Solution: AMD issue Catalyst 13.8 beta 2 for FFXIV ARR

(link to 13.8 Beta 2: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...etaDriver.aspx)

I just got this email from AMD:

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Dear Customer,

You had recently submitted an AMD Issue Reporting Form on an issue you were experiencing with the AMD Catalyst 13.8 Beta drivers.

The issue involved poor performance or application crashes when playing the open Beta of Final Fantasy XIV.

We have released an update to the Catalyst 13.8 Beta Driver which include specific performance improvements for Final Fantasy X14.

AMD Catalyst 13.8 Beta 2 can be downloaded from the following link.

I understand there will be another open Beta available this coming weekend, so I would recommend you try this driver and would appreciate your feedback.

Thank you for your help with this issue.


Regards,

Ray Menzies
AMD Global Customer Care

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Just thought I would post it in case others were having graphic slow downs followed by crashes like many were.

I actually ignored the beta drivers and stayed on 13.4 and suffered the lag with slowdowns. I have since gone and downloaded the beta 13.8 beta 2 drivers and must say they are a nice change of pace all around. My benchmark seems quicker and the special effects absolutely did not slow down or jerk at all. That said I managed:

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FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:8/21/2013 10:31:55 PM
Score:10353
Average Framerate:93.482
Performance:Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
Graphics Presets: Maximum

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My rig is only supporting a core 2 duo extreme 3.0ghz proc and not the newer fancy i5 and i7 and i only have 8gb of ram but I seem to think I am doing ok for now.
I run amd hd 7970 for my graphics single card mode. Plan to crossfire if my cpu can keep up. My old benchmark score was around 9k and with the older benchmark it was even lower 6750.
I hope the beta drivers prove to be good during early access. I'm really scared to login and get booted cause they crash. I have hopes that they won't.

Thanks for the info, I was wondering if the new driver fixed these issues. :)

I installed these last night and ran the benchmark, and ended up consistently getting lower scores. By roughly 90-100 points. Any idea why this might be?

I had slowdowns and crashes from the 13.8 beta1 drivers. I hope that the new 13.8 beta2 drivers, which support Crossfire, are stable :D

Its a beta driver... I will wait until they official ones come out lol.

I use a Radeon 6970 and I was getting game crashes using the 13.8 beta1 drivers. No real slowdowns (other than simple game demand). I could get maybe 10 minutes at most in between crashes. The game ran fine on the 13.6 beta drivers.

I've got the 13.8 beta2 drivers installed now. The benchmark runs fine but that is too short to know how stability has progressed. As for speed, my benchmarks are exactly the same on 13.6 and 13.8, though I suspect any performance increases from the drivers are limited to the newer GCN cards and crossfire setups.

[QUOTE=As for speed, my benchmarks are exactly the same on 13.6 and 13.8, though I suspect any performance increases from the drivers are limited to the newer GCN cards and crossfire setups.[/QUOTE]

I concur. Looks to me like the newer drivers are usually best suited for the latest and one generation behind graphics adapters. That's not to say they can't help older cards it's just AMD feels they have really given those cards all the boost they can and eventually retire support for them. I have that issue now in 2 other machines of mine. They both run 5770 adapters but it's only a matter of time before those don't get anymore updates. My 4850 already been flagged as obsolete and is not getting any drivers for windows 7 64 bit that I knew of. Just the wmd ones, the vanilla type and those don't support dx11. Not that it matters now. Of course my old 4850 only had 256mb of memory maybe 512mb.

I just bought a new GPU, I was running Radeon HD6900... Yea I know its old. Upgraded to a EVGA Superclocked 760, can't wait to try that bad boy out saturday!

performance is the same but stuttering is almost gone from the game, recommended driver for people who got stuttering on beta 4/benchmark

Not sure about you guys, but I've been using version 11.4 and it was perfect. Tried the new beta v2 and my score went up 100 pts, but I never had stuttering to being with.

Just wanna bump this thread. With all the new folks coming with the launch, someone is bound to run into the stutter > hiccup > crash to desktop sequence that some of us dealt with before these drivers were released.

Installing these drivers totally fixed 90% of the graphic related issues I was having. I can't recommend them enough.