6950 Driver Troubles

[FlyingIrishMan]

Okay, so about two weeks ago I installed the latest AMD driver via Steam. Since then games have been unplayable for me, BF3 will play fine with around 50-60FPS on high for a few minutes, then it will drop to around 10 and stay there for a few minutes and then go back up, that happens on loop.

So I decided to uninstall all AMD Drivers, and re-install the very latest one from the AMD website. That didn't work, same issues.

So I completely removed all AMD drivers and it got better, a little bit. It is more stable, but the frame rate isn't too good.

So what is the best driver for Battlefield 3, its the only game I really play so lets optimise it to that. Any help is appreciated.

If it helps the rest of my specs are:

i5 2500k
ASRock P67 Pro3
Gigabyte 6950 1GB
8GB Corsair Vengeance

OS: Win7 Ultimate 64Bit.

 

[alvine]

if your framerate dips after playing for a while it sounds like the graphics card might be overheating
use overclocking software such as msi afterburner and there is an option for on screen display info and you can customize it to your liking showing temps, fan rpms, speeds for core memory shaders

 

[geekapproved]

Well if the one you were using before worked fine, wouldn't that be the best one for you??

Could be a psu that can't cope too, it's always scarey when people list their components but leave out the most important one.

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

I could have sworn I put in the PSU, must have taken it out for some reason.
Its 550W Amazon Super Flower.

Overheating isn't the problem either, CPU and GPU usually stay around 50 whilst playing BF3.

Problem is I don't know what the last one I was on is, I updated the GPU a few months ago when I got it, and then two weeks ago was the first time I did it since then..

 

[maxinexus]

11.2 works for me

 

[geekapproved]

So if this one was 11.3 then wouldn't 11.2 be the last one you had?

 

[FtsArTek]

I think it's up to 12.3 now. I'm still on 11.12 and it's pretty good for me. I might look at updating come 12.4

Also... I have never heard of that PSU brand, and 550w is not really enough for a 6950 either tbh. I'd suggest you get a new PSU (corsair 650w minimum) to sort out that problem.

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

Its a less known brand, but they make quality products, they are the company who makes the parts for corsair PSUs. Look them up
550W is plenty for that build I've been told.

Its 12.3 now, I googled what's the best one for it and 11.10 preview 3 is the one that people were recommending. So I tried that one, worked great for about 15mins when it froze and quit out of the game immediately. I remember having this problem when I first got the card, I'll try 11.12 as recommend above.

 

[neon neophyte]

50 degrees while playing bf3?

doesnt sound like its working right

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

Its a Gigabyte 6950, the one with triple fans so I always thought thats what was keeping it cool. I haven't it overclocked at the moment. Fan speed is the usual 40%.

 

[neon neophyte]

do u live somewhere with perpetual snow? because those are practically idle temps

have you looked at your gpu load during gameplay?

its interesting that one system with a 6950 will have driver problems while another will be fine. i havent had a problem with drivers as long as ive had a 6950

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

idle temps for me are usually around 30-35.
Played a game there, watched the temps on MSI Afterburner every few minutes.
Min: 32 Max: 51 And thats with the card overclocked to the highest.
Only managed to play for 10mins when the game crashed of course, so uninstalling 11.10 now and gonna try 11.12.

 

[neon neophyte]

your 6950 runs a lot colder than mine!

no surprise now that i think about it. i have one with a cooler that moves the air out the back of the case

 

[geekapproved]

Its a less known brand, but they make quality products, they are the company who makes the parts for corsair PSUs. Look them up
550W is plenty for that build I've been told.

Its 12.3 now, I googled what's the best one for it and 11.10 preview 3 is the one that people were recommending. So I tried that one, worked great for about 15mins when it froze and quit out of the game immediately. I remember having this problem when I first got the card, I'll try 11.12 as recommend above.

What do you mean by "it froze"?

Completely locked up and can't do anything but turn pc off and back on?

BSOD?

Thrown back to desktop with error?

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

The very first time it happened the game just froze, and about 5 seconds later just closed and I was back on the desktop, no warning, no nothing.
Then the next two times there was a really weird image (black and white lines) on the screen and the program like minimised itself and then there was just a white box where the game was meant to be and it came up saying not responding end now etc.
That was in 11.10 preview 3 though.

11.12 is a no go The game seems to like stutter in that one. So far 11.10 preview 3 was the best one, the framerate was great only for the crashing problem...

Gonna try 11.10 Full Released version.

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

Gah! Seems I downloaded the wrong driver or something, as soon as I installed it my display went all weird. Lots of Black, Blue, and Pink. Very little stuff was visible, was a pain in the ass trying to uninstall it without being able to see anything...

Gonna leave it at that tonight, been trying to fix it all day but to no avail yet...

If anybody can link me to a proper 11.10 Driver that will work properly with a 6950 I'd be very grateful. Better yet, if there is an official archives that I am unaware of that would be great!

 

[neon neophyte]

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/previous/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx

 

[Earnie]

50 degrees while playing bf3?

doesnt sound like its working right

agreed!My dirt3 sapphires with dual fans are idling right now at 47'c in a HAF932 case.

 

[Earnie]

Gah! Seems I downloaded the wrong driver or something, as soon as I installed it my display went all weird. Lots of Black, Blue, and Pink. Very little stuff was visible, was a pain in the ass trying to uninstall it without being able to see anything...

Gonna leave it at that tonight, been trying to fix it all day but to no avail yet...

If anybody can link me to a proper 11.10 Driver that will work properly with a 6950 I'd be very grateful. Better yet, if there is an official archives that I am unaware of that would be great!

Did you use a registry cleaner?If so it sounds like something that happened to me a few months back,boy was it a pain to see the screen and get drivers installed.I know everone says to use them,but i still say there not usefull,i deleted Only AMD files and it was pooched like what you described above.

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

No, I didn't use a registry cleaner. Just uninstalled it through the control panel. Did the job.

Thanks for that link neon, downloading 11.10 now

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

So 11.10 didn't work either... seems I did have the correct version last time.
Same thing happened, screen went all very dark with lots of blue and pink outlines of stuff. Gonna try 11.9 now, seems that one optimised BF3 too.

 

[neon neophyte]

its sounding less like a driver problem and more like a hardware problem all the time

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

Well what do you recommend then, I'm only new to this whole custom computer stuff as you can probably tell. This is the first build I got that wasn't pre-made by DELL or HP.

Its not too bad I only got the card 4 months ago so I still have a lot of warranty left on it

 

[neon neophyte]

try a card known to be working, if everything is fine i would send that card in. make sure its a card that consumes similar power

 

[FlyingIrishMan]

I don't have any other card, as I said. This is the first custom build. Every other computer are DELL, and HP pre-built machines with 5 year old components.