I also have a Radeon 6950 (XFX) running under Windows 7 x64 and Rage works perfectly. You need to address the issues with your rig and start looking at other hardware drivers or conflicts. Which AMD Catalyst version do you currently have installed? You need to supply more info on your hardware and drivers because whining here won't move you forward.

Hi All
I am desperate to test this driver but I can't get Rage to start unless I'm in Safe Mode ,Jimmy suggested I set my video settings to low and then remove the Safe Mode launch options. I did that but the game still crashes ,any ideas how I can get Rage to run .
The Microsoft error says the following when Rage crashes

AppName: rage.exe AppVer: 1.0.27.8258 ModName: atkogl32.dll

That's a crash in the driver.

One thing I didn't think of - if you have an ATI OpenGL dll copied to your Rage folder (as many needed to do with the older drivers) you should delete that too.

Also double-check your CCC settings and make sure that everything is set to Application Controlled (or equivalent).

Hi Jimmy
Thanks for all the advice ,I have confirmed what you asked and still no difference.
What is interesting is before loading the 11.11a driver Rage would at least start ,but then crash after a minute or so . I am on XP sp3 and have a 5870 Video Card.
Anyway if there is anything else you can think let me know .

I've calmed a little in my anger towards id. Like you, I still think that there's more that they could have done to perhaps smooth things over and prevent some of the really bad PR that they've accumulated since Rage was released. They may have been blamed for things that were not entirely within their control, but in some ways they brought that on themselves with their lack of communication and Mr Carmack's somewhat whiney post (or twitter tweet thing or whatever that dreadful abomination is called) about AMD drivers. It would have been better if he had kept those particular feelings to himself so that it didn't appear as if he was dodging the blame. Plus the fact that he said that internally the game ran well on modern AMD cards. Really? with what drivers? Why couldn't we have had access to those? An explanation as to why would have gone a heck of a long way towards calming some very annoyed customers.

With the right driver, the game works and looks lovely so clearly it is a driver problem. It's a shame because it's a great game. But it really is going to remembered by a lot of people for all the wrong reasons.

Fix everything for me, no more crashes and it fix the tearing HUD that was driving me nuts. I wish i could change the textures because they really look like crap...

Bruce

11.11 drivers worked for me. Then installed 11.11a drivers and Rage would not start at all. Tried reinstalling Rage with Steam running and Rage would not install. I uninstalled Steam, reiinstalled Rage from the DVDs and then installed Steam. Rage now works perfectly. It was a pain but it worked.

That seems like a very rational anolysis of the situation to me. I'd just add that certain parts of the PC gaming communities were geared up to hate Rage well before it was even released, so in all likelihood there's not much that better communication could have done, but better communication certainly should have happened.

I would like to hear official response from Bethesda/ID regarding their testing results of the new patch against this driver.

How can anyone blame AMD for the mess that is rage. I've used my AMD card for many games and the only one I had a problem with regarding waiting for a driver update was borderlands. And even when an ati card hasn't worked so well with a game the issue has been performance, not crashing on load screens, not intermitent freezing, not 0.1 fps, not random or blue textures. Besides hasn't id been making rage for several years? and then customers expect ATI (while working perfectly with all other games) to just fix rage in several hours or several days.

I bought an ATI card (5770) and it has been excellent with all my games. I bought rage, advertized for my OS AND MY ATI GFX card. ID knowingly sold my something FOR my system even though they KNEW it didn't work. After all how could they not. I don't expect ATI to fix something that someone else sold me, I don't expect ATI to drop what they're doing and work on a driver to fix a game not designed to work with their current system (driver). I expect a game to be finally developed to a current system (driver) and until it can do that (their fault or not) I expect them not lie about compatablility. At this point it's pretty clear the rage DVD case should have stated not compatable with current ATI systems, not lie and say compatable with Radeon 4200 or above.

And what's up with carmac, first he loves the PC, then he couldn't care less. And what's up with ID taking no responsability at all, even blaming ATI.

I'm an ATI customer and I love my card, I'm an ID customer and can't even be bothered to try and get it to work until ID updates their game (which people seem to expect less than ATI fixing it). If I was ATI I'm not sure I'd care too much about or feel any responsability to a half arsed game that after severl years of hype and development wasn't even that good, and wans't properly programed.

And I understand the opengl argument but it doesn't change anything I mentioned above. And if I understand correctly rage didn't use opengl on xbox or playstation, so why not use directx on PC, are we suffering because of ATI or id's callousness and poor decision on opengl.


If you don't agree fine, but tell my why ATI should fix this rubbish.

First, ID made an engine which was supose to be great and forward thinking, the problem is that they built the engine with no redundancy. i dont know this but its pretty damn obvious.
now that is NOT ATI's fault, that is purely ID's fault.

