AMD Says It Won’t Fix Driver Issue Breaking DX9 Games (Update: Yes It Will, Hotfix Is Out)

News
By Leon Chan
published

Update, 1/4/18, 7:21pm PT: AMD has just released an alpha driver hotfix to resolve the issue.

Update, 1/2/18, 6:17pm PT:As we predicted, AMD didn’t stay silent on the issue for long. The directory of software strategy at AMD, Terry Makedon, has tweeted that AMD is aware of the issue and is working on a fix.

AMD’s latest Adrenalin driver seems to have broken a number of DX9 games. In responding to a comment about the problem in its community forums, AMD said that it likely won’t fix the issue.

Talk of this problem began on Reddit when some AMD GPU users reported a crash on some older games, including The Witcher, the Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 series, the Battle for Middle Earth series, and other DX9 titles. The games crash with an error stating “Fatal error: Exception in exception handler.” It was discovered that the issue is only present with driver releases after and including 17.12.1--AMD’s last major driver release, which is called Adrenalin.

The issue made its way onto the AMD community forums when a user apparently traced the crash to a module called atiumdag.dll. A community technical support engineer replied the post with the following:

This title is from 2007, so we are unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue, which is most likely caused by outdated API modules.

Reddit users have since created a thread with a list of games that have reported issues. In addition to the above titles, the list also includes The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Crysis (in DX9 mode), among others. Issues have been reported on both Windows 10 and 7. According to the thread, reverting from 17.12.2 to 17.12.1 might help, but only reverting to 17.11.4 will fix the issue.

AMD hasn’t issued any further comments on the issue yet, but, given the popularity of some of the affected titles, we doubt they’ll be sticking to their original comment. We’re sure a great number of you still fire up a Command and Conquer game occasionally. It’s only the first day back at work for most of us, so let’s give them a while.

Leon Chan
17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Yggone
    Terry Makedon Director of AMD software strategy + user experience.
    Just tweeted this :
    Happy 2018 everyone!! I am seeing some stories pop up about AMD not supporting some old games. That is absolutely not true, we are identifying the bug and working on a fix asap. C&C, Witcher, BfME, etc will be working again.
    Reply
  • NahNood
    Of course it was fake news! Amd doesn't want to be nvidia! Sheesh.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    The issue made its way onto the AMD community forums when a user apparently traced the crash to a module called atiumdag.dll. A community technical support engineer replied the post with the following:
    This was a tech support guy on their forum responding to a report that a single, nearly decade-old game was having an issue with the driver, not some official AMD response to reports of multiple games having problems, as this article tries to make it sound.
    Reply
  • hellwig
    AMD: Buy new games stupid!

    Yeah, I can't imagine that's their official response.

    So many games in my library still use DX9. I had an issue with a game recently... can't remember which one, I had to toggle it back and forth between DX11 and DX9 to get it to display on my screen properly. Annoying.
    Reply
  • rgd1101
    need an update to the article
    http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-will-fix-dx9-game-versus-adrenalin-driver-related-issues-with-a-hotfix.html
    Reply
  • mapesdhs
    Did AMD ever fix DX9 CF support as they'd promised to do some years ago?
    Reply
  • redgarl
    20549824 said:
    Terry Makedon Director of AMD software strategy + user experience.
    Just tweeted this :
    Happy 2018 everyone!! I am seeing some stories pop up about AMD not supporting some old games. That is absolutely not true, we are identifying the bug and working on a fix asap. C&C, Witcher, BfME, etc will be working again.

    Once again Toms is spreading fake news to tarnish AMD reputation. The worst is that some people will just believe it without even searching for the official statement.

    Reply
  • marvestuff
    I wouldn't call this fake or even misleading news. Its poor PR control by AMD. The support staff member, Ray, IS a representative of AMD. So his statement was correctly taken as one from an AMD representative. If it is not his place to make a call regarding future support or allocation of resources, then he should not be make such comments - even for a single game (actually a game series). I would be livid if I had an employee do this.

    Also shame on the AMD Director for labeling this as a "story" that is "absolutely not true," without acknowledging that the "story" arose from their own employee's misstatement.
    Reply
  • Plumboby
    its not true the out cry was from a Fake AMD rep that been working for Nvidia of all companies. No official wording from AMD tho previous drivers were working. There are a few work arounds on U Tube that are an easy fix. Alot has come from A steam bug & windows bug as well as not been stated either. Trick is validate all older games half the time it fixes the issue & a registry clean. I havnt run into Dx9 issues yet touch wood with my rx560 on the latest drivers. To many haters on here is which nvidia is wanting. BTW i wouldn't trust or use Nvidia right now either to the idiots who keep buying new release cards from Nvidia i junked my Nvidia cards will never look back. As atm Nvidia is last lot of drivers are absolute crap as to they doing what Apple are doing with the driver updates slowing there older cards so it forces users to buy new cards. I got told some info the other night from an ex nvidia engineer thats had enough of nvidia business practices They are the next company thats going be like Apple & caught screwing the consumer. If you got AMD there work arounds just go looking, its not AMD fault as these cards are supported for DX9 just a bug has occurred. Just wait & see AMD knows & are working on it
    Reply
  • biggjoecheese
    This isn't the first time. When I had a Radeon 9800 long ago, they sent me a similar email regarding some older titles in my library (pre-Steam). Given that his happened again, I feel I made a wise choice sticking with NVIDIA.
    Reply