AMD’s Enduro Switchable Graphics Levels Up
by Jarred Walton on September 6, 2012 3:00 AM ESTNew for Mid-2012: “Enduro 5.5” Enhancements
When AMD created the Enduro brand, they were really almost where we wanted them. They had dynamic switching with support for most of the latest games and applications, and when it worked properly it would be difficult to tell if you were using an NVIDIA or an AMD dGPU. The problem was when things didn’t work and you had to go into the drivers, and there were several problems. OpenGL support was totally out, many of the latest games were also missing default profiles (and sometimes wouldn’t let you properly specify the correct GPU), the UI was obtrusive and sometimes hard to use (particularly for power users), and the drivers were dictated by the laptop manufacturers and were usually months old at launch and never updated.
While the UI seems like a minor thing to fix—I would have thought one or two months to improve the UI would have been sufficient—at least prior to the forthcoming update it remained largely unchanged. The lack of AMD-provided driver updates was really the major issue, because everything else could potentially be fixed with new drivers and you would never know. The other areas like OpenGL/OpenCL and support for various games/applications should improve over time as well, provided you can get drivers. That brings us to the upcoming Enduro release, scheduled to come out sometime this month or next. Officially it’s still just Enduro, but to help differentiate between the previous Enduro release and the upcoming release we’ll sometimes refer to the new version as “Enduro 5.5”.
The biggest news with the latest iteration of Enduro is that AMD is planning to make universal reference drivers available for all the Enduro laptops. It’s not clear precisely what that means, but potentially any laptop with Dynamic Switchable Graphics or later (e.g. PX4.0 and later) would be supported by AMD’s “reference” drivers. That’s huge, and if AMD can deliver it will assuage most of our concerns with their hardware/software. Hopefully none of the OEMs get bent out of shape or refuse to allow support, which is a problem we've seen in the past. We should see the first public release in the next month or two, and then another release somewhere in the November/December timeframe.
Besides the availability of driver updates, the UI also receives a much needed overhaul, providing both regular and power users all the options they’re likely to need as far as control of graphics switching is concerned. Open up the switchable graphics options and the top section remains largely the same, but the bottom now allows you to see all application profiles (or just the profiles for detected applications). There’s also a quick search option that works both on executable name and application/game name (e.g. HL2.exe or Half-Life 2 will both find the profile for Half-Life 2). From either list (recently used apps up top, or all apps at the bottom), you can set the GPU profile.
Where previously there were two settings (three if you count “Not Assigned”), there are now three options. As before, “Power saving” sets an application to run on the integrated graphics while “High performance” sets an application to run on the discrete GPU. The new third option is “Based on power source”, which does precisely what you’d expect: plug the laptop in and the apps with this setting will run on the discrete GPU; switch to battery power and they’ll run on the integrated graphics. For many users, everything could default to “Based on power source” and they would be happy, but certainly there will be times where you’re running on battery power but still want to use the dGPU and the drivers give you that option. Should things get squirrelly, you can also reset applications individually or globally to their default settings. It’s worth noting that the power state aware setting is something that NVIDIA currently does not implement, requiring manual intervention if you wish to override your normal settings—though how often people are using apps that require the dGPU while on battery power is something we could debate.
Besides the individual application profiles, AMD is also adding a new area to their drivers: Switchable Graphics Global Settings. This is something you could sort of get before with some laptops, but previously it involved changing from Dynamic Switchable Graphics to manual switching (i.e. switching based on power source) and then forcing the laptop into High Performance or Power Saving mode if you wanted to be low power while plugged in or high power while unplugged. That was clunky and at least in the case of the Sony VAIO C we tested it caused flickering similar to the old switchable graphics, with the dGPU drivers getting unloaded and iGPU drivers getting loaded (or vice versa), with some work behind the scenes copying context from one GPU to the other. It worked but it wasn’t elegant; perhaps more importantly, Microsoft doesn’t want anyone doing this with Windows 8 and thus new laptops won’t be able to get a Windows 8 sticker if they use this method of switching (which basically means no new laptops will do this). To make up for the loss of this functionality (which some people still prefer), AMD has added a new global settings section.
Unlike the individual application profiles, the global settings gives you four options each for Battery and Plugged In. The top two options are similar in most cases and will generally run most applications on the iGPU, and the same goes for the bottom two modes where you’ll run most apps on the dGPU. The difference is that “Force Power Saving GPU” will run all applications (regardless of what the custom profile says) on the iGPU, essentially disabling the dGPU completely. “Optimize Power Savings” in contrast will run all unknown or “Based on power source” applications on the iGPU while respecting the application profiles where they exist. “Optimize Performance” is sort of the reverse of that, running all “Based on power source” applications on the dGPU while leaving unknown applications on the iGPU. Finally, the “Maximize Performance” option runs all unknown and “Based on power source” applications on the dGPU—but applications specifically set to use the iGPU will continue to do so.
