Can someone recommend a version of catalyst that isn't completely broken?

12.4 is what i use on my secondary HTPC, tried 12.6 and got on of the most idiotic errors i`ve seen in my life. Basically it said that "The AMD VISION Engine Control Center is not supported by the driver version of your enabled graphics adapter. Please update your AMD graphics driver, or enable your AMD adapter using the Displays Manager" .Wtf? ))

So i went back to 12.4 which seems to work fine.

PS: Download link : http://downloads.guru3d.com/AMD-Catalyst-12.4-WHQL-32-bit-download-2904.html
Edited by GreenEyez - 7/8/12 at 7:34am

Agreed. I gave up on AMD video cards a long time ago for personal use because of these reasons.

I have an AMD HD4550 in my HTPC that has never been happier now that it's on Catalyst 11.8. My harddrive died on me in April this year and while reinstalling everything onto the new one I decided to go through that last year's worth of Catalyst versions to really find one that would give me minimal problems. Previously, my system would sometimes spontaneously crash on me when turning on the TV and the mute bug was also very prevalent. No more crashes now and while not entirely eliminated, the mute bug has reared it's head only once so far. I wish I could remember what version of Cat I was running back then, but it hardly matters now. Coupled with the latest Realtek HDMI drivers the HD4550 bitstreams DD and DTS to my AVR without any hiccups at all. My system uptime has never been so good.

What errors??????????.

Me? I must just be really lucky, I've had a 4670, 5450 and now a 5670 and all have been rock solid in operation, with drivers from as far back as I can remember, yes there have been 'overscan' issues, but they stick as soon as they have been set, nothing of any note at all

Am I in the minority?

Using 12.6 by the way.

I think it is completely dependent on the rest of your AV gear (receiver, HDTV, etc). Some have absolutely no issues and some have a nightmare. I was the latter with my 5450.

I use 11.4.

I it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Same here, 11.4

my card is a 6870 and I have never had issues with any driver versions.
Currently I am using 12.7 beta.

With some sadness I recently kicked AMD to the curb and replaced my HTPC with a G530 and an H61 motherboard. While the AMD PQ is beyond compare the driver issues were just a bit too much to tolerate. Now there is no occassional mute bug, or the display driver error where you had to minimize and then maximize 7MC to get things working, no more random video freeze when changing channels with the InfiniTV4, and no jumping through sound issue hoops like disabling navigation sounds or having to configure Windows with 2.1 sound.

I gave AMD more than the benefit of the doubt. I went through a couple of AMD cards (a 5450 and a 6570), all kinds of driver combos, and a few motherboards as well. Nothing ever cured the problems. Now everything just works and the WAF has increased exponentially in the process. If AMD can address those issues I would be happy to return. Until then...

We had a heated poll and debate a few months ago and many well respected users on AVS felt that there was no difference in PQ on 1080p between Intel, NVidia or AMD. In fact, no one vendor really "won" the poll and that all three are bascially equal in PQ for 1080p. The take home was that AMD comes with all the post processing garbage turned on and some users like this look --- similar to the "torch mode" that you will find on almost every HDTV at Best (worst) Buy or similar showroom to oversaturate colors intentionally.

But I digress. I have had the same exact experience as you. I have tried ATI/AMD, NVidia and finally Intel iGPU and the Intel options just works. No more am I constantly tinkering and fussing with my HTPC. I can just watch the @#$% video and enjoy it. So can my wife. And even her 60 year old parents for whom I built a HTPC and they have only called me a handful of times to troubleshoot (once because they somehow flipped the screen display upside down).

+1, also went from Zacate to Intel Pentium G and i can`t see any difference in quality on a 60 inch Kuro Plasma or a 40 inch Sony LCD. No more hdmi handshake issues with the reiceiver when turning the machine on from sleep (like i had with ATI).

PS: Adam, check you PM box in 5 minutes, i`ve got something to tell you.

I agree that the PQ difference is minimal but it is there and I do notice it to a small degree. However, I am not one of those who is anal enough to get bent out of shape about it. imo, the WAF and having things just work is far far more important to me than being able to get the color, sharpness, or skin tones absolutely perfect. As a fan of AMD for well over a decade I am a bit disappointed though. I really wanted them to be the best solution. Unfortunately it hasn't turned out to be so, ime. Maybe with specific hardware combos AMD works perfectly? Unfortunately I never found it.

Not everything revolves around 1080p. There are plenty of video sources that are not 1080p, and it's no doubt (at least according to professional reviewers) that AMD has better video quality across the board.


"post processing garbage"? No one complains when an outboard video processor does the exact same things that AMD does by default. Sheesh,


Let me rebut... most people don't have problems with their AMD cards and drivers. There are always going to be weird configurations that cause driver issues, but the other GPU vendors are not immune.

PQ of low-resolution source material is rather subjective. If you like overly post-processed images, it may look better to you when you apply all these filters, but if you don't, well, then it won't.
Even PQ of HD material is subjective at times when it comes to post-processing, any serious reviewer would never flat out say "X has the better picture" (or if they do, i would stop reading).


I would complain. My TV and AVR are both set to output the video as untouched as possible.
Sadly you can't buy a good TV without all these features, so you have to turn them off as well.
Edited by Nevcairiel - 7/9/12 at 12:01am

Hmmm. So the fact that this thread was created by someone (who is very knowledgeable, I might add) and also additional posts by self-admitted fan boys of AMD who are having these issues doesn't mean anything?

And you also seem to think that "reviewers" are somehow better than the rest of us at knowing what's good and bad in HTPC. Well even the reviewers are getting tired of the AMD/ATI driver and I have seen multiple comments about buggy ATI/AMD driver for HTPC use. Like these nuggets from anand:

The bolded is what drove me absolutely insane and why I moved away and seems to be much more prevalent in AMD's drivers than the other vendors for whatever reason. I am sure gamers have no issues with the AMD drivers but HTPC users are largely forgotten. Maybe that's why the Intel drivers --- while not perfect either --- are much less prone to the bugs and "just work" as Intel isn't focused on appeasing any specific group of users.

And once again Nev --- who knows more about PQ than many of us put together --- has stated his opinion yet it will largely go unnoticed by the AMD fans on this forum.

Finally, if you want the torch mode similar to the AMD experience then turn all those settings on. They are turned off by default with NVidia and Intel and turned on by default with AMD.
Edited by assassin - 7/9/12 at 3:33am

At least i seem to be lucky with my drivers, running 12.6 now on my 7750, and so far everything is good.
But then i also don't use WMC or even the EVR, so maybe not all potential problems would surface with madVR, because it behaves more like a game then a video renderer, for exactly the reason to avoid some issues with the drivers.

I updated from 12.3 to 12.6 a few days ago on my HD5670 it started randomly freezing in videos. Went back to 12.3 and everything was fine.

You do realize that there are plenty of people out there who have AMD cards and don't have (or don't notice) the problems that you are complaining about. Even in this thread you have people who have never had a problem through multiple generations of AMD cards. I've had 5 different generations of AMD cards all the way back to the Radeon 8500LE used strictly for video (not gaming)... 3 generations of Nvidia cards all the way back to the 6600GT strictly for video (I've had several Nvidia cards before the 6600GT for gaming), and various throw-away IGPs: AMD, Nvidia, and even Intel all the way up to a HD3000. I've never had issues with video drivers. Maybe I'm lucky, I don't know.

As for the AMD "fanboy" comments... If you've been around in the HTPC world more than the last few years, you would know that AMD has always had the better video playback hardware. This is fact.


You are perfectly fine having your own opinion, but you seem so hell-bent on preventing others from having one? My opinion is based upon over a decade of building and using HTPCs... and yes "reviewers".

I'm not saying you are full of crap, but you have a real problem with anyone who disagrees with you. You haven't cornered the market on HTPC knowledge, my friend.

Just in the process of scaling a low-resolution source to 720/1080p, we destroy the integrity of the original image. We don't have the luxury of multiple scan-rate compatible CRTs anymore. Since we are already distorting the original low-resolution source to begin with, why not try to enhance it or attempt to try to restore the original integrity with post-processing?


HD is tougher to discern at normal distances or on smaller screens... but I promise you when you have a large screen (projector) or sit closer than "ideal" these details do matter.


Agreed. Not all post-processing is useful or even desired, but it's useful in some occasions that they are available. I don't really understand all the fuss about using post-processing... directors use post-processing to acheive certain effects in video, and in the audio world post-processing by the artists is pretty much across the board.

We don't get bent out of shape when we use our AVRs to process 2.0 stereo into psuedo 5.1 do we? We don't bat an eye at resampling audio to 24bit or beyond do we? We love the fact that our AVRs can do digital room correction... but obviously none of this is what the original audio file was designed to sound like.

This is the fact that Catalyst doesn't know what the TV chipset do with the signal it sends, front porch, back porch etc. I have this problem with a Phillips TV but the Broadcom chipset in a different TV works just fine. There are software to manually adjust the front porch and back porch but I'm just not smart enough to get my Phillips TV working. Phillips stop supporting drivers for their TVs and I can't find a profile close enough to get the borders just right.

Give these a try: Copy and paste URL http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/previous/10/Pages/radeon.aspx?os=Windows Vista - 32-Bit Edition&rev=10.12
Edited by Bignickfly - 7/10/12 at 12:29am

Well if that's not the pot calling the kettle black I don't know what is.

The tortured genius returns.

Must.......resist......snide.........comment

As far as i know, no. I think programs can control the pixel format or the color range or de-interlancing via the DXVA API , but certainly not post-processing features, those are proprietary AMD features. Try 12.4

Why did you update in the first place? Was something not working?