4850's 8.7 driver slower?

I've noticed less points in 3DMARK06 from 10.900 to 10.400 and I couldn't adjust the resolution in Test Drive Unlimited when i updated to the newest driver. I reinstalled 8.6 and I have no problems now. So far 8.7 is disappointing.

A swing and a miss.  

Is the fan speed issue fixed with this release?

No. And now dual monitor support brings random BSODs for many users.

Great.

Roll on 8.8

Can anyone run the new racing game GRID with their HD4850 on the new or old catalyst drivers?

Tom's Hardware had a review recently where as the HD4870 would outperform the GTX280 in that game, however they amazingly could not get their ASUS 4850 to render the game period, yet it worked fine in all the other benchmarks they did.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4870,1964...

^btw, i ran grid with hot fix drivers. and it worked just fine. damn smooth. didnt measure the FPS. but it was smooth.

damn. i just installed the 8.7 drivers, but i didnt play any game yet. hopefully it is good. coz god knows i have un-installing/installing drivers. the amount of restart i have to go through.

I'm having a few issues with GRID and my 4870's. At first, I could not game the game to run while crossfire was enabled. I was using the hotfix 8.6 drivers. Dowloading the 1.1 patch for GRID seemed to resolve this but had to run the game with AA turned off altogether. I then downloaded the 8.7 beta drivers and game was running ok at 1920x1200 with 8 X MSAA. Have recently installed 8.7 official and performance is great FPS wise but all the cars are black !! The look good, but all the colour schemes are missing. Most odd. Haven't rolled back the driver yet or investigated fully but a very annoying issue all the same. 8.7 drivers have not impressed me so far.

Wow thanks for the info guys. ATI is notorious for bad drivers, I guess its still a fair trade off for the money i save. I guess driver wise the card to buy now is the 3870 or 3850 because of the stable drivers and performance boost.

Nah, I would still go with the 48XX series. ATI knows they will sell far more 48XX series cards than they ever will 38XX series cards so that is where they are going to be investing most of their driver research. Give it a month or two. It will get better.

You would be much better off going with an 8800GT than a 38XX card.

GRID works great with my 4850

I just found this youtube video of grid running in full graphics off of TWO 4850s in crossfire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEIC8yw8S-E&feature=rela...

Very impressive. It averages about 85-90 Frames Per Second