homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Wings: Over Flanders Fields - Technical Issues AMD Help and support

Hi all,

I've read that there is no recommondation for AMD gfx cards for WOFF.
Since I am an avid user of ATI/AMD I wanna share my experience with WOFF so far, which is pretty smooth sailing.
But there might be some Guys which havent had a nice experience and can put up their workarounds and fixes.
It would be a shame to lock out potential customers from this wonderful Sim just because they dont use Nvidia. I dont wanna start a AMD/Nvidia war, so keep it objective and civilized.

Regards

LtCasey -- I agree with you. It seems a shame to discourage a group of potential customers. If it helps, there's a recent thread from over in the Technical issues forum that talks about issues with the AMD graphics card.

https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4547403/weird-city-ground-textures#Post4547403

I think there's also a question/section in the FAQ on the topic. As a nvidia user, I haven't followed the issue in much detail.

Hi mandrews,
Thanks for the Heads Up!

Nothing really to add here except to check over the good link that Mandrews has provided. Also keep in mind, as KK has indicated in those posts - it all depends, to some extent, on the age of the AMD vid. card, vid. drivers installed, etc. I suppose also worth considering is whether or not your rig is AMD vid. and processor, or AMD vid. but Intel processor, as in my case. For the record, WOFF runs fine on my rig. (the PE ed. even better than the UE ed.,, ver. 4.18 of the UE ed. ran best in terms of those various editions - ver. 5.03 of PE is smoothest on my rig., etc.).

I am running the ver. 17.x.x Bootcamp vid. drivers for AMD, and have locked Win10 down to ver. 1809 (latest updates for 1809 installed, Win10 Professional). Use "WUB" by the way, Windows Update Blocker, to block/manually toggle updates - works on home eds. of Win10 too. So, in short, a few factors to consider - and another good (obscure) tip, as I indicated in that thread - is to run a video overlay program simultaneously with WOFF if you still have minor flickering with an AMD vid. card - has done the trick in my case with flickering/chequerboard terrains in IL2-BoM, and to minimize cloud flickering in RoF (I have found no need to run the video overlay program with WOFF/FE2/WOTR/SF2/IL2-1946 vpmodpack).

Happy flying and tinkering,
Von S

Thanks for sharing vonS,
This is exactly what I wished for. The little tweaks which make the Sim enjoyable for everyone.
So everyone should be encouraged to post his solutions in one comprehensive place.

AMD user. Win 10 upto date. All cool my end.

Good to hear Wodin!👍

What model amd gpu?

As I mentioned previously, your hardware is old enough (RX480 GPU) that it still uses drivers which pre-date the issues several have reported the sim has with newer AMD cards. ( >LINK< )

VonS has also avoided the issues because his card(s) are also older, as discussed in the thread linked above.

To (try to) avoid further confusion: AMD CPUs are fine; I just built one with a fellow forum member here and he's having no issues (but he uses an Nvidia GPU).

The issue is with newer AMD GPUs (anything 5000-series and newer). The older cards (RXVega 56/64 and before) appear to be OK, since they will all work with older drivers (which don't appear to have the issues). Newer cards won't run older drivers (as is to be expected), so only newer cards have the problem in WOFF.

Pol has been in contact with AMD over on their Developer's forum (>LINK<) ; they've indicated it's been reported to the appropriate group internally.

Every time *any* GPU manufacturer creates new drivers, there's a chance of problems happening; Nvidia is no different. The word 'bug' (as related to software problems) exists for a reason.

TBH (my opinion, FWIW) I wouldn't hold my breath - but I'd love to be wrong about that, for the exact reasons mentioned above.

Thanks, I thought that was the case.

Hmmmm...I also distinctly remember playing when one of my old cards was relatively new, and even back then people were saying that the game doesn't work with AMD GPU cards -- yet here I was merrily playing the sim with zero issues (at the time the card was an RX 470 - now long since moved on). So issues then seemed to be the batch of cards (or drivers) actually prior to what I had - so at that point in time the "new" stuff was actually fine. So despite all this, there seem to be a bracket in the product line (or driver line as may indeed be the case (or combo of both)) that was just fine - and indeed that could change in the future too. Point being, in general, careful of blanket statements -- but as kksnowbear and others have eluded to, it is indeed buyer beware regarding the AMD GPU.

A good and beneficial thread gents' - also, I'm not 100% sure of this (perhaps KK can pitch in with the relevant info.) - but I think that the ver. of Win10 you are running may also limit the age of graphics DLLs that you may install - for example, ver. 2004 may not allow one to roll back as far as the ver. 17.x.x DLLs that I have loaded in ver. 1809 for the AMD vid. cards. Perhaps it's tied somewhat to the ver. of Win10 being run in the same way that it is tied to the age of the graphics card(s).