Where ATI comes into this, is where ID has consulted ATI in regards to what thier driver can do so ID can make the most of it. Did ATI lie or over sell thier driver support, hardware support, release date and backwards compatibility? sure looks like it to me.
ATI produce Graphics cards, which we purchase so we can play games with great graphics (I know Nvidia produce GPU's and ATI produce VPU's, but the sentance still means the same thing). Doesn't ATI have a company obligation to work as closely as they can to help game developers so the end result is the best game play possible with thier brand of video cards. if they don't, they run the risk of losing many present and future customers.

In no way do i expect ATI to fix the game, that would require me to think ATI is 100% responsible at screwing up the game. ATI didn't build the game engine, but they had a hand in developing it by giving ID technical suppport in regards to hardware and software support. technical support, that quite honestly, failed epically.

inregards to past games issues, there are countless CF issues which range from low FPS to flashing shadows to absolutly no support to BSOD's due to driver failiure.
with single card setups, most of the issues are FPS spikes, random crashes and the ocasional BSOD due to driver failiure. now its not too common to see alot of issues with games (alot of issues like rage) but when there are issues, the support is slow.


now, in regards to my hardware specs, i think thats a moot question as i see the same issues everyone else does and thats on 3 different PC's, all with 3 different chipsets, all running ATI VGA cards, all having each card swapped and a selection of drivers uninstalled/reinstalled.
I dont expect others to help me, since so many others that have the same issues haven't been helped themselves. no reason why i should be so special. if i do have a compatibility issue which is making the game crash, then surley i would see issues when using CAD software, editing video software and when my friend uses his 3D animation program on my computer. not to mention prime95+, memtest and folding@home.

i hope to be able to test with a Nvidia card tomorrow. it's only a 9800GTX+,but if it fixes the game crashes then i'm definitly going to buy Nvidia. However, if it fixes all the graphic bugs and glitches, its not fair to ATI to say the Nvidia card is better since the Nvidia card has no where near the performance of even the HD4890, so video settings will have changed to suit.

ATI has admitted its their fault. So a lot of what you have said is a conspiracy theory.

Its good that they were able to finally fix the problem.
Quite frankly...I dont care anymore. I didnt download the new drivers and I have removed the game weeks ago.
I will consider my money donated to the company.

I get that on my 5870 (with 11.10-3 drivers) every now and then, so might be it will work if you try running the game a few times. For me changing regions (or restarting) restores normal visuals. Have C2Q 9300, 6 gigs of ram and Win 7 Home Premium 64bit.

One: AMD themselves have admitted that responsibility for the problem lies on their side. Exactly what major malfunction have people got that they can't just get that one simple fact into their heads?

Two: "it works with everything else" doesn't wash. By definition all non-trivial software has bugs. Rage isn't bug-free, but nor are AMD's drivers. Sooner or later something is going to come along that breaks. Also see "One" above. Besides: it doesn't actually work with everything else; there are ample documented instances of AMD drivers causing problems for people, in particular with OpenGL programs.

Three: the AMD driver id used would have been supplied to them by AMD. AMD are capable of supplying a game developer with a working driver; how come they're not capable of supplying end-users with a working driver?

Four: id are on record as stating that they worked closely with AMD and added a lot of custom code, in good faith, and based on the recommendations of AMD engineers. AMD have not released any statement to counter that. AMD's driver won't even work with the code that they themselves recommended. Another thing that people seem to have difficulty in getting into their heads.

Five: relations between id and AMD (and ATI) have been frosty in the past. There is a documented record of ATI drivers crashing while just drawing the console in Doom 3. There is a documented record of ATI having leaked a pre-release copy of Doom 3.

Six: Yes, some more communication about exactly what the hell is going on, and from all parties, would be a very good thing indeed.

This driver fixed me up. Made a world of difference. I couldn't see how my Core 6 with the HD 6870 could be a problem. I'm happy now!

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I had issue with Preview2 driver. My logitech assistant thingy for my G110 keyboard just couldn't load and crashed the driver for unknown reasons. I just turned back to my 11-09 driver even if I had strange textures loading, but at least I could play Rage and other games with my extra keys.(I just blamed the cryogenic melting in my system for my vision to be strange in Rage)... but now!
This driver seems to deliver! I can still load Logitech Gaming assistant AND play Rage without problems... so far. Plus, it has updates for Skyrim too.
(I mistakingly used the normal 11-11 driver before that and my Phenom II 6 cores was running all cores at 100%, 1fps! )

I've got a 5670 card and I still have the same issues as with the previous drivers.
I tested with catalyst drivers 11.6 to 11.11a.

One of these always occurs:

1) The game crashes. It also likes to crash before exiting the arc.

2) The frame rate is 0.25 frames per sec

3) If the game loads with 60 fps, then the load time for the next level is 15-20 minutes, and then it's back to 0.25 frames per sec. I can then kill rage, restart, and usually get my 60 fps back. Or I may run into one of the other problems. If I don't wait the 15-20 minutes, but kill rage, then when I restart rage and continue, it continues at the end of the level I just finished.

4) The textures get corrupted (only happened with driver version 11.11 !!