Installing and configuring Blockchain drivers for mining on AMD video cards

AMD developers presented a Blockchain drivers update package for graphics accelerators. The software will significantly increase the productivity of cryptocurrency mining on video cards from this manufacturer.

You can download drivers for AMD mining from the official website of the developer. Next, we will look at step-by-step instructions for downloading, installing and uninstalling the software. Never download software from unverified sources, as this may lead to system failures.

AMD released new drivers on August 23, 2022. What is special about the updated version and is it worth downloading in principle? Now we will try to answer this difficult question as objectively as possible.

Why do you need a special driver?

The integration of graphics support for Vega series video cards has been achieved through the release of new Blockchain Compute drivers. As mentioned earlier, the first version appeared last summer, but during this time several updates were released. Download the current 2022 version on the official website.

What makes the software unique is its optimized technology that provides digital currency intelligence while supporting the vast majority of current generation GPU cards.

RX 470/480 video adapters were taken as the basis. Also, the updated version of the drivers supports cards that appeared relatively recently - Radeon RX 570 and RX 580.

What is the effect of this version? Firstly, the software completely solves the problem of editing the DAG file when mining the Ethreum cryptocurrency. System errors are 100% excluded.

With older drivers, mining performance dropped significantly due to the size of the DAG file. The memory capacity on AMD video cards was off the charts, so we had to switch to internal reserves. As a result of such manipulations, the power of computing equipment was reduced. For example, the hashrate of the RX 580 video card dropped by 30 MH/s when mining ETH coins. After installing Blockchain drivers, the loss rate is about 26 MH/s, the settings are saved.

Thus, installing the software ensures better cryptocurrency mining. Handling of increased memory demands is noticeably improved. The level of loss of efficiency of computing equipment is reduced.

Test results continue to be mixed. Nevertheless, a positive trend in terms of improving performance has already emerged, mainly power increases by 2-3 MH/s. If the amount of electricity consumed also increases.

Please note that this driver must be installed correctly. Mainly, miners have problems editing the VBIOS file of a video card. To ensure the installation is correct, you can install and run Pixel Clock.

Radeon Software Crimson Relive Edition Beta For BlockChain Compute

We tested the new version of the driver from AMD on our mining rigs, and we can confirm that the driver increases the hashrate for AMD RADEON RX 470/480/570/580 video cards for a given DAG era (or rather, the driver eliminates the problem with a drop in hashrate associated with an increase in the ordinal DAG epoch numbers). Although we only tested the new driver with RX 470/480/570/58 graphics cards, according to the official driver page, it is compatible with a wide range of AMD GPUs, ranging from the Radeon HD 7x00 series to the Radeon RX Vega.

Remove old drivers

Before installing the new version, you should uninstall the old software. The easiest way to do this is to download AMD's utility for complete removal.

When the software is downloaded, run the installation file. First, a request will be made to automatically uninstall old “firewood”; accordingly, the user should confirm this action. When the utility removes the old version of the software, the user will be prompted to restart the computer. However, do not rush to do this, click on the “No” button, as there is still something to do.

Before restarting the PC, open the root directory of the local drive C, and find the folder with AMD software there and delete it. If you do not do this, errors may occur in the future. The fact is that files are extracted into this folder and messages are saved. They are overwritten automatically. Therefore, everything should be completely removed. During installation of the AMD Blockchain Driver, a folder is created automatically.

Immediately after deleting the folder, restart your computer.

There are a few additional subtleties that every miner should know about. For example, the operating system can automatically download and install the Blockchain driver for an ATI Radeon video card immediately after a reboot. To prevent this, before rebooting, remove the cable that provides an Internet connection from the LAN connector.

How to solve the problem with a drop in hashrate associated with an increase in the DAG epoch in Ethereum mining

1. .
2. .
3. .
4. .
5. Remove your current video driver using the DDU program (see step 4) from Safe Mode in Windows.
6. Install a new version of the driver (see point 1).
7. Immediately after installing the driver and before restarting Windows, install ATImdag Patcher (see point 2).
8. Install the beta version of MSI Afterburner (see step 3).
9. Restart Windows and configure your rig (setting frequencies, undervolting, etc.).

The release of a new driver that solves the problem of performance degradation due to the increase in DAG epochs on Polaris cards is really great news, especially for those who previously did not dare to install unofficial drivers. Now you can safely download the driver from the official AMD page and increase your hashrate in Ethereum mining and dual mining.

• Mining programs

Downloading and installing new AMD drivers for mining

First you need to download all the necessary files:

• First of all, you need to download the Uninstall Utility, to do this, follow the link. An alternative option is the DDU program. However, it is more advisable to use software from AMD.
• Download the latest version of the Blockchain Vega , after selecting the operating system and bitness. For example, Windows 10 64-x.
• Download the patcher that is used to test drivers.

All necessary files have been downloaded and are ready for installation. Let's look at the process of installing new drivers in the form of step-by-step instructions:

• Immediately after turning on the PC, go to the “Downloads” folder and double-click on the AMD driver installation file.

• Activate file extraction. By default, they are saved on the local drive C in the AMD folder; it is created automatically, since we previously deleted it. The screenshot above shows that the file extraction path can be changed by clicking on the “Browse” button.

