Discussion AMD confirms its Radeon RX 5000, 6000 series cards are not receiving new features

[Bigos]

If you want to believe that some random person in the driver dev department has sole responsibility to determine the support phases for a billion-dollar company's products, that's entirely on you.

If you want to put words in my mouth... Wait, you already did.

This was a communication problem. Has AMD changed their driver strategy in the past few days, because of some internet outrage? Of course not. All they did is clarifying what the release notes said.

The funniest thing is AMD could just not open their mouth and it would be better for them. NVidia is probably maintaining separate software branches for their hardware as well. They just do not announce "this generation is going to maintenance mode". Because it is a stupid thing to say (and AMD is well-known for saying stupid things).

Assuming no information about the maintenance, what would you say if the next drivers improve performance for RDNA3/4 in a new game by 5% but not the other GPUs? Would there be an outrage? Or just "the previous GPUs have already been optimized so there is not much work to do for them". What is the actual difference?

 

[mikeymikec]

All they did is clarifying what the release notes said.

Clarifications do not mean virtually the opposite of what was originally said.

If you want to put words in my mouth... Wait, you already did.

So would you like to actually clarify what you meant by it?

 

[Bigos]

That was a snarky response because I apparently am not supposed to chew on drama queens (the tech YouTubers). It had no specific meaning. So you looking into it was unfortunately a wasted effort.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Until that is measured you can either believe AMD that it doesn't really impact gamers or you can believe those that say it is the single most important thing in the world.

False dichotomy and hyperbole. The daily double.

The funniest thing is AMD could just not open their mouth and it would be better for them.

There it is, exactly what some of us already wrote. Nor is it "funny" that they manage to go from one PR disaster to another, it's frustrating and disappointing. Thinking this is a nothingburger is failing to read the room. It's going to cost them financially. They just gave the guerilla marketers, social media agents, and haters, fresh ammo to use in the mindshare shill wars. Userbenchmark just got taken off of suicide watch.

As we have already stated: Quietly stop optimizing like Nvidia does, keep it all in one driver package, everyone is happy. But nope, they had to do what they always do -

 

[Josh128]

Meh, my 6700XT still seems to work perfectly. I think drivers should only be updated to squash known bugs, but thats just me. Not sure what the big fuss is all about.

 

[Bigos]

There it is, exactly what some of us already wrote. Nor is it "funny" that they manage to go from one PR disaster to another, it's frustrating and disappointing. Thinking this is a nothingburger is failing to read the room. It's going to cost them financially. They just gave the guerilla marketers, social media agents, and haters, fresh ammo to use in the mindshare shill wars. Userbenchmark just got taken off of suicide watch.

As a customer, I do not care actually. They may lose some sales, their problem. Another Marketing Disaster.

I have one RDNA2 GPU in my brother's PC. We will see if there will be problems with the drivers going forward. My brother will have to remember to actually update the drivers, though.

 

[GaiaHunter]

As we have already stated: Quietly stop optimizing like Nvidia does, keep it all in one driver package, everyone is happy. But nope, they had to do what they always do -

They said the truth. It is very silly of them.
But at least one would expect people that have been using GPUs and PCs for decades should know at some point there is nothing to squeeze.

Actually they should keep releasing the drivers monthly but point to different packages, as that is probably the more stable path for older GPUs.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

As a customer, I do not care actually. They may lose some sales, their problem. Another Marketing Disaster.

I have one RDNA2 GPU in my brother's PC. We will see if there will be problems with the drivers going forward. My brother will have to remember to actually update the drivers, though.

That's the meat and potatoes right there. The uncertainty AMD inserted into the equation. I suspect the worst it will get for a while is games warning that the driver is out of date. Maybe some graphical issues in certain titles, most likely Nvidia sponsored. LIke how Polaris couldn't even render the character model in Alan Walks 2.

Even then it won't be the same as legacy Nvidia because the R.ID project exists. And an all AMD Linux gamer is a more viable, easier, and better solution, every month.

Meh, my 6700XT still seems to work perfectly.

of course it does. Not like turning off the lights or something LOL.

I think drivers should only be updated to squash known bugs, but thats just me.

Yes, it is.

Not sure what the big fuss is all about.

AMD doing damage, then engaging in terrible damage control. Had they followed what I shall refer to as "the Nvidia protocol", they'd be golden. I am half convinced a chatbot is responsible for this entire mess.

Back when the 980tie was still "supported" there were games that were nerfed on new drivers and would run fine on older ones. Guardians of the Galaxy was one of those titles.

They said the truth. It is very silly of them.

Are you being facetious? Because it was indeed dumb of them to do what they did. Play the game or you get crushed. If what they did was best practices, they would not have went into full damage control mode the last couple of days.

But at least one would expect people that have been using GPUs and PCs for decades should know at some point there is nothing to squeeze.

Irrelevant. While that started this latest clown show, it isn't why it exploded into a full 3 ring. It's because of optics. Optics are so important now. Much less so when you are an unstoppable green Kaiju, or chipzilla before they got off the juice like the pebble formerly known as the Rock.