The reason for that last discrepancy (e.g. why you can’t simply run everything on the dGPU and forget about the iGPU) is that certain tools have to run on the iGPU. Intel’s drivers are one example—loading those up on the dGPU would cause problems. Intel’s WiDi is the only other I could find on my particular Clevo notebook. We were told that some of the laptop utilities like an overlay showing percentage of brightness, volume, etc. may also need to run on the iGPU. Besides the few applications that have to run on the iGPU, any applications that are set to Power Saving will continue to use the iGPU—and this makes sense as there are a lot of applications that can be set to run on iGPU/dGPU that have no need of higher performance GPU options (several anti-virus utilities come to mind, where they're starting to create a 3D context for their UI). The net result is that other than a few specific applications where the profile will exist and be locked to the iGPU, with no option to change to dGPU, everything else that uses higher function graphics can be customized to run on a specific GPU, but if you set something to iGPU presumably you want it to always run there—otherwise you would use the “Based on power source” setting.
A full set of screenshots from all the driver screens is available in the gallery below if you’re interested.
One final topic worth discussing is Windows 8. Certainly there are owners of existing laptops with switchable graphics that are wondering if they can upgrade to Windows 8 and what will happen. We’ll have to see how this actually plays out, but it sounds like the earlier versions of PowerXpress (3.0 and earlier) will probably get support with one driver bundled with Windows 8, and that may be it—but there’s always the possibility for the laptop OEMs to release their own updates, or for AMD to roll out additional drivers for older laptops. The potential for PowerXpress 4.0 and later laptops to get regular driver updates (for Windows Vista/7/8) is there, but until we actually start seeing public driver releases AMD hasn’t fully committed to supporting all of those laptops.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Here's the thing: it takes time to correct course at a large company, and if management gets in the way it can take even longer. I don't get why people are outraged that Enduro 5.0 has issues when I said last year that Dynamic Switchable Graphics was broken and would remain so until AMD committed to regular driver updates.http://www.anandtech.com/show/4839/8
Did we ever come out with an article saying AMD was doing driver updates for Enduro? NO! So everyone that bought Enduro between last year and this was apparently willing to take a chance on AMD.
But now we have a demonstration of a fixed Enduro UI, and we have a firm commitment to two driver releases for Mobility Catalyst with Enduro support by the end of the year. And everyone is pissed about it and saying we didn't do our homework? Look at the introduction: "It has been just over a year since my last look at the technology, where things were so bad that I felt most users would be better off if they had only discrete AMD GPUs and no switchable graphics—or they could simply buy NVIDIA Optimus enabled laptops." I haven't changed my tune to recommending AMD Enduro over Optimus, but at least now there's a chance it will get there.
pablo906 - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I'm with Jarred here. You guys are bringing the pitch forks to anandtech over a product they said not to buy. Does this make any sense to any of you outraged owners? If you have anger and frustration don't point it at anandtech for not talking about your issue with Optimus, take it out on the people who are continuing to let your issue go unresolved. AT hasn't looked at DSG in over a year, and when they did they reported it didn't work. They haven't been reviewing laptops with the technology at all since then and have not changed their stance from, this doesn't work - don't buy it. With that being the case when they get a product in that is having the performance and utilization issue, they start off saying this still doesn't work, but there is hope that it may soon. I don't know what more you can ask for other than perhaps an AT writer lighting themselves on fire outside of ATI in protest over the issue.TokamakH3 - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Can you point to the article where Jarred said faulty Enduro would cripple the 7970M's performance? I didn't care that Enduro wouldn't work right if I could shut it off. I didn't even consider the performance would be so horribly crippled by it, and AMD wouldn't even bother to even try to fix it. That's the worst part, 5 months of nothing.hulawafu77 - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Well apparently I and many others were too stupid to not have read your previous articles to know AMD sold GCN 7970M units they were touting to be the fastest, most powerful graphics card even though last gen's Nvidia 580M were destroying it. We bought laptops since that is what AMD told us. buy this product, you get this performance.I don't see why it's out fault and why it was taking a chance.
I am grateful for Anandtech's diligence, but the anger I think here is more aimed at AMD than Anandtech. Some like myself just wish there was more push aimed at AMD to get this fixed now, rather than saying there is hope of rumored possible future update.