• After this, the extraction of installation files into the user-specified directory begins. Please note that the entire procedure will only take a few minutes. Although the waiting time directly depends on the operating system and hardware power.
• When the files are extracted, the program will prompt you to begin installing the new version of AMD drivers for the RX Vega 64 or any other video card. Read and accept the terms and conditions stated on the page.

• The program will begin scanning the operating system to identify the environment and connected GPUs. Again, the scanning speed directly depends on the bit depth of the OS and the power of the computer. On average we are talking about a few minutes.
• When the preparatory stage is completed, a screen will appear as shown in the screenshot. The miner is offered two types of software installation – express and custom. Express installation is standard, while custom installation involves disabling/adding certain components.

• It is more advisable to choose a custom installation method in order to disable the installation of additional services, for example, the report wizard or audio driver. They are not needed for mining.

• To fully control GPU devices, be sure to use the Wattman service. If you forgo the standard AMD utility, then you will have to use third-party software, such as Afterburner.
• When driverpack is installed, the software prompts you to restart your PC. As with deleting, click on the “No” or “Close” button.

• We install the patcher in order to check the operation of the drivers.

This completes the installation, now let's look at the process of testing the software.

Enthusiast drivers can improve performance of older AMD graphics cards in new games by 20%

In the context of a protracted mining boom, finding a new video card at an adequate price is an almost impossible task. AMD management most likely doesn’t care much about this fact, since in the summer of 2022 the company stopped supporting a number of older video cards; they wrote about it here on ixbt. Due to the above circumstances, the ability to significantly increase the performance of old video cards by installing new (but modified) drivers is attracting more and more users.

On the expanses of reddit, I came across an interesting topic with a discussion of modified drivers, where a user demonstrated the enabled AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) function in the settings of the Radeon Vega 56 video card. Of course, when using current official drivers, such an option will not be available in the settings of older video cards.

To enable SAM, the user installed the "Amernime Zone" driver. The developer of this family of unofficial drivers has been maintaining a page on guru3d since February 2022. Amernime Zone drivers are suitable for desktop and mobile video cards, as well as APUs with Terascale, GCN, Polaris, Vega, RDNA and RDNA 2 architectures.

The driver description says that they improve the performance of DirectX 9, DirectX 11 and OpenGL. However, judging by user reports, the main performance boost is associated with enabling the SAM (or “Resizible BAR”) function. How strong is this effect? The result largely depends on the video card and the specific game. Average fps in older games most often remain virtually unchanged, but in new titles the effect is more than noticeable.

Above are the results of testing the Radeon R9 390 video card in the game Cyperpunk 2077 from one of the guru3d users. Thanks to the unofficial driver, it was possible to increase the average fps from 28.5 to 54, that is, the increase was an impressive 89%.

On reddit in the above thread, one of the users shared their results with the Radeon RX 590 video card in the built-in benchmark in the game Forza Horizon 5:

As you can see, the increase here is much more modest - approximately 31%. However, it is almost impossible to achieve the same increase in fps by overclocking a video card, for example, so the result from enabling SAM is quite impressive.

One of the guru3d users also tested it in the game Forza Horizon 5, with different graphics settings and a Radeon RX 580 video card:

In this case, the average fps rose from 67 to 82, that is, the increase was ~ 22%.

The author of the YouTube channel Ancient Gameplays compared the performance of Vega 56 and RX 6800 video cards with official and modified drivers in several games at once. I will not overload the article with screenshots; instead, I will present the results with average fps in 1080p resolution in the form of a table.

Obviously, installing unofficial drivers on the RX 6800 video card has little effect on performance. In most games, fps has decreased slightly, and only in COD: Warzone we see a noticeable increase of 10%. The Vega 56 video card again showed an increase of 20% in Forza Horizon 5, but in other titles the result was less impressive.

Another test was carried out by the author of the YouTube channel Tech YES City; he compared the performance of the old HD 7970 with the official and modified driver in several games. As a result, it turned out that in most games the difference in average fps is very small, but the statistics of rare events (1% Low) show a significant (sometimes double) increase. Forza Horizon 5 refused to launch on the official driver at all, but on the modified one it showed 28 fps at low settings in 1080p resolution.

Based on all the results examined, we can say that installing modified drivers has a fair chance of increasing fps in new games on old GPUs. At the moment, this is not a universal tool or a must-have, but it is an interesting solution from enthusiasts and for enthusiasts.

How to test a new driver?

To prevent problems with changing DAG file parameters, you should patch the AMD drivers. Please note that if the default settings for GPU devices specified in the BIOS are used, then no additional testing is required.

The link to download the current version of the patcher has already been provided above; extract the contents of the archive into a separate folder. Open the directory and run the installation file.

If you are interested in bypassing signature verification, then rename the installation file so that it looks like this “atikmdag-patcher-BIOS.exe”. All other parameters will be ignored. Additionally, BIOS signature verification is fixed.

After that, click on the “Yes” button and restart the computer. If you previously removed the Internet cable, you can now insert it back into the LAN connector.

Now let's talk directly about checking Radeon video card drivers. The easiest way is a quick check through the device manager. Open the graphics cards tab and see if your connected GPUs show up here.

If there are no exclamation marks and all video cards are displayed, this means that the AMD drivers are installed correctly, so you can run the program for mining cryptocurrency. The effect of installing the updated software will be noticeable immediately; as noted earlier, the hashrate will increase noticeably. Along with the power, the amount of energy consumed will also increase.