Friday, February 7, 2014

AMD's flawed drivers, little things mean a lot

AMD's been batting 1000 for the past year.  First PCPer uncovers a driver bug that effectively makes Crossfire useless, then they ship R9 based cards to reviewers that somehow don't act like the shipping retail units. 

Top that off with the release of a Mantle driver that's only available as a Beta release and really doesn't seem to do much for performance (at least in Battlefield 4.)

But my irritation has nothing to do with 4 figure graphics cards or 4K resolutions.  My problem is one that has been around since AMD started sticking HDMI ports on their graphics cards.  It's a small annoyance but perhaps the most telling of all.

It's simply the fact that every AMD driver I've used for the past 4 years has consistently, without fail, hijacked the sound on my gaming PC's.  It seems that just because HDMI can support audio AMD somehow believes that this is where sound should come from.

The only fix is a workaround.  A disgusting throwback to the days of Windows 95 whereby the fix was to disable a driver or a service.

So it is with HDMI ports on AMD GPU's.

It's not so much that the problem is minor; it's that it exists at all!

Yes, this may indeed be more of a Windows issue but it only happens with the installation of a new AMD driver and it keeps happening!  If AMD can't get something as simple as this corrected with years of driver releases behind them then how can they be trusted to fix the big issues?

It suggests a flawed process that permeates every level of AMD's development methodology. 

Think about it this way.  Would you trust a mechanic to rebuild the engine in your car if he didn't know how to change a flat tire? 

The simple stuff can reveal a lot of truths. 

 Watch the video below to see my "Fix."


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