I've noticed black flickering in several games especially Age of Empires 3 on 2 different brands of HD7950's.

To make matters far worse sooner or later there is a crash/freeze with a greyish screen with a striped pattern.

These black artifacts are random in shape appearing for an instant, occuring inconsistently, sometimes often, sometimes less often. Reducing the core frequency had no effect whatsoever.

Drivers since May 2012 all seem to have produced the same results with random artifacts and grey freeze screens.

In conclusion either AMD couldn't care less about the problem and is focusing on optimizations for DX11 games such as Battlefield 3 that I couldn't care less about OR it's a hardware level fault which can't be fixed.

 

Number 1:

Hi...you need to supply some basic information about your computer before anyone can try to be of assistance.

Please supply the following:

1. AMD graphics card(s)
2. Operating system
3. Processor
4. Power supply (make and model)
5. System RAM (amount)
6. If this is a laptop furnish make and model

NOTE: Laptop questions/issues should be posted in the Notebook Forum

      http://forums.amd.com/game/categories.cfm?catid=448&entercat=y

   
Also, you could read  http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=440&threadid=160417&enterthread=y   for additional information.

Number 2:

Uninstall your old drivers using your computer control panel / uninstall a program... you will see 'AMD Install Manager' ..Express uninstall all AMD software including the installer. Reboot. Run Driver fusion (free) http://treexy.com/products/driver-fusion  select AMD graphics and delete all it finds. Reboot. Install the latest driver suite for your card. Reboot. You should be good to go.

Note: All current AMD drivers ( 12.9 and above ) require .netframework 4...Please read this before you try and install drivers http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=444&threadid=162109&enterthread=y . If you haven't installed it, the CCC panel will not work. You should disable any anti-virus/anti-malware/add blockers/etc before trying to install the drivers.

 

Number 3:

This is a ported game that has had issues of one sort or another since 2005. There is a setting in CCC that is to be used for old games.... "surface format optimizations"...try enabling that.  

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Intel I7 960 @ 3.87ghz *Intel DX58SO *HIS HD6970 2gb *Corsair TX650M *2x4gb Corsair XMS3 *WD Black 1TB *Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit *Gateway HD2401 24" 2ms 1920x1200  ***Asus N71Jq laptop *Intel I7 720QM Processor *Mobility Radeon HD5730 1gb *8gb Ram *Windows 7 64bit  ***Acer 5750 laptop

* A clear conscience is usually a sign of bad memory *

 

Further evidence supporting my theory that this is a hardware level problem and that is why drivers have no effect.

Hearing stories of AMD using duff caps really inspires confidence.

 

Edited: 11/11/2012 at 03:43 PM by PanMaster

Welcome to the club^^

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=440&threadid=160356&enterthread=y

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 i5 2500k @ 4,2 GHz ][ ASUS P8P67 Pro ][ HD 5850 ][ 8GB Ram GEIL ][ ASUS Xonar DX

I don't see a point of continuing this thread, it's turned into a "It's not the game from 2005's problem, it's AMD's problem, and they won't fix it" thread.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

That is because it is an AMD problem which they also acknowledged on another forum:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1318756/amd-12-11-beta-drivers/430

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 i5 2500k @ 4,2 GHz ][ ASUS P8P67 Pro ][ HD 5850 ][ 8GB Ram GEIL ][ ASUS Xonar DX

So it's just a coincidence that I've never had a problem on the 5xxx series and Intel 3570k IGP but as soon as I plug the monitor into the HD7950 there's random artifacting all over the place?

I'm sure they are aware but I think we have different definitions of "working on it".

The HD8000 series is no doubt the focus leaving the HD7000 series buggy forcing us to upgrade or betray AMD and join evil NVidia.

In a perfect world, all hardware would have perfect support in all software and there would be no bugs.  In the real world... not so much.  If you had a legacy card, yeah... could be.  That's just the reality of how this stuff gets built.  For current gen hardware... again, not so much.

It used to be that building a good graphics driver wasn't that much different from building any other driver.  These days graphics drivers have a batman factor all their own and are gigantic 100MB+ packages, so again... not so much.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
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The opinions expressed above do not represent those of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.

Edited: 11/12/2012 at 04:51 PM by Mime

Pan...did you try the advice below or not?  Also, do you have the option to try the card in another system to see if the issue follows the card or not? 

I understand you are frustrated but let's not continue down the itchbay fest path.

Thanks in advance

PS, since this appears to be reproducable (from the sounds of it), and if you haven't done so already, could you please read the thread below and submit a ticket to AMD so that it may be included for correction in a future version release.

**STICKY** | AMD ISSUE REPORTING FORM
Reproducible issues can be reported here.

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The opinions expressed above do not represent those of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.
Requiescat In Pace AMD Processor Forums | Member since: 1/19/2009 | Post count: 4142
Please don't PM me with questions, instead create a thread so that everyone can assist and benefit from the knowledge provided. Thanks in advance!

Edited: 11/12/2012 at 05:10 PM by Canis-X