Anyone notice more frequent driver failures with 8.12?

kingtz

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Eversince 8.12, it seems that my drivers have been crashing more frequently with the infamous atikmdag error. This happens only when I play COD4 and happens about every 30mins or so with the screen going black for a few seconds and then turning back on. Usually it's fine afterwards, but lately I'm getting weird graphics glitches after it turns back on - such as rain textures on surfaces that are too shimmery instead of looking like water or weird colored pixels even. Sometimes a portion of my screen disappears so my widescreen (1680x1050) looks likes its a regular screen.


The driver failure occurred prior to 8.12, but it seems to be occurring more frequently now. Before, it'd fail once and after it reverts, it'd be fine and I can play for hours more. Now, it seems to be failing every half hour or so, as mentioned above. And it doesn't happen with the other games I play such as AoE3 and CIV4.

Anyone else notice this?
 

the last resort

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is your card overclocked? i never got the new 8.12 drivers installed, gave me endless BSOD's, so i reverted back to 8.10. however, i did notice that overclocking mine did result in way more crashes. All i did was back the memory clock back 5 mhz and it was fixed.
 

kingtz

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Yeah, my card is overclocked. My 4850 is currently at 690/2320 MHz. But my temps are 44C idle and about 78-80C load so I figured it was ok.

But yeah, I'll try decreasing the OC by 5 MHz and see.
 

curnel_D

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My 3870 is constantly getting the ATIkmdag error. Though it rarely happens in games. Usually, it will be when the desktop is idle or playing a movie or episodes of somethign for extended periods of time. Then vista will keep trying to reset the driver, then it will finally just give up and bsod.

I dont care enough to revert back, since I've got a 4870 on the way that I'll keep 8.11 on till .13 comes out.
 

kingtz

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So I took back my OC by 5MHzand that stabilized it a bit. The drivers would fail once, but the game would be fine after the recovery - no graphical glitches or shimmering that I've noticed so far.
 


There won't be a .13, it's already 2009, the next driver will be 9.1

The unfortunate thing is that this is a combination Vista and driver issue, it's essentially trying to avoid lock-ups and BSODs and if possible tries to keep things running, versus the bigger hassle of having to reboot, but unfortunately there's still a conflict somewhere and like most error messages (from any company) it's tough to troubleshoot the source. Sometimes driver or program re-installs helps, but other times not.

Looks like the 8.12s have increase the occurrence of conflicts though, so hopefully they reduce a bit with 9.1

PS, to the OP sort of related to the other thread, but not worth posting there just to post it, this isn't just an ATi+Vista thing, it's been going on for years with nV too (get it at work);

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=25381

It's annoying on both platforms, but definitely still better than a lock-up or BSOD if it recovers cleanly.
 

trinix

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I experienced some problems with OC'ing my memory too on my new 4850. It all shows it's good, but when I hit Vanguard, I get green marks all over my screen and other graphical issues. When I run at default, it's all fine.
 

AdioKIP

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Exact same problem I had. Tried for hours to get 8.12 working but never got anything but BSOD.... Heres to 2009 and hoping Cat 9.1 fixes the issues...
 

WhyFi

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It seems as if many people with Vista x64 and over 4GB of ram and 38xx cards can't even get 8.12 installed... as is the case with me.
 

meodowla

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It happens frequently:
untitled-1.jpg

 
I plan on just using 8.11 for my new build and getting 9.1 when they're out. I've heard a lot more complaints about 8.12 than normal. Also, I think your OC may be a little high (or your power supply a little low). That many resets in not normal for a 4850 (and Vista 32 bit, at least). Mine's only done it a few times in the many months I've owned it.
 

WhyFi

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This may or may not be on the subject, but does anyone currently running, let's say... 8.10 or more recent still have the ability to run Aero? I just realized that I had lost it sometime in the last couple of months and it's kinda buggin' me...
 

WhyFi

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Nah, the option just isn't visible. I've refreshed my Vista Experience (or whatever) Score and I have a base score of 5.8, the Vista 'Theme' selected, etc, etc... but Aero is no where to be found. I don't know exactly when it happened, but it was either when I put in the 940 BE (MB still isn't registering the name of the CPU, but I don't think that that should make a difference) or after updating GPU drivers...
 
I don't think the processor model unknown matters. My old FX-60 never registered and Aero worked fine. I'm surprised though that your board doesn't recognize it (mine does). Do you have the newest BIOS? Also, I guess because of the slightly faster ram mine gets all 5.9's

I don't think that the 4850 needs that much power. I ran it fine on a mediocre 550W and am running it great on my new 610W.
 

WhyFi

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Yeah, I don't think that it should matter, and yeah, I have the latest BIOS. My graphics cards are actually the only 5.8 in the mix - who knows...

Anyway, lots of driver issues lately, let's just hope that 9.1 pulls it together.