 you will find attached two versions of Racerx. One is an old version and the current version. If you find that the current version won't run, you can use the original. The difference is that v16 brings a few of value added features that are nice, but what's most important is just raising the Overdrive limits.

Run racerx, leave everything default except for Upper Limits. Raise that to a sensible upper limit. Click create file and save it, choose yes to apply it to the registery. Reboot and you will have raised Overdrive limits.

*Hopefully you've cleaned your registry out from the above method so you will only have 1 folder if you are single gpu. Thus you need only import the reg file. If however you have crossfire or more, you simply edit the Racerx reg file and create copies of the data making a separate entry for each card.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]

Copy data and make another entry changing the bolded digit to 1, for the second card, 2 for the third card. If you did not clean your registry you will have to determine what numbers point to which card on your own.

Once done and rebooted, you no longer have to use Afterburner for overclocking. You can however still use it to display OSD stats.

Yahoo, +50 Powertune
Racerx also has a mod to raise powertune to +50. http://www.techimo.com/forum/3265850-post70.html

Do you still have the racerx.reg file on your desktop?
If not, re-run the tool and when it asks to save it, save it as racerx.reg. you need to add the .reg after the name or it will save it as a generic file, because after it creates it do NOT merge it.

Now, right click on it and click "edit".
This should open it in Notepad.

look down about 4 lines and you'll see the number 14 in between a bunch of zeros.
Carefully change the 14 to a 32, making sure not to change or add any spaces or extra commas.
Close it and let it save it. Then click on it and allow it to merge.
reboot, then CCC should have the 50 back for you.

** Note, this hack can also be applied to AB's clockspeed tables from the -xcl method.
 

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#2 ·
Driver tricks per game

You can manually force a game to use X driver by dropping that driver's dll set into the game's folder that houses the game.exe. Where to get these dlls? Each time a driver is installed the dlls are extracted to the windows/system32 folder. The files are named atidxx32.dll/atidxx64.dll and for crossfire aticfx32.dll/aticfx64.dll. Each api type uses a different dll/dll grouping. You'll notice when a game crashes most often it will list the offending driver. That's the driver that was loaded into the game. The trick with this is that we can force the game to use a specific driver or the latest driver if for some reason you prefer to be on a specific driver. There are unfortunately many instances where ppl prefer to one specific driver over another for a variety of reasons from system crashes not specific to games or other reasons. Ah, this brings back old memories of the old days of driver hacking, where we'd mix and match driver dlls with different catalyst version to overcome limitations in the drivers. It didn't always work, but was more often a pain in the ass to do. Here's a way to stay on that lovable driver and still get the gains/fixes from the latest driver in that awesome gameworks title. Luckily for us we don't have to install every driver to get to the dlls or manually extract them by downloading each driver version (unless you've kept a copy of the dlls along the way - hugs for the ocd lol). Someone has done this already for us on guru3d. Below is the link to PrMinisterGR's thread and repository for the dlls. Be sure to go there and thank him for extracting and compressing these dlls.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=399547

Archived odd and ends below, mostly retired and/or outdated methodology.

Racerx original version

RacerX.zip 16k .zip file


Racerx v16

RacerX v16.zip 30k .zip file


Odds and Ends - Observations that I've noticed over time.

- Flickering desktop. If your screens, firefox, browsers start to flicker randomly it might be due to an app kicking the gpu clocks into another powerstate and there was a problem returning to normal 2D clocks. Sometimes you can fix this w/o a reboot by disabling your Eyefinity group and then re-enabling it.

- Powertune settings do not save. There is a bug in some versions of Catalyst where the driver cannot access the powertune/powersettings while ULPS has shutdown the slave cards in cfx. An easy way of getting around this is by running GPUZ in the background. GPUZ will poll the gpus waking them up, giving you access to the cards.

- Flash Youtube Issues
Quote:
I'm sure I'm not the only one but I'm really surprised to see AMD Catalyst 12.8 WHQL come in 2nd after 8.97 18 April.

If you're not aware of the Flash problem that's been going on for quite some time: If you're having issues with Flash, especially in Firefox, as in the browser freezes when watching videos (ie Youtube) you might be blaming the drivers but that's not the case. Flash is buggy at best and with hardware acceleration enabled or without it you're still going to have issues. To fix this you'll need to disable Protected Mode

Edit mm.cfg and add/edit this line: ProtectedMode = 0
Windows 32bit: C:\windows\system32\macromed\flash
Windows 64bit: C:\windows\syswow64\macromed\flash
http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-12-8-whql-benchmark/4

12.9 Beta to 12.11 beta 11 driver issues

Desktop flicker, flickering, etc

It's due to the way the driver or AB is handling being pushed into 3D clocks on the desktop. You can avoid this by choosing option 2 at the unlock AB process thereby disabling Powerplay(PP). Note, this only works for those using Unofficial Overclock Method.

