Bitcoin Forum

ATI released new Catalyst drivers including an 11.6 video driver and a small SDK upgrade (from v2.4.595.10 to v2.4.650.9)

I'm testing them on my boxes now and have noticed an improvement to hashing, but only on the order of 1-2% at most.

Radeon 6950 starting with Cat 11.5 and SDK 2.4.595.10 to 11.6/2.4.650.9 went from 366 MH/s to 369 MH/s max.

Radeon 5770 starting with Cat 11.5 and SDK 2.1 to 11.6/2.1 went from 208 MH/s to 214 MH/s max.

Still have a few more cards to test.  Has anyone else downloaded/tested them?

Upgraded 3 PCs with this.

6950 (unlocked pipes) 342MHash/s -> 343MHash/s
6870 272MHash/s -> 273MHash/s
5830 232MHash/s -> 235MHash/s (performance gained on another friends' PC)

But I notice there's a lot of change/bugfix/improgrment for gaming. It's a good news for non-dedicated miner?
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst116ReleaseNotes.aspx

Cheers :)

OpenGL fixed in some games. also OpenGL acceleration/offloading will start work in Adobe CS5.x and some GIMP plug-ins.

Update to my tests.  I also had some 5830's and 5850's that 11.5 to 11.6 didn't produce any improvement and even dropped 1 or 2 MH/sec.

Also, going from 2.1 to the new 2.4 dropped my output close to 10%, so it looks like SDK 2.1 is still king on the 5830/5850's.

Just wanted add a 5870 datapoint:

Catalyst 11.5
Core 975MHz
Memory 333MHz
430MH/s

Catalyst 11.6
Core 975MHz
Memory 333MHz
385MH/s

Nothing else changed other than going from 11.5 --> 11.6.

Does this fix the freezing issue when switching to youtube video?

What fixes this problem: right click inside any flash application, choose settings, and disabling hardware acceleration.

No I tried that and it didnt work.

That can fix flash, but you still get the same freeze from other things that use the GPU.  3D games, etc.  This bug doesn't apply to the 5 series, only some 6 series cards.

The question stands, does 11.6 fix this?

I can confirm this issue has been fixed :)

Awesome news, thanks.  I can go back to using my 6970 in my main PC now :)

where do i download sdk 2.4.650.9?

thx

http://developer.amd.com/sdks/AMDAPPSDK/downloads/Pages/default.aspx

thanks:)
its the same link:
http://download2-developer.amd.com/amd/Stream20GA/ati-stream-sdk-v2.1-lnx64.tgz

My 6950's still crash on Videos (WMP & WMPC)  and games. so no it isnt fixed.

xfx 6970 390 to 420

What priority are you forcing your miner to run at? I was having issues until i dropped the priority so that if something else gpu accelerated tried to hit the gpu for some juice... it would have a fighting chance. Else, it can just sit there waiting to get in, but never have priority... Add aero to this schmozzle... and crashes would be expected non?

Cool this is Linux Catalyst 11.6 as well - http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx

I wonder if its in the repos already, e.g. akmod and kmod.

My 6950 (reference, unlocked) is still hard-locking the my Win7 system with 11.6 if I launch a video or a 3D game.  Running at -f60.

Not sure if you guys bothered to notice, but have you looked at the load that mining puts on the gpu?? It doesn't surprise me if it crashes when you're mining and trying to play a graphics intensive game at the same time.

It's not about load. The problem is drivers and 6xxx cards. I have two 6970 on two PCs that make PC freeze when miner is running and any video is started. And I have 3 5870 cards on another two PCs which run perfectly fine even with hardware acceleration enabled. I'm absolutely sure it is related to compatibility between 6xxx cards and drivers. Whatever load there is, it should not cause computer to hang.

I have twin 6970s on a win7 x64 machine. each card is doing about 406mhash with "-f 60". I uncheck hardware accelleration and I can play embedded videos just fine. EDIT: with catalyst 11.6 drivers.

So far it seems that I get crashes if I start an OpenGL game *after* I start a miner, but if I start the miner *after* (alt-tabbing), everything is fine.

So far.

hm, 11.6[also as 11.5b]introduce h264/divx decoding for AVC, ie not only SVC/"Simply Profile"/los PSNR/IQ-BR

I've got two 6970 in crossfire, windows 7 64, ~405mh/s on each card with the 11.5 drivers and with 11.6 my system freeze and crash/reboot (maybe windows aero when I move some windows...). go back to 11.5...

Apparently 11.6 supports more GPUs on both Windows on Linux...
More confirmations are needed...