But when you are in a distant second place optics are everything. When long time supporters like myself are tired of your 💩 you have to stop acting like a monkey humping a football. Seriously, when money from my demographic stops coming in, retail AMD graphics are cooked.

 

[Makaveli]

The guy that writes release notes used the internal language without the filter. Enough to generate drama. Sure, they worded it... poorly. But talking about "backtracking" and "bullshit response" now is actually stupid. This reminds me not to watch tech YouTubers at all because they have no morals. They cannot bestow information without playing with the viewer feelings.

The ability to keep an older branch for some GPUs is actually allowed by more software devs. On the other hand, some optional features might not come to the legacy branch. We will need to see how they tackle that.

All of these videos are just rage bait to get clicks and views.

Maintenance mode does not equal no drivers support and they all don't understand this. I would expect that from daniel owens since he is basically just a math teacher but not from HUB, Steve since these guys have abit more experience.

RDNA 1 & 2 Gpu's have pretty much been on Maintenance mode for over a year now when was the last time they released a driver that had performance improvements for these products in the release notes.

They basically took one statement blew it up for views. Yes the person making the statement could have worded it better however the storm these you tubers created over a basic misunderstanding has been incredible. The other issue alot of the viewers on these youtube channels are just gamers and kids and they don't actually know much about computers. So they will pretty much believe whatever they are told.

 

[Vikv1918]

There it is, exactly what some of us already wrote. Nor is it "funny" that they manage to go from one PR disaster to another, it's frustrating and disappointing. Thinking this is a nothingburger is failing to read the room. It's going to cost them financially. They just gave the guerilla marketers, social media agents, and haters, fresh ammo to use in the mindshare shill wars. Userbenchmark just got taken off of suicide watch.

As we have already stated: Quietly stop optimizing like Nvidia does, keep it all in one driver package, everyone is happy. But nope, they had to do what they always do -

They definitely have one of the worst marketing teams ever. But to be fair, this is the fault of the driver team and the two execs/employees who made dumb comments to the media without first running them by corporate. Im sure no marketing team, even one as incompetent as this one, would have allowed those execs to make those comments. Because both those comments were contradictory to each other, as well as to the final official statement by AMD twitter.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

They definitely have one of the worst marketing teams ever. But to be fair, this is the fault of the driver team and the two execs/employees who made dumb comments to the media without first running them by corporate. Im sure no marketing team, even one as incompetent as this one, would have allowed those execs to make those comments. Because both those comments were contradictory to each other, as well as to the final official statement by AMD twitter.

That does make a lot of sense. You'd think a company that has been around for so long has training and policies in place, to prevent this kind of SNAFU. They better put in more safeguards against this level of incompetence. They can ill afford to keep stepping on every rake.

 

[mikeymikec]

Maintenance mode does not equal no drivers support

Has anyone worthy of note said it does?

 

[coercitiv]

RDNA 3 is almost 3 years old now. Virtually all optimizations that can realistically be made are done within 12-24 months from launch. This means that RX 7000 series and RDNA 3.5 products like Strix Halo are basically in maintenance mode as well.

EDIT: Lol, 7000 realase date was Nov 3 2022, so it's 3 years on the clock.

 

[GaiaHunter]

But when you are in a distant second place optics are everything. When long time supporters like myself are tired of your 💩 you have to stop acting like a monkey humping a football. Seriously, when money from my demographic stops coming in, retail AMD graphics are cooked.

My hardware buys are based on different criteria but to each their own.
5 year old architectures being put into maintenence/not active development won't affect my purchasing decisions.

 

[GaiaHunter]

RDNA 3 is almost 3 years old now. Virtually all optimizations that can realistically be made are done within 12-24 months from launch. This means that RX 7000 series and RDNA 3.5 products like Strix Halo are basically in maintenance mode as well.

EDIT: Lol, 7000 realase date was Nov 3 2022, so it's 3 years on the clock.

Maybe RDNA3 and RDNA 3.5 might get some minor stuff that is AI based with FSR4 redstone - not expecting miracle performance boosts though,

 

[DAPUNISHER]

My hardware buys are based on different criteria but to each their own.

That's an equitable statement.

 

[Pontius Dilate]

I think the worst aspect of this is that AMD is still selling new hardware with RDNA2 graphics in it today, and will almost certainly be selling RDNA2 graphics in brand new products next year. The way they managed communication on this was certainly garbage. I'm not sure how much people who own 5 and 6 series cards are really losing in this deal, but it's not nothing. But it's not just the discrete graphics cards, it's technology being sold new today with drivers in maintenance support as if they were legacy products. That's rotten.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Aussie Steve extracted precise language from AMD. No wiggle room left after the interrogation. Daniel-San voices what made so many upsetti spaghetti.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Has anyone worthy of note said it does?

AMD's reps that responded to PCGH on October 30th did.