Seanzky - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
"I am grateful for Anandtech's diligence, but the anger I think here is more aimed at AMD than Anandtech. Some like myself just wish there was more push aimed at AMD to get this fixed now, rather than saying there is hope of rumored possible future update."This. At this point any false hopes of AMD fixing anything is better off whispered. We have reached out to every outlet we can think of. We have been ignored. All of a sudden AMD takes the platform provided by Anandtech and says that a fix will come soon? This is why I said this has AMD's hand all over it in my comment. It sounds to me like AMD is using Anandtech to further silence us. To silence us long enough until their next line of GPUs are out.
AMD to Anantech: "Just hang in there, tell them help is on the way."
Anandtech to us: "You hear that guys?! Hurray!"
You know what that sounds like to us abandoned customers? Like damage control, another false hope. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I am merely relaying my real experience that others can definitely relate to. Put yourself in our shoes. No public statements. No acknowledgements. No signs. Nothing. With this article you want us to put down our "pitchforks" and torches? You want us to just go away and wait in our little corner? Damage. Control.
And if this was a known issue since day one, why is @catalystcreator say they're just "investigating" it. Why did Sager just investigate it also? Why did Sager go silent? Why did @catalystcreator go silent?
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Or how about this scenario, since we're just making stuff up.HD 7970 released, along with other GCN products. Management says, "Okay, desktop parts are out; get the mobile stuff shipping ASAP." Engineering gets the hardware ready and the driver guys say, "We're still working to address some concerns with drivers." They're told it's good enough for now and they start shipping. Then the forums light up with people saying, "OMG 7970M is terrible!" Management goes into a frenzy and tells the drivers people to fix the problem after marketing promises things will be fixed "soon". Unfortunately, marketing is writing checks that the drivers team can't cash.
Eventually, there's a meeting where the drivers team says they need to invest three or four solid months of work into fixing the underlying issues. Marketing knows that you can't come out with a statement like that, so they tell everyone to go silent and just wait for things to get better. Finally, the drivers are nearly ready and it just so happens that AnandTech has a 7970M review they're working on. It's a good opportunity to show that things are about to change, so they take it.
Heck, let me go one further. Here's an excerpt of what I sent to AMD (the whole email is about 4X as long):
-------------------
My conclusion for now, unless something can be done to address the situation in the next week or two, is that mobile gaming enthusiasts are far better off with NVIDIA GPUs, even if it means spending more (AVADirect charges $274 extra to upgrade from 7970M to GTX 680M). And actually, given the choice between a GTX 580M/675M Optimus and HD 7970M Switchable, it's $120 less at AVADirect to get the GTX 675M and you'd end up with a more consistent experience and regular driver updates.
To address the problems, AMD needs to get their switchable graphics solutions integrated into the regular driver updates, and users need to be able to update the AMD and Intel graphics drivers independently. Until that happens, I am extremely hesitant to recommend any AMD switchable graphics notebooks -- I'd rather have a discrete only HD 7970M or even 7730M/7750M/7770M with driver updates than to get switchable graphics without driver updates. This is pretty much the same thing I said a full year ago, and as far as I can tell virtually nothing has changed as far as the UI and driver updates.
-------------------
AMD's response was that they were working to fix the issue and they had pre-release drivers to show me, with the understanding that these drivers will be available sooner rather than later. And they showed me exactly that: updated drivers that they're saying will work for all Enduro (and PowerXpress 4.0 and later) laptops. They're not out now, but we have a deadline of October 31 with the potential to see them as early as this month. If AMD doesn't deliver, you can bet I'll have more to say on the subject.
vgray35@hotmail.com - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Oh yes they were working on fixing the problem, and in the meantime behind the driver team's back, a covert sting operation was instigated to purge information in the public domain, that was focusing on the severity of the problem.Apparently while a fix is being engineered, it is not permissible for anybody to discuss the ramifications of the problem, and it is absolutely forbidden to discuss it in public.
Well I will discuss it where ever I please despite AMD position on this issue.
Seanzky - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Understood. You keeping on top of this is appreciated. Though, I no longer care about this per se, there are way too many over at NBR who deserve what they paid for. So, thank you.I hope you understand why my initial reaction was of AMD using you as a vehicle to further quiet us down. Many here have echoed the same things I've said and that was to either completely ignore us or to shut down threads where we bring up issues to resellers.
Vozier - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Since we are imagining possible scenarios i might as well do..Only one thing is clear for now, and that is that ENDURO technology is responsible for underutilizing the dGPU and consequently rendering low FPS for some games and/or game maps and/or game configurations.
