Where to find recommended "studio-driver" for AMD Radeon RX470 4GB?

studio-4 wrote on 6/24/2021, 11:14 AM

I bought a used AMD Radeon RX470 4GB GPU (just about the only card I could find for $200), and upon installation, Windows' device manager automatically recognized it and assigned a driver dated 2020. I also have a low-end AMD graphics-adapter the vendor threw in for free still installed. Windows' device manager had already installed a working driver for that card on delivery.

Everything was working fine, but I thought I should update my drivers since they were all over a year old. Since you can no longer download specific drivers from AMD's site, I downloaded and installed AMD's Adrenaline application. Apparently this was a mistake!

According to a post by RogerS in another thread, Adrenaline installs the gaming drivers (which aren't recommended for our purposes). After running Adrenaline, both the original AMD card and my new RX470 stopped working—I had no display-output. After repeated blind re-boots, I got the system back, but now the low-end AMD card only displays Windows' wallpaper-graphic with no icons or mouse visible. No great loss, but it was nice to have the low-end card available as an option.

I do have the RX470 working with the Adrenaline-installed driver (after a dozen "no-signal" re-boots), and its output does appear gorgeous (and Vegas runs fine with it), but I assume I'm now using the gaming driver which Adrenaline auto-detected and installed. I searched for the recommended "studio driver" for Radeon cards but couldn't find it. Could someone please post a link to the AMD studio driver for an RX470 4GB card? Thanks!

Comments

edoardo-l wrote on 6/24/2021, 11:35 AM

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/radeon-400-series/radeon-rx-400-series/radeon-rx-470

Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise - Revision Number 21.Q1.2

Reyfox wrote on 6/24/2021, 12:48 PM

I've personally been running only the Adrenaline drivers with no issues on the RX480 8GB graphics card. Right now, I have 20.11.2 installed. The latest release is 21.41. I do game beta testing, but right now, everything is working as it should.

studio-4 wrote on 6/24/2021, 3:45 PM

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/radeon-400-series/radeon-rx-400-series/radeon-rx-470

Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise - Revision Number 21.Q1.2

Hey, thanks a lot!!!

studio-4 wrote on 6/24/2021, 3:58 PM

I've personally been running only the Adrenaline drivers with no issues on the RX480 8GB graphics card. Right now, I have 20.11.2 installed. The latest release is 21.41. I do game beta testing, but right now, everything is working as it should.

Hmmm . . . interesting. I've been running Vegas for two days now with the Adrenaline driver and I don't see any problems, and the rendering speeds seem fine. Color, contrast, sharpness, dynamic-range mapping, Vegas' preview window, all look superb on my 65" LED TV. The crisp visual appearance and overall picture quality has an almost a 3D-like effect! Maybe I should just keep the Adrenaline driver installed?

Though, I really don't trust AMD's app in general—it completely failed on its first attempt. I must've blind-rebooted 20 times to finally get to a recovery screen. Plus, AMD's software took a perfectly installed card/driver and made it non-functional (I still can't get the low-end card to work—all it can do is display the Windows' wallpaper with no icons or cursor).

RogerS wrote on 6/24/2021, 8:34 PM

None of the things you describe have anything to do with the type of driver. One won't make the picture more accurate more vibrant, more crisp or anything like that. The difference is a prioritization of stability with more testing and less frequent updates over the latest fixes or performance enhancement for games. It may work today but break tomorrow (or not- if all goes well you'd never notice a difference). Magix and AMD encourage it for a reason.

studio-4 wrote on 6/24/2021, 9:06 PM

None of the things you describe have anything to do with the type of driver. One won't make the picture more accurate more vibrant, more crisp or anything like that . . .

Well I guess I've been reading too much Radeon advertising copy! But when my low-end card "sort of" worked mid-installation, the black-levels were off and the picture lacked contrast (i.e., it worked briefly during one of the blind-reboots, then reverted to the wallpaper-only display). It looked fine before Adrenaline changed the driver.

RogerS wrote on 6/24/2021, 10:26 PM

It's all branded Radeon. You need to fully install the drivers to judge it not the Windows default drivers.

Reyfox wrote on 6/25/2021, 5:07 AM

There is a Radeon clean up utility https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-601

My wife is using the RX570 with no issues.

studio-4 wrote on 6/25/2021, 5:34 AM

It's all branded Radeon. You need to fully install the drivers to judge it not the Windows default drivers.

I did. I let Adrenaline do its thing. After 20 reboots (due to no signal-output whatsoever), Adrenaline finally "installed" and re-identified my R7 card as an R2 and gave it the current, non-functioning driver (i.e., only displays Windows' wallpaper with no icons or cursor). I did a Google-search, and the replies were to edit the registry (haven't touched the registry).

Adrenaline finally installed the RX470 with an updated 2021 driver and is functioning without issue as far as I can tell. I set Windows' graphics options, and set the acceleration option in Vegas to Ellesmere, and the 470's overall performance and output-rendering seems pretty quick.

When I first got the PC from the vendor, device manager had identified the low-end AMD card as an R7 and had already installed a fully functioning driver. It's when I installed Adrenaline when everything went haywire.

studio-4 wrote on 6/25/2021, 5:36 AM

There is a Radeon clean up utility https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-601

My wife is using the RX570 with no issues.

Thanks! I'll give that a try! Is your wife using the Windows'-installed driver, or an updated Adrenaline-installed driver for her Radeon?

studio-4 wrote on 6/25/2021, 5:44 AM

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the performance I'm getting from my system. My last render completed just a hair over realtime (i.e., a two-minute clip took 02:17 to complete). I don't know if that's fast or slow compared to others here, but it seems acceptable to me.

My retired HP Z440 server cost only $500 (not counting the $200 I over-paid for the RX470), and is in excellent cosmetic- and mechanical-condition. Being six-years old, I wasn't expecting much, but its benchmarks are actually pretty respectable.

Of course, now I'm drooling over fancy new $3,000 laptops!

Dexcon wrote on 6/25/2021, 6:06 AM

... now I'm drooling over fancy new $3,000 laptops!

In that price range, you may be considering a Dell Alienware laptop. There's a very informative YT review of an Alienware laptop by Surfaced Studio which focuses on NLE editing on a laptop. Though it is from around 3 years ago - so an older release of Alienware - it does look at the pros and cons of video editing on a laptop as compared to a desktop, and Surfaced Studio has done a lot of BorisFX product reviews that were accessible some years ago via BorisFX's website.

Reyfox wrote on 6/25/2021, 6:13 AM

@studio-4, the drivers are installed from AMD directly. And again, I am using the "older" RX480 8GB with zero issues using the driver 20.11.2

I will after vacation update to the latest version when I come back from vacation in Split, Croatia. I always keep a version of Adrenaline that has worked when trying the newest version.