Quote:
open MSIAfterburner.cfg in notepad.

Scroll to bottom and change this:

[ATIADLHAL]
UnofficialOverclockingEULA = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 2
What's happening is while a game login screen is on, AB kicks it into 3D mode cuz the game is technically on. However PP see's 3D clocks on the desktop and is like nice try and tries to drop clocks. bam, you get flickering. If you open AB's graph monitoring you'll see the core/memory clocks fluctuating, which causes the flicker. This should be visible on the desktop, like on your way to logging into whatever multiplayer game. Also if you're using unofficial method like me, you don't need Powerplay at all.

Here's a video showing the flicker with Powerplay on and off.



http://www.overclock.net/t/1310078/catalyst-12-9-beta-is-here/40_40#post_18243669

Desktop Crashing with 12.9 beta


If you get the explorer crashes, you can replace this dll in your c:\windows\system32 directory. Remember to rename your original file, for ex atiumd64.dll.old for backup.

atiumd64.zip 1856k .zip file


Sapphire Trixx Mod for memory voltage (Tahiti)

I recommend using Trixx for serious benching, it controls voltage better than AB. AB on the other hand is better for 24/7 use with it's OSD and screenshot/video capabilities.

Sapphire Trixx 4.4.0b-MOD.zip 3450k .zip file


Sapphire Trixx 4.3.0-MOD.zip 3468k .zip file


Source

http://www.overclock.net/t/1196856/official-amd-radeon-hd-7950-7970-owners-thread/9600_40#post_17072447

*Some notes on Trixx. It is a somewhat finicky piece of software. If you push too much voltage, it will trigger OVP (overvoltage protection) and the card will throttle. Sometimes Trixx just doesn't run right and it bogs the bench. You can compare this situation by simply closing it, give it a min then run AB. A reboot usually solves the issue.

**Trixx is somewhat specific to Sapphire cards in the sense that it is for some cards the only way to get voltage control. Trixx can also be used on reference cards. And in regards to Hawaii gpu, it is the easiest way to get +200mv w/o having to own a MSI Lightning. MSI allows Lightnings to apply +200mv within Afterburner w/o having to resort to adding LLC via the command line. If you are on Hawaii gpu, just download the latest Trixx from Sapphire.com.

PSU Problems

Recently I had a problem with my psu, the 3.3v rail was dropping down 3.2v or less for no reason. It also impacted my eyefinity setup, the rig would drop out of eyefinity when overclocked within 5 minutes. It took a few days of ignoring it then a few days of actual diagnosis which came up with nothing. I was about to pull my hair out when I remembered about my sleeved extensions. I swapped them out and used the stock cables. Voila, it works again. The 3.3v rail is now putting out 3.3v or better and eyefinity with max overclocks works w/o a hitch. If you are experiencing similar issues, remember to check your cables.
 

Attachments

#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by error0024 View Post

Is it safe to set the powertune to +50% though?...
It was more of a gimmick on the Sapphire Toxic (maybe others now) which had a +50 slider. The OCP and OVP control maximum TDP via voltage and clock control, so even if it really worked, which is still in question, you'd be throttled anyways once you tripped the protections. When that happens the card will lock and will no boot until you restart. Sometimes it will take a while too.
 
#7 ·
Thanks for the info it fixed my issues I was having with screen flickering and if my explorer crashes anymore ill try the other fix as well.
 
#9 ·
Great Update on your guide tsm106

thumb.gif
 
#12 ·
I've had an issue with HDMI sound since after the 12.4 drivers. Sound works fine with those drivers, but every driver after that... no sound. I can tell that with the new drivers, once the idle core goes to .949, it works fine. The only way I can get it bumped up, is to set my idle clocks to 500mhz by making a preset. Now in Windows 8 for some reason it does not work the same way. I am no longer able to simply call the preset up to have sound.

So has anyone heard or seen anything in regards to how to fix this? What could be the cause of me losing sound that is fixed via raising the voltage the card is getting...?
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derko1 View Post

I've had an issue with HDMI sound since after the 12.4 drivers. Sound works fine with those drivers, but every driver after that... no sound. I can tell that with the new drivers, once the idle core goes to .949, it works fine. The only way I can get it bumped up, is to set my idle clocks to 500mhz by making a preset. Now in Windows 8 for some reason it does not work the same way. I am no longer able to simply call the preset up to have sound.

So has anyone heard or seen anything in regards to how to fix this? What could be the cause of me losing sound that is fixed via raising the voltage the card is getting...?
Hmm. this is a unique issue. The audio comes from separate chip w/ no direct relation to the core.

Win 8... are you using the .net4 version of the driver? Profiles... what mode are you using AB in?
 