Now as a scientist i first analyze the empiric data and then try to formulate an hypothesis, and then test it to prove or discard it. Having avidly read many users info and comments, my current understanding of the problem is this:
I DO NOT think this is hardware issue. Why? well, the proof is everywhere, not only the 7970M performs flawlessly and very well in Alienware with enduro shut off, but also in clevo machines it performs perfect in some games and even in most games affected it performs normal in certain maps, multi or non multiplayer settings, etc, etc. The most common complaint is that FPS go up and down along with GPU utilization.
My understanding is that a hardware piece is inherently DUMB as a rock, and that its performance is only dummer as its operator (in this case Enduro) and the instructions it receives to operate.
Another evidence on this subject is that different catalyst driver versions do affect the performance, maybe not in the way we want, but it doesn just "stay the same", either worst, better or weird would be proper terms.
That said and taking the comments of the most knowledgeable people around, the issue IS driver related. The fact that Nvidia had very similar issues some years ago when they launched Optimus, just adds to this notion.
Another fact that can be interpreted in many ways is AMDs and most resellers silence about all this:
We can go all paranoid and think there is a huge conspiracy to shut us down and make this problem go away.
I can even picture some black clothed NVIDIA agent pouring a misterious liquid on the hardware or hacking AMDs drivers with a hidden flaw to cause all this.... the options are infinite...
Now, taking into account Anandtech's article, Sager's few deleted comments, mythlogic's comments, even short and very scarce AMD posts (Mark AMD), wich can be regarded as the most "official" position on the matter, the conclusion for me is this:
1) AMD has been slow to detect, understand, adress and moreso recognize this issue or its mere existence. This is not necessarily bad, only unfortunate (for them and us customers).
2) AMD took the usual attitude towards these kind of issues and remain silent, doing nothing at first hoping it was a mere configuration or driver installation issue and that other users would help the affected ones.
3) After seeing the issue was real, not fixable by users and configuration combos, not even reseller drivers, and that even some resellers were complaining to them and in open forums, AMD decided to put some people at work and asked their associates (i.e. sager and others) to back up their silence policy for the time being, releasing a few short phrases to gain time. "We are working on it"
you can argue this decision but i aint something so weird as it seems. I would say this happened only 1 month ago or so.
4) Viewing some light at the end of the tunnel AMD starts to release some info to their resellers and reviewers like Anandtech, in order to have them quiet and informed that they are "on to it". They still remain silent either because by now they might as well and because the fix is NOT ready or complete and they do not want to enter any debate without answers. This is happening now.
So as you see there is no need to be paranoid, there is much more simpler explanation to events.
Some would say AMD should have detected the issue before launching the 7000 cards, but seriously speaking this aint so true.
Why?
Well you need just read some of the first reviews that came out for 7970M, i dont think any of them were biased, they even mentioned enduro and its need to be improved. But if you test 20 or more games, you run only 1 or 2 minute benchmarks for them, you dont have someone playing hours and switching to multiplayer modes and what not. Also many games perform correctly so there really wasnt and still isnt an instant crash of sorts to detect a major issue. Also, the card works, even if it underperforms some times, so detecting this anomaly wasnt so easy to begin with. Not saying AMD is to be absolved of all charges, but i really dont see them as the villains many are picturing, they have been just too slow, too dumb and too arrogant, but then again who isnt sometimes?
Whats your fckng point you ask?????
Simple, the issue will be fixed to a good degree, not 100% probably, not for all games, but no card works flawlessly in all games, thats a whole different topic.
so have hope and dont crush the only option we have to avoid total monoploy in the graphics world.
What can we do then? sit back and wait?
NO, absolutely not, the ball is rolling and growing and we need to stop it soon or it will become an avalanche.
You can cry.
You can shout and spit.
You can test and inform your results.
You can post or just read.
Whatever you do will be more or less usefull and might help getting this boat to port.
best regards
Voz
transphasic - Sunday, September 9, 2012 - link
Yes. Agreed. I do not take issue with Anandtech at all, nor am I upset with them one bit here. I am also grateful at the work and info that Anandtech has been doing to inform us about this.In fact, in a way, this whole AMD Enduro fiasco has been a great help to Anandtech, because as of a month ago, I didn't even know that this website even existed until now. You can thank AMD in a backwards sort of way for helping me and probably a few others as well for making Anandtech's existence known to a great many more people.
Anandtech has helped me out with people like Jarred, who provided much-needed info, so thanks for that.
I AM upset and angry (obviously) at AMD for creating a product that we only now are regretting buying in the first place. If I/we had only known that this is what we would be going through, then NONE of us would be owning the 7970m, and we would all be siding with Nvidia, and talking about how great their 680m GPU is.