Crossfire Driver Updating

[rustyd79]

Hi,

WoW would not work and I was told by their tech that my drivers were out of date on my new pc.

I have 2 Radeon HD 6950 2Mb in crossfire not yet flashed to 6970s (lol, need to grow a pair and just do it! .
Anyway, I see that ATI Catalyst 11.8 came out on the 2nd.

I may need to update my drivers but, I can not find simple answers to...

1) Updating drivers has Always scared me to do Even on a single gpu! This is my 1st dual gpu rig. When I update the drivers, do I click the "Automatically detect and install the right driver" button on AMD's site?
Or, follow AMDs instructions (Ctrl Panel, Uninstall drivers, Re-install the newly downloaded drivers)? I ask, because I don't know if the Card itself or the PC gets the update For the cards if that makes sense.
I also think I have seen somewhere here, ages ago, that I should use 'Driversweeper' before updating Anything - I cannot recall the exact name tho.

2) Will Both cards get updated correctly following either of the above?

Finally, I read somewhere, while trying to locate the instructions on driver updating, that 11.8 causes some issues. Anyone have any more insight on this - particularly if you have the 6950s? The issues I have read about were pretty vague to me.

Not sure if this is needed, but here's what I have at the moment:
Driver Packaging Version 8.881-110728a-122939C-ATI
Catalyst Version 11.8
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 8.01.01.1178
2D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/CLASS/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0001
Direct3D Version 7.14.10.0855
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.11005
Catalyst Control Center Version 2011.0728.1756.30366
AMD Audio Driver Version 7.12.0.7702

Thanks,
Rustyd

 

[jjb8675309]

yeah I wouldn't do it at all especially with a crossfire rig, you might as well reformat your HDD if your going to try it, I just dont trust AMD dual gpu configs, they are fine for a single card but they treat they midrange crossfire customer as a minority

 

[jjb8675309]

why do you need dual 6950s to run WOW? one should manage just fine imo

 

[rustyd79]

why do you need dual 6950s to run WOW? one should manage just fine imo

Lol - no, I didn't get dual 6950's for wow

My old gtx9800oc ran it just fine, but man did it start getting hot on my old pc when I started playing with vid settings on more gpu intensive games.

My primary problem is, I simply do not know if there's a difference with installing drivers for a 2-GPU setup or not And, whether or not I need some tool to erase all the old drivers Other than through the Ctrl Panel.

Non-Essntial-FYI Stuff:
The actual problem that started this was that WoW would not start through the Launcher. Haven't logged in for about 3-4 months. I opened a ticket and, after sending in my msinfo file, was told that my gpu drivers were out of date, hence the post.
Personally, I doubt very seriously it's a vid-driver issue but I thought I may as well update them anyway.

Actually, I took my time to buy my current setup and, with the help of the people here at Toms, ended up with a rig (in sig) that I could crank up just about every video setting available for, in this case, Rift which is a lot heavier than WoW on graphics. Also, it should be able to plow through the next few years of PC games - assuming I'm still around to play em! (I'm old! )

Also tried Crysis & STO--stop laughing , with maxed video settings and it purrs along just fine - still can't wait to OC both the cards and the i5 and see how it does!

 

[jjb8675309]

^ Well lets see... Ive never played WoW nor do I plan on it, lol :lol: I would try reinstalling WoW and see if the problem persists and if that doesn't work than try an earlier driver bc in most cases it should be "purring" along (I like to ramp my fans up too) ... no offense to Wow I just never got into it, I'm currently deep into act 2 in some Dragon Age 2 though :lol:

 

[jjb8675309]

here are the steps for reinstalling a driver:

1) Download and install driver sweeper

2) uninstall catalyst control and drivers via uninstall function (Control panel---uninstall).

3) Restart in safe mode and run driver sweeper (F8 I believe) if not google it for your mobo..

4) Restart and do a clean install of the drivers and CCC again, do the appropriate restarts and you should be good to go

Also this may have nothing to do with WoW but FYI:

This is what I think you should do if you are reinstalling or upgrading an AMD driver no matter if 1 GPU or 2... you are always need to do a clean install and driver sweep to make sure that the previous drivers are fully uninstalled and do not conflict with currently installed ones..

also I would use triple buffering (enabled through CCC) and whether or not you use vsync is up to you... also I would disable any driver driven AA or AF in the drivers

any time you change your config at all meaning removing a card or switching them around you need to do a clean install as well bc the AMD dual gpu drivers can especially be testy imo..

Other than that you need to find a driver that works for you and possibly reinstall the game, good luck

 

[rustyd79]

As for WoW, I did get it to work by Bypassing the Launcher and running straight through wow.exe, so no real issue there other than the Launcher won't work (support ticket with them still pending). No real issue as I don't play it much anymore. But still... some issue is still around somewhere.

Anyway, Thank you jjb8675309 - This is exactly what I was looking for! I am going to Assume that this will handle Both cards in 1 shot.

As always, thanks to all who have taken their valuable time to help!

 

[rustyd79]

Best answer selected by Rustyd79.

 

[jjb8675309]

your welcome, happy gaming now back to football!