#14 ·
Very nice job on the AMD How To guide,
thumb.gif
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by tsm106 View Post

Hmm. this is a unique issue. The audio comes from separate chip w/ no direct relation to the core.
Win 8... are you using the .net4 version of the driver? Profiles... what mode are you using AB in?
This has been the same case since I started using 12.x drivers until now. The only drivers that worked without issues were 12.4s. Same issue on Windows 7 even with a fresh installation and simply installing the graphics drivers, I'll have sound the moment the installation finishes. Then I'll have sound once I reboot and at the first time an application runs full screen, then there's no sound. Depending on whether the gpu gets pushed a little harder or not, sound will go in and out.

I've seen many threads on other forums on the issue... I'll find the one that I found here that helped me solve it originally.

Edit: Here's one thread: http://www.overclock.net/t/1295464/intermittent-hdmi-audio-output-on-7970-12-8-drivers
 
#16 ·
I've got a problem with my 7970, I cant adjust voltages for it in MSI AF
frown.gif

When I do this:
[ATIADLHAL]
UnofficialOverclockingEULA = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 1
and open MSI AF, all the sliders are on 0. Only when I turn it off, it will revert back to normal.

Anyone know why?

EDIT: I also am unable to monitor voltages on MSI AF. I can only see the VDDC in GPU-Z
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Domininja View Post

I've got a problem with my 7970, I cant adjust voltages for it in MSI AF
frown.gif

When I do this:
[ATIADLHAL]
UnofficialOverclockingEULA = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 1
and open MSI AF, all the sliders are on 0. Only when I turn it off, it will revert back to normal.

Anyone know why?

EDIT: I also am unable to monitor voltages on MSI AF. I can only see the VDDC in GPU-Z
What card do you own?

Changing the EULA merely unlocks the unofficial mode, but it doesn't grant access to voltage. You would have create that by adding in the files art the top of this thread. What steps did follow?
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by tsm106 View Post

What card do you own?
Changing the EULA merely unlocks the unofficial mode, but it doesn't grant access to voltage. You would have create that by adding in the files art the top of this thread. What steps did follow?
I own a 3GB HIS 7970 (H797F3G2M to be exact)
I have asked Unwinder (creator of Rivatuner) about this and he said that the VRM (VT1165) on my card is not supported on MSI Afterburner.
I followed the "Afterburner install - unofficial overclock method" because I had read on another website that it unlocks voltage control/monitoring.
And I don't think powertune would do anything in my case, would it?
 
#19 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Domininja View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsm106 View Post

What card do you own?
Changing the EULA merely unlocks the unofficial mode, but it doesn't grant access to voltage. You would have create that by adding in the files art the top of this thread. What steps did follow?
I own a 3GB HIS 7970 (H797F3G2M to be exact)
I have asked Unwinder (creator of Rivatuner) about this and he said that the VRM (VT1165) on my card is not supported on MSI Afterburner.
I followed the "Afterburner install - unofficial overclock method" because I had read on another website that it unlocks voltage control/monitoring.
And I don't think powertune would do anything in my case, would it?
Why are you posting in this thread w/o following the guide here? I mention this because I've already explained about the file you need to use to enable clock/voltage control, and it was seemingly ignored?

As to the vrm chip, this board supports full voltage control. It's the blue pcb from HIS, a revised board using the alternate pcb however it follows reference form. There are posts from users with this board adding volts. I've used one of these in the past w/o any issues.
 
#20 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by tsm106 View Post

Why are you posting in this thread w/o following the guide here? I mention this because I've already explained about the file you need to use to enable clock/voltage control, and it was seemingly ignored?
As to the vrm chip, this board supports full voltage control. It's the blue pcb from HIS, a revised board using the alternate pcb however it follows reference form. There are posts from users with this board adding volts. I've used one of these in the past w/o any issues.
I apologize that I did not read through your guide properly, I know that you had put a lot of your time into making the thread. I appreciate that you are helping me unlock the voltage control/monitoring on my system. I appreciate that you had typed up a very thorough and detailed "How to" thread. I'm sorry.

I have now read through your guide, and I now understand.
Thank you tsm106.
biggrin.gif


EDIT: I had followed the steps, but I did something wrong (installed the MSI AF patch and rebooted straight afterward). I repeated the steps by uninstalling MSI AF but it does not ask to reboot, what had I done wrong?
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by tsm106 View Post

When you uninstalled, it asks if you want to save your settings in the case that you are upgrading. Did you choose yes to that option? I would uninstall and choose NO, to do a clean install of afterburner.
Yep I checked no, and it deleted the user data, but I didn't reboot after the uninstall. I will try it again this afternoon.
Thanks
 
#23 ·
Hey guys, MSI 7850 owner here. I have voltage problems. I am unable to either set, or view, voltages in MSI AB. Doesn't even display the voltage. I have installed the patch, as well as enabled unofficial mode in the .cfg. Wondering if theres anything else I can do?

I have also noticed that the card seems to be running at lower than stock voltage when viewed in GPUZ. Like, 1.075v. Furthermore, it seems it defaults to 860 Core when the core is supposed to be 950. Not an issue, as it bumps up to 950 fine. But i'm wondering if the possibly lowered voltage could be causing some instability when I try to go past what it should be? Or is GPUZ simply reading the voltage incorrectly?

I have also tried evga precision. I am also planning on trying gpu tweak.
 
#24 ·
^^Something both of you guys can do is open the patch with 7zip/winzip and extract the files directly to the afterburner directory. AB can access the files directly from there as it was coded that way in 2.2.1.

Iirc, Evga Precision and Gputweak are all based on the same code, Rivatuner which is the same for Afterburner. Something all the 3rd party apps even Trixx, requires are the clock/voltage control files. The crux of the issue is that AMD removed those files since 12.xx drivers and problems arise from us adding that support back in. The other issue is that there seems to be a rising problem with supposedly voltage locked cards from a variety of brands from 78xx to 79xx. I don't know if it is indeed hardware related or user issue. Do all these steps and cover your bases, and if you still are without voltage control there's really not much left to do software wise.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Domininja View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsm106 View Post

When you uninstalled, it asks if you want to save your settings in the case that you are upgrading. Did you choose yes to that option? I would uninstall and choose NO, to do a clean install of afterburner.
Yep I checked no, and it deleted the user data, but I didn't reboot after the uninstall. I will try it again this afternoon.
Thanks
After you uninstall, you can make sure it's clean by deleting the afterburner directory. Then you can reinstall, and then go about the process editing the cfg file.
 
#25 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by tsm106 View Post

^^Something both of you guys can do is open the patch with 7zip/winzip and extract the files directly to the afterburner directory. AB can access the files directly from there as it was coded that way in 2.2.1.
Iirc, Evga Precision and Gputweak are all based on the same code, Rivatuner which is the same for Afterburner. Something all the 3rd party apps even Trixx, requires are the clock/voltage control files. The crux of the issue is that AMD removed those files since 12.xx drivers and problems arise from us adding that support back in. The other issue is that there seems to be a rising problem with supposedly voltage locked cards from a variety of brands from 78xx to 79xx. I don't know if it is indeed hardware related or user issue. Do all these steps and cover your bases, and if you still are without voltage control there's really not much left to do software wise.
After you uninstall, you can make sure it's clean by deleting the afterburner directory. Then you can reinstall, and then go about the process editing the cfg file.
Does it have to be a specific driver or version?
I'm using AMD's 12.11 beta drivers and MSI AF ver. 2.2.5 beta 1 if that makes a difference.
 
#26 ·
Thanks amigo. Thats pretty much what I figured. I've had cards in the past that did not let me play with voltage, or certain sliders, etc. I know the software can only do so much and past that its "problems" with the hardware itself. I just like to confirm theres nothing wrong with my cards when I experiences issues such as those. When its only my card, somethings not right, but when its other peoples cards as well, I know that its just how it is and theres nothing I can do past a point.

I also learned that with this particular model of MSI Twin Frozr, the stock speeds ARE actually lower than the OC version. It SHOULD be 860/1200mhz, so I am no longer worried on that front. It just took me a bit to figure out there existed a separate, distinct, OC version; I thought mine was the OC version all along. Perhaps then the voltage SHOULD be lower, as its perhaps a newer revision or w/e (yes, I know AMD does not have revision #s, but they most definitely release different "revisions", as evidenced by the people who suddenly got 7870s with a new power pin!).

Something interesting: I got voltage to "show" in GPU tweak. It allows me to go all the way up to 1.225V, which is nice considering the stock seems to be 1.075V. That gives me quite a bit of room, although not an insane amount. Still though, GPU Tweak is NOT my favorite program. In fact I find it to be one of the worst along with Trixx (I have had nothing but issues with Sapphires software). My #1 is precision, #2 Riva Tuner, #3 anything else. So, if you are correct and precision/gpu tweak are based around the same, I wonder then if theres a way to get clocks/volts to appear in precision? Interesting stuff.

I wonder then if RivaTuner will let me play with voltages, or if i'll have a similar problem considering MSI AB is based on RT (as far as I know).

Also man another question regarding the patch: You said just drop the files into the AB folder, yes? Two questions regarding that:

1) By files, you mean FILE (singular) right? the only file I got in the patch was an exe that I ran. Should I just be dropping that in? There was no readme and the thread is not very clear. If you are correct, maybe thats why it wasn't helping much!
2) does it matter if the AB folder is located in C:\Program Files\MSI AB etc? Or should I try and make the install directly as C:\MSI AB, right in the C: directory?

And again, thanks for your previous help amigo. If nothing further, you've at least given me some more stuff to figure out before I totally write off voltage control!
 
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