Cheers all,
Von S

I think what you're remembering was different from what's happening now. There have been two periods over the past few years where there were reported issues with AMD cards:

- One (if memory serves) was about newer drivers (newer at that time) with *older* RadeonHD cards - this is relatively easy to work around by simply not using newer drivers if you have an older card. Even then, however, there was a further distinction (and I think this is what you're referring to, as you were involved in the discussion at the time). RX cards (like your 470) worked OK with newer drivers (again, newer at that time) - but older HD cards (eg HD7870) had problems with drivers which were "new" at that time. This was all discussed (c. November 2018, now itself more than 3 years ago >LINK< ) before the thread disintegrated into the usual level of personal attacks when folks can't actually debate a point and instead attack a person, ad hominem. Regretfully, the result is that important, factual and helpful information is obfuscated due to unnecessary distraction...unfortunate, because that information is now relevant and helpful here again, some three years on.

- The other, much more recent issue involves newer *cards*, which won't work with older drivers by design, thus requiring newer drivers, and therefore have the issues being reported of late (some textures not displaying properly, broadly and generally).

So, in summary, I believe the following is correct:

- Old cards, old drivers are OK; I think something along the line of the 17 series drivers (possibly 19?) are OK, but again, these drivers predate newer cards and thus the newer cards aren't supported in these older drivers.

- Old card, new drivers; technically supported by the drivers (to a point) but drivers beyond a certain point would likely have the issues mentioned some three years ago, per the thread linked above from ~Nov 2018 - again, depending upon specific hardware.

- New card, new driver; has some texture issues as reported more recently by several users with AMD GPUs 5000 series and newer.

Also, with respect to VonS' comments above concerning Windows versions and drivers: I'd honestly have to defer to others' knowledge and experience in this area, not having specifically studied it myself. That said, his point certainly sounds plausible to me - as a matter of course, developers often have 'prerequisite' environments for a given driver. One such example I've run into many times recently is an inability to load recent Nvidia drivers unless/until Windows itself is updated. So that would seem to corroborate VonS' point, to me.

Please note I am not considering or representing anything 'official'. It would be strongly preferred, of course, to have 'official' comment and guidance in this area, but failing that, I am only relaying what I've observed in various threads on the matter in the OP (lest I am attacked yet again for being "off topic" just because I don't agree with someone).

Nice summary @kksnowbear.

You can test if it is a driver issue by installing WOFF into a windows 10 virtual machine. If you don’t get texture artifacts then it’s definitely the AMD driver.

I remember a long time ago, there were custom AMD drivers made by folks to replace the “official” ones. Maybe if these custom drivers exist for newer cards that could be a possible solution. I’ve never owned AMD, so I could be wrong.

Edit: they were called omega drivers.

Good points Orbyx,

Speaking of custom AMD drivers - they are also available for Bootcamped Windows installs on Intel Macs - so I am including a few helpful links below for Mac users/fliers, since relevant to this thread:

Official, latest AMD drivers for Bootcamp:
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/apple-boot-camp

Official, older AMD drivers for Bootcamp:
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/apple-boot-camp-previous

(For some reason the ver. 17.x.x. drivers are missing from the link above - recommended is an internet search for that ver. of drivers, or a look at other repositories that perhaps host older AMD-vid. drivers.)

Unofficial, "turbo-charged" AMD drivers for Bootcamp:
https://www.bootcampdrivers.com/

(Recommended is to read directions carefully on the "unofficial" website - I have never used the unofficial drivers since I have no use for them - performance is just fine with the official ver. 17.x.x drivers on my rig, across various flight simulators, including WOFF/WOTR.)

Cheers all and happy tinkering,
Von S

Hi,

Had my First campaign flight over the flanders frontline and wittnessed a seriös drop in framerates down to below 20fps.
I would like to know your settings you guys with AMD cards and CPU Run in WOFF.

Thanks in advance!

LtCasey;

It has been noted in past threads that FPS drops are common when Arty is doing shelling at the front. It might impact some users, Personally I don't worry too much about FPS drops unless the drops are so bad as to reflect significant pauses or stutters in the game.

Best Regards

@Robert_Wiggins

Thx, I expected frame drops, but that went below 20fps.
I will reduce resolution to FHD and turn Terrain detail to 4. Clouds also.

@LtCasey, included below are both my AMD GPU panel settings as well as WOFF PE in-sim settings. I also have my WOFF GPU Tuner patch installed, as well as the "lite tweak" of Xjouve's ver. 1.1 water mod. (the water mod. drops ave. FPS by about 20 or so, into the 80s FPS or so - on bad, rainy days, the FPS drop to as low as the 60s FPS). With no water patch installed, I get about 100 to 120 FPS or so on ave. Processor is not AMD but Intel Xeon 6-core by the way. The two AMD FireProD700 cards have been lightly overclocked, from stock 850/1370 MHz to 1030/1380 MHz. No instability noted. Some graphical oddities emerge if the core clocks are bumped into the 1040s MHz and higher, also the 1050s MHz. 1060 MHz and above is a no-go.

EDIT: Regional air activity is at "light" since my campaigns are early war currently; might bump it up to medium or heavy if I ever get to 1918, and will turn forced encounters off then. I do have a campaign in the Alsace, 1917, but that works well historically at light air activity so haven't bothered to try out medium for that yet.

Happy tweaking